Chapter 16b: Duck and Cover
“The trigger had been pulled; it was our job to get to Organia before the hammer fell.” – James T. Kirk, Inquiry into the Organian Conflict.
At around midday on the 21st of June, USS Constellation finally cleared an ion storm near Barzan and discovered a galaxy at war. Matt Decker was called to the bridge to receive the news and took it as well as one may imagine. “I was not pleased with the news,” he told his wife. “I am told I am a good fighting captain, and that my crew make up a good fighting ship. I did not enjoy that I was about to have to show that.” Other recollections are less polite: Lieutenant Ingalta Rae’o (one of the few of Constellation’s regular to crew to escape the "Doomsday Machine") recalled that Decker’s first words upon reading the Flash-faxed Code One was, simply, “those motherfuckers”.[1] It was a well-shared sentiment on the Federation side of the border. No one had wanted this war, really – even though men like Marcus and Rittenhouse had salivated at the possibility of “a serious victory over the Empire,” neither celebrated the outbreak with gusto. The Parliament Andoria and Zakdorn Fraterni, both cites often of martial demonstrations by politicians, were equally muted, promising “total commitment to the cause of Andoria, the Federation, and the cause of Freedom” & “a continued resolve to deliver our promises to the Central Authority.”[2] There was determination, yes, and fear, and a hope that maybe it could be over quick. But there was no glee amongst the body politic.
On Qo’noS, it was a different story. Pre-recorded and precisely timed radio and telescreen announcements went onto the airwaves at roughly 5am Paris time on the 21st. Official spokespersons informed the Klingon people that “according to our rights as the strongest galactic power, and our duty to preserve and conquer the minor nations, and to protect them from the ravages of democratic influence and the rule of the Earther, and in line with our inheritance from the Great T’Kuvma and L’Rell, the Empire has officially entered into a state of war with the Federation of Planets.”[3] The streets of the First City were soon rammed with crowds trying to hear the speeches of notables. This, though a long tradition of Klingon warfare, had been carefully orchestrated by the RoH to ensure that there were plenty of vidreels of crowds applauding speeches by members of the High Council. Notably, senior leadership – including Sturka – were absent from the programme. The chancellor and his staff had departed the capital on the 20th for Ty’Gokor, occupying the new “War Command Complex” established in orbit of the planet. The elaborate complex was, according to the designs personally overseen by the Chancellor, meant to put the Naval and Army General staff within high-speed subspace range of the main naval command bases and fleets, clear of the dense subspace traffic and natural interference around Qo’noS. It was also, crucially, isolated from the political machinations of the capital city, and under complete control of the armed forces. Incidentally, it was not complete either, and as the early reports of advances into Enolia and the Acamar sector began to roll in, staff and engineers struggled to both make the place liveable and maintain communications with fleets over 200 light-years away. The Mera Zine front was already out of response range from Ty’Gokor, reliant on relay ships to carry messages into comms range before couriering them back to the fleet. Yet the mood was optimistic: even without the state propaganda, Klingons of all ranks were always buoyed by the outbreak of war, and the anticipation of victories – the fact that the successful landings on Duronum, Thatto Heath and Holborn Lilac could already be reported only added to the “cloud of good feelings” that carried the day. News that the 4th Fleet was moving towards the Empire was also perceived as good news – a sign that the enemy wished to do battle, even on terms detrimental to their own survival. “I can only hope that all the Starfleeters come to fight in the same way”, Sturka is supposed to have said.[4]
The news of war rippled across the galaxy at varying speeds. Enterprise had received the Code 1 order at around 10:45am Paris time. Peter Toussaint aboard the Lor’Vela, operating off the main subspace corridor, received it an hour and a half later. Starbase Vanguard heard it before both ships. USS Phoebe, operating out near Delta Vega III, would not receive the transmission until July 2nd. This was not helped by the pressure placed on the system by panicked civilian traffic. Communications, always spotty on the frontier, collapsed in the later hours of the 22nd.[5] Nervous reports and disaster calls from merchant captains flooded subspace and jammed transmissions across six different sectors. Starbase 19 took nearly five hours to clear their civil and military frequencies, while Federation Merchant Marine emergency channels in the Archanis and Enolia sectors simply broke. On top of this, Klingon sabotage actions – both electronic and physical – disrupted long range communications. Light scouts and Imperial EVA teams had managed to disable 35 subspace relays and 4 hub stations in the weeks up to the war – well short of the aimed 500 and 50 of each the war plans called for.[6]
Other sabotage and coup-de-main operations were more successful. The Lilac Array, in the eponymous Holborn Lilac system, had fallen rapidly to an Imperial Marine descent on the morning of the 21st. Despite the best efforts of Starfleet phaser banks, the defenders were rapidly overrun in a brutal battle through lava tubes and the bored tunnels underneath the base. Like on Mardikian, the Klingons were counting on the array at Lilac to boost their own spotty long-range sensor systems: despite the best efforts of the Federation engineers to render their systems useless, the Klingon landing forces were able to bring the computers online and re-orient them to plot the movement of traffic in the region, including the course and direction of the 4th Fleet. On Mardikian, however, the planned assault was still behind schedule. As dawn arrived over the Broadhurst, Archer and Sardix ridges, Klingon forces had managed to leverage most of the 10th Division off their positions. Yet the promised collapse of the Federation forces had not materialised. Daylight – and, more importantly, the clearing of Klingon electronic interference – allowed for the Federation to match the enemy's weight of fire with accurate counter-battery and interdiction fire, allowing the Rifle Brigade and the remnants of the 24th Arcturian Legion to begin their fighting retreat towards Inchon. Klingon forces attempting to pursue were confronted by pinpoint fire from Federation smart artillery, which made it impossible to move in the open.
