Trust K'mpec to be the one to inject some much needed humor into this story... Very much the meeting I've been looking forward to!
Really liking Trujillo being bigger than her legend.
Thanks!! rbs
Starship Reykjavík - An Idiot's Guide to Gunboat Diplomacy
- Thread starter Gibraltar
- Start date
Thanks!! rbs
We're going to need a new Feynman.
* * *
The Klingon K’mpec stared at Trujillo from across her ready room desk. An untouched cup of something called raktajino sat in front of the young man. Glal occupied the couch along the wall, leaning forward with his elbows atop his knees, thick three-fingered hands clasped.
“What can we expect from the warring factions as we approach the homeworld?” Trujillo asked.
K’mpec sat back in his chair, scrutinizing the woman seated opposite him. “A warning has been tendered, Commodore. What you just experienced is as subtle as my people get. Someone obviously suspects you may be doing more than retrieving your personnel. The next confrontation will exact a much higher price.”
Trujillo shot a look at Glal, who grimaced behind his beard.
“I’m sorry,” Trujillo said, “how should I properly address you? Do you hold a military rank or some kind of familial title?”
He chuckled ruefully in response. “I am my father’s third son, functionally the ‘spare.’ Little has been expected of me, and I have rather enjoyed living down to those expectations. As a member of a family on the High Council, I hold the rank of sogh in the imperial navy, but I have never actually served.” He took an experimental sip of his raktajino and appeared to find it passable. “I spend most of my waking hours drinking and whoring, Commodore.”
Trujillo sat forward, craning her neck to look around K’mpec to address Glal. “Him? This is the kid who’s going to stop Klingon coreward expansion?”
“To that point, Commodore,” K’mpec offered, “my father was opposed to the empire’s present military adventurism. I’ve always felt our people need to expand to survive. Without wars, too many of our young men and women turn on each other in pointless factional squabbling. If they were to die enlarging our empire’s borders, at least then those deaths would count for something.”
Trujillo observed K’mpec as though weighing the wisdom of ejecting him in an escape pod. After a moment she said pointedly, “Then why am I hauling you back to Qo’noS?”
A slow smile spread across K’mpec’s face, and despite herself, Trujillo felt the hairs on the nape of her neck rise. She had seen smiles like this in the past, but only rarely. Smiles such as this belonged to mad men, or those bent on vengeance who no longer cared for their own safety. It promised horrors beyond imagining.
“I will retake my family’s place on the Council, Commodore. In so doing, I will kill every last person associated with the attack on my family and the assassination of my father. I will drown the soil of the homeworld with their blood, the blood of their entire families, their retainers, and their allies. I will burn their homes and give away their holdings and property as gifts to those who follow my banner. I will stab, and slash and cut until my arms are so fatigued that I can no longer hold a knife. Then I will have one of my men bind the blade to my hand and use their arms to move my own so that I may go on killing until the deed is finally done.”
He leaned forward, eyes fixed on Trujillo’s as he continued. “I will vote to curtail the expansion because it defies the will of the enemies of my house, not because I care about my father’s final cause. You see, I have cared for nothing and no one until now, Commodore, except satisfying my own base desires. But now… now I’ve suddenly discovered that I actually loved the family I so often ignored and rebelled against. The family taken from me by cowards who struck under the guise of pirates and raiders.”
He stood, slowly, and suddenly the unremarkable young man who had entered her office minutes earlier seemed to have been replaced by someone larger than life. A man imbued with dark purpose. “When I am done, not even the chancellor himself will dare stand in my way.” He glanced back at Glal, then looked to Trujillo once again. “Do you have any further questions for me, Commodore?”
All the air seemed to have been drawn out of the compartment.
Trujillo swallowed, finding her voice at last. “No. No, Sogh K’mpec, I think that about covers it.”
K’mpec turned and departed, joined by a security escort as he exited the ready room.
After the hatch had closed, Glal expelled a long breath. “That man is psychotic,” he assessed gravely.
“No,” Trujillo countered. “Someone reminded him that he is a Klingon. They will regret it, but not for very long, I fear.”
* * *
The Klingon K’mpec stared at Trujillo from across her ready room desk. An untouched cup of something called raktajino sat in front of the young man. Glal occupied the couch along the wall, leaning forward with his elbows atop his knees, thick three-fingered hands clasped.
“What can we expect from the warring factions as we approach the homeworld?” Trujillo asked.
K’mpec sat back in his chair, scrutinizing the woman seated opposite him. “A warning has been tendered, Commodore. What you just experienced is as subtle as my people get. Someone obviously suspects you may be doing more than retrieving your personnel. The next confrontation will exact a much higher price.”
Trujillo shot a look at Glal, who grimaced behind his beard.
“I’m sorry,” Trujillo said, “how should I properly address you? Do you hold a military rank or some kind of familial title?”
He chuckled ruefully in response. “I am my father’s third son, functionally the ‘spare.’ Little has been expected of me, and I have rather enjoyed living down to those expectations. As a member of a family on the High Council, I hold the rank of sogh in the imperial navy, but I have never actually served.” He took an experimental sip of his raktajino and appeared to find it passable. “I spend most of my waking hours drinking and whoring, Commodore.”
Trujillo sat forward, craning her neck to look around K’mpec to address Glal. “Him? This is the kid who’s going to stop Klingon coreward expansion?”
“To that point, Commodore,” K’mpec offered, “my father was opposed to the empire’s present military adventurism. I’ve always felt our people need to expand to survive. Without wars, too many of our young men and women turn on each other in pointless factional squabbling. If they were to die enlarging our empire’s borders, at least then those deaths would count for something.”
Trujillo observed K’mpec as though weighing the wisdom of ejecting him in an escape pod. After a moment she said pointedly, “Then why am I hauling you back to Qo’noS?”
A slow smile spread across K’mpec’s face, and despite herself, Trujillo felt the hairs on the nape of her neck rise. She had seen smiles like this in the past, but only rarely. Smiles such as this belonged to mad men, or those bent on vengeance who no longer cared for their own safety. It promised horrors beyond imagining.
“I will retake my family’s place on the Council, Commodore. In so doing, I will kill every last person associated with the attack on my family and the assassination of my father. I will drown the soil of the homeworld with their blood, the blood of their entire families, their retainers, and their allies. I will burn their homes and give away their holdings and property as gifts to those who follow my banner. I will stab, and slash and cut until my arms are so fatigued that I can no longer hold a knife. Then I will have one of my men bind the blade to my hand and use their arms to move my own so that I may go on killing until the deed is finally done.”
