Ghostlight Squadron

Federation Military History Command: Day One: Archive.

The Klingon assault on the Federation began on August 2nd Y171, a date now known simply as, Day One. The savagery of the assault and the tenacity of the defense have become legendary. In an effort to preserve the first-hand perspective of these engagements, the FMHC began the Battle History Project, preserving the voices and stories of these engagements told by the participants in their own words.

This selection is from Lieutenant Matt Oberu, commander of VF 124, Ghostlight Squadron, based on Battle Station Seven near the Klingon Neutral Zone, taken seven months after the battle.

***

Transcript begins::I remember Day One. The attack came without warning. Oh, we’d known for weeks that the Klangs would come, ever since the Organians disappeared, but there was no warning it would be that day. The whole front line was hit at the same time, so there was no chance to concentrate forces of mobilize reserves,

A cruiser near the border got off a microsqueak before three IKN heavies blew her into scrap metal. Don’t know what happened to that ship. I guess no one does now. I never learned which one it was. So much is classified on need to know and I don’t. Anyway, that helped us.

The Ghostlights scrambled off the border station and the guard frigate USS Sally Ride, called a red alert. We were riding F-8 Crusaders, the original “stubby winged sewer pipes.” They carried two Hammer standard missiles and a phaser-three. F8s were good dogfighters, and we'd even bagged a Klingon frigate three weeks before, that was violating the neutral zone. The missiles, some call them drones, we call them missiles, are big things most of the size of a fighter. You should almost think of them as small suicidal ships.

We formed on the Ride and two patrol cutters, Peacemaker and Arrest. We were surprised to see the second one. I heard later that she had pulled into the station to deliver a class-one criminal. Poor timing on their part but we were glad for the help.

The station called in a big paint coming from the zone. Three D-class battlecruisers coming from where they’d hit our cruiser. Command made them as a D-7 and two of the older D6s. They had six frigates and even an escort class ship that had no more reason to be in a naval engagement than our cutters did. There were no fighters showing on scan at first.

Our only chance against a force that size was to fight from within our minefield and rely on the base station’s heavy phasers and photons. We had no idea what was going on outside our sector with all the jamming and time delay. It could have been a probe or a raid. It wasn’t.

As squadron commander, I was getting a continuous battle feed from the station. It was shaky. The enemy force was throwing off an unexpectedly huge cloud of ECM. The whole works, jamming drones and all. The Klangs came in with three frigates screening the three battlecruisers with the three other frigates and the escort in trail. It was an odd formation but the reason became apparent later.

We opened up at maximum range, trying for a lucky hit to take out one of the jammers and get a firing solution on the ship it was protecting. No immediate joy from that but as the the range came down, we nailed a jammer and began hitting one of the lead frigates, which dropped out and headed for the rear of the formation.

Ride and the two cutters were in retrograde, keeping their stronger front shield to the Klangs and firing photon torpedoes as fast as they could charge them up. The Klangs weren’t able to dodge as much this close to the station so we opened up with missiles. I let half the squadron fire and would send them back to the base to rearm using the other half to cover. We could keep up a near continuous barrage of anti-shipping missiles as long as the missile supply or we lasted. The deck crews did amazing work turning us around.

Commodore V’tell selected one of the enemy battlecruisers as our primary target, the D7, probably figuring it was the enemy flagship

We could see the Klangs trying to work their way toward the edge of the minefield, to the gap our own ships used. Some of the captor mines when off and did some damage to the battlecruisers but not enough. The three frigates stayed close to the battlecruisers and when our missiles reached them, their ADD racks lit up the sky, blowing our missiles out of it. They used phasers on the few that got through.

The Klangs first disruptor salvo caught our squadron support ship, the base’s multirole shuttle. I tried not to think of my drinking buddy Dave Widennaur and his Andorian EWO. They were the first of us to die in this war. They were not the last. With the base’s electronic warfare shuttle gone the Klangs began pounding on the Ride in an offhand way. Some of the ship commanders were beginning to wonder if maybe this was just a raid.

The Commodore wasn’t having any of that and had the ships prepare scatterpack shuttles, hoping to surprise the enemy with a multiple missile launch from what looked like standard shuttles. The Klangs didn’t fall for it and switched their disruptors to them nailing two. If nothing else they took fire off our ships for a bit.