Yet the pressure was kept up. Lieutenant Koranth’s Regiment-Group was rushed across the battlefield, filing through the remnants of the assault troops as they looted Tellarite bodies and goaded the few prisoners they had taken. Accompanying them were both armoured groundcars and, notoriously, units of biological cavalry designed to evade Federation sensors and act as scouts. These forces surged forward ahead of the infantry, aiming to catch the broken Federation forces before they could regroup on Inchon. They were slow to advance, however, delayed both by the struggle for the ridges and interdiction. Counter-battery fire – skilfully aimed through the EW net by Federation gunners – pinned the 15th Division’s guns in place, even as their infantry surged through the defensive line. With the main body still rushing to the fallback positions, it was all they could do. Nwadike, moving back with the rest of the Rifle Brigade, watched as FGF guns pounded the hills they had ceded. “It was hard to imagine anything surviving that- anything but the Klingons.”[7]
The Federation mobile reserve – the 25th Keth Atan Cavalry Brigade of the Andorian Imperial Guard, mounted in both groundcars and traditional grav-bikes – were rushed forward to plug the gap. Behind the Cavalry, other assets – the 10th Federal Regiment and Combat Command I of the UFP Marines – came forward as fast as they could. Yet continued aerial and ground bombardment of Inchon and the Federation positions forced local deflectors to remain up almost constantly, preventing rapid reinforcement by transporter. The Federals and Marines would have to move on foot or by groundcar – of which there was a dire shortage. The Keth Atan would have to hold the line. Nwadike’s platoon, stumbling back on foot with the rest of the Rifles, would file past the cavalry as they prepared for the onslaught. “The Andorians, in their groundcar blacks and berets, were wasting no time in blasting out their positions with phasers, piling up ferroconcrete blocks along the road and marking their positions with microdrones. They largely ignored us, barring the captain who dismounted from his grav-bike to complain about our marching. Major Wallard told him to piss off, obviously.”[8]
The cavalry would manage to hold up Klingon mobile forces for most of the day. General Korrd, who had taken command of the attack after General Kurn was killed in a friendly fire incident, was frustrated by the slow advance. He would demand that the D4 and ED1s blockading the planet bring their batteries to bear on the 10th Division positions. Wary of intercept from the surface or from Federation destroyers, the local naval commander would refuse, saying that he would wait for the Mempa Front to arrive before committing to anything more than intercepting Federation starships.
The Naval offensive was also developing slowly in this sector. The Mempa Front would cross the Federation line of contact at 8am Paris time in standard assault formation, with each fleet’s main Battle line formed into an assault box with the flank guards out at a 1.5 to 2 LY distance and the large “cloud” of scout elements as far as 4 light years from the Battleships. The mass of scout ships – mainly raptors, I-2s and other older vessels with a few D4s and new ED and ES type destroyers – made it impossible for the elements of 2nd Fleet that maintained contact to get accurate readings on the size of the Klingon battlefleet. Yet the formation was difficult to command: the commanders of 6th and 7th Fleet Groups would limit their scouts to WF4 and keep them in subspace radio range, throttling their ability to harass and maintain contact with the Federation forces. Though 2FGs commander, the experienced Admiral Korok of 1st Caleb IV fame, would allow his scouts independence to press towards the Hromi cluster, he was forced to keep his Battleships in line with the rest of the front. The Klingons here risked handing the initiative over to the Federation – only their weight of numbers, and the continued disarray of 2nd Fleet, prevented a disastrous counterstroke that could have split 2FG off from the main thrust.
Yet the disarray caused by the scattering and re-forming of 2nd Fleet’s SAGs and cruiser force worked in their favour. Fear of Kash-Ro launches also caused Armstrong to rapidly re-organise the chain of radio relay ships he relied on to communicate with SB19 and Fitzpatrick. Two of these ships – the “Eardrum” type Engle class ships Cadorna and Keshaoi, would report to their pre-arranged rendezvous instead of their new ones, breaking the communications and chain and leaving Armstrong out of contact with both SB19 and 20 for the rest of the day.