He leaned forward, eyes fixed on Trujillo’s as he continued. “I will vote to curtail the expansion because it defies the will of the enemies of my house, not because I care about my father’s final cause. You see, I have cared for nothing and no one until now, Commodore, except satisfying my own base desires. But now… now I’ve suddenly discovered that I actually loved the family I so often ignored and rebelled against. The family taken from me by cowards who struck under the guise of pirates and raiders.”
He stood, slowly, and suddenly the unremarkable young man who had entered her office minutes earlier seemed to have been replaced by someone larger than life. A man imbued with dark purpose. “When I am done, not even the chancellor himself will dare stand in my way.” He glanced back at Glal, then looked to Trujillo once again. “Do you have any further questions for me, Commodore?”
All the air seemed to have been drawn out of the compartment.
Trujillo swallowed, finding her voice at last. “No. No, Sogh K’mpec, I think that about covers it.”
K’mpec turned and departed, joined by a security escort as he exited the ready room.
After the hatch had closed, Glal expelled a long breath. “That man is psychotic,” he assessed gravely.
“No,” Trujillo countered. “Someone reminded him that he is a Klingon. They will regret it, but not for very long, I fear.”
* * *
I was really looking forward to a memorable K'mpec and boy did you deliver!!!
OMG I LOVE this guy!!!
Thanks!! rbs
OMG I LOVE this guy!!!
Thanks!! rbs
Same thing?
Well, at the very least he’s complicated. Complicated is dangerous. Also, a lot of fun. One thing is for sure, the dude has mellowed out quite a bit in his latter years.
He had settled all his scores...
Indeed, the K'mpec we see in TNG had led the High Council for longer than anyone in Klingon history. Only a warrior who has vanquished all his enemies rules for so long, and must eventually fall victim to intrigues and poison, rather than a public challenge of his power.
* * *
Composition of Task Force Scythe
USS Reykjavík – Shangri-La-class attack cruiser – Commodore Nandi Trujillo
USS Exeter – Excelsior-class heavy cruiser – Captain Olaf Kiersonn
USS Shras – Andor-class missile cruiser – Captain Oshath Th'thaorhok
USS Hathaway – Constellation-class cruiser – Captain Ruprecht Sheinbaum
USS Zelenskyy – Miranda-class cruiser – Lt. Commander Eldred Withropp
USS Vespula – Wasp-class frigate – Commander Va'obb
USS al-Ashtar – Saladin-class destroyer – Lt. Commander Marc Chu
USS Falmouth – Nereus-class Starship Tender – Lieutenant Neled Zomhura
__________________________________________________________________________
Task Force Scythe, led by their Klingon escort, dropped out of warp at the edge of the Qo’noS system, the seat of power for the many worlds of the Klingon Empire.
“We are secured from warp, sir,” Naifeh advised from the Helm. “H'behln has set a course for Qo’noS at one-third impulse.”
“Match course and speed. Ops, transmit the same to the task force,” Trujillo ordered.
Glal stepped over to Trujillo’s chair from his post on the bridge’s upper level. “Into the belly of the beast,” he said in a grim whisper.
She turned to look at him, her jaw set tightly. “Never thought I’d live to see Qo’noS with my own eyes.”
“I know the feeling, sir,” Glal replied. “I can’t believe we’ve made it this far without another attack.”
Trujillo nodded slowly, turning her attention back to the main viewer. “Easier for a hostile faction to stage their attack here at our destination, rather than somewhere along the way. This is where they’ll show their hand.”
She had already briefed the other commanding officers in the task force as to their rules of engagement should hostilities erupt here. So long as the violence was exclusively between Klingon factions, they were not to intervene. However, Trujillo had authorized all ships in the task force to defend themselves if attacked directly.
“ETA to Qo’noS at our present speed is one hour, seventeen minutes, sir.”
“Acknowledged.” Trujillo sat a little straighter in her chair and said, “Ops, open a channel to Qo’noS orbital control.”
“Channel open, sir.”
“Klingon Control, this is Commodore Trujillo of the USS Reykjavík, leading a Starfleet task force to retrieve Federation personnel from your system. I am requesting permission to enter orbit of Qo’noS to transfer our people over.”
There was a noticeable delay, prompting Trujillo to prop her chin on her fist, elbow braced on the chair arm as she fumed silently. It was so like the Klingons to convey insult via bureaucracy, stalling as intentional slight. I do not wait for thee, thee shall wait for me.
Finally, the vaguely disinterested reply. “This is Klingon Control. We grant you orbital privileges on the authority of the High Council. You may assume station at the coordinates to follow. Your weapons and shields will remain powered down. If you violate these provisions, you will be destroyed.”
Trujillo grunted defiantly, then checked herself. This was neither the time nor place to provoke the Klingons. She was a guest in their house and reminded herself that she must behave accordingly and demonstrate the respect they were due. “Understood. We will comply.”
She shifted in her seat, nodding in the direction of the Operations station. “Mister Shukla, raise the command center for our operation here,” she ordered, forcing herself back to the task at hand.
A moment later a bald, dark-skinned Deltan female appeared on the viewscreen. Though her collar was command-white and she bore a full commander’s rank insignia on the epaulets of her jumpsuit, the fact that she wore engineering coveralls rather than a standard uniform rankled Trujillo’s finely honed sense of military decorum. So many burdens to be suffered today, she thought sardonically to herself.
“Reykjavík, welcome to Qo’noS,” the woman said brightly. “I’m Commander Osaoi of the Joint Orbital Interdiction Mission.”
“Good afternoon, Commander. I’m Commodore Trujillo with Task Force Scythe. We are to be your ride. May I presume you and your people are finalizing preparations to depart?”
Osaoi nodded, her expression darkening. “That’s correct, Commodore. It’s difficult to see all we’ve accomplished here jeopardized by politics, but I understand the Federation’s position on this. We’ve been turning over control of the operation to the Klingons for the past week, but they’ve been dragging their feet. As a result, some of our personnel are still trickling in from our ancillary outposts.”
“If the Klingons are assuming control, isn’t that their problem, Commander?” Trujillo asked.
Osaoi looked incredulous. “If we botch this handover, a planet dies, sir. The High Council and the Klingon military may be at fault here, but I’m sure you’ll agree that the five-billion other people down there aren’t deserving of that fate.”
