“Yes, Stirling?” Tikva asked, looking up from the paperwork on her desk.

“Five minutes ma’am,” her yeoman said before he started to putz around the small ready room, tidying things away, putting a cup and plate back into the replicator.

The ready room off the battle bridge was just like the battle bridge itself – small, cramped and generally not meant for long-term use. It really was just meant to be a retreat for the ship’s captain, to think or consult in private. It wasn’t meant to be a long-term office.

“Have you managed to line up the music I asked for?”

“I have already provided it to Lieutenant Michaels for broadcasting. As well as providing the schedule to Lieutenant Rrr’mmm’bal’rrr to transmit to the fleet for our little presentation piece.” He finished tidying the office, aside from the padds on the desk, standing at attention with hands clasped behind his back.

“Fantastic,” Tikva said, finishing off the letter she had been working on and then turning the padd off. “Shall we go and put on a performance for our audience?”

“The allied fleet defending the Deneb system, or the Dominion fleet we’re arriving in behind of?” Fightmaster asked.

“Oh, why sell ourselves short? Let’s go put on a show for everyone. Friends, enemies and the Admiralty alike.”

“I believe ma’am the admirals will definitely have something to say with your plan.” Fightmaster stepped aside to let Tikva leave while he finished tidying up.

Not but a few seconds later she was accepting the keys from Mac, both of their attention on the viewscreen showing the tactical plot for the entire Deneb system. The bulk of the Dominion fleet had beaten them, by virtue of Atlantis’ battle damage and by design. Atlantis, Papakura and their Tholian allies had swung around to come in on the same vector as the largest Dominion force had, cutting off their avenue of retreat.

The Deneb system itself was a hive of blue and green transponder codes, forming up for battle or rushing to those formations as fast as they could. A whole slew of new contacts in orbit indicated hastily assembled and shipped-in defence platforms. The system wasn’t a fortress, but it was giving a mighty fine impression of one right now.

“No response to us being here outside of some rather serious scans,” Mac offered. “Though to be fair they were scanning Kaltene’s ships more than ours.”

“There’s a Vorta over there confused at Tholians riding shotgun, but has dismissed them. After all, what’s a barely combat-capable Sovvie, a Sagan and three light Tholian ships going to do to that absolute wall of ships?”

“Oh how little they know,” Mac said with glee.

“Let’s enlighten them, shall we?” Tikva said as she sat down.

Mac nodded as he approached his seat on the battle bridge and tapped a key, leaving Tikva in her solitary seat in the middle of the cramped space. As the all-hands whistle went up throughout the ship, there was a quiet pause before Mac spoke up for all to hear.

“All hands to battle stations,” he announced just once. A short, sweet and formal declaration that Atlantis was about to enter the fray.

“Captain, didn’t expect to see you on your feet,” Lieutenant Samantha Michaels stated as the door to the battle bridge opened in front of Tikva.

And apparently with that phrase Sam had managed to figure out how to launch an Ensign clear across the bridge, fumbling the ship’s keys as she went. At least Ensign Tabaaha had the decency to immediately fetch the keys.

“Captain’s place is on the bridge,” she replied to the junior operations officer. “But don’t mind me, just passing through to my ready room.” She then grinned at Tabaaha, who was approaching with keys in hand. “As you were Ensign.”

“I…uh…ma’am?” the young Amero-Indian woman responded.

“You have the conn,” Tikva continued, trying to play the moment off as cooly as she could. They were still two days away from Deneb, after all. There was no need for someone more senior to be in command while just cruising at Atlantis’ best speed.

A series of chirps from the ops console caught the attention of the three women, the rest of the bridge crew busy with their own work and too enthralled to notice. Credit where it was due, Sam was at her station quick smart and bringing up the report. “Sensors are picking up shadows forming up all around us ma’am. Admiral Ketterac and Papakura are reporting the same.”

“What about our Klingon friends?” Tikva asked as she walked up to Tabaaha and held out a hand to the young woman, who was very quick to be done with the keys and return to the helm beside Sam. It could be nothing, but she wanted to be in charge and Kelly Tabaaha most certainly didn’t want to right now.

“They haven’t – scratch that, we’re being hailed by the IKS Mak’beht. She’s not one of the ships travelling with us.” Sam read the header on the hail. “Captain Tor’bel, House Lorkoth, Second Task Force.”

“Well put them on,” Tikva said and was within a few moments greeted by the visage of a Klingon who looked like he’d barely ever been in combat. He wasn’t young, just unmarred and well-kept. Either he’d never seen battle or was very, very good at it. The phrase that came to mind was ‘model’ but she knew that would be insulting in Klingon culture. He looked a contemporary of Hor’keth and the murderous look in his eyes made her immediately wish she hadn’t allowed him to start his campaign of logistics disruption and accompany the forces back to Deneb. Then he’d be here to deal with this.

“Captain Tor’bel, I take it you’re in command of the reinforcements that Hor’keth said would come?” No pleasantries, just straight to the point.

“Where is that self-aggrandising, glory-seeking, silver-tongued idiot?” Tor’bel growled at her. While he was giving the impression of anger, she wasn’t tasting that emotion. No, it was something else. Worry? Concern? Fear?

“He is busy leading his hunting party behind Dominion and Breen lines in search of decent prey,” she answered. “He could not be dissuaded from his plan.” It wasn’t entirely true. It had been part of the plan after all, but when the entire Starfleet and Republic contingent were falling back for repairs, he had sent only a handful of ships to accompany them versus returning with them to maintain the original plan as best as possible.