Enterprise would arrive at Organia just after 1pm Paris time. Due to growing issues with the engines, Kirk would leave Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu in command of the ship over Montgomery Scott before descending to the planet’s surface.[9] Kirk’s description of Organia in his after-action report was not kind: a “high medieval, stagnant planet with an indifferent people.” Interestingly, he had no comment at the time or in future on his flagrant (if, temporarily, legal) violation of the Prime Directive and would in fact use the technological and social difference as part of his attempts to “convince” the locals to support establishing a Federation base there. Why Kirk insisted so hard remains difficult to understand – by the time Enterprise arrived in system, he had already been informed that Kor’s task force was in the region. His promised reinforcements were nowhere to be seen. Though Komack’s orders to him had suggested they would be drawn from 4th Fleet, Grund had yet to detach any assets from his Cruiser force or SAGs to support a Federation position near Organia, despite the necessity of protecting his own flank. Grund was too busy chasing reports on the Mera Zine Front. His scouting force – 2 DESRONs, plus CRURON 10 all under Admiral Stocal – were now making intermittent contact with Klingon forces moving through the edge of the rift. Grund, assuming these were the flank guards of the Kling force, ordered Stocal to press forward and pin them in place. Task Force Fukuhara, formed from parts of STARRON 18, CRURON 5 and DESRONs 8 and 9, would move ahead of Grund’s Main force as it headed for Bre’el.
On Earth, the fallout of the declaration of war had barely begun to settle. The Federation Council remained in session as Ambassadors debated the extent of war measures and economic mobilisation. Above them on the 12th floor, Wescott met with the Secretariat to consider next steps. Wescott considered a unity government of some kind to be vital. Failure to bring opposition into government had been one of many criticisms of Barreuco, and the President was determined to ensure that if this developed into the total war Starfleet predicted, internal division would be kept to a minimum.
As logical as the idea was, it was fraught with difficulty. Even with the increasing strength of the Unionist-Charterite alignment, factional discipline was nearly non-existent. Before one could even consider how a Federal War Secretariat would keep OSF-P members in the same tent as Admiral Marcus, Wescott’s own caucus raised its own concerns. Orag made it clear that there was no chance that the radical Charterites would vote with a government that included Marcus, and that even asking Sh’Belulos to come back from Andor to sit in the Secretariat could split the party. “I suspect they’d rather have Sarek in the government than either of them”, Orag warned. When Wescott mentioned he’d already asked the Vulcan to sit in Cabinet, Orag made “what I think an Aurelian thinks a human laugh sounds like”, according to Vale.[10] Even Wescott admitted the idea of a government that included Willard Pao, Sarek and Shras Endilev (Andorian Ambassador) would fall apart before it could be announced. Yet, after a long afternoon’s debate, everyone agreed it would need to be tried. War measures, especially the sorts of industrial mobilisation resolutions being drawn up between the Defence and Economic Commissions, would require the sort of solid council majority that the Charterites simply did not have.
Other aspects of mobilisation began to swing into place. Across the Federation, reservists and new volunteers swamped barracks and recruiting stations, often in ignorance of strict call-up orders and restrictions. On Andoria, there were near riots when the Laikan Home Guard ordered crowds at the Military school to disperse and await further instructions. The messy logistics of digesting millions of reserve personnel – many of whom never expected to return to the uniform – was becoming more apparent by the hour. Many Starfleet barracks lacked the stocks to properly equip returning personnel. In Olympus Mons, many reservists were turned away because there were simply not enough transports to bring personnel to clearing stations. The Federalisation of the Merchant Marine and defence forces was even more of a mess. Many captains, military or civil, seemed unclear as to what it actually meant in practice. Those used to the convoy system on the frontier expected something similar and were appalled at the lack of instruction. Those used to internal travel were infuriated by the comparatively strict regulations on orbits and transit routes. It was generally a mess, made worse when main port authorities chose to halt all traffic in place until someone – preferably Starfleet – could lay down the law.
In San Francisco, Starfleet Command did its best to appear busy. Shukar would admit to a reporter that evening that “so far as this war is currently being fought, it is in the capable hands of our forces on the frontier.” This alone was a stretch of the truth. The Presidio had no real clue what was happening on the frontier at the moment. The time-lag on reports to SB19 had been reduced to a mere 3 hours by mid-afternoon, but SB19 was merely the clearing house for longer-range transmissions. Though the Presidio had a clear idea by mid-afternoon that the main weight of the Klingon attack was falling on the flanks at Barolia and beyond Mera Zine, the weight of these attacks and their direction of travel was still unknown. It seems unclear whether Fitzpatrick – let alone the Presidio – was aware that Enterprise had been driven from Organia by Battlegroup Kor when they authorised Grund’s sweep towards Bre’el. Certainly, they had no idea where Armstrong was and were hesitant to commit the emergency SAG towards Enolia until his position could be parsed out.
This, of course, assumed that the Presidio really had final say over dispositions at this point. With her flag on the USS Federation, Fitzpatrick had both the proximity to action and the authority to make decisions on her own. Yet even KLICOM headquarters was somewhat in the dark at this point. Though regular reports were coming in from Commodore Wesley as he beat a retreat towards Enolia, the other elements of the Command were far too dispersed for any sort of real time command and control. “We have to wait,” Fitzpatrick reminded her staff, “for what must happen to happen.” Certainly, the slow progress of Kesh in the Enolia sector gave KLICOM breathing room it didn’t expect to have, even if it came at the expense of thousands of Enolian casualties on the ground. Klingon troops on Canamar acted with typical brutality and efficiency, with transporter delivered shock troops fanning out from key nodes and positions across the planet. Yet the Enolians resisted with both organised and unorganised action, barricading the streets and confronting Imperial Marines with hunting arms, laser rifles and even cobblestones. Certainly Colonel Mrog, who led the landing force in the city, respected the determination of the Enolians – even if he would authorise the use of therazine gas to “pacify” pockets of resistance after the fighting dragged on.
