This next one is a chapter I call, Addition. Remember that it's supposed to read like a book, so deal with the simple paragraphs Enjoy.



They’d gone out the lock within five minutes of getting the alert, as was their new standard. The flight training was done. They were a team, a wing. Angel Wing. They flew in perfect delta formation until they reached the warp coordinates he’d set. The synced fighters launched into warp all at the exact same moment, an awe inspiring sight for anyone on the Nimitz he was sure. While in transit each pilot was going over the intelligence they’d received from the long range scanners aboard the carrier. When they arrived on station they’d be able to link with the Bearcats; the bombers that actually had been first on scene, responding to the distress call from the Rainier and requesting assistance. They’d been conducting hit and runs on the attacking vessel, apparently of the same type as the Nimitz had been ambushed by several months earlier. The runs had been successful, the big cruiser launching its fighters, which had put a quick stop to the Bearcats’ offensive.
Angel Wing dropped out of warp still in sync, the enemy fighters at once recognizing the Javelins, and more importantly, this wing specifically. Upon quickly assessing the situation, Angel commanded his birds.
“Picard Split Port,” he said over the channel. Red team broke off port high, half a second before blue broke port low, Angel himself engaging warp a second time for 0.0125 seconds, making himself appear in two places for 1.89 seconds. He was the diversion, keeping the enemy’s focus on him and the fancy flying, leaving the five other fighters plenty of opportunity to flank them and engage, the X variant’s speed and quickness easily accomplishing the feat. He opened fire as he darted through the battlespace, taking one with him and wounding another. He opened a channel to the Rainiers fighters as he weaseled through the fight.
“This is Angel from the Nimitz, how’re you holding up?” he asked them as he made his turn. His computer received information on the battlespace itself then, labeling the three federation fighters: Peak 1, 2, and 4. He engaged a pair of enemy craft, one immediately exploding while the other was more slippery, as he wondered where Peak 3 was.
“This is Peak 1, we’re doing alright, but getting beaten up pretty badly,” a woman’s voice said back to him, static coming over the channel for a moment. “It’s gotten a lot better already since you’ve been here.” Blue team whooshed over his cockpit, completing a Crush Loop with red, making the fight severely more even suddenly. The channel went dead as his display updated.
Peak 1 KIA
Peak 4 KIA
The readout from the computer compelled Angel to turn hard high starboard, firing on the closest enemy while the rest of his wing did the same from the other half of the fight, all of them understanding that two pilots had just died, and one was probably fighting for their life. He located Peak 2 and shot for the peregrine, strafing anything that got close to the fighter with his own weapons, turning on the spot around the damaged fighter like a coiled snake. Blue and red teams had split up again, choosing smart targets each. The stronger blue team stayed in the main fight, destroying bogey after bogey, while red went after the cruiser itself, hitting the launch bays with the intent to strand the smaller enemy fighters. The Bearcat Bombers showed up out of nowhere, conducting a bombing run on the big cruiser while red team kept them busy, causing massive amounts of damage to weapons and shields with their payload.
