Yoritomo Mission 07: "Say Goodbye?"

Captain's Log, Supplemental, Stardate 20201.27, "Say Goodbye?"

Captain Alorian Dax, former Commanding Officer of the USS Yoritomo reporting.

This is the final entry for the ship that was once known as the USS Yoritomo.

We were sent from our Science mission at the "Black Cluster" to investigate the disappearance of the USS Horus. When we arrived at the coordinates, we found only debris. We managed to recover parts of their final log. It was a protected sensor log from their flight recorders. They had been to an area near the Neutral Zone and had been destroyed by what appeared to be Orion Pirates and a ship of unknown origin.

We were cleared to investigate the Horus' last known mission coordinates near the Neutral Zone and proceeded into the area. It was inside a nebula, which made sensor readings almost impossible.

We quickly discovered that they had stumbled upon an invading Romulan fleet disguised as Orion Pirates. We tried to avoid them as much as possible, and fought when we had to, but there were too many. We finally tried to make a break for it, only to run face to face with the larger part of the fleet which was returning from having struck SB209. We had only been fighting the supply convoy and her escorts until then.

The Romulans gave pursuit, and we headed back into the nebula. Unknown to us at the time, the USS Avenger had appeared from behind their ranks and caused quite a stir. She was unable to be picked up by their sensors and managed to destroy several of their ships and route them enough to come into the nebula and find us. We left the nebula under the cover of the Avenger and tried to make repairs before the fleet returned. It was not going to do much good trying to run without full warp power restored.

A Bird of Prey managed to sneak close to us while cloaked and fired a plasma torpedo almost point blank into the belly of the ship. We had managed to evacuate all personnel to the Avenger, so it became a last ditch effort when the Romulans came charging back at us. We scuttled the Yoritomo while charging her into the middle of their fleet with overcharged impulse engines. She went out in a blaze of glory, taking several ships with her as it detonated a deuterium tanker in their fleet.

It was a sad thing to see the Yoritomo die, but she went out fighting. Cdr Thrawn and I thought we were going down with the ship as Romulans had boarded her as we charged in, beaten and failing shields, debris strewn out behind us. Fortunately a quick thinking Vulcan Tactical Officer on the Avenger managed to find a way to beam us off the ship in time to save us. I don't know if I shall ever recover from the loss of the Yoritomo. She was my first ship...and you never forget your first...