The failure of Operation Return and the loss of most, if not all of the assault fleet hit morale hard, and would continue to be hit hard in the days to come. After Operation Return there was the loss of over five hundred klingon and Federation ships at the Battle of Starbase 357. Then there was the defeat of Chancellor Gowron's "Grand Armada" over Qo'nos, and the genocide of the Klingon people. The breaking point came when a fleet of cloaked battlecruisers from the till then neutral Breen Confederacy ambushed and burned the 1st Fleet within five minutes, and the Dominion marched on Earth itself.

That last thing heard from the Federation was Admiral Picard's quadrant-wide order of Case: Burning Citadel. The order for all Starfleet ships to scatter, to run as far as they could and ensure that some part of the Federation survived. Nothing has been heard from Admiral Picard or his 19th Fleet since then.

Since then nothing's been heard but unconfirmed rumors. Apparently Gul Dukat was discovered conspiring with the Romulans and has been executed. Damar is now the leader of the Cardassian Empire and the Romulan Empire is being crushed by the might of the Dominion. Any day now you expect to hear of Romulus' fall.

You have gathered in a nebula with sensor dampening properties. Despite being in unclaimed space between the pre-war Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Cardassians you're safe from patrols because of how far you are from the frontlines. As far as you know you represent the last of your respective navies and have gathered in this temporary haven to discuss what to do next.

So, what's next, captain?

Ignore this.

The USS Pendragon could hear a hail in the nebula, and with so few ships remaining, Starfleet scattered to the wind, it made sense to make friends, allies. The last few days had been extremely trying, avoiding patrols, powering down all systems to appear dead and hope to be missed. It was all so far out of any known set of Starfleet protocols and training and knowing what to do next extremely hard. But at this moment even in pristine condition he was sore pressed whether to to just make a run for it, or to hold fast and wait for others to arrive.

"This is Captain Weston of the Pendragon. We hear you Cerberus. It is welcome to hear another voice."

Doubt, that was definitely one thing racing through the Gul's mind at this moment. Everything that could possibly be scarified to get here, had been, Far too many people had died just to get to this point, and thus far, it had been for naught. There was no grand armada of Starfleet ships, standing side-by-side with their Klingon allies, there was nary as single ship for light years. Yet, this was were the supposed staging point of the Federation. All that lay before him was a great big nebulae, that stretched on for lightyears.

Standing up from his perch, upon the Commander's chair he walked over to where the Nebulae was represented on the viewing display. "Ping the entire Nebula." he ordered, his subordinates immediately doing as told, and moments later a sensor ping attempted to scan the area, only to be denied it's only purpose in life. Karn didn't need to be told what this meant, he knew all to well about Nebulae such as this one. Sensor would simply not work in this kind of environment. The Klingons, Federation, and the Romulans could all have a secret base of operations inside this very nebula, while neither one of them would know of the others existence.

"Take us in." he ordered, "it's not that big, an entire armada can't be that hard to find."

Ignore this.

Weston looks on, the scars on his face seem to smile. "What would you suggest?" He remarks sourly. "We cannot let our way of life die. Something needs to be done. I may have no idea how we're to accomplish that, but it does not mean we should not try?" He sighed. "If we just scatter aimlessly the Dominion will pick us off eventually." He really had no idea what to do at this point, he really didn't, but giving up was not on his agenda, plus there had to be a way around it. One thing was sure though, he had no intention of going quietly, that was for sure. But now they needed a plan, and some kind of strategy even if it meant running for a while to find womewhere safe to hole up where no one would think to look, well not immediately at least.

Something bothered him though.

Sisko's death, and in effect the whole fleet seemed so unlikely that there must have been a turncoat, or something. Without proof though it was just pointless speculation and he needed something to show the others, and right now it was a hunch. Luckily a sensor dampening nebula is what they needed to regroup and make some kind of plan. He rubbed his bald head and felt tension, knowing full well that a headache was coming, but he'd have to just push through the pain.

Ignore this.

A shake of his head, made his intent clear. "Whether we lead a resurgence against the Dominion is largely irrelevant. We all have loved ones left behind, those that are in need of our help. We cannot just leave them to die. It is positively inhuman." He straightedned his uniform. "We need to search for survivors, get as many refugees to safey as possible. Then we can begin to plan and strategise. Tell me Captain, are you willing to leave the Federation to die? Do nothing while atrocities are conducted by our enemies. And let me be clear, they are our enemies for even if we leave the quadrant, should they ever learn of our survival we will be hunted down and killed."

Ignore this.