Trujillo suppressed a wince, but only just. “My apologies, Commander Osaoi. I’ve been raised to see the Klingons as the enemy, and my old soldier’s bones are aching the closer I come to Qo’noS. You’re right, of course.”
The Deltan’s answering smile signified an understanding between the two women, and a spark of mutual respect. “No apology necessary, sir. These are uncertain and troubling times.”
“How may we be of assistance?” Trujillo asked, surrendering her illusory sense of control over the scenario.
“We could use some help collecting our people from our harder to reach outposts within the PDD, sir.”
“PDD?” Trujillo asked.
“Sorry, sir. Praxis Debris Disk, the orbital deconfliction zone we’ve established to safeguard the planet from descending meteoric fragments. Some of the areas of the disk are quite dense, most notably the intact shards of Praxis that we’ve glued together with our gravimetric web network.”
Trujillo’s eyes widened. “You have people… inside what’s left of that moon?”
“Yes, sir,” Osaoi confirmed. “We have manned operations and monitoring stations within the shell. You’d need a small ship or shuttle craft to reach most of them.”
“You’ll have them,” Trujillo affirmed. “We’ll be in orbit in a little over an hour.”
They terminated the comms link after a further exchange of logistics information, prompting Glal to step over and lean in towards Trujillo. “Where’s the rest of our escort? If a Klingon task force were approaching Earth or Tellar Prime, you’d best believe we’d have more than one ship out there.”
“You know the answer to that,” she chided him quietly.
The Tellarite grumbled, “Yes, they’re all out there, cloaked. Both our enemies, and our… allies, for want of a better term.”
“They’re running the same risks we are, Commander. Allies, co-conspirators, take your pick.”
An alarm warbled at the Science station. “Commodore, I’m picking up some rather intense electromagnetic interference in the upper atmosphere of Qo’noS, overlapping scattering fields across the spectrum.” This from Rachel Garrett.
Trujillo pursed her lips. “Might I imagine such interference would prohibit beaming a person safely to the surface, Ensign?”
Garrett looked up from her sensor returns. “Yes, sir. Most definitely.”
Shukla looked over his shoulder from Operations. “They couldn’t keep that up for very long, sir. Widespread transport jamming would cause enormous economic damage in mere days. Commerce and transportation, both civilian and military…”
“Oh, yes, Lieutenant. I’m certain this arrangement is in our honor,” Trujillo interrupted. “Someone down there doesn’t want us depositing K’mpec on the surface. General Kang told me something like this was to be expected.”
“Which also means they anticipate this situation being resolved quickly,” Glal noted darkly.
Trujillo accessed her swing-arm console, bringing it up over her lap and tapping in instructions for the task force to form a protective sphere with Reykjavík and Exeter at its center.
“No shields, sir?” Glal inquired.
“You heard Orbital Control,” she replied. “I’m not going to provide them with the excuse to begin shooting. That’s an honor they’ll have to earn.”
“Lots of tetryon emissions out there, sir, as well as sporadic energy distortions throughout the system,” remarked Garrett, her eyes fixed to her displays.
“We’re also seeing only a fraction of the military traffic usually active in the system, Commodore,” Shukla added from Ops.
“Acknowledged,” Trujillo rejoined evenly. “Maintain course and speed. Tactical, I want shields and weapons on hot-standby, ready for immediate deployment.”
“Aye, sir,” Jarrod answered from the Tactical station.
“Everyone be ready,” Trujillo coaxed. “When it happens, it will be quick.”
Moments later, it began. A handful of Klingon ships decloaked, followed by a few more, then scores more appeared as various houses, alliances, and power blocs began to maneuver against one another.
“Tactical plot map,” Trujillo ordered, trying to keep track of the assorted groupings as they came into view throughout the system. She looked over at Glal. “Any way to identify who’s who out there?”
“Unfortunately, no, sir,” he replied glumly. “They’ve gotten away from emblazoning their house sigils on their ships in recent decades. That might have made things easier for us.”
“Weaps,” Trujillo called to Jarrod at Tactical, “what do you see?”
“Various Klingon formations are holding defensive positions at strategic strongpoints throughout the system, Commodore. Others are attempting to gain positions of advantage over their opponents. These three groups,” he highlighted them on the main viewscreen’s tactical plot, “are clearly shadowing our task force.”
“And no way to know which of those groups belongs to Kang, or his adversaries?”
“No, sir. Not until General Kang decides to decloak T’Kuvma. His is the only K’tavra-class ship we’ve encountered so far.”
“I doubt he’s terribly anxious to show himself at the moment,” Glal postulated.
“We’re being hailed, sir,” Shukla announced. “The signal’s coming from multiple comms satellites, audio only.”
“Let’s hear it,” Trujillo commanded.
“Federation ship Reykjavík, you are carrying a Klingon national aboard your ship in violation of Klingon law. You will surrender this individual immediately or you and your task force will be destroyed.”
Trujillo raised a hand in abeyance. “No reply,” she ordered. She knew the thoron fields erected to hide K’mpec and the Klingon doctor’s life-signs had proved impenetrable to Klingon sensors earlier. It was nearly certain that this was a bluff. It was one she had no intention of calling.
“Signal all ships, maintain course and speed,” Trujillo instructed.
They stayed on course, heedless of Klingon threats. The ships of the task force swept with sensors in all directions, assessing the capabilities of nearby Klingon warships and probing for those they could not otherwise see.
“Signal from al-Ashtar, sir. Commander Va'obb reports many of the Klingon ships they’ve scanned show signs of significant systems degradation.”
Trujillo raised an eyebrow at that and inclined her head towards Garrett at Sciences.
A few tense moments later the young woman said, “Confirmed, sir. I’m seeing structural fatigue, power-systems fluctuations, even entire sections of some ships that have been depressurized.” The younger woman directed a questioning look at Trujillo.
The commodore shared a knowing look with Glal. “We turned over control of the atmospheric processors and terraforming operations on Qo’noS to the Klingons a decade ago, and just absorbing that added expenditure has overstretched the empire’s industrial base. Their military vessels are getting less than half the drydock time they should be. Some of their ships languish at their moorings while the others are flown until they’re falling apart at the seams.”
Glal grunted in agreement. “It helps to explain their poor showing in the attacks on those non-aligned colonies. They lost far more ships and soldiers than expected in taking those worlds.”