Command sent the Ghostlights around to the left after a trailing frigate that was hanging back. They’d identified it as a dedicated electronic warfare ship, something we hadn’t seen before. Seemed like it was going to work for a minute. He was out of position, must have started screaming for help. He got it. Our missiles couldn’t nail him between his own ECM and supporting fire that was switched to him.

It was then we realized those trailing frigates weren’t normal frigates. There was the dedicated electronic warfare platform, a minesweeper and one converted to carry fighters. This was trouble.

The battle began to focus on these three ships. The IKN minesweeper began to work on our field and we began to work on it. I launched both my ASMs and connected with one. We began to add up on it. That E4 was trying to shield the sweeper when it caught a drone and photons from Arrest and Ride. It went up. But a return salvo did the same for Arrest.

I landed on the base station to rearm. My crew chief even got me some coffee and an energy bar while they did a record time turnaround on the reload. The air in the base didn’t smell good, acrid and smoky. I could see the others in my section turning around as well.

I launched and resumed squadron control. The damn minesweeper had managed to map out a good bit of our field and detonate some. On Command's orders, more scatter pack shuttles were launched and the blizzard of drone fire drove the IKN away from the station but when they’d outrun and attrited the attack they turned back. We had time to land rearm again and meet them.

Now they were seriously breaching the field, aided by the sweeper and electronic warfare ships. The sweeper caught a mine and then fire from us and others. She got in a bad way but we had to close to do it and the protecting frigates and cruiser fire began to get very hot. We lost Ensign Chalmers at that point.

The Klangs began to move in through gap that damn sweeper made and the Ride took heavy fire.Command told all both the surviving ships to run for it but Peacemaker was gutted by the next salvo and too close to us. Commander Ve’ll had a tractor shove it out of our area so we wouldn’t go up with it. Ride continued to fight and withdraw.

Between our fire and the station's defensive armament, none of the Klang anti-shipping missiles got to the Base Station. But that was playing a losing hand, we were devoted to defense. V’tell must have known we were all going to die but you couldn’t tell it her voice. She ordered us to attack, hoping to do as much damage as possible before we all went down. Logical to the end, huh?

The Klangs had switched all their big ship fire to the base.That minesweeper was punched up, leaking air and was hopefully hellacious inside. It began to disengage. I’d lost track of Ride by then.

We moved in to try and take some heat off the base, maybe buy time for help to arrive. It was a twisting burning nightmare. Fighters rolling, missiles detonating on ships or each other, screams on the tacnet as somebody got tone on the enemy, or they on us. The chaff packs helped but you only have so many.

I led first section in on the D6, dumping our weapons as soon as we could get lock, then pulling out to cover second section’s run. Now we were down to just phasers. Second section pushed the attack on the D6. They did damage but when the firing slackened they just weren’t there anymore.

Someone in command was still looking out for us because they cried warning of Klang fighters. My remaining six Ghostlights against eight fresh Klang Z-1s. We called them Zorans. A big-wedged shaped crate, can’t turn for shit but it’s armed to the teeth. These guys were good. The net was filled with calls to break, or to cover someone.

Bob Crete, my wingman, peeled away to chase a Zoran off my tail. After a few turns and burns I ended up head-to head with another Zoran. Bad idea as their bigger phasers damaged us more than we damaged them. But after that pass we pulled in behind them. Not as good a thing as it sounds. The Zoran has a tail gun.

Bob rejoined and we got phaser shots into the lead Zoran. We must have killed his tail gunner as the return fire stopped. The Zoran broke left and his wingman broke right. I went after the cripple to finish him. Bob stayed on the undamaged Zoran to keep him off me.

A huge flash caught my eye. The station was in bad shape…very bad. It had stopped firing and whose sections were missing. All three Klang cruisers were there, even the damaged one.

My phaser recycled and hit the Zoran in the center. It rolled and blew up. I got tone again. Not close but my phaser hadn’t recycled and it was on dogfight setting. I was out of chaff, so I shoved the throttle to the firewall and managed to sat ahead of the drone for a few precious heartbeats. Bob Create called for help but was cut off midword. I don’t know what happened to him. My weapon recycled and I did a high energy turn that almost overloaded the AG restraint field and blew enemy missile off me and then looked to reengage.