The Adira was completed taken by the Nebula in no time at all, it was positively huge after all. The tiny ship that was the Adira, was not even a drop in a bucket in compassion. It was an atom of that drop in a bucket. Still, while the Nebula emitted strange radiation that blocked more or less any type of sensor scan, there was still basic navigation. Becoming the Navigator of a Cardassian vessel, was by no means a mundane task, and only the best got that kind of position. While Karn already had a Navigator for his ship,. the fact he was dead complicated things to a great deal, it was for this reason he was forced to conscript one of the many civilians he had saved for the task.

'Trask', he had called himself has thus far, been true to his word, in that he was a good Navigator, one even better than the previous holder of the position. Karn felt confident enough in the man's skill to not get them all killed, which was all that was necessary for Trask to maintain his position, at least for now anyways.

"Detecting foreign signals, possible communication between several vessels." reported one of the bridge crew.

Karn nodded, and gave the order to converge upon the presumed origins of those signals. It could be a trap, or even a signal emitter doing naught, but it's intended purpose. But in this Nebula, there was only one way to find out what it was, and that was to get right up in it's face, and hope for the best.

The ship rocked.

David stood on the deck of his starship, staring at the forward viewer, watching as a Jem’Hadar fighter bore down on him, its phaser banks spitting its energy to disperse harmlessly across the Sekigahara’s shields, leaving only the wake of the impact of forced particles against the shields to bear witness of the Dominion’s attack. David stood, as he did for all battles, in the center of his bridge, believing in the principal that a man could not fight his battles from a seated position. He would stand to the last possible moment. It was his pride, his strength. It was what gendered the myths about him, the legend that circled around in the bowels of the ship, as long as David Nash stood on the deck plates of an Achillies class starship, Q himself would be hard pressed to make him fail.

“Captain, sensors show three more Dominion ships on an intercept course,” the tactical officer spoke as David felt his ship rock again, the Sekigahara sitting quiet, the monstrous beast biding its time while the fly continues to buzz in its ears to make itself known. David could take the small assault ship down with one command, one volley of the arsenal of his starship, but it was serving a purpose. Dominion sensors still were inferior to those of the Federation, and though the one fly he had to contend with was about to be joined by three of its older, larger brothers, David’s eyes also held another prize off in the distance. A centaur class vessel limped just on the edge of sensor range, and if the Dominion were to proceed unhindered.

“How close to Paulson nebula?” Nash asked, while turning his eyes back to his science officer, who continued to work on raising the Centaur class starship on subspace. The science officer simply shook his head, Nash’s mind theorizing that their comm systems must have failed, or be failing. They were deaf, but were they blind of what was coming their way?

“Paulson Nebula, 0.561 lightyears away. Estimated 63 minutes at full impulse,” the answer returned, and Nash’s eyes looked out the forward viewer again. The nebula had its advantages, tactically. Sensors were useless within, nobody could scan its interior, and nobody within could see more than 300 feet off their bow. The Dominion would be fools to follow him into it. But he couldn’t simply make a break for it. He knew the sensor range of the first starship, but the others that headed towards him at high warp? Would they be able to see the other Federation starship?

“Captain, Dominion starships entering into the system,” the tactical officer spoke, and David casually, as though ordering someone to walk across the room, ordered the strike that would swat the initial fly. The forward pulse phaser banks of the Sekigahara suddenly, and with lethal force, became active. Each firing bursts of six pulses at the Dominion starship, the small craft rocking with each impact, as Nash watched the first three beat down the Dominion shields, the other three finding their mark above the small vessel’s warp core, causing first a hull breach which ultimately ended the small ship’s threat in a brilliant explosion.

“Helm, Come to 195.167, bring us around,” Nash spoke, and felt the subtle movements as the ship whipped around to face the three larger dominion attack cruisers that were bearing down on his position. He stood, watching the three forms growing every larger on the view screen, impatiently tapping his foot, waiting. In his mind, cursing the damn sluggish Centaur, counting seconds, breaths, as though down to his last. He would fight. That’s what he was born to do. The logic of it made little sense. The Centaur carried less crew, had less potential than the Sekigahara, but it was unsuspecting. The Dominion would simply ambush it, toss it away in the first volley… a waste of life.

was this any different? he asked himself, as he watched the forward viewer, keeping his stone faced mask on his face, that look every captain had when the situation became tense and he knew all eyes were on him. They were well trained, all waiting with baited breath for the order to turn and make a run for the Nebula… an order every one of them was praying would come swiftly, and yet all knew wasn’t guaranteed to come at all.

“Target the lead ship,” Nash spoke, his mind still counting, his eyes still looking on the forward viewer, as the Dominion ships dropped from warp, slowing to sublights… to engage with the Federation battleship.

“Captain, USS Johnston sends word. Communication and warp power restored. Setting course and engaging at maximum warp,” the communication’s officer, a Vulcan woman dressed in a sharp looking red uniform spoke in her dull, calm voice. Nash exhaled, his head stopped counting.