The cruiser started accelerating under the barrage, obviously intending to retreat, but two tri-cobalts in what the Starfleet analysts had hoped to be the engine section made the escape suddenly futile. Joan and Elder hit the ship as hard as they could while the bombers made their turn, taking out the communications next, smart move he thought, making a mental note to commend Rtikx on that decision. Blue team meanwhile was doing a great job of decimating the remaining fighters, in chaos now that their mother ship had abandoned them. But they also came around every so often and cleaned up on the fighters that Angel would leap out and touch, shooting back to Peak 2 to provide security.
A quick scan of his charge told him that the peregrine had lost communications and pulse phasers, but still had some maneuverability and micros, though life support was fading fast. Going back several years Mark remembered that life support had to be manually overrode in such a case, and wondered what kind of pilot was in that seat. As he did the peregrine fired on an enemy that had strayed in front of it, Dark Halo jumping out and finishing it off quickly. He admired Peak 2’s determination as an alarm went off.
“Break off! Break off! The Rainier is breaching!” he said to everyone on a space wide channel. He noticed the Nimitz come out of warp several hundred thousand kilometers from the battlespace as he locked a tractor beam onto Peak 2, pulling the handicapped fighter as fast as he could, Peak 2 helping as much as possible with his engines. Mark hoped the Nimitz could get a lock on the Rainier’s remaining crew, Blue and red teams blowing past him, the Bearcats staying on his six in a blocking pattern, and he made another mental note to award them for covering his ass. The Nebula Class vessel exploded from the engineering section out, taking the saucer section and sensor pod with it in a blazingly silent fireball which encompassed the once attacking cruiser and the rest of the enemy fighters with it. The shockwave hit the Bearcats first of course, and thanks to their formation Dark Halo’s shields only went down to forty-three percent.
“Thanks Bearcat One, we woulda been a goner if it weren’t for you all,” he said to the bombers over the net, looking out his canopy at the wing leader directly above him by five meters.
“Not a problem Angel One, glad to do it. You guys are a sight to behold do you know that?” Commander Sligen told him, he and his wing breaking off and assembling another formation. Angel dipped his wing at the wing leader.
“Just another days work. You guys did a great job yourselves. I’ll be sure and tell your SCO that personally.”
“Just another days work Angel, we do what we can.”
“Well you did well. See you on deck,” Angel said, closing the bombers channel and opening one to flight control. “Flight control, Angel One.”
“Roger Angel One, this is Flight Control.”
“I’m coming in with a damaged peregrine, pilot probably needs medical attention. Requesting emergency transport out of the craft.”
“Roger Angel One, stand by.” The Nimitz got steadily bigger as they made their way closer, his wing coming back around to his sides. “Angel One, Flight Control. Transport commencing, proceed to shuttlebay five. Your wing has clearance to shuttlebay three.”
“That’s a good copy Flight Control, Angel One out.”
As Bearcat wing entered the landing deck, the Angels and their tow went to the lower section of the Nimitz, to shuttlebay five, waiting for the larger carrier to latch on her tractor before going up to their bay.