“But how do you keep something like that a secret, sir?” Garrett asked, clearly perplexed. “We’ve had personnel in this system for three decades, some of them had to have been intel assets.”
“Oh, we’ve known, Ensign.” Trujillo confessed. “They’ve done their best to hide the deterioration of their military capability, but corruption and mismanagement on that level are nearly impossible to cover up completely.”
In response to a trilling alarm at his station, Shukla called out, “Priority from Exeter, sir. They’ve picked up a sensor echo at two-two-seven, mark zero-eight-one, CBDR. Possible incoming vessel under cloak.”
“Mister Shukla? Mister Garrett?”
“We’ve got it, sir,” Garrett spoke up first. She then shot a glance at the lieutenant at Ops and nodded in his direction in deference to his seniority.
“Definitely a cloaked ship,” Shukla picked up from where Garrett had left off. “Closing at… one-half impulse. It will penetrate our escort perimeter in thirty seconds, coming within a quarter million kilometers of Zelenskyy.”
Trujillo sat back in her chair, her expression grim. “Here’s hoping we don’t give Kang a bloody nose for being too stupid to call first.”
“Can’t be, sir,” Glal refuted. “Kang would never allow his cloak to malfunction that badly.”
She toggled open the task force’s encrypted channel. “This is Scythe-Actual to all ships. Either this is a friendly or they sent a ship with a faulty cloak to try and stage an ambush. This also may be an intentional distraction. Zelenskyy and Reykjavík will keep this target painted, everyone else keep eyes out for other inbounds. We’ll raise shields if this target decloaks, and we’ll engage it if it fires on us. All ships to alert condition red.”
The klaxon blared in response to her command.
“And what about Klingon Orbital Control’s orders, Commodore?” Glal inquired teasingly.
“Fuck Klingon Orbital Control, Mister Glal,” Trujillo replied caustically, causing heads around the bridge to swivel her direction in open surprise.
“Inbound is passing Zelenskyy, on a direct intercept course with us,” Shukla advised. “Now within Klingon weapons range, sir.”
Trujillo, intuiting the course of the next few seconds, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Here we go,” she whispered to herself.
A garishly painted K’tinga-class cruiser emerged from behind it’s imperfect cloaking screen, the ship an improbable blood red color, it’s hull pocked with years or decades of unrepaired micrometeorite impacts and weapons strikes. Even as it wavered into view, the open maw of its forward torpedo tube came to life like a great red eye opening.
“Klingon battlecruiser preparing to fire!” Jarrod exclaimed, raising shields and powering weapons systems before the order had even been given.
“Shields and weapons,” Trujillo said. “Evasive, hard to port.”
Three Klingon torpedoes flashed from its forward tube, the first slamming home against Reykjavík’s ventral deflector screens as the ship pulled hard to port and exposed her belly. The following two sailed harmlessly past, victims of Naifeh’s deft maneuvering.
Zelenskyy fired first from behind their opponent as Reykjavík heeled hard over, trying to avoid the battlecruiser’s opening salvo. Four photon torpedoes and streamers of phaser fire from both Zelenskyy’s saucer and the outboard emitters on her tactical rollbar bludgeoned the Klingon ship’s aft/ventral shields.
Exeter, unbidden, threw a volley of four more torpedoes into the mix, hammering the old K’tinga’s port/aft shields and causing buckling in sections of the aged battlecruiser’s hull.
Reykjavík completed her yawing turn, her phaser emitters erupting with answering fire as she did so. Thanks to the abuse already delivered by Reykjavík’s escorts, the battlecruiser’s shields collapsed under the barrage of phaser fire from the attack cruiser. One salvo punched into the Klingon’s hull, creating catastrophic internal explosions as another slashing burst of phaser energy scored across the graceful neck of the crimson warship, severing the command section from the engineering hull in an eruption of atmosphere and short-lived flame.
The bisected ship fell behind the task force in a glittering corona of gas and debris as Reykjavík corrected her course and joined the assembled starships as they forged ahead.
“Report!” Trujillo called as the bridge crew worked to assess the ship’s condition.
“Shields holding, negligible damage aside from a few systems overloads,” the duty engineer relayed.
“Another incoming transmission from the Klingons, sir.”
Trujillo glared at the viewscreen through hooded eyes. “Put it through.”
“Federation squadron, you have fired on Klingon warships in violation of your orders from Orbital Control. You will surrender or be destroyed.”
She toggled the channel open. “You fired first. You attacked a mission of mercy flying a flag of truce. Is this Klingon honor? Stand down and allow us to collect our people, and we’ll be on our way. Interfere, and the damage to your home system will be on your heads.”
Now I’ve gone and done it, she thought to herself. Decades of peace discarded in seconds.
* * *
Composition of Task Force Scythe
USS Reykjavík – Shangri-La-class attack cruiser – Commodore Nandi Trujillo
USS Exeter – Excelsior-class heavy cruiser – Captain Olaf Kiersonn
USS Shras – Andor-class missile cruiser – Captain Oshath Th'thaorhok
USS Hathaway – Constellation-class cruiser – Captain Ruprecht Sheinbaum
USS Zelenskyy – Miranda-class cruiser – Lt. Commander Eldred Withropp
USS Vespula – Wasp-class frigate – Commander Va'obb
USS al-Ashtar – Saladin-class destroyer – Lt. Commander Marc Chu
USS Falmouth – Nereus-class Starship Tender – Lieutenant Neled Zomhura
__________________________________________________________________________
Task Force Scythe, led by their Klingon escort, dropped out of warp at the edge of the Qo’noS system, the seat of power for the many worlds of the Klingon Empire.
“We are secured from warp, sir,” Naifeh advised from the Helm. “H'behln has set a course for Qo’noS at one-third impulse.”
“Match course and speed. Ops, transmit the same to the task force,” Trujillo ordered.
Glal stepped over to Trujillo’s chair from his post on the bridge’s upper level. “Into the belly of the beast,” he said in a grim whisper.
She turned to look at him, her jaw set tightly. “Never thought I’d live to see Qo’noS with my own eyes.”
“I know the feeling, sir,” Glal replied. “I can’t believe we’ve made it this far without another attack.”
Trujillo nodded slowly, turning her attention back to the main viewer. “Easier for a hostile faction to stage their attack here at our destination, rather than somewhere along the way. This is where they’ll show their hand.”