In other places, resistance was non-existent. On Organia, Kor’s troops (mainly Naval Infantry) had landed to no resistance, driving Enterprise off without a fight. The locals had accepted Klingon military governance with ease, and Kor had installed himself as military governor in fait accompli that left him ignorant that two experienced Starfleet Officers remained in situ on the planet. As his forces began offloading the supplies necessary to sustain both BG Kor and the Battleship force moving up from Kran, Kor would inform Morek of his success. Kor’s lack of specificity seems to have left Morek with the impression that the Battleships themselves were in place at Organia, behind (at least in his eyes) the left flank of Grund as he swept into the Alshanai rift. The 3rd and 11th Imperial Fleets were ordered to press the attack into the rift along an axis towards Camus, cutting 4th Fleet’s line of retreat and pinning it between Organia and the Mera Zine front.
At around 6pm Paris Time, elements of the 7th Fleet Group would enter the Mardikian system, finally driving away the Starfleet screen that had lurked nearby all day. As they pushed towards Mardikian II, Inchon’s commander would order four of the eight MR41 “Stand-offs” in orbit of the planet to launch. It was the first combat launch of a Federation LRIM, and – as much as these weapons had brought the galaxy to the brink of war five years earlier – it was not much to write home about. Two of the MR41s were scrambled by Klingon electronic warfare and failed to detonate. One detonated prematurely, crippling a destroyer but leaving the targeted battle line intact. The last, fatefully, overshot, and detonated 540,000 kilometres from a Has’parth Nucleonic Fuel Carrier. The tender, though not destroyed, suffered serious damage to its baffle plates and containment fields, forcing the captain to purge her antimatter storage pods to prevent a detonation. It was possibly a premature action of a nervous civilian, pressed into military duty. Either way, it deprived the vanguard of 7th Fleet of vital fuel and spooked the Klingons into holding off from a closer bombardment of Mardikian II. Sitting on the edge of the system, they failed to notice the other four MR41s that were fired at them seven hours later. All had failed to detonate thanks to passive EW emissions from the Klingon ships.
It is hard to estimate how crippling the failure to seize Mardikian II was for the Klingons. If Inchon had been secured, or at least neutralised by heavy fire, the 6FG and 7FG could have pressed past the system in full knowledge that Starfleet had no idea of their course or strength. Yet Inchon’s arrays were continuing to transmit, despite the destruction of much of the orbital satellite array. When Armstrong finally regained contact with the relay ships at 9:30pm Paris time, he was able to receive intermittent real-time information from the Inchon arrays. They made it abundantly clear that the main strength of the Mastocal Front was still well behind the advance scouting line – in fact, the infamous “Battle Line” SAGs 1 and 2 were designed to counter were yet to pass Aberriz and enter contested space. Yet Klingon attacks were still landing across Federation space, from the Taurus Reach to the R’ongav. Though perhaps the infamous “rolling decisive battle” had yet to begin, the machinery of war was beginning to move.
On Qo’noS, it was a different story. Pre-recorded and precisely timed radio and telescreen announcements went onto the airwaves at roughly 5am Paris time on the 21st. Official spokespersons informed the Klingon people that “according to our rights as the strongest galactic power, and our duty to preserve and conquer the minor nations, and to protect them from the ravages of democratic influence and the rule of the Earther, and in line with our inheritance from the Great T’Kuvma and L’Rell, the Empire has officially entered into a state of war with the Federation of Planets.”[3] The streets of the First City were soon rammed with crowds trying to hear the speeches of notables. This, though a long tradition of Klingon warfare, had been carefully orchestrated by the RoH to ensure that there were plenty of vidreels of crowds applauding speeches by members of the High Council. Notably, senior leadership – including Sturka – were absent from the programme. The chancellor and his staff had departed the capital on the 20th for Ty’Gokor, occupying the new “War Command Complex” established in orbit of the planet. The elaborate complex was, according to the designs personally overseen by the Chancellor, meant to put the Naval and Army General staff within high-speed subspace range of the main naval command bases and fleets, clear of the dense subspace traffic and natural interference around Qo’noS. It was also, crucially, isolated from the political machinations of the capital city, and under complete control of the armed forces. Incidentally, it was not complete either, and as the early reports of advances into Enolia and the Acamar sector began to roll in, staff and engineers struggled to both make the place liveable and maintain communications with fleets over 200 light-years away. The Mera Zine front was already out of response range from Ty’Gokor, reliant on relay ships to carry messages into comms range before couriering them back to the fleet. Yet the mood was optimistic: even without the state propaganda, Klingons of all ranks were always buoyed by the outbreak of war, and the anticipation of victories – the fact that the successful landings on Duronum, Thatto Heath and Holborn Lilac could already be reported only added to the “cloud of good feelings” that carried the day. News that the 4th Fleet was moving towards the Empire was also perceived as good news – a sign that the enemy wished to do battle, even on terms detrimental to their own survival. “I can only hope that all the Starfleeters come to fight in the same way”, Sturka is supposed to have said.[4]