Joan and Elder came through the lounge doors, going to the bar first.
“The usual?” Ta-Meal asked them, to which they nodded. As he got them their drinks, a shot of vodka and a beer, the middle aged bartender spoke. “She’s been in here all day. Just looks out the window.”
“Who?” Elder asked, sipping his synthahol beer. Ta-Meal gestured with his head.
“Her. Rumor from the medics is that’s who got emergency transported aboard yesterday. From the Rainier.” The two pilots looked the human woman over from across the room.
“Been through a lot,” Joan said, downing her drink. Elder stood up though.
“Thanks for the word Ta-Meal,” he said, going over to the chair. “From the Rainier right?” he asked her, taking a seat closer to the window. The woman with two and a half gold pips looked at him sort of quizitivly.
“I’m sorry?” she asked.
“You were aboard the Rainier yesterday, right? We pulled your asses outta the fire,” Elder said, sitting forward and putting his hands on his knees.
“Ass,” she merely said, continuing to look out the window.
“True that. Name’s Dan Chong, but you can call me Elder if you’d like,” he told her, trying to convey his sincerity with his tone and eyes. She just kept staring. “I understand what you’re going through, I really do. There are a bunch of people on the Nimitz that will. If you ever want to, just ask anybody alright?” he said, rising.

“Come in,” the door said to her, making her go forward into the Assualt Squadron Commanders office. “Peak,” Captain Davis said, rising as she came forward. She felt the steel in her spine and legs and arms like when she was gearing up to fly into battle. “Can I help you with something?” he asked her, but the look in her eyes told him the answer.
“If the Angels will have me Sir, I’d like to join them. Specifically Red Team.” The resolve and confidence in her words and statue told him she had thought long and hard, committing to this course. He sat down, picking up a PADD and tapping it.
“They already have in a way, as have I. As of right now, I’m Angel to you. No more ‘Sir’. You’ll find your Javelin down in Shuttle Bay Three, if you’d like to feel it out. Also, Red Team will be expecting you in their quarters.”
“Yes Sir,” he looked up at her. “Angel.”
“Also, please realize that the next few weeks will be rough on you. You are an exceptional pilot already, but the X variant is a different beast. Plus the tactical op training will be intense as well. There aren’t any excuses here. The people to your right and left depend on every single thing you do, more so than anywhere else in Starfleet.”
“I understand,” was all she said. He took a breath.
“We’ll help you move past your pain Peak, you’ll see.”
“I know Sir,” Peak told him, the burning starting in her eyes. “But it still hurts right now.”

“I know this is required Commander, but if you don’t want to talk that’s fine. I won’t check the box, but I’ll keep them off your back,” Miril told Holly, watching quietly. The woman had gone through so much in so little time, just like many on the Nimitz though.
“I rolled over last night, expecting Steve to be there. I always wake up when he’s not. What’s more it was like I felt him there, in my mind. Like I could feel his dreams like I used to do. It took a few seconds to remember that he couldn’t be there anymore. But in that time I still felt out for my kids, and they weren’t there either.”Her tears tore at Miril’s own heart, but she remained solid for her patient. She rose and came over to the other woman, putting the PADD on the table and her arms around Holly’s shoulders. The sobs were the deepest kind a human was capable of, physically, making the two of them jolt on the cushions. “I feel everyone around me, I feel their desires and wants, their angers and obsessions. But I’ve lost the feelings of the people that I care for the most in the world, those people that no matter how bad things have ever been I could reach out and touch them in some way, only now I can’t. They’re just, gone.”
“You’re right,” the councilor said, eliciting more tears. “But here Holly, here on the Nimitz you’ll find many who share that same feeling, even without your gift to feel others. Inside their hearts they have lost the exact same things you have. You all are brothers and sisters in arms, and when one of them is taken from you – the finality of that is something some feel immediately, some feel later. Captain Davis is one of those who feel it later. That’s why he’s such a good commander. He can move past the immediate feelings of loss and pain to get the job done, but it catches up with him later, trust me. You are at a disadvantage most definitely with your ability, but you can console yourself with your teammates. I’m sure they’re eager to help you. We called them ‘Orphans’ before angels, did you know that?”
Holly rose and looked Miril in the eyes.
“Orphans?”
“Yes. During the Battle of Horn we lost-” she took a breath as she herself remembered those from that day, “-we lost a lot of good people. But most only some, teams lost one, wings lost one or two or three. Some though, lost them all. While others left for other posts, some stayed and joined other wings

