Editing Into the Darkness, Go I (section)

==Act Three: [[Bardon Alpha]]==
[[Image:Bardon Alpha.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Bardon Alpha]]

===The Attack===

The ISS Rosenante arrived at the Bardon mining Facility with the intention of stealing a shipment of highly refined [[Boronite]] ore. Captain Salid opened a channel and demanded that the ore be turned over to them. When the facilities administrator, Alix Sorvex, declined, Salid ordered the facility attacked and all personnel except one killed. He ordered an away team to the surface to carry out his orders.

The Assault team was lead by the [[Mirror Universe]] version of [[Jennifer Caskie]]. Other members of the Mirror Universe crew, including Mike Rosenbauer and Aleesa Wyler accompanied her.  Rosenbauer commanded a security team called [[Mike's Maniacs]], which consisted of  Mirror Universe versions of Sodra, Tyrone Cooper, Mosh, T'Vyr and Eva Saint-Jean. There were also two disposable members of the [[ISS Rosenante]]'s Science team sent along to locate the boronite. once theier job was completed, they were executed and their bodies left behind.

During the raid, Jennifer Caskie murdered the administrator with a bladed-weapon, which seemed to be the preferred method of execution. All other members of the facility crew were killed with the exception of technician Dallas, who was seriously injured by [[Mike Rosenbauer]], and Talia Lorenzo who had managed to avoid detection by hiding inside the facility's computer core ventilation system.

===The Distress Signal===


While enroute to the [[Ikev Sector]] the [[USS Rosenante]] intercepted a distress communication from the Bardon Alpha Mining Facility. Captain Salid ordered an intercept course set and the Rosenante raced to respond to the signal. The signal itself was standard except for it's contents.  The signal claimed that they facility was under attack by a Federation starship, which was identified as the Rosenante. This was not possible as the Rosenante was several hours away when the attack took place.

When the ship arrived at the Bardon Alpha system, they detected no ships and received no replies to their hails.

Wishing to get to the bottom of the signals claim and to search for survivors, [[Rank|Captain]] Salid ordered an away team to the planet's surface to investigate.

The away team consisted of:

*[[Rank|Commander]] [[Jennifer Caskie]]
*[[Rank|Lieutenant]] [[Jon Nayati]]
*[[Rank|Lieutenant]] [[Thomas Jackson]]
*[[Rank|Ensign]] [[V'Shera]]
*[[Rank|Ensign]] [[Mitena Rixx]]
*[[Rank|Ensign]] [[Robert Smith]]
*[[Rank|Ensign]] [[Sam Lopez]]
*[[Rank|Ensign]] [[M'Epak]]
*[[Rank|Ensign]] [[Kimiko Ichijo]]
*[[Rank|Ensign]] [[Mike Rosenbauer]]

The away team beamed into the facility and immedately broke into two teams.  The first two teams began searching the area for survivors, these teams were comprised of Doctors Lopez and Ichijo as well as elements of the security team. The teams did not find any survivors on their assigned search areas but Doctor Ichijo did find a pair of bodies dressed in unusual uniforms, These two corpses were beamed back to the Rosenante for analysis. They were later discovered to belong to the two science officers from the [[ISS Rosenante]]. They had been executed by under orders from the Mirror Universe [[Jennifer Caskie]] once they had located the refined Boronite.

The second away team consisted of the operations and Engineering team. This group consisted of Lieutenant Jackson and ensigns Rixx and Smith. The team's orders were to recover tha facility's sensor logs for study. Because of the extent of the damage, this team was forced to work there way deeper into the facility until they reached the computer core. once there, they gained access to the core and began copying the data for transfer back to the ship.

The third team consisted of Commander Caskie, Lieutenant Nayati and Ensign Rosenbauer. They made thir way to the Administration center of the facility in the hiopes of accessing the facilities shipping manifests and security tapes. While there, they encountered the seriously wounded John Dallas. Dallas injured Rosenbauer, believing him to the be the same man who had assaulted him earlier.  in fact that person had been the [[Mirror Universe]] version of the same man. Dallas was subdued and beamed to the Rosenante for medical treatment.