The Klingon ships were in tight to the base, beaming over troops I guess. Don’t know what they thought they were going to get out of that, the base was slagged. HUD showed no targets in range. I saw four Zorans struggling back toward the IKN force. None of our fighters showed. I was hoping the Ride might have disengaged and made it.

Game over. Time to leave. I shut down my active sensors and microsqueaked an ID signal, all I dared. Ghostlight 7 microsqueaked back that he was alive and also bugging out. So somebody from section two survived. I was glad of that.

Then I picked up a POISE beacon. Yeah, Pilot Out In Space Emitter for you big ship types. It was about 200Km away. I pointed my F8 in that direction on a slow impulse trajectory hoping to be mistaken for debris, if I was noticed at all.

My ship was missing half the port wing, irrelevant as I wasn’t going into atmosphere and had no missiles to hang off it. Half the systems were shot but we build them good with lots of redundancies and I wasn’t planning to fight.

The Klangs didn’t react to me. I was far from the station and with all the debris, radiation and hot gas in the area, they may not have seen me, may not have cared, or been busy with their own problems. They had their dead and dying too.

I finally reached the POISE positions and spotted a charred but intact ejection capsule. I closed to about twenty feet and signaled the pilot inside and got a wave back. I recovered my cockpit air, switched to suit air and popped the hatch. The F8 has a small cargo compartment behind the seat. It holds survival gear and anything else a pilot might need, including an air tent. I chucked it all and pushed my seat as far forward as the stops would allow. I’d fly cramped for a while.

I threw the magnetic line to the POISE capsule as the pilot deflated it. It took three tries as I was rusty in null gravity. The other pilot caught the line and hauled herself over.

In came Karen Dibi, the smallest pilot in the squadron, thank God. Hell’s Pixie we called her. She slipped into the back space and I closed the hatch. As soon as we had cockpit air on we pulled off our helmets. Frankly, we were both in tears. It was dark, scary and we were hurt. I held her hand against my face for an hour, unable to speak. It was the only comfort either of had had. We’d watched our side lose and die. It was so important to us both that someone had made it.

Karen told me her section had gotten caught between the cruiser they were attacking, a frigate and the Zorans. She’d punched out just before a missile caught her.

I turned Ghostlight One toward the rally point we’d established on the system’s edge, where supplies had been cached for such an emergency. All I could do was coast on impulse. Five hours on the low and slow. Any faster and would have attracted attention from the Klangs. I felt like a bug crossing a bathroom floor, hoping not to get stepped on. I felt naked, sure that the Klangs could see us and would be along to kill us any time now. I began to hate them for not killing us and putting us through the dread of waiting.

The rally point was an asteroid I had selected weeks earlier, a long way from even the next piece of rock.We put up a series of Quonset huts under a rock overhang and, in a wild fit of optimism, stocked it with enough supplies to operate the whole squadron for weeks.

When we finally reached it, I slid around to its shadow and used the low band to call in. I had to assume the Klangs were listening. I was overcome to get an answer and Karen slapped my shoulder until it hurt. Ghostlight Seven was there. Lars Oslow had even picked up Thera Melorian from Ghostlight 11.

Two shuttles jammed full of Patrolmen from the cutter Peacemaker had also made it. We settled toward the surface near the overhang. Four tiny ships. All that was left. Really only three. Ghostlight Seven had pancaked on landing but both of them made it out of the wreck okay.

Lars waved to me from where the Peacemaker’s two shuttles were parked under the overhang. He’d led them there, the lame leading the blind, as they have no idea about the rally point. They’d arrived shortly before us and were still in the shuttles. We got the main Quonset warmed up and everyone transferred. The Peacemaker crew moved carefully in their fragile emer-suits.Four Ghostlights and eighteen of the Patrol.

I asked if anyone had seen the Ride only to learn the D7 had caught her at the edge of the minefield and blew her up. Until then I’d entertained some hope for her.With the Ride gone I fell into a deep depression, probably everyone did, I just didn’t notice.

Everyone was exhausted and no one spoke for hours unless they had to. Finally, I kicked my own ass into gear and started acting like an officer again. I sent Karen and some Peacemaker crew to conceal Ghostlight Seven and salvage anything useful. We got organized, got food into people and then everyone just slept until they woke.

