Battle near Xahea

The Battle near Xahea was a major engagement between the Federation Starfleet and a fleet of Section 31 ships commandeered by Control in 2258. The battle was fought in the vicinity of Xahea. (DIS: "Such Sweet Sorrow", "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2")

Prelude[]

In 2257, the USS Discovery stumbled upon a Sphere. However, the complexity of its communication and the breadth of its knowledge overloaded Discovery's systems, causing widespread malfunctions that the crew misinterpreted as the effects of a computer virus. Eventually, Commander Saru realized that a repeating pattern of ultraviolet lights being produced by the "virus" were linguistic in nature, and surmised the sphere's intent.

At Saru's urging, Captain Christopher Pike had the Discovery drop shields and allow the sphere full access, enabling it to complete the transmission and translation of its experiences. Meanwhile, the sphere's internal temperature rose from under 10,000 to over 10.03⁶ Kelvin, a sign of its impending core collapse. A nanosecond before its death, the sphere reversed the polarity of its stasis field to push Discovery clear of its detonation. Its last sensor observation was of Spock's shuttle. (DIS: "An Obol for Charon")

While in orbit of Kaminar, Lieutenant commander Airiam was corrupted by an unknown force from the 28th century, which forced her to transfer all the information the sphere had gathered on artificial intelligence to Control, which later betrayed Starfleet and massacred the crew of Section 31 Headquarters by shutting off life support, though it was able to hide this fact by creating holograms of Admiral Patar and other Section 31 leaders and using them to communicate with Section 31 and Starfleet. (DIS: "Light and Shadows", "Project Daedalus")

While reviewing her mother's mission logs, Michael Burnham learned that her mother was responsible for placing the Sphere in Discovery's path. This was after she'd tried to destroy it to keep its data away from Control, which took over Leland. (DIS: "Perpetual Infinity")

Discovery continued to investigate the red bursts while keeping ahead of Leland/Control, and detected a fourth signal orbiting the Klingon world of Boreth. There, they obtained a time crystal, and began work to create a Daedalus suit of their own in order to take the Sphere data to the future, beyond Control's reach. However, they were surrounded by Section 31's fleet, now fully under Control's domination. Pike summoned the Enterprise to take on Discovery's crew before setting the ship to auto-destruct, in an effort to prevent Control from obtaining the Sphere data. Pike was left with no other option but to set the Discovery's auto-destruct system and call the Enterprise for immediate evacuation of the ship's crew. (DIS: "Through the Valley of Shadows")

However, they discovered that the Sphere data would also not allow the ship to be destroyed, leading to a change of plans – to bring Discovery itself into the future, and the data with it. After the decision was made to destroy Discovery to prevent its capture by Control, the ship deployed evacuation corridors to transfer its crew to the Enterprise. Discovery had been unable to delete the Sphere's data from its computers, and had failed to destroy the data by auto-destructing the ship. A new plan was emerging: to create a new Red Angel suit, to be powered by the crystal from Boreth, charged with the help of Po, and use it to send Discovery itself on a one-way trip to the future, thus keeping the Sphere data out of reach of Control. Pike and other essential personnel returned to the ship to investigate a fifth red burst on the planet Xahea, where they welcomed aboard its queen, Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po, who had developed a dilithium incubator that could be used to charge the time crystal. Discovery began retrofitting its fleet of shuttles and landing pods with enhanced weaponry, joined together with similarly-modified craft from the Enterprise, to combat the Section 31 fleet. At the same time, work continued on preparing the Daedalus suit, which would be worn by Burnham, as her mother's DNA was encoded into the suit schematics and she was the closest match. However, it was revealed that it would be a one-way trip, as the energy needed to charge the crystal with Po's incubator would make it unstable. The senior staff all chose to remain with Discovery and make the trip with Burnham. Pike relinquished command of Discovery back to Saru for the journey, and returned to the Enterprise to prepare for the battle to come. He also allowed Lieutenant Ash Tyler to carry out a mission. (DIS: "Such Sweet Sorrow")

