Through the Asteroid Veil (Part 4)

Posted on Fri May 29th, 2026 @ 2:12am by Captain Minori Kushieda & Lieutenant Fubuki Kuchikukan 'Snowflake' & Lieutenant JG Shizuru Chikura & Ensign Rin Kagamine 'Twin 2' & Chief Warrant Officer Karuta Roromiya & Commander Thomas Johnson & Lieutenant Jasad Yuvek & Lieutenant JG Connor Carey & Lieutenant JG Nozomi Kusuda 'Gemini' & Lieutenant JG Aika Thompson 'Arcadia' & Ensign Grace MacKenzie 'Sabre'
Edited on on Fri May 29th, 2026 @ 2:16am

2,481 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Flight Of The Valkyries
Location: Space & USS Tokyo
Timeline: March 18th, 2397

[Bridge]

Connor sighed. "Another fighter is currently out of commission Commander. Gemini is currently docked with another fighter. Both seem to be alive, however their maneuverability... not suitable for this mission."

Thomas paused, "Send a message to the fighter, pull back, we will pick them up after we are finished with the mission. With no maneuverability they won't make it through the field."

"Commander," The voice of Karuta came over the comm channel. "I believe we can bring Ensign Kagamine's Fighter aboard using the docking tractor beams. We can then send out Lieutenant Kusuda again to command her wing." She explained.

"If you can do it, its better than floating in space. Notify the other ships of the plan, it may seem like a small deviation, but we have to maintain a tight formation."

Lieutenant Yuvek glanced at the tactical display showing the disabled fighters and the recovery operation, then spoke up.

"Commander, recommend we execute the fighter recovery now while we're still in open space," he said. "Once we enter the asteroid corridor, maneuvering room will be minimal. Better to handle complications out here than when we're committed to the approach vector." he suggested.

"The fighter is actually within the field, Commander, it won't cause much of an issue for us, but the slight deviation from our course will delay us by ten minutes."

Thomas nodded. "Lets make the move, communicate the move to the other ships, remain in formation."

---

[Gamma Squadron Fighters]

"Gemini. Fall back to the Tokyo. Once you're in range, we'll grab Ensign Kagamine in a tractor beam and bring her aboard. Once we've locked on, deattach and return to your squadron. You'll have to be in line with the Tokyo's rear flight deck doors. Ensure to match course and speed." Karuta ordered.

"Wouldn't you have to lower your shields in order to do that?" Nozomi asked as she observed the Tokyo's lights looming off in the distance.

"You let me worry about that." Karuta replied cooly. "Even if Vulcans do not worry..." she added.

"Understood," Nozomi replied. "Gemini out."

And with that, she shifted her attention over towards her squadron. "Chikura, I understand that you're still getting accustomed to the firmware, but seeing as you're probably the next highest-ranking officer of this group, can I trust you to take care of things until I get back?"

"Got it Gemini." Shizuru replied as she banked away. "I'll hold the fort until you get back." She added as her fighter doubled back and zooned away to rejoin the final wave, with the other pilots following her lead.

"I have either just made one of the guttiest decisions of my career or one I'm going to be regretting for the rest of my days," Nozomi sighed as she fired up her engines and began making her way back towards the Tokyo.


[Bridge]

Connor watched as the fighter made its way back to the tokyo, "Fighter incoming, it will have to maneuver to our backside to get back in to bay."

Commander Thomas looked over to the Helm station. "Lt., swing the Tokyo 180 degrees, and continue in reverse, let's make this as easy for them as we can. Fly in, fly out. Seen it in plenty of movies from the 20th century... sure its a tad bigger than an automobile, but we have a bigger area to play with, and a better pilot."

Lieutenant Yuvek turned his body partially from his console, his expression caught between disbelief and professional restraint. "Sir, you want me to rotate a 500-meter carrier 180 degrees and fly in reverse through an active combat zone... for one fighter?" He asked incredulously.

The Cardassian didn't wait for confirmation, his hands already moving across the helm controls. Orders were orders, even when they defied common sense. he thought to himself wearily. The automobiles in those 20th century Human movies didn't have to worry about annoying little things like. . .mass distribution, inertial dampeners, or coordinating with five other capital ships while flying backward.

"Executing rotation," he announced, his voice tight with controlled exasperation. "All hands brace for maneuvering." The Tokyo began her ponderous turn, the massive carrier responding with the grace of a freight hauler being asked to perform aerobatics. Lieutenant Yuvek's fingers worked constantly across the controls, using every thruster and carefully managed impulse bursts to execute the rotation without throwing the ship's structural integrity into the red.

"Rotation complete," he reported, now flying the carrier backward through space with reverse thruster control. "Maintaining negative velocity at one-quarter impulse. Flight deck reports ready to receive incoming fighter."