Caskie and Nayati then uncovered the production manifests and the security logs for the facility. The former showed that the facility had been refining boronite to an exceptionally refined state while the latter uncovered a video image showing Rosenbauer, Caskie and Wyler complacent in the death of the administrator and the attack on the facility.

This information coupled with the mysterious appearance of a second Rosenante class starship, which could only have been built in secret, further convinced Captain Salid that there was indeed a high-level conspiracy ongoing.

===The Furious Arrives===

Despite warnings that they should leave the system by his senior officers, Captain Salid decided to remain at Bardon Alpha in the hopes of gathering some information that could give him a direction of pursuit.

Lieutenant [[Chance Raschen]] after reviewing the telemetry data from the facilities computers managed to extrapolate a possible course for the rogue vessel. However, before it could be pursued the USS furious arrived in the system.

The [[Prometheus Class]] [[starship]] was commanded by [[Rank|Captain]] [[Saleke]]. The [[Vulcan]] CO had once been the Commanding Officer of the [[USS Hades]] during the [[Federation Civil War]], and was renowned for his tactical skill.

Salid was surprised to see Saleke, and suspected that if he was not a willing participant in the conspiracy concerning the creation of an [[Omega Device]] that he may well be manipulated into serving the purposes of that conspiracy. Saleke ordered the surrender of the [[USS Rosenante]], but Salid, uncertain of the Captain's true loyalties declined and attempted to flee the scene in the hopes of exhonerating the names of the crew.

Saleke engaged the Rosenante, whom he considered attempting to escape from the scene of a crime and shot's were fired. Still reluctant to destroy the Furious due the the unknown position of Captain Saleke's affiliations, Salid ordered the long-range communications of the Furious destroyed. inital stages of the battle were ineffective. For the Furious this was caused in part because of the employment of the [[The Chimera Directive|SEDIS]] and in part by the superior shielding possessed by the [[Rosenante Class]] [[Starship]].

However, Saleke had a trick up his sleeve. Earlier, he had ordered the modification of five quantum torpedoes so that they were equipped with a [[Cloaking device|Phased Cloaking Device]]. These torpedoes when launched against the Rosenante ignored her shileds and caused significant damage to the latter vessel's Environmental Subsystems, lifeboats, secondary phaser array, forward tractor beam emitter and caused a hull breach in main Engineering. The advantage was short lived however, when Salid managed to deplete the Furious' forward shields enough to cause the vessel to veer off in order to avoid a volley of concussive photon torpedoes.

It was a manuever that would later become known as [[The Salid Gambit]]. With the Furious deviated from her pursuit. Salid managed to get the Rosenante into the [[Magnesite]] ore filled asteroid field in the Bardon system known as [[The Mill]]. It was an area familiar to [[Rank|Lieutenant]] [[Chance Raschen]], who had often used the area to avoid or lose [[Cardassian]] pursuit during the [[Cardassian]]-[[Federation]] War. Raschen had served in the [[Irregular Federation Forces]] during the [[Admiral Doenitz|Doentiz]] regieme, before defecting to the [[52nd Fleet]]. His knowledge of the area would prove invaluable to evading the Furious. The high concentration of magnesite ore prevented the use of most navigational sensors withn the confines of the Mill, thus preventing the furious from following the Rosenante. in addition, coupled with the [[The Chimera Directive|HISS]] Stealth System, the Furious was unable to detect the Rosenante from outside the field either.

Saleke ordered the Furious at best speed course around the field in the hopes of catching the Rosenante exitting the other side in the hopes of taking advantage of the Prometheus Class' Tri-vector assault mode. However, once on the other side, the furious detected the decaying signature left by the [[The Chimera Directive|Spiral warp Drive]] of the [[ISS Rosenante]]. 

Thinking that the Rosenante had already managed to clear the field and set course for [[Hexikor Prime]], Saleke ordered the Furious to pursue. Meanwhile the USS Rosenante remained in [[The Mill]] conducting repairs.