We were in the huts for three weeks, existing on e-rations. That’s where Karen and I became a couple. Against regs, I know, but it was another way of saying to the universe, we were still alive. It’s not uncommon after such a thing. There’s a reason for those regs, though. You only think you know fear until you fly combat with someone you love on your wing. Then you know fear.

We kept busy.One of the Peacemaker crew was a shuttle engineer. He got one of the shuttles set up as a passive EWO scout using stuff from both our fighters. Mostly we listened but we learned that station was gone. Not sure what use the IKN had for the scrap but they removed it. There was a lot of subspace chatter. Klangs have lousy signals discipline and things were going their way in the early days. They’d picked the time and place for the fight and done it well. We encountered tactics and ships we hadn’t seen before.

That minesweeper that hurt us so badly in the battle apparently tried one sweep too many in its damaged state. We spotted a bit of its hull heading for the outer dark and celebrated that. It also meant the field was still there and a hazard to the enemy.

We managed to restore the three vessels with what we could salvage from Lars’ fighter and spares on the rally base. There were even standard missiles stockpiled there. I nixed the idea of trying to do some guerilla activity with only one fighter. But we loaded them on my fighter and the shuttles. They couldn’t fire them but we might be able to reload me if I needed to fight. The rest we set to explode in a two days.

Having done all we could to maximize range and life support, we left. Everyone but the pilots took “lifeboat” drugs to settle into that near coma than minimizes life support impact. The shuttles headed outbound and I made a sweep of the battle area. Nothing. No ships. Most of the wreckage had exited the area. I was worried there might be an enemy sensor buoy left behind to record intruders, so I stayed at max sensor distance in case.The IKN might have left a small ship behind in case some of us still needed killing.

We were in flight for most of a hopeless week. I’d trank out for as long as I could, automatics would wake me if there was a need. Then I hit an ion trail. I followed it to the old auxiliary cruiser Starduster. The most beautiful rust bucket you ever saw.

They were amazed to see me and changed course to pick up the shuttles. With us aboard, she made a steady pace away from the disaster of the border, which suited us all fine. We four pilots took turns keeping Ghostlight One as an escort, and they were happy to have us earning our keep.

We made it back to Starbase Fifteen. Somebody looked up in his procedure manual what to do with a squadron of four pilots and one fighter. The answer was to send us back to Earth to become the nucleus of a revised squadron and keep the fighter with an active squadron. I learned later that if there had been only three of us we’d have been parceled out to the existing units. Four meant the squadron had survived and for morale purposes it was better to bring us back up to strength.

We retrained on F18s as the F8s were being phased out. Six months later, here we are back on a battle station close to the Klingon front lines. I fly lead, with Karen as wingman. Lars and Thera fly Ghostlights Seven and Eight.

It’s going to be a long war, I hope we didn’t use up all of our luck on Day One.

FMHC Note:Lieutenants Marr Oberu and Karen Dibi served two more years before being rotated to a training command. They married on the ship that took them back to Earth and that assignment.Karen Dibi wasinjured in a training accident and after a long hospitalization was put on reserve status. Matt Oberu was promoted to commander and ran Mars Base Fighter School.

Lars Oslow was shot down while serving with VF 124 and spent several years in a Klingon prisoner of war camp (after the Dolor Accord led to the IKN taking and exchanging prisoners.) He was liberated but did not return to flight status and survived the war.

Thera Melorian (Andorian) led an F-14 Squadron and died in the battle over Remus along with the carrier Macarthur.

Glossary

ASM Anti-shipping missile also called drones but in the fighter community referred to as missiles.

Chaff a small ECM emitter pod that emits false signals, visually and electronically.Ejectable when necessary to take a homing weapon off you.

ECM Electronic counter measures

HUD Head up display

Klang Pejorative for Klingon, reputedly the sound they made when you slammed their heads into hull metal.

PAINT A sensor return indicating a contact or target.

POISE Pilot out in space emitter.A microsqueak, low band emitter built into the escape capsule and spacesuit of all combat pilots to facilitate recovery

Tone: Audio indicating a missile lock on a target or that an enemy has locked.

Zoran: Allied Identifier for Klingon Z1 heavy fighter