[Gamma Starfighter]

"Gemini... Am I seeing this correctly. The Tokyo is flying in reverse?" Rin asked as she stared through at the ship.

"That it is..." Nozomi remarked. "Honestly, I don't think they needed to go to all that trouble for just the two of us, I would've flown around the back..."

"Ok, drop me in..." Rin said. "Hopefully they'll catch me." She joked nervously.

"Copy that," Nozomi replied as she initiated a barrel roll. "And be more careful next time? You're brother's probably having a kitten right now."

"He'll be fine. Thanks for the tow." Rin replied with a cheeky smile, even if Nozomi couldn't see her.

The fighters rotated so that Nozomi was now upside down in comparison to the Tokyo, bringing Rin level. The docking clamps then retracted seperating the two fighters. As Nozomi banked upwards to avoid the lower hull of the Tokyo, the inertia carried Rin's starfighter straight towards the now open doors of the Tokyo's flight deck.

The door grew larger and larger. Rin held her breath as her fighter zoomed towards it, she couldn't manuever, she couldn't control how she landed. "Come on..." she muttered to herself as she closed her eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was to crash onto the flight deck. Then her fighter shook and she was thrown forward slightly.

She opened her eyes and let out a long sigh of relief. The bright blue tractor beams had caught her and were now pulling her in gently. Finally after a few seconds, her fighter was placed on the deck with a slight bump.

"Welcome back Twin 2." Came Karuta's voice.

"Sorry I'm back Early. The car broke down." Rin joked as she removed her helmet and opened the cockpit hatch.

---

[USS Armitage]

Minori watched as the Tokyo led the way through the Asteroid field.. "Lets keep a tight formation. Helm, ensure you are following the Tokyo precisely." She ordered.

"Aye Captain." the lieutenant stationed at the helm reponded, his hands dancing across the helm console. "Captain, it looks like we've already lost a couple of Starfighters. One of them is heavily damaged and is pulling back to the Tokyo."

"Understood..." Minori replied. 'It goes to show just how dangerous this actually is.' she thought as she sat back in her chair. "Shields to full. I want to get through this without losing any parts of the ship."

"Aye Captain," Lieutenant Commander Goldthorpe replied from tactical. "Shields are at full power, we're ready to go in."

"Good, now keep her stable and lets go get that starbase!" Minori replied, her knuckled tightening on the arms of her chair.

It was then that the Tokyo started to turn, rotating one hundred and eighty degress's, and now running in reverse. "What the..." Minori said as she rose from her chair. "What is the Tokyo doing?"

"Its... going backwards captain." The helm officer replied.

"I'm reading two starfighters approaching, one is badly damaged and it attached to the other. Tokyo has opened the rear doors to their flight bay. I believe they're attempting to 'pick them up' whilst on the move..." Goldthorpe at Tactical reported.

"Thats extremely dangerous. I could have seen Taiga doing something like this, but not Commander Johnson." Minori sighed. "I guess she trained him well." A smile spread across her facem as she watched the Tokyo manuever.

[Alpha Starfighters]

The instruments in Fubuki's cockpit began to flash and a warning klaxon wailed. There was something in their path, something that wasn't going to be easy to break or destroy. Plus, it wasn't small.

"Computer, what is that?" she asked outloud.

"Scanning. Identification Complete. The hazard directly fore is densly packed natural diamond. Usually located in the lower mantle of certain planets. Advisement to avoid." the computer replied in its female monotone voice.

Fubuki didn't answer, instead she slowed her fighter and unleashed a volley of phaser fire at the pearly crystal like rock. However her phaser cannons seeminly only bounced off the huge fragment. "Computer how big is that piece of diamond?"

"Fifty point three meters in length, twenty point four meters in thickness. Estimated weight at ninety two thousand tons." The computer replied.

"Torpedoes it is..." Fubuki said. She launched two of her torpedoes which slammed into the asteroid made of diamond. However, they only did minimal damage.

"Snowflake to all Waves. Priority target. Bearing zero mark zero. Sensors have confirmed it is solid diamond. We need to take this out. Focus fire on it as you pass, lets see if we can make a few rings out of it..." she ordered.

"Is this really something we should be wasting our firepower on?" Lynette pointed out. "Wouldn't it just be more efficient to just re-route the convoy around it?"

"Not enough time," Fubuki replied. "We need to break or shatter it."

Grace looped around a small asteroid and towards the new karat that was designated the priority target, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend." Her eyes flicked around briefly as an idea hit her, "Snowflake, Sabre here... With the size of that thing, Ah've got an idea... We kin get three fighters in tight formation behind it, if we add enough power to our tractors, what if we use that thing as a door-knocker on that starbase? It'd mask our approach to boot."

