You're the Captain Now! Ambush in the Eta Sector

[+ Nadeshiko]

As part of a new series in the Poll of the Week, we're bringing you into the centre chair. When presented with a situation, how would you react? What would you do?

Your ship, the Nebula class USS Æthelwulf, has responded to a distress signal, only to discover it was a trap set by pirates, who ambushed your ship at close range. While you destroyed three and drove off the four, your comm officer has picked up signal traffic indicating reinforcements will be there shorter than the relief delegation Starfleet has sent. Meanwhile, your ship is heavily damaged, and your warp drive cannot form a stable warp field. While your surviving crew is busy repairing the ship, you do not anticipate having more than one torpedo launcher, half of the phaser arrays and maybe shields at half strength before reinforcements return. Your tactical officer suggests they may try to capture your ship to use as part of a pirate fleet. Your XO disagrees, feeling they are just trying to weaken and destroy shipping escorts in the Eta sector. However, at a staff meeting, your crew has three separate plans proposed to you.

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Zhanyt Lafizatar

[Hannibal Parker]

Right now, you need time, and going into the nebula to make what repairs you can makes the best tactical sense. You still have working sensors, which are better than the pirates' gear, so you will see them coming long before they get there by dropping a relay just outside the nebula relaying sensor data to the ship. If you have shuttles which are or can be more heavily armed, place them on each side of the ion trail you are going to leave (and the pirates will follow) and ambush them, quick striking the pirates then retreating into the nebula, where your superior sensor capability will give you the advantage. If the shuttles can continue to keep the pirates in a running battle, whittling them down, then you come out with what ever weapons you have online to finish off whoever is left, or watch them retreat, or demand their surrender. Pirate vessels are not built for long running battles, and they have lost the advantage of surprise. Most likely at that point, they will retreat after taking such losses.

 

[Wes Greaves]

Your ship is heavily damaged, but your tactical systems are still at half strength.  You were able to destroy three vessels and drive off a fourth with your ship at full strength.  The enemy reinforcements are likely to be confident as the smell blood in the water.  By prepositioning torpedoes as mines and using armed shuttles to augment your tactical abilities, you'll turn the ambush around on the pirates.  A strong show of force and rapid application of violence against the overconfident reinforcements are likely to inflict heavy damage and drive them off again if not outright destroying the force.  This will buy more time for the relief expedition to arrive. 

 

The option of diplomacy and sending boarding parties relies to heavily on the pirates dropping their shields on all of their reinforcing ships for your teams to get aboard.  The pirates may believe themselves to be in the superior position and refuse to talk.

 

Using the nebula to hide is an excellent option, but also relies on a hope that the pirates don't find you. I would prefer to take an aggressive action as a show of force.