“Acknowledge the Johnston’s transmission and tell them good luck,” Nash ordered, his words coming quickly now, “Lieutenant O’Keif, I want a volley of torpedo’s launched at the lead ship the moment before we break for warp. Helm, set course for the nebula, maximum warp.

The orders given, and carried out without hesitation. Nash didn’t believe in giving orders, then needing to activate them with a command unless he specified a mark. The Sek spat forward a volley of torpedoes at the nose of the center Dominion starship, before streaking forward, then curving back at full impulse a moment before entering high warp.

“Keep an eye on those ships, and let me know when he reach the Nebula,” David spoke, as he took his seat, and his eyes met those of his first officer, another human male quite a bit younger than the old warhorse. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t’ feel like he needed to. It was foolish. And it was the right thing to do.

Captain Weston watched in dismay as the other ship left the nebula, clearly unable to reconcile trying to destroy the Dominion with patience. Sometimes captain these days were just too impetuous but there was nothing that could be done about it now. both he, his crew, and the ship could only wait to see if others would make it to the relative safety of this nebula. For now they had the oppotunity to plan, wait and to decide what to do; although unless greater numbers arrived here there would come a time when there would be no choice but to leave the nebula and begin the search for dissenters. In the meantime he had ordered all identification removed from his vessel's outer hull, and encryption algorithyms put in place to allow instant wipe of the computer should the need arise, in the hopes of safeguarding their identities.

Although he knew that would only work short term as soon as the Dominion could access the Federation databases facial recognition would instantly identify them. He was currently working with the Doctor to find a way around that, some way to ensure all those that died left no remains but so far all attempts had been unsuccessful. He knew that in order to win he had to think outside of the box, and do things that would usually be regarded as unthinkable. Sure they could probably rig some kind of huge bomb, if they got close enough to the wormhole, but such a thing could possibly genocide the Bajoran species.

When you become the enemy you have already lost a little voice within served to remind him that the goal was not wanton destruction. It wasn't about being a hero, but about seeing those that were important, and being a pariah was no way to accomplish that. He was interrupted from his deep thoughts by a voice.

Looking up, "What, what was that?"
"Sir."
"Sorry, I was a bit deep in thought,"
"I noticed" remarked the female andorian at the tactical. A sly grin alighted across her features.
He smiled back, briefly, the weight of the world on his shoulders, or so it felt it. "What do you have?"
"We have one ship wiithin the nebula, but the sensor scattering nature is making it hard to identify."
"So we have no idea if it is friendly or not?"
"Not unless you want to get closer?"
"In for a penny." He noticed as the officer at the helm took them toward the target, and then everything went a little mad.
"It's Cardassian sir!" The andorian screamed in alarm. "Raising shields!"
He was about to say not to do that, but all things considering it would have been stupid to countermand, what with recent events. "I wonder what in the hell they're doing here?"
"Could they be hiding, the same as us?" Kathryn, his First Officer chose to interject.
"But why?" He inquired, a sense of urgency in his voice. "They won."
"Well you can bet that if we ee them, they'll see us too."
"Good point." He paused, unsure whether to open fire, run, or....should he do the unthinkable? "Open a hail and let's see what they have to say."

The Adira slowly, but surely drifted towards the origins of the signal, the ship's Impulse engines only given a fraction of their power, mostly to keep the ship unnoticed for as long as possible, and the fact there really was no rush. Only a fool rushes to their death, or at least that's what Karn liked to think. Eventually, the ship got within visual range of the signal origin, while it was for the most part obscured by the dense nebula cloud. For a trained eye, it was all too easy to spot an Federation ship, especially since it technically wasn't trying too hard to hide.

"Warp signature detected." reported a sensor operative, "What limited scans can tell, it appears to be of Starfleet make." This news pleased the Adira's captain greatly, this all but confirmed the presence of the Federation Fleet, salvation was at hand. He was just about to order that a channel be opened with the nearest vessel, when one of his subordinates called out that they were being hailed. The vessel in question, didn't seem to be identifying it's self as Starfleet, or Klingon, but considering the circumstances it was fairly obvious as to who it was.

He composed himself, standing in front of the viewing screen, the dark and small Bridge of the Galor-class was nothing to marvel at, unlike the bridge of Starfleet vessels, so he ordered the lights dimmed, no one need see the battle damage.

"This is the Cardassian star ship, Adira, as her captain, I am formerly requesting assistance from the Federation, and her allies." said Karn, he didn't want to sound desperate, as much as he was, but he needed to sound strong and able, if he wasn't careful, they'd just throw him and his crew in a prison, ignoring the fact none of them are criminals. "Be advised," he added on. "I am carrying over three-thousand cardassian refugees."