They all stood in the control room of the holodeck, Elder at the station, directing the simulation playing out in front of them. It was slightly cramped with the entire wing in the room. Blue and Green teams were at the back, while Joan was at the side of her teammate. The room outside was spinning and turning, stars and debris flying around in brilliant streaks and cascades. 4 Klingon fighters on 1 javelin; the final test for an assault pilot. Everyone in Angel Wing had had to pass this test, and they all had. Even some of the enlisted had flown in the test, and they’d gotten better with each try.
“Nice delta juke,” Young Gun said out loud, and they all agreed, though silently. Peak was already a part of them, the formality of it having to be done still. She needed to pass this test.
“That’s it,” Max said, the last volley from Peak impacting with the fighter, blowing it apart. The stars settled, then rolled smoothly around in a circle.
“Woohoo!” they heard from the emitter, Peak’s voice cheerful and happy.
“Congratulations Peak,” Angel said into the microphone. “You’re officially a Javelin pilot.” The spinning stopped, and Angel stood up, shutting the mike off. The simulation ended, the plain floor and walls showing suddenly. The doors to the holodeck opened, and Angel Wing came through as Peak got out of her fighter, the hologram disappearing into thin air as she did.
They congratulated her, slapping her on the back with smiles and shakes of the hand, none more than Joan and Elder. They had had to accept her as their team leader, something they had settled into with Joan the senior officer, but were needing a true leader at the same time.
The claxon sounded as the lights dimmed, Angel’s communicator beeping.
“Angel, several Klingon capital ships with support just decloaked several hundred thousand kilometers out. I need you out the lock,” came Admiral Cherok’s voice.
“Yes Sir, moving,” Angel said, jogging to the door, his wing immediately behind him.
They ran to their bay, skipped rungs of ladders to their cockpits, the crew chiefs prepping the fighters for battle. It took three minutes for them to be spaceborne, Peak just one of them. Enemy info came across their screens as they cleared the bulkhead, the seven javelins falling into their delta formation out of habit.
“Here they come,” Angel said calmly over the net, and fire filled the blackness. He called out a maneuver, and the two teams lifted up and through the throng of enemies, while Angel went a different direction. It was a ruse of course. This particular move was to make them focus on the bigger group, while their leader could strike from a stronger position to take out the leader and disorganize. They fired on their numerous opponents, causing damage and splitting formations, the six J-1301Xs waiting for the true mayhem to erupt.
Suddenly Peak’s alarm sounded as her systems registered a bogey lock on her craft.
She heard several of her wingmates exclaim something like the same thing, then nothing as their ships blew apart. Her teammates were gone in an instant.
“What the hell?!” she heard Young Gun yell, watching his fighter roll over hers to level off on her starboard upper side. Then with a flash or orange she was blown off course as he too was destroyed, the debris impacting off her fighter. She cut hard to port and gunned her throttle, firing on several targets as she was too quick for their computers.
“Stone, Peak. What is going on?” she said, quite calmly as far as she could tell.
“Those were not disruptors,” the Vulcan, Blue Team leader responded.
“Shut up Stone,” came Angels’ voice, and the last blue icon disappeared from Peak’s HUD. All that was left was a sea of red targets, and one lone Gold. “Where you going Peak?”
She was in shock, and kept dodging and fighter her way through the battlespace.
“It’s a shame this was your first mission on the team. I was kind of hoping not to fill the last spot. Don’t want too much blood on my hands,” Angel said to her, his icon on her screen showing he wasn’t chasing after her. All the red ones though, they were scrambling to gun her down.
“What the hell Angel?” she asked him.
“It’s simple really. This continues my legend. All of my wing gone? Again? Poor, tragic me. I’ll get my own command after this, probably the Kirk as a matter of fact. Course all that’s left is you. But then again, my Klingon buddies here are sure to take care of you eventually.” She turned her fighter in time to see the Nimitz, already headed out of the sector, it’s power levels indicating it was ready for warp at any second, and saw the Gold IFF dock inside.
“Admiral Cherok is in on it by the way. How else to get the Nimitz into this type of engagement? It only makes him look better, and he’ll have me in his pocket forever, that is, you know, until I can take him out as well,” his IFF faded out. “Nice knowing you Peak.”
And the Nimitz streaked into space.
Fury and grief dared to overtake her for a fraction of a second before her training kicked in. They were in the Mempa sector, close to Vesper actually, and the Nimitz would fall back from a fight at . . .
She checked her charts quickly, keeping an eye on the armada in pursuit of her.
JFS47.
She input the coordinates and readied for warp. They wouldn’t be there long, just in case she made it out of here. Angel knew that firsthand.