She had already briefed the other commanding officers in the task force as to their rules of engagement should hostilities erupt here. So long as the violence was exclusively between Klingon factions, they were not to intervene. However, Trujillo had authorized all ships in the task force to defend themselves if attacked directly.
“ETA to Qo’noS at our present speed is one hour, seventeen minutes, sir.”
“Acknowledged.” Trujillo sat a little straighter in her chair and said, “Ops, open a channel to Qo’noS orbital control.”
“Channel open, sir.”
“Klingon Control, this is Commodore Trujillo of the USS Reykjavík, leading a Starfleet task force to retrieve Federation personnel from your system. I am requesting permission to enter orbit of Qo’noS to transfer our people over.”
There was a noticeable delay, prompting Trujillo to prop her chin on her fist, elbow braced on the chair arm as she fumed silently. It was so like the Klingons to convey insult via bureaucracy, stalling as intentional slight. I do not wait for thee, thee shall wait for me.
Finally, the vaguely disinterested reply. “This is Klingon Control. We grant you orbital privileges on the authority of the High Council. You may assume station at the coordinates to follow. Your weapons and shields will remain powered down. If you violate these provisions, you will be destroyed.”
Trujillo grunted defiantly, then checked herself. This was neither the time nor place to provoke the Klingons. She was a guest in their house and reminded herself that she must behave accordingly and demonstrate the respect they were due. “Understood. We will comply.”
She shifted in her seat, nodding in the direction of the Operations station. “Mister Shukla, raise the command center for our operation here,” she ordered, forcing herself back to the task at hand.
A moment later a bald, dark-skinned Deltan female appeared on the viewscreen. Though her collar was command-white and she bore a full commander’s rank insignia on the epaulets of her jumpsuit, the fact that she wore engineering coveralls rather than a standard uniform rankled Trujillo’s finely honed sense of military decorum. So many burdens to be suffered today, she thought sardonically to herself.
“Reykjavík, welcome to Qo’noS,” the woman said brightly. “I’m Commander Osaoi of the Joint Orbital Interdiction Mission.”
“Good afternoon, Commander. I’m Commodore Trujillo with Task Force Scythe. We are to be your ride. May I presume you and your people are finalizing preparations to depart?”
Osaoi nodded, her expression darkening. “That’s correct, Commodore. It’s difficult to see all we’ve accomplished here jeopardized by politics, but I understand the Federation’s position on this. We’ve been turning over control of the operation to the Klingons for the past week, but they’ve been dragging their feet. As a result, some of our personnel are still trickling in from our ancillary outposts.”
“If the Klingons are assuming control, isn’t that their problem, Commander?” Trujillo asked.
Osaoi looked incredulous. “If we botch this handover, a planet dies, sir. The High Council and the Klingon military may be at fault here, but I’m sure you’ll agree that the five-billion other people down there aren’t deserving of that fate.”
Trujillo suppressed a wince, but only just. “My apologies, Commander Osaoi. I’ve been raised to see the Klingons as the enemy, and my old soldier’s bones are aching the closer I come to Qo’noS. You’re right, of course.”
The Deltan’s answering smile signified an understanding between the two women, and a spark of mutual respect. “No apology necessary, sir. These are uncertain and troubling times.”
“How may we be of assistance?” Trujillo asked, surrendering her illusory sense of control over the scenario.
“We could use some help collecting our people from our harder to reach outposts within the PDD, sir.”
“PDD?” Trujillo asked.
“Sorry, sir. Praxis Debris Disk, the orbital deconfliction zone we’ve established to safeguard the planet from descending meteoric fragments. Some of the areas of the disk are quite dense, most notably the intact shards of Praxis that we’ve glued together with our gravimetric web network.”
Trujillo’s eyes widened. “You have people… inside what’s left of that moon?”
“Yes, sir,” Osaoi confirmed. “We have manned operations and monitoring stations within the shell. You’d need a small ship or shuttle craft to reach most of them.”
“You’ll have them,” Trujillo affirmed. “We’ll be in orbit in a little over an hour.”
They terminated the comms link after a further exchange of logistics information, prompting Glal to step over and lean in towards Trujillo. “Where’s the rest of our escort? If a Klingon task force were approaching Earth or Tellar Prime, you’d best believe we’d have more than one ship out there.”
“You know the answer to that,” she chided him quietly.
The Tellarite grumbled, “Yes, they’re all out there, cloaked. Both our enemies, and our… allies, for want of a better term.”
“They’re running the same risks we are, Commander. Allies, co-conspirators, take your pick.”
An alarm warbled at the Science station. “Commodore, I’m picking up some rather intense electromagnetic interference in the upper atmosphere of Qo’noS, overlapping scattering fields across the spectrum.” This from Rachel Garrett.
Trujillo pursed her lips. “Might I imagine such interference would prohibit beaming a person safely to the surface, Ensign?”
Garrett looked up from her sensor returns. “Yes, sir. Most definitely.”
Shukla looked over his shoulder from Operations. “They couldn’t keep that up for very long, sir. Widespread transport jamming would cause enormous economic damage in mere days. Commerce and transportation, both civilian and military…”
“Oh, yes, Lieutenant. I’m certain this arrangement is in our honor,” Trujillo interrupted. “Someone down there doesn’t want us depositing K’mpec on the surface. General Kang told me something like this was to be expected.”
“Which also means they anticipate this situation being resolved quickly,” Glal noted darkly.
Trujillo accessed her swing-arm console, bringing it up over her lap and tapping in instructions for the task force to form a protective sphere with Reykjavík and Exeter at its center.
“No shields, sir?” Glal inquired.
“You heard Orbital Control,” she replied. “I’m not going to provide them with the excuse to begin shooting. That’s an honor they’ll have to earn.”
“Lots of tetryon emissions out there, sir, as well as sporadic energy distortions throughout the system,” remarked Garrett, her eyes fixed to her displays.
“We’re also seeing only a fraction of the military traffic usually active in the system, Commodore,” Shukla added from Ops.
“Acknowledged,” Trujillo rejoined evenly. “Maintain course and speed. Tactical, I want shields and weapons on hot-standby, ready for immediate deployment.”
“Aye, sir,” Jarrod answered from the Tactical station.
“Everyone be ready,” Trujillo coaxed. “When it happens, it will be quick.”
Moments later, it began. A handful of Klingon ships decloaked, followed by a few more, then scores more appeared as various houses, alliances, and power blocs began to maneuver against one another.