“Idiot!” Tor’bel bellowed, slamming a fist into his command chair’s arm with fury. Fury Tikva could tell was aimed at Hor’keth. Taking a moment, Tor’bel returned to the present and focused on Tikva. “I would speak with you in person Captain Theodoras. And your Commander Gantzmann. My task force will accompany you to Deneb.”

“Very well Captain. We can beam you and a party over to Atlantis in, shall we say ten minutes?”

Tor’bel merely huffed in acceptance at the terms before the channel went dead.

“He seemed pleasant,” Sam said. “Oh wow…all those ships just networked with our other cloaked friends. Ma’am, you’re gonna want to see this.” Sam made space to Tikva could look over her shoulder and see the true magnitude of the Klingon ships assembled around them under cloak.

“Okay, that was,” Sam confided to Kelly after Tikva had left the battle bridge giggling to herself, “probably the scariest thing I’ve seen in a while.”

“What? Why?” Tabaaha asked.

“Captains shouldn’t giggle. The captain is coming up with a stupid plan.”

“We are secure from warp,” T’Val announced. “And proceeding at three-quarters impulse speed.”

“Is that our best speed?” Tikva asked.

“At present ma’am. Though I suspect it will get worse before it gets better.”

“Guns,” Tikva turned to the tactical station where Lin and her assistant were both standing, “let’s get our guests’ attention shall we?”

“Long-range torpedoes, aye ma’am.”

The torpedoes that launched from Atlantis weren’t meant to actually hit any targets. Or even get near them. What they were meant to do was show up on Dominion sensors as torpedoes being fired. With the extra emitters shoved into them instead of a warhead, they would show up on everyone’s sensors. Probably on some tricorders even. They were the closest Atlantis could do to signal flares to announce their arrival to all and sundry.

They were meant to draw attention, to make someone within that Dominion fleet bearing down on Deneb pay attention to a sensor screen for a moment after so rudely dismissing them as a viable threat.

Tikva counted to three, mouthing it but not speaking, then raised a hand as she continued. Four. Five. Then pointed straight to Sam Michaels at the secondary ops station. “Now,” she commanded and the junior grade lieutenant swivelled and tapped a single prepared command into her station.

“Transmitting on all non-Fleet operations channels now ma’am,” Sam answered.

“White noise?” Rrr asked from Ops.

“Mars, Bringer of War by Gustav Holst,” Tikva answered. “Put it on speaker. We have time to listen to it before we close. Rrr, signal the fleet to start the clocks on the plan.”

“Where is Hor’keth?” Tor’bel demanded again as he was shown into the small meeting room. None of the conference rooms were particularly suitable for hosting guests right now.

Lin, summoned at Tikva’s request, stepped forward and shoved a Klingon datapad into Tor’bel’s chest without a word. She did not step back as Tor’bel stopped, considered things for a brief moment, then took up the padd and read it.

“The man is a fool,” Tor’bel said after a full minute of reading the padd, throwing it to the floor beside him. “If he thinks I will –“

Lin, without having warned Tikva at all of what was to come, socked Tor’bel straight in the jaw, sending the meticulously put-together and handsome Klingon to the floor. And before he could stand she stepped over him, a boot on his chest and forced him to the floor. Shock seemed to be doing most of the work for her.

“I know Hor’keth, I don’t know you,” Lin growled. “He said you’ll do as your told. Or you’ll bring dishonour on him. What will it be?”

The tension was palpable, the room ready to explode, before Tor’bel conceded with a raising of his hands. Lin kept him down for a few more heartbeats, then helped the man to his feet and directed him to a chair.

“He said you were to the point,” Tor’bel muttered as he sat. “And you,” he turned to Tikva, “were dangerous for inspiring such loyalty.”

“I try.” Tikva held his eyes for a moment. “We should talk about a plan I just had. But first, before we get anywhere, I have a question to ask of you. It might be personal, so don’t feel you need to answer it.” She sat herself down at the table as well, opposite Tor’bel. “When you first hailed us you weren’t angry at Hor’keth. You were concerned. Worried even. What’s your relationship to him?”

Tor’bel sighed, settling into the chair. “He’s my par’Mach’kai,” Tor’bel admitted. “And my only real worry and concern is he’ll end up getting to Sto’vo’kor before me. I hate being late.”

“Then let me lay out my plan. Because we’re heading for the biggest fight since the Dominion War and he’s off raiding supply lines.” Tikva sat forward. “Plenty of glory and honour to be won for all, yes?”

Tor’bel’s grin as he sat forward was answer enough before she started mentioning her plan, her theatrics.

They had a show to put on.

As Atlantis, Papakura and the Tholian ships continued in system, following the Dominion attack force after doing everything in their power to gain their attention, space around them started to shimmer and blur.

Light green hulls started to emerge from the distortions as a Valdore-class cruiser and her few escorts slid into solid shapes in formation with the Starfleet ships. While the escorts dropped into guard around Admiral Ketterac, the Tholian ships responded by doing the same to Atlantis.

And as the music blaring across all frequencies continued to swell, more ships continued to decloak at each peak. Dark green hulls slid from nothingness into existence with a long enough period before the next batch did that someone could count and verify the numbers of each batch.

And they just kept coming as the forces of House Lorkoth, of a ready unit of KDF ships and assorted independent commands and smaller allied houses revealed themselves as a force that couldn’t be ignored on the Dominion’s rear.

And as the orchestral piece wound to a close, the last ship had revealed itself, Atlantis broadcast one last message for all to hear.

May humanity after Victory be the predominant feature of the Fourth Fleet.