The gleaming carrier appeared before her, and she wasted no time. Surely they had seen her coming. Hopefully the admiral and Angel weren’t on board. Hopefully they were on the station, reporting to higher. Captain Davis and Wellingford had to be told about this, if they weren’t in on it as well. Surely the majority of the crew had to be ignorant to what Angel had done, not only this time, but before as well. Jesus.
This isn’t the first time he’s done this.
She focused on her target, the Nimitz. She had to get on board. Her HUD flashed suddenly as the carriers shields went up. But she had thought ahead, and had already input the shield frequency from memory, learning from Angel as a matter of fact. Then her true nightmare started, the ablative shielding deploying across the hull. Now she only had roughly fifteen seconds to breech the shields and board the craft.
Slamming into the energy barrier at close to the speed of light, she cut hard upwards, also spinning on her X axis, then doing a nose flip that landed her fighter on the skin of the behemoth, five hundred yards from the bridge. As she cracked the canopy, she noticed the space moving. The Nimitz was headed away from the station. Shit. That meant the admiral and Angel were with them. Maybe it was better this way anyway.
She grabbed her phaser rifle and battle kit, and climbed out of the Javelin while also activating her magnetic soles. She had chosen this spot because it would be one of the last areas covered by the armor stretching out across the hull, and she could feel it though her feet.
The energy from the rifle hit the hull, cutting through quickly. She spun around in a circle, calm and collected, until she came to her original point, when the artificial gravity pulled her and the spot of metal into the vessel. Atmospheric force fields had activated upon the first breach, so there was no explosive vacuum, and she hit the floor hard.
Disengaging her boots, she ran to a panel and activated the emergency process for survivors, which activated another force field while deactivating the current one, then when she’d passed it, it activated again, filled with atmosphere and she was within the main environmental system again.
She again went to a panel and tied her system in with the main computer, while also tying into the auxiliary system as well. They’d cut her off from both eventually, but by then she’d be too close for it to matter. She deactivated her on board transponder, knowing she’d have to sabotage the sub dermal node system eventually.
The security team about to exit the turbolift caught her attention though, as she released the plasma grenade and tossed it at the door. The lift stopped just as the grenade went off, sealing the doors. She went to the jeffreies tube door ten meters down the hall and went inside.

She immerged from the tube, phaser pistol ready to take someone down, if they were in her way. The conference table was glowing lowly, the room dim because nobody was in it. She’d chosen this room as her entry point because she knew how Angel operated. He’d go for the bridge. Normally she would go for the bridge as well. Or the engine room, or environmental, or even engineering. But she had prey. At some point he would come down here, and when he did, well.
She wasn’t exactly sure what she would do. If she just killed him outright, then it would be up to whether he had deleted the logs or not. If he had, she was a goner. Then there was Admiral Cherok to contend with. Everyone on board loved the Vulcan, and now she was hunting him too.
The doors opened and Angel came through, a PADD in his hands.
“You son of a bitch,” she said, emerging from the darkness with the phaser ready.
He just smiled.
“I wondered where you were,” he said, slight surprise from him, but smugness and – pride.
She fired, wasting no time. The phaser hit him square in the chest,
Nothing happened. She looked down and rechecked her weapon while keeping an eye on her former wing commander. The door reopened behind him, and her team came through. Alive. Emotion flooding from them as they came to her.
Joan and Elder, breathing, alive, Joan crying with Peak as she collapsed to the floor.
The simulation ended, the holodeck finally revealing itself. They hugged on the deck for several minutes before they broke apart, and noticed Angel standing slightly off to the side.
She fought the remaining feelings of murder in her heart, the pride still emanating from him, though now she recognized it for what it was. Pride in his new team leader.
“So that was a test?” She asked him, standing.
The look of, shame she realized, flashed from his face and heart.
“We thought of it, Joan, Lirpa and myself. To see who we fly with. Now we know you. At your worst, and best,” Angel said, handing the PADD out to her.
She took it, and read.
He’d brought her the roster for the Nimitz. For his wing. She was on it. He’d had this before she’d ‘killed’ him too. She knew him now too.

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Semper Paratus - Always Ready

Semper Invictus, Semper Vigilans - Ever Invincible, Ever Watchful