“Tactical plot map,” Trujillo ordered, trying to keep track of the assorted groupings as they came into view throughout the system. She looked over at Glal. “Any way to identify who’s who out there?”
“Unfortunately, no, sir,” he replied glumly. “They’ve gotten away from emblazoning their house sigils on their ships in recent decades. That might have made things easier for us.”
“Weaps,” Trujillo called to Jarrod at Tactical, “what do you see?”
“Various Klingon formations are holding defensive positions at strategic strongpoints throughout the system, Commodore. Others are attempting to gain positions of advantage over their opponents. These three groups,” he highlighted them on the main viewscreen’s tactical plot, “are clearly shadowing our task force.”
“And no way to know which of those groups belongs to Kang, or his adversaries?”
“No, sir. Not until General Kang decides to decloak T’Kuvma. His is the only K’tavra-class ship we’ve encountered so far.”
“I doubt he’s terribly anxious to show himself at the moment,” Glal postulated.
“We’re being hailed, sir,” Shukla announced. “The signal’s coming from multiple comms satellites, audio only.”
“Let’s hear it,” Trujillo commanded.
“Federation ship Reykjavík, you are carrying a Klingon national aboard your ship in violation of Klingon law. You will surrender this individual immediately or you and your task force will be destroyed.”
Trujillo raised a hand in abeyance. “No reply,” she ordered. She knew the thoron fields erected to hide K’mpec and the Klingon doctor’s life-signs had proved impenetrable to Klingon sensors earlier. It was nearly certain that this was a bluff. It was one she had no intention of calling.
“Signal all ships, maintain course and speed,” Trujillo instructed.
They stayed on course, heedless of Klingon threats. The ships of the task force swept with sensors in all directions, assessing the capabilities of nearby Klingon warships and probing for those they could not otherwise see.
“Signal from al-Ashtar, sir. Commander Va'obb reports many of the Klingon ships they’ve scanned show signs of significant systems degradation.”
Trujillo raised an eyebrow at that and inclined her head towards Garrett at Sciences.
A few tense moments later the young woman said, “Confirmed, sir. I’m seeing structural fatigue, power-systems fluctuations, even entire sections of some ships that have been depressurized.” The younger woman directed a questioning look at Trujillo.
The commodore shared a knowing look with Glal. “We turned over control of the atmospheric processors and terraforming operations on Qo’noS to the Klingons a decade ago, and just absorbing that added expenditure has overstretched the empire’s industrial base. Their military vessels are getting less than half the drydock time they should be. Some of their ships languish at their moorings while the others are flown until they’re falling apart at the seams.”
Glal grunted in agreement. “It helps to explain their poor showing in the attacks on those non-aligned colonies. They lost far more ships and soldiers than expected in taking those worlds.”
“But how do you keep something like that a secret, sir?” Garrett asked, clearly perplexed. “We’ve had personnel in this system for three decades, some of them had to have been intel assets.”
“Oh, we’ve known, Ensign.” Trujillo confessed. “They’ve done their best to hide the deterioration of their military capability, but corruption and mismanagement on that level are nearly impossible to cover up completely.”
In response to a trilling alarm at his station, Shukla called out, “Priority from Exeter, sir. They’ve picked up a sensor echo at two-two-seven, mark zero-eight-one, CBDR. Possible incoming vessel under cloak.”
“Mister Shukla? Mister Garrett?”
“We’ve got it, sir,” Garrett spoke up first. She then shot a glance at the lieutenant at Ops and nodded in his direction in deference to his seniority.
“Definitely a cloaked ship,” Shukla picked up from where Garrett had left off. “Closing at… one-half impulse. It will penetrate our escort perimeter in thirty seconds, coming within a quarter million kilometers of Zelenskyy.”
Trujillo sat back in her chair, her expression grim. “Here’s hoping we don’t give Kang a bloody nose for being too stupid to call first.”
“Can’t be, sir,” Glal refuted. “Kang would never allow his cloak to malfunction that badly.”
She toggled open the task force’s encrypted channel. “This is Scythe-Actual to all ships. Either this is a friendly or they sent a ship with a faulty cloak to try and stage an ambush. This also may be an intentional distraction. Zelenskyy and Reykjavík will keep this target painted, everyone else keep eyes out for other inbounds. We’ll raise shields if this target decloaks, and we’ll engage it if it fires on us. All ships to alert condition red.”
The klaxon blared in response to her command.
“And what about Klingon Orbital Control’s orders, Commodore?” Glal inquired teasingly.
“Fuck Klingon Orbital Control, Mister Glal,” Trujillo replied caustically, causing heads around the bridge to swivel her direction in open surprise.
“Inbound is passing Zelenskyy, on a direct intercept course with us,” Shukla advised. “Now within Klingon weapons range, sir.”
Trujillo, intuiting the course of the next few seconds, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Here we go,” she whispered to herself.
A garishly painted K’tinga-class cruiser emerged from behind it’s imperfect cloaking screen, the ship an improbable blood red color, it’s hull pocked with years or decades of unrepaired micrometeorite impacts and weapons strikes. Even as it wavered into view, the open maw of its forward torpedo tube came to life like a great red eye opening.
“Klingon battlecruiser preparing to fire!” Jarrod exclaimed, raising shields and powering weapons systems before the order had even been given.
“Shields and weapons,” Trujillo said. “Evasive, hard to port.”
Three Klingon torpedoes flashed from its forward tube, the first slamming home against Reykjavík’s ventral deflector screens as the ship pulled hard to port and exposed her belly. The following two sailed harmlessly past, victims of Naifeh’s deft maneuvering.
Zelenskyy fired first from behind their opponent as Reykjavík heeled hard over, trying to avoid the battlecruiser’s opening salvo. Four photon torpedoes and streamers of phaser fire from both Zelenskyy’s saucer and the outboard emitters on her tactical rollbar bludgeoned the Klingon ship’s aft/ventral shields.
Exeter, unbidden, threw a volley of four more torpedoes into the mix, hammering the old K’tinga’s port/aft shields and causing buckling in sections of the aged battlecruiser’s hull.
Reykjavík completed her yawing turn, her phaser emitters erupting with answering fire as she did so. Thanks to the abuse already delivered by Reykjavík’s escorts, the battlecruiser’s shields collapsed under the barrage of phaser fire from the attack cruiser. One salvo punched into the Klingon’s hull, creating catastrophic internal explosions as another slashing burst of phaser energy scored across the graceful neck of the crimson warship, severing the command section from the engineering hull in an eruption of atmosphere and short-lived flame.