There was a brief moment of silence. "Our tractor beams aren't that powerful. Nice idea though. We'll have to try and break it apart the best we can. Maybe the Tokyo can split it if we narrow it down a little..." Fubuki replied.

"Copy. Starburst, Pickle, on my six, movin' in." Grace checked the relative locations of the other flights before she hit the acceleration, "Ah get what Ah break off of it, right?" She queued up four torpedoes as she identified potential weak spots and transmitted those same locations to her buddles and launched. As soon as her torpedoes were away, she cleared the area into another group of asteroids.

Aika followed suit, her and her wingmates launching a further dozen torpedoes on target. "Snowflake, this is Arcadia. That rock's taking more of a punishment than expected. It's taken two dozen torpedoes and hasn't broken up yet."

"Stay here." Grace told her wingmates as she flipped her orientation and darted back towards the asteroid while avoiding locations with the other Valkyries to get a closer look the diamond and checked her magazines. This time as she scanned her sensors, she saw a chink in the diamond and sent out a targetting karat before spotting an opening in the fighter wave and inserting herself into it, single-firing her remaining four torpedoes directly into where she'd targetted, "Snowflake, Sabre here, I'm Winchester on torpedoes, requesting permission to return to base to re-arm."

"Denied Sabre." Fubuki replied simply. "We still need you out here. Switch to phaser cannons. Switch your focus to other asteroids, we'll handle the diamond chunk." She added. There was no time for them to redock at the Tokyo, especially since the carriers had now entered the asteroid field.



"Lt, how about we right ourselves and drive forward from here on in. We kinda look ridiculous driving in reverse." Thomas replied as he got the all clear from the shuttle bay.

Lieutenant Yuvek acknowledged the command and began by reducing forward velocity to a crawl, killing the Tokyo's momentum before attempting the maneuver. "Bringing impulse to one-tenth. Stabilizing approach vector." He said.

With the carrier nearly stationary, The Helmsman engaged the starboard lateral thrusters at full power while simultaneously venting the port-side attitude jets. The massive carrier began to pivot, her nose swinging up and around in a slow, ponderous arc.

"Rotation at 45 degrees," Lieutenant Yuvek announced, compensating for the ship's tendency to drift as her mass shifted through the rotation. "Firing compensatory thrusters to maintain position in the asteroid field."

The Tokyo groaned slightly as her structural integrity systems worked to manage the stress of the maneuver. Lieutenant Yuvek's console flickered briefly as the port aft thruster cluster showed a microsecond lag in response time - the rotation putting strain on already battle-damaged systems.

Damnit. . .that is not going to be good.

"90 degrees," he continued, his attention split between maintaining the rotation and monitoring the strain indicators climbing into yellow. "All ships maintaining formation around us."

The final 90 degrees went smoothly, and Lieutenant Yuvek brought the Tokyo back to her original heading, engaging the forward impulse engines to restore momentum and rejoin the coordinated formation.

"Rotation complete. Resuming original heading and formation delta-seven," Lieutenant Yuvek reported, his tone carrying a note of resignation as he scanned the damage report blooming across his secondary display. ""Minor stress damage noted to port aft thruster clusters from the rapid rotation. Engineering will need to address that when operations permit." He didn't bother hiding the frustration in his voice.

Connor turned again to the centre seat. "We have a large chunk of debris in the path, they are saying its diamond, fighters can't make enough damage to it get it out of the way."

"Diamond... thats a surprise. I think its time we give the point defense system." Thomas replied as he looked at the chunk on sensors. "Notify the fighters to open up a path, Tokyo's going to see if we can punch a hole into it. See if it is really as hard as they say it is. Notify the other ships, it may take all six of us to make anything of significance to do so however."

"Aye sir. Contacting them now." Connor replied, "Bringing the PDS system online now."

Posting By:

Commander Thomas Johnson
Executive Officer
USS Tokyo

Lieutenant Jasad Yuvek
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Tokyo

Lieutenant JG Connor Carey
Tactical Officer
USS Tokyo

Lieutenant Fubuki Kuchikukan 'Snowflake'
Commander Air Group
USS Tokyo

Chief Warrant Officer Karuta Roromiya
Air Boss
USS Tokyo

Lieutenant JG Shizuru Chikura
Starfighter Pilot
USS Tokyo

Ensign Rin Kagamine 'Twin 2'
Starfighter Pilot
USS Tokyo

Lieutenant JG Nozomi Kusuda 'Gemini'
Squadron Leader
USS Tokyo

Lieutenant JG Aika Thompson 'Arcadia'
Starfighter Pilot
USS Tokyo

Ensign Grace MacKenzie 'Sabre'
Starfighter Pilot
USS Tokyo

Captain Minori Kushieda
Commanding Officer
USS Armitage

 

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