— USS Selene, The Triangle —

Slowly at one-third of impulse speed, the two Starfleet ships moved deeper into the unexplored space, reaching out with sensors like old men trying to feel their way through the darkness that surrounded them. The USS Sizemore took the secondary position following the USS Selene’s lead. The Lamarr-class ship had more powerful sensors and was more capable tactically, its captain was leading the mission. The ships began to get drawn in closer in proximity as the space they were traveling began to narrow with asteroids as large as the Selene in between them.

— USS Selene, Bridge —

The grouping of scientists that had assembled on the bridge were muttering to themselves as they studied the readouts that were now displayed on the main view screen. Probes had been launched and while the USS Selene and USS Sizemore were moving slowly along finding their way toward the beacon’s signal and (hopefully) the pirate ship they were searching for they were studying the narrowing pathway afforded by the asteroids.

Lieutenant Eshita Das frowned at the readings, “If you wanted a highly defensible location, this is it.”

“What do you mean?” Captain Olivia Carrillo asked, her knowledge of science had been insufficient in this case but she trusted her tactical instincts.

“These asteroids are explosive, unstable. A fleet gets in here, it would take one shot to set off a chain reaction and…” she made a hand gesture like a ball exploding and mouthed the word boom.

Carrillo stood, “So you’re saying, this is a spot you’d lay a trap?”

Das nodded, “If you were worried about a more powerful ship finding you and…”

“Full stop,” Carrillo said, suddenly standing, much more concerned and not just with the pre-fight jitters. She glanced at her communications officer on the bridge and said, “Tell the Sizemore to get in close, get in our shield umbrella. Jara extend shields to cover the Sizemore and prepare a torpedo barrage. Three torpedoes.”

“Do you think we’re in a trap?” Jara asked, adjusting the ship’s shields.
“If we’re not already we’re about to be,” Carrillo said as she tapped her comm badge, “Engineering, give me full power to the shields and anything you can spare.”

There was a pause and then Chief Engineer James Young’s voice answered, “Give me five minutes.”

“You have two,” Carrillo said, ending the communication.

“Let the Sizemore know things are about to get hairy,” Carrillo said, and then pausing to give Young another minute she said fire torpedoes at one of the asteroids, let’s set off this chain.”

The main view screen switched to space and the peacefully floating asteroids around the two ships, and then streaks of light exited the torpedo canon on the USS Selene and stuck one of the asteroids and suddenly it seemed as if space itself had been lit on fire. The Selene rocked, tossing the crew around, sending the captain tumbling to the ground, and then causing the gravity systems to temporarily go offline. The energy to the lighting systems went out temporarily casting everyone in darkness, but the shields held. As the lights came back on Lieutenant Jara climbed back to her feet from the ground where she’d been thrown and read out the status of the ship’s shields, “We’re at thirty percent shields.”

Tapping her comm badge once more Carrillo called back to engineering, “Young get me full power to the shields, I think all Hell is about to break loose.”

“If we’d gone any further we’d be toast,” Jara said, then she saw it, “Ma’am, about a thousand contacts coming our way.”

“That’ll be the drones, signal the Sizemore, hold back, let us deal with them,” she said, “and start firing torpedoes one every ten seconds. Let the swarm converge and then detonate. Keep firing until there’s no more,” Carrillo said.

“No more torpedoes or no more drones,” Jara asked for clarification.

Carillo smiled tiredly, “Hopefully no more drones. If it’s no more torpedoes we’re screwed.”

Drawing back from the Selene’s shield envelopment, the USS Sizemore backed off as the larger ship began a patten of firing off a torpedo, allowing the drones to swarm it and then detonate it. Clearly, the programming that the drones were operating under was to swarm and sizeable metal object with a power source and thus they were drawn to the torpedoes. Slowly but surely the Selene winnowed down the mass of drones, until suddenly it seemed that their programming changed. Whether by learning or by an over-the-air update the drones began to ignore the torpedoes and instead head for the two ships.

“They’ve updated, it’s a basic boolean operation,” said the new First Officer Lieutenant Commander Keyana Mason, “They’ve adjusted the parameters to ignore anything smaller than… well us.”

“Stop talking Vulcan,” Carrillo said, “and I don’t love this ‘smart pirate’ thing. Jara keep firing torpedoes, speed them up, and engage with phasers. If I let drones eat our ship I’ll never get a new one after using the Luna as a battering ram.”

Carrillo had taken to pacing, not sure there was anything else she could do. Increasing the speed they shot torpedoes was also increased the rate they ran out of torpedoes. While the cloud of drones was visibly smaller now, it was not striking as fast as she’d have wanted it to.

Then all at once, they stopped, their number diminished enough that they began to drawback. Carrillo took a breath, knowing that the next phase of this was just getting started.

“We have three vessels on scanners, two about the size of a Defiant-class ship and one,” Jara started, “One very big one. It matches the readings we took and what starbases that have been attacked have reported.”

“Ask the Sizemore to handle the smaller ones,” Carrillo said, “target the big ship and prepare our quantum torpedoes. Communications, open a general hail. This is Captain Olivia Carrillo of the USS Selene. We are here to arrest you for multiple attacks on Federation civilians, property and bases. Surrender now and you’ll be granted a fair trial.”

Mason looked unconvinced, “Do you think they’ll surrender?”

“I do not. Lieutenant Jara, target enemy weapons systems, and on my mark fire,” Carrillo said sitting down.

She waited a moment to hear if there was a hail from the pirates in response, but there was nothing. When there was no answer she nodded, mostly to herself, and said, “Fire. Full spread, phasers, and quantum torpedoes. Let’s make them wish they’d surrendered.”