The news of war rippled across the galaxy at varying speeds. Enterprise had received the Code 1 order at around 10:45am Paris time. Peter Toussaint aboard the Lor’Vela, operating off the main subspace corridor, received it an hour and a half later. Starbase Vanguard heard it before both ships. USS Phoebe, operating out near Delta Vega III, would not receive the transmission until July 2nd. This was not helped by the pressure placed on the system by panicked civilian traffic. Communications, always spotty on the frontier, collapsed in the later hours of the 22nd.[5] Nervous reports and disaster calls from merchant captains flooded subspace and jammed transmissions across six different sectors. Starbase 19 took nearly five hours to clear their civil and military frequencies, while Federation Merchant Marine emergency channels in the Archanis and Enolia sectors simply broke. On top of this, Klingon sabotage actions – both electronic and physical – disrupted long range communications. Light scouts and Imperial EVA teams had managed to disable 35 subspace relays and 4 hub stations in the weeks up to the war – well short of the aimed 500 and 50 of each the war plans called for.[6]
Other sabotage and coup-de-main operations were more successful. The Lilac Array, in the eponymous Holborn Lilac system, had fallen rapidly to an Imperial Marine descent on the morning of the 21st. Despite the best efforts of Starfleet phaser banks, the defenders were rapidly overrun in a brutal battle through lava tubes and the bored tunnels underneath the base. Like on Mardikian, the Klingons were counting on the array at Lilac to boost their own spotty long-range sensor systems: despite the best efforts of the Federation engineers to render their systems useless, the Klingon landing forces were able to bring the computers online and re-orient them to plot the movement of traffic in the region, including the course and direction of the 4th Fleet. On Mardikian, however, the planned assault was still behind schedule. As dawn arrived over the Broadhurst, Archer and Sardix ridges, Klingon forces had managed to leverage most of the 10th Division off their positions. Yet the promised collapse of the Federation forces had not materialised. Daylight – and, more importantly, the clearing of Klingon electronic interference – allowed for the Federation to match the enemy's weight of fire with accurate counter-battery and interdiction fire, allowing the Rifle Brigade and the remnants of the 24th Arcturian Legion to begin their fighting retreat towards Inchon. Klingon forces attempting to pursue were confronted by pinpoint fire from Federation smart artillery, which made it impossible to move in the open.
Yet the pressure was kept up. Lieutenant Koranth’s Regiment-Group was rushed across the battlefield, filing through the remnants of the assault troops as they looted Tellarite bodies and goaded the few prisoners they had taken. Accompanying them were both armoured groundcars and, notoriously, units of biological cavalry designed to evade Federation sensors and act as scouts. These forces surged forward ahead of the infantry, aiming to catch the broken Federation forces before they could regroup on Inchon. They were slow to advance, however, delayed both by the struggle for the ridges and interdiction. Counter-battery fire – skilfully aimed through the EW net by Federation gunners – pinned the 15th Division’s guns in place, even as their infantry surged through the defensive line. With the main body still rushing to the fallback positions, it was all they could do. Nwadike, moving back with the rest of the Rifle Brigade, watched as FGF guns pounded the hills they had ceded. “It was hard to imagine anything surviving that- anything but the Klingons.”[7]
The Federation mobile reserve – the 25th Keth Atan Cavalry Brigade of the Andorian Imperial Guard, mounted in both groundcars and traditional grav-bikes – were rushed forward to plug the gap. Behind the Cavalry, other assets – the 10th Federal Regiment and Combat Command I of the UFP Marines – came forward as fast as they could. Yet continued aerial and ground bombardment of Inchon and the Federation positions forced local deflectors to remain up almost constantly, preventing rapid reinforcement by transporter. The Federals and Marines would have to move on foot or by groundcar – of which there was a dire shortage. The Keth Atan would have to hold the line. Nwadike’s platoon, stumbling back on foot with the rest of the Rifles, would file past the cavalry as they prepared for the onslaught. “The Andorians, in their groundcar blacks and berets, were wasting no time in blasting out their positions with phasers, piling up ferroconcrete blocks along the road and marking their positions with microdrones. They largely ignored us, barring the captain who dismounted from his grav-bike to complain about our marching. Major Wallard told him to piss off, obviously.”[8]
The cavalry would manage to hold up Klingon mobile forces for most of the day. General Korrd, who had taken command of the attack after General Kurn was killed in a friendly fire incident, was frustrated by the slow advance. He would demand that the D4 and ED1s blockading the planet bring their batteries to bear on the 10th Division positions. Wary of intercept from the surface or from Federation destroyers, the local naval commander would refuse, saying that he would wait for the Mempa Front to arrive before committing to anything more than intercepting Federation starships.