The bisected ship fell behind the task force in a glittering corona of gas and debris as Reykjavík corrected her course and joined the assembled starships as they forged ahead.
“Report!” Trujillo called as the bridge crew worked to assess the ship’s condition.
“Shields holding, negligible damage aside from a few systems overloads,” the duty engineer relayed.
“Another incoming transmission from the Klingons, sir.”
Trujillo glared at the viewscreen through hooded eyes. “Put it through.”
“Federation squadron, you have fired on Klingon warships in violation of your orders from Orbital Control. You will surrender or be destroyed.”
She toggled the channel open. “You fired first. You attacked a mission of mercy flying a flag of truce. Is this Klingon honor? Stand down and allow us to collect our people, and we’ll be on our way. Interfere, and the damage to your home system will be on your heads.”
Now I’ve gone and done it, she thought to herself. Decades of peace discarded in seconds.
* * *
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Quite enjoying Trujillo's response to the klingons - measured, but tough.
Expletive award for best use of the word "Fuck" in a Star Trek fanfic...
The empire is clearly a victim of polycratic chaos - no one is in charge and everyone's making this up as they go along. Klingon Orbital Control evidently have a nightmare on their hands trying to keep all the competing groups sorted - Star Fleet has far less hope of understanding all the competing dynamics. I'm a big fan of political complexity - so hoping we get some insight into all these competing agendas. And more K'mpec...
Thanks!! rbs
Expletive award for best use of the word "Fuck" in a Star Trek fanfic...
The empire is clearly a victim of polycratic chaos - no one is in charge and everyone's making this up as they go along. Klingon Orbital Control evidently have a nightmare on their hands trying to keep all the competing groups sorted - Star Fleet has far less hope of understanding all the competing dynamics. I'm a big fan of political complexity - so hoping we get some insight into all these competing agendas. And more K'mpec...
Thanks!! rbs
Tightly written military sci-fi right here.
When this story first kicked off I didn’t expect it to take us to the places it did. The Post Praxis Klingon Empire sure is in a bit of a state. No wonder they'll eventually ally with the Federation. But getting there won’t be painless as this chapter nicely demonstrates.
When this story first kicked off I didn’t expect it to take us to the places it did. The Post Praxis Klingon Empire sure is in a bit of a state. No wonder they'll eventually ally with the Federation. But getting there won’t be painless as this chapter nicely demonstrates.
* * *
The martial ballet developing in the Qo’noS system continued apace, with ships of differing allegiances jockeying for position against their rivals while the small Starfleet task force pushed in towards the homeworld with its ring of shattered moon fragments.
At the Tactical station, Lieutenant Jarrod observed, “Sir, I’m concerned with the Klingon’s planetary defense grid. We have no idea which faction is in control of their orbital weapons platforms, and they are quite formidable.”
Trujillo nodded, the gesture lost on Jarrod, whose attention remained fixed on the dynamic activity taking place throughout the system. “Understood, Weaps.” She used her chair’s console interface to activate an encrypted comms channel, a frequency provided her by Kang.
“General Kang, this is Trujillo. We will be in orbit shortly, and we have no wish to be blasted apart by your planetary defenses. If this task force is destroyed while trying to rescue our people, it will ignite another war between the Empire and the Federation. That would serve no one’s interests. If you and your allies are going to get into this fight, this would be the time.”
After a momentary pause, Kang’s sonorous voice answered, “I hear you, Starfleet. Your cloaked escorts stand ready to assist with anything your squadron cannot handle. My allies are working on seizing control of the orbital platforms now. They will be secured by the time you reach Qo’noS.”
“I will take that as your warrior’s oath, General,” Trujillo retorted, severing the comm-link.
“I’m seeing skirmishes breaking out among Klingon formations, Commodore,” Shukla offered from Operations. “Mainly strafing runs on shielded ships or outposts, with little damage to either side.”
Trujillo grunted in reply, then offered, “The Klingon version of counting coup, Lieutenant. Saber rattling just for show. When the real shooting starts, we’ll know it.”
Glal appeared at her side, speaking in hushed tones. “They’ll keep coming for us, sir. We’re endangering the rest of the task force with our presence.”
She nodded slowly, acknowledging the truth of his statement. “But where to go?” she said in an equally muted voice. “Once we break from the pack, we’ll be vulnerable. We can’t just flit around the system, hoping and waiting for their beaming shield to drop.”
Glal’s scruffy beard twitched, hinting at the smirk concealed within. “Might I suggest we go someplace they’d be reluctant to engage us, sir?”
“And where would that be?”
He directed a thick finger to the abbreviated navigation window on her laptop console.
She turned her head, her eyes widening fractionally. “You can’t mean…”
“They’ll hesitate. They’ll have to. Those few seconds might make all the difference.”
Trujillo sat in stony silence for a moment. Finally, she issued a reluctant, hissing sigh. “Given our dearth of better options, I will unenthusiastically accede to your plan, Commander.” She gave him an incredulous look that melted into a grudging smile. “I’m more disappointed I didn’t think of it myself.”
“Just earning my keep, sir,” Glal noted.
“Ensign Garrett,” Trujillo called, causing science officer’s head to snap up from her scopes. “You have fifteen minutes to become a subject matter expert on the Praxis Debris Disk. We’ll be pushing inside the shell of what remains of that moon.”
“Aye, sir,” the young woman replied. Her tone betrayed her surprise, but her voice remained steady.
Trujillo opened a coded comm-link to Exeter. “Captain Kiersonn, it’s likely the Klingon factions opposing us will continue to focus on Reykjavík. To prevent compromising our rescue mission, I’m taking Reykjavík straight into what’s left of Praxis and will do my best to lead them on a merry chase. I’m placing you in command of the task force. Your orders are to focus exclusively on getting our people safely away from here, using whatever level of force you deem necessary to achieve that goal.”
“Understood, sir,” was Kiersonn’s measured reply. “And what of our remaining personnel inside the shell of the moon?”
“We’ll get them out after we’ve lost, disabled or destroyed our pursuers. I’m sending you General Kang’s comms frequency and encryption so you can coordinate with him.”
“Acknowledged, Commodore.”
“Bring out people home, Captain,” she urged.
“We will, sir. Good hunting. Exeter, out.”
“Mister Naifeh, project a course that will diverge from the task force’s as we approach the planet. We’ll want to make a quick departure and then thread our way through the larger debris and into the interior of the largest moon fragment.”