The battle[]

Section 31's fleet arrived and Control, speaking through Leland, demanded the sphere data from Discovery. Saru, his crew, and Captain Pike's crew aboard the Enterprise manned their stations as Control deployed drone ships. Control's fleet fought hard against Discovery and the Enterprise. However, Control was able to lodge a photon torpedo into Enterprise's hull. Admiral Cornwell and Captain Pike attempted to disarm the mine, but Cornwell had to stay behind and detonate it. She was killed in the explosion. Reinforcements arrived from Kaminar, the Klingon Empire, and Xahea to assist Discovery. The Klingons under Chancellor L'Rell were able to destroy several of the NCIA-93 type ships while the Ba'ul fighters under kelpien priest Siranna took the drones.

As Michael Burnham donned the new suit, and with the help of Spock aboard a shuttle left Discovery, Control boarded Discovery. He was confronted by Captain Georgiou and Commander Nhan and demanded they allow him access to the sphere data. The three of them fought as Control attempted to find the data. During this time, Burnham and Spock realized that she needed to travel back to set five bursts in order to close the time loop: at the Hiawatha, Terralysium, Kaminar, Boreth, and Xahea. As Burnham started the five signals in the past, Control was lead to the Reaction cube by Georgiou. Control was trapped in there, and tried to escape. After Burnham had done so, she created a sixth burst, aimed at helping Discovery cross through the wormhole created by the suit. During this time, Georgiou, remembering what Burnham told her about Gant, had the cube magnetized. Control, in Leland's body, died as the nanobots were destroyed. Burnham and Spock then agreed that she would create a seventh burst if the ship safely made it to the future. As Discovery entered the wormhole, Control's fleet was rendered inert and was destroyed. Several months later, the seventh and final burst was observed.

Aftermath[]

Following the battle, Pike, his first officer Una, Spock, and acting Section 31 chief Tyler all reported to Starfleet Command that the Discovery was destroyed with all hands. Spock and Tyler, as Section 31's acting commander, furthermore recommended that in order to prevent such incidents with Section 31 from happening again, that all participants in the event were to be barred from talking about Discovery, her crew, or her spore drive under penalty of treason. Only officials such as Ambassador Sarek and his wife were immune from Starfleet's interrogation. (DIS: "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2")

Federation records of the event stated that Discovery was destroyed during the battle. However, information on its spore drive was stricken from the record. Upon her arrival on Hima in 3188, Burnham sent the red angel suit back into the wormhole to send the seventh signal. The suit self-destructed after the last signal. Arriving in 3188 and 3189 respectively, Burnham and the Discovery encountered a galaxy where the United Federation of Planets had largely collapsed as a result of a cataclysmic event known as the Burn, in which dilithium suddenly and inexplicably went inert, causing any starship with an active warp core to explode. Unwilling to allow this future to stand and recognizing that people still believed in the Federation's ideals, Burnham and, when they reunited, the rest of the crew of Discovery pledged to discover what caused the Burn and restore the Federation to its former glory. Upon their arrival at Federation Headquarters, Starfleet Commander in chief Charles Vance, despite the Temporal Accords, allowed Discovery to rejoin the Federation and Starfleet. (DIS: "That Hope Is You, Part 1", "Far From Home", "People of Earth", "Die Trying")

Despite their best attempts, the people of Kiley 279 had unwittingly discovered the battle and, thanks to the various warp signatures during the battle, had reverse-engineered the Matter-antimatter reaction to create a "warp bomb" to use in their growing conflict. In 2259, the USS Archer mistook a test of the weapon for the planet's first usage of warp drive and went to initiate First contact. The resulting incident with it and the Enterprise lead to a greater push for General Order 1 to be the driving force for the Federation as the "Prime Directive". (SNW: "Strange New Worlds")

When the Discovery was time cycling due to a time bug, it briefly traveled back in time to the Battle near Xahea. With a chuckle, Burnham recalled to Commander Rayner that it was a tough battle. (DIS: "Face the Strange")

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