The Naval offensive was also developing slowly in this sector. The Mempa Front would cross the Federation line of contact at 8am Paris time in standard assault formation, with each fleet’s main Battle line formed into an assault box with the flank guards out at a 1.5 to 2 LY distance and the large “cloud” of scout elements as far as 4 light years from the Battleships. The mass of scout ships – mainly raptors, I-2s and other older vessels with a few D4s and new ED and ES type destroyers – made it impossible for the elements of 2nd Fleet that maintained contact to get accurate readings on the size of the Klingon battlefleet. Yet the formation was difficult to command: the commanders of 6th and 7th Fleet Groups would limit their scouts to WF4 and keep them in subspace radio range, throttling their ability to harass and maintain contact with the Federation forces. Though 2FGs commander, the experienced Admiral Korok of 1st Caleb IV fame, would allow his scouts independence to press towards the Hromi cluster, he was forced to keep his Battleships in line with the rest of the front. The Klingons here risked handing the initiative over to the Federation – only their weight of numbers, and the continued disarray of 2nd Fleet, prevented a disastrous counterstroke that could have split 2FG off from the main thrust.
Yet the disarray caused by the scattering and re-forming of 2nd Fleet’s SAGs and cruiser force worked in their favour. Fear of Kash-Ro launches also caused Armstrong to rapidly re-organise the chain of radio relay ships he relied on to communicate with SB19 and Fitzpatrick. Two of these ships – the “Eardrum” type Engle class ships Cadorna and Keshaoi, would report to their pre-arranged rendezvous instead of their new ones, breaking the communications and chain and leaving Armstrong out of contact with both SB19 and 20 for the rest of the day.
Enterprise would arrive at Organia just after 1pm Paris time. Due to growing issues with the engines, Kirk would leave Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu in command of the ship over Montgomery Scott before descending to the planet’s surface.[9] Kirk’s description of Organia in his after-action report was not kind: a “high medieval, stagnant planet with an indifferent people.” Interestingly, he had no comment at the time or in future on his flagrant (if, temporarily, legal) violation of the Prime Directive and would in fact use the technological and social difference as part of his attempts to “convince” the locals to support establishing a Federation base there. Why Kirk insisted so hard remains difficult to understand – by the time Enterprise arrived in system, he had already been informed that Kor’s task force was in the region. His promised reinforcements were nowhere to be seen. Though Komack’s orders to him had suggested they would be drawn from 4th Fleet, Grund had yet to detach any assets from his Cruiser force or SAGs to support a Federation position near Organia, despite the necessity of protecting his own flank. Grund was too busy chasing reports on the Mera Zine Front. His scouting force – 2 DESRONs, plus CRURON 10 all under Admiral Stocal – were now making intermittent contact with Klingon forces moving through the edge of the rift. Grund, assuming these were the flank guards of the Kling force, ordered Stocal to press forward and pin them in place. Task Force Fukuhara, formed from parts of STARRON 18, CRURON 5 and DESRONs 8 and 9, would move ahead of Grund’s Main force as it headed for Bre’el.
On Earth, the fallout of the declaration of war had barely begun to settle. The Federation Council remained in session as Ambassadors debated the extent of war measures and economic mobilisation. Above them on the 12th floor, Wescott met with the Secretariat to consider next steps. Wescott considered a unity government of some kind to be vital. Failure to bring opposition into government had been one of many criticisms of Barreuco, and the President was determined to ensure that if this developed into the total war Starfleet predicted, internal division would be kept to a minimum.
As logical as the idea was, it was fraught with difficulty. Even with the increasing strength of the Unionist-Charterite alignment, factional discipline was nearly non-existent. Before one could even consider how a Federal War Secretariat would keep OSF-P members in the same tent as Admiral Marcus, Wescott’s own caucus raised its own concerns. Orag made it clear that there was no chance that the radical Charterites would vote with a government that included Marcus, and that even asking Sh’Belulos to come back from Andor to sit in the Secretariat could split the party. “I suspect they’d rather have Sarek in the government than either of them”, Orag warned. When Wescott mentioned he’d already asked the Vulcan to sit in Cabinet, Orag made “what I think an Aurelian thinks a human laugh sounds like”, according to Vale.[10] Even Wescott admitted the idea of a government that included Willard Pao, Sarek and Shras Endilev (Andorian Ambassador) would fall apart before it could be announced. Yet, after a long afternoon’s debate, everyone agreed it would need to be tried. War measures, especially the sorts of industrial mobilisation resolutions being drawn up between the Defence and Economic Commissions, would require the sort of solid council majority that the Charterites simply did not have.
Other aspects of mobilisation began to swing into place. Across the Federation, reservists and new volunteers swamped barracks and recruiting stations, often in ignorance of strict call-up orders and restrictions. On Andoria, there were near riots when the Laikan Home Guard ordered crowds at the Military school to disperse and await further instructions. The messy logistics of digesting millions of reserve personnel – many of whom never expected to return to the uniform – was becoming more apparent by the hour. Many Starfleet barracks lacked the stocks to properly equip returning personnel. In Olympus Mons, many reservists were turned away because there were simply not enough transports to bring personnel to clearing stations. The Federalisation of the Merchant Marine and defence forces was even more of a mess. Many captains, military or civil, seemed unclear as to what it actually meant in practice. Those used to the convoy system on the frontier expected something similar and were appalled at the lack of instruction. Those used to internal travel were infuriated by the comparatively strict regulations on orbits and transit routes. It was generally a mess, made worse when main port authorities chose to halt all traffic in place until someone – preferably Starfleet – could lay down the law.
In San Francisco, Starfleet Command did its best to appear busy. Shukar would admit to a reporter that evening that “so far as this war is currently being fought, it is in the capable hands of our forces on the frontier.” This alone was a stretch of the truth. The Presidio had no real clue what was happening on the frontier at the moment. The time-lag on reports to SB19 had been reduced to a mere 3 hours by mid-afternoon, but SB19 was merely the clearing house for longer-range transmissions. Though the Presidio had a clear idea by mid-afternoon that the main weight of the Klingon attack was falling on the flanks at Barolia and beyond Mera Zine, the weight of these attacks and their direction of travel was still unknown. It seems unclear whether Fitzpatrick – let alone the Presidio – was aware that Enterprise had been driven from Organia by Battlegroup Kor when they authorised Grund’s sweep towards Bre’el. Certainly, they had no idea where Armstrong was and were hesitant to commit the emergency SAG towards Enolia until his position could be parsed out.
This, of course, assumed that the Presidio really had final say over dispositions at this point. With her flag on the USS Federation, Fitzpatrick had both the proximity to action and the authority to make decisions on her own. Yet even KLICOM headquarters was somewhat in the dark at this point. Though regular reports were coming in from Commodore Wesley as he beat a retreat towards Enolia, the other elements of the Command were far too dispersed for any sort of real time command and control. “We have to wait,” Fitzpatrick reminded her staff, “for what must happen to happen.” Certainly, the slow progress of Kesh in the Enolia sector gave KLICOM breathing room it didn’t expect to have, even if it came at the expense of thousands of Enolian casualties on the ground. Klingon troops on Canamar acted with typical brutality and efficiency, with transporter delivered shock troops fanning out from key nodes and positions across the planet. Yet the Enolians resisted with both organised and unorganised action, barricading the streets and confronting Imperial Marines with hunting arms, laser rifles and even cobblestones. Certainly Colonel Mrog, who led the landing force in the city, respected the determination of the Enolians – even if he would authorise the use of therazine gas to “pacify” pockets of resistance after the fighting dragged on.
In other places, resistance was non-existent. On Organia, Kor’s troops (mainly Naval Infantry) had landed to no resistance, driving Enterprise off without a fight. The locals had accepted Klingon military governance with ease, and Kor had installed himself as military governor in fait accompli that left him ignorant that two experienced Starfleet Officers remained in situ on the planet. As his forces began offloading the supplies necessary to sustain both BG Kor and the Battleship force moving up from Kran, Kor would inform Morek of his success. Kor’s lack of specificity seems to have left Morek with the impression that the Battleships themselves were in place at Organia, behind (at least in his eyes) the left flank of Grund as he swept into the Alshanai rift. The 3rd and 11th Imperial Fleets were ordered to press the attack into the rift along an axis towards Camus, cutting 4th Fleet’s line of retreat and pinning it between Organia and the Mera Zine front.
At around 6pm Paris Time, elements of the 7th Fleet Group would enter the Mardikian system, finally driving away the Starfleet screen that had lurked nearby all day. As they pushed towards Mardikian II, Inchon’s commander would order four of the eight MR41 “Stand-offs” in orbit of the planet to launch. It was the first combat launch of a Federation LRIM, and – as much as these weapons had brought the galaxy to the brink of war five years earlier – it was not much to write home about. Two of the MR41s were scrambled by Klingon electronic warfare and failed to detonate. One detonated prematurely, crippling a destroyer but leaving the targeted battle line intact. The last, fatefully, overshot, and detonated 540,000 kilometres from a Has’parth Nucleonic Fuel Carrier. The tender, though not destroyed, suffered serious damage to its baffle plates and containment fields, forcing the captain to purge her antimatter storage pods to prevent a detonation. It was possibly a premature action of a nervous civilian, pressed into military duty. Either way, it deprived the vanguard of 7th Fleet of vital fuel and spooked the Klingons into holding off from a closer bombardment of Mardikian II. Sitting on the edge of the system, they failed to notice the other four MR41s that were fired at them seven hours later. All had failed to detonate thanks to passive EW emissions from the Klingon ships.
It is hard to estimate how crippling the failure to seize Mardikian II was for the Klingons. If Inchon had been secured, or at least neutralised by heavy fire, the 6FG and 7FG could have pressed past the system in full knowledge that Starfleet had no idea of their course or strength. Yet Inchon’s arrays were continuing to transmit, despite the destruction of much of the orbital satellite array. When Armstrong finally regained contact with the relay ships at 9:30pm Paris time, he was able to receive intermittent real-time information from the Inchon arrays. They made it abundantly clear that the main strength of the Mastocal Front was still well behind the advance scouting line – in fact, the infamous “Battle Line” SAGs 1 and 2 were designed to counter were yet to pass Aberriz and enter contested space. Yet Klingon attacks were still landing across Federation space, from the Taurus Reach to the R’ongav. Though perhaps the infamous “rolling decisive battle” had yet to begin, the machinery of war was beginning to move.
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The situation at 10:00 pm on the 21st was as follows: In the coreward sectors, the Mempa front’s advance remained slow, even as it linked up with Klingon advance forces at Mardikian and Thatto Heath. 2 FG, moving at speed through the Asparax, had entered the Azure Nebula but was slowed by a need to maintain contact with the rest of the front. Starfleet’s 2nd Fleet, concentrating on the Paulson Nebula, had lost a day through communications issues, though its scouts had managed to regain contact with 6th and 7th Fleet,with Armstrong preparing for possible action on the 23rd or 24th.
In the centre, Kesh’s progress through the Archanis and Enolia sectors had been slow. Starfleet losses were lower than expected: Wesley was able to successfully disengage after midday, and despite pursuit the Klingons seemed unwilling to attack Keto-Enol directly. The new 24th Fleet, assembled under Quincy Mason, remained uncommitted to the sector. In the spinward sectors Grund’s 4th Fleet seemed to be careening directly into Morek’s trap, as both the scouting force and the SAGs advanced between Klingon-occupied Organia and the bulk of the Mera Zine Front. It seemed quite possible that – despite the predictions of a long war, and the fears of a long, brutal battle across the whole frontier – the Klingon dream of rapid, decisive victory was about to be handed to them on a plate.
[1] Ingalta Rae’o, So Few Come Back The Same, (Mombassa: New Draylax Civil Press, 2294.). Rae’o had been transferred off Constellation just before her last mission due to a severe case of Rigellian Fever.
[2] Wescott Presidential Library, OR/1/400. Proclamations on the Outbreak of War.
[3] Imperial State Archives: QoWS/1/51: Official State Broadcasts – Transcripts.
[4] Re’vak Ge’Dura, Organia: The Klingon Perspective (Luna: Kling-Fed Press, 2237)
[5] Th’etewolran, The Official History of the Organian Conflict
[6] Re’vak Ge’Dura, Organia: The Klingon Perspective (Luna: Kling-Fed Press, 2237)
[7] Nwadike, Eighteen Platoon
[8] Nwadike, Eighteen Platoon
[9] Enterprise’s engines had been severely overtaxed during the first 12 months of her five-year-mission. Despite a minor overhaul after the mission to the Galactic Barrier, the ship’s engines had been strained by warp shear against the First Federation, a Class 10 ion storm, the 40-hour high-speed chase of a Gorn raider, damage from the Battle of Icarus IV and two different temporal incidents. The WF 8.7 run to Organia had fractured two baffle plates and caused a buildup of ions in the plasma conduits, requiring Scott and his staff to de-ionise the system from inside the conduits.
[10] Vale, In the Heat of Our Nights
In the centre, Kesh’s progress through the Archanis and Enolia sectors had been slow. Starfleet losses were lower than expected: Wesley was able to successfully disengage after midday, and despite pursuit the Klingons seemed unwilling to attack Keto-Enol directly. The new 24th Fleet, assembled under Quincy Mason, remained uncommitted to the sector. In the spinward sectors Grund’s 4th Fleet seemed to be careening directly into Morek’s trap, as both the scouting force and the SAGs advanced between Klingon-occupied Organia and the bulk of the Mera Zine Front. It seemed quite possible that – despite the predictions of a long war, and the fears of a long, brutal battle across the whole frontier – the Klingon dream of rapid, decisive victory was about to be handed to them on a plate.
[1] Ingalta Rae’o, So Few Come Back The Same, (Mombassa: New Draylax Civil Press, 2294.). Rae’o had been transferred off Constellation just before her last mission due to a severe case of Rigellian Fever.
[2] Wescott Presidential Library, OR/1/400. Proclamations on the Outbreak of War.
[3] Imperial State Archives: QoWS/1/51: Official State Broadcasts – Transcripts.
[4] Re’vak Ge’Dura, Organia: The Klingon Perspective (Luna: Kling-Fed Press, 2237)
[5] Th’etewolran, The Official History of the Organian Conflict
[6] Re’vak Ge’Dura, Organia: The Klingon Perspective (Luna: Kling-Fed Press, 2237)
[7] Nwadike, Eighteen Platoon
[8] Nwadike, Eighteen Platoon
[9] Enterprise’s engines had been severely overtaxed during the first 12 months of her five-year-mission. Despite a minor overhaul after the mission to the Galactic Barrier, the ship’s engines had been strained by warp shear against the First Federation, a Class 10 ion storm, the 40-hour high-speed chase of a Gorn raider, damage from the Battle of Icarus IV and two different temporal incidents. The WF 8.7 run to Organia had fractured two baffle plates and caused a buildup of ions in the plasma conduits, requiring Scott and his staff to de-ionise the system from inside the conduits.
[10] Vale, In the Heat of Our Nights