Positioned behind him, Trujillo was unable to see Naifeh’s Adam’s apple bob involuntarily as he absorbed the responsibility tasked him. “Aye, sir.”
Trujillo cast a glance over at the Science station. “Mister Garrett, will the particle density of the micrometeoroids interfere with the Klingon’s cloaking fields as we approach Praxis?”
“Very likely, sir, dependent upon the age and sophistication of the individual units the ships are employing. Even if their cloaks remain active, we should be able to detect the particle wavefront the ships will create as they move through the debris, not unlike an ocean ship kicking up a bioluminescent wake.”
Trujillo nodded slowly to herself. “That’s what I was hoping to hear, Ensign.”
The next twenty minutes were filled with hurried navigational and defense related planning between the senior officers, with the Zaranite Lt. Commander Kura-Ka from Engineering making a rare appearance on the bridge.
His vaguely digitized voice issued from his atmospheric mask as Kura-Ka handed her a data-slate. “I’ve prepared a few surprises for anyone determined enough to follow us in there, sir.”
Trujillo scrolled through the schematics contained on the device, her lips drawing into a tight smile. “Yes, I think these will do nicely, Commander. A less forceful argument than a photon torpedo, but also far less lethal.”
“Approaching separation point, sir,” Naifeh announced. “A course into the PDD has been plotted.”
“Very well.” She handed the slate back to Kura-Ka, who retreated to the Engineering station. “Ops, make sure the other ships are aware of our impending departure. Science, be ready to update navigation telemetry to the helm as the field density increases. Weaps, stand ready to modulate shield strength as we enter the field.”
Affirmations of her orders echoed around the bridge.
Trujillo toggled open the comm-link to the task force. “Scythe-Actual now ceding task force command to Exeter.”
“Confirmed,” Captain Kiersonn’s voice acknowledged. “Exeter now Scythe-Actual.”
She counted down the seconds silently in her head until prompted by her display. “And… separate, accelerating to one-half impulse.”
Reykjavík peeled away from the center of the starship formation and leaped ahead, leaving Task Force Scythe on their orbital approach.
“Contact with the leading edge of the PDD in two minutes… mark,” Garrett apprised.
Trujillo queried, “Klingon activity?”
“Nothing close, sir,” Shukla replied. “Some Birds-of-Prey uncloaking and cloaking in high orbit of Qo’noS but no sign of anyone pursuing us specifically.”
“Thank unspecified deities for small favors,” she murmured to herself.
An alarm tone trilled at the Tactical station, prompting Jarrod. “Now detecting a formation of three K’tinga’s that just decloaked behind the task force, sir. They’re being engaged by a squadron of five Birds-of-Prey that are running interference for our ships.”
“Tactical overlay, holographic,” Trujillo ordered.
Icons materialized in the air between Trujillo and the forward bridge stations, giving her a three-dimensional view of the developing engagement. She observed as Kiersonn reconfigured the task force for greater protection should the K’tinga’s overwhelm their opposition.
“Fighting the urge to micromanage?” Glal asked discretely, sidling up to her chair.
“I’m coping,” she confessed. “It’s his fight now. We’ll have our own soon enough.”
“Penetrating the outer accretion disk of the PDD, Commodore,” Naifeh called from the Helm station.
“Increasing power to the navigational deflector,” Kura-Ka announced. “Now at one-hundred fifteen percent of rated output.”
Trujillo deactivated the tactical hologram, fixing her attention on the navigational information routed to her laptop workstation from the helm.
“Sensor contact,” Shukla observed.
“Confirmed,” Garrett seconded. “Cloaked vessel kicking up a particle wave front at twenty-one, mark one-eight-nine. It’s matching our speed.”
“Size?”
Shukla scrutinized the sensor return. “Too big to be a Bird-of-Prey, too small to be a cruiser.”
Garrett looked up from her displays, her expression pinched. “Commodore, we’re quickly approaching the outer perimeter of the orbital interdiction graviton-web. The gravimetric generators and their anchored receiver-nodes will become more numerous the further we travel into the PDD. We’ll want to avoid crossing any of those graviton beams directly. Weakening or breaking those connections could cause a cascading collapse of the entire grid.”
“Let’s hope the Klingons share our sense of caution, Mister Garrett.”
On the viewer Trujillo caught a glimpse of a pair of robotic drones racing to catch an errant piece of debris that had been flung out of the PDD, returning the flotsam to the accreted disk that surrounded what remained of Praxis. The drones were part of the Federation’s multilayered defense of the planet’s orbital zone, acting as sheep dogs to the graviton-web’s corral.
Trujillo turned in her chair, looking to Kura-Ka at the Engineering station. “Commander, your micro-mines, are they potent enough to cause problems with the containment web?”
“They were designed not to, sir. I conferred with Commander Osaoi herself and we determined that if employed more than twenty kilometers away from a graviton generator, beam or anchor, they should prove benign.”
“Excellent news, and my compliments on your foresight. Please coordinate with Tactical to drop the mines on my command, should circumstances warrant it.”
“Photon torpedo inbound!” Shukla blurted an instant before Reykjavík slewed to port courtesy of Ensign Naifeh’s excellent reflexes.
The torpedo flashed past along their starboard side, nearly grazing the perimeter of their shield bubble before detonating in an aggregate of heavy mineral debris.
“Why didn’t we see them decloaking to fire?” Trujillo asked accusingly.
“I… I don’t know, sir,” Shukla stammered, his cheeks coloring.
“Commodore,” Garrett replied in an even tone, “it appears the accretion of ionized particles at the apex of the Klingon ship’s wavefront as it passes through the micrometeorite debris is clouding our sensors. They were able to decloak briefly, loose a torpedo, and recloak without us seeing it.”
Trujillo grunted at that, commenting, “It appears they do not share our reticence to damage the graviton-web.”
“Well,” Glal observed dryly, “they’ll be the ones cleaning up the mess… and evacuating their homeworld.”
“Helm, decrease speed to one-quarter impulse. Weaps, firm up the forward shields. We’re pushing in, Klingon objections be damned.”
* * *
The martial ballet developing in the Qo’noS system continued apace, with ships of differing allegiances jockeying for position against their rivals while the small Starfleet task force pushed in towards the homeworld with its ring of shattered moon fragments.
At the Tactical station, Lieutenant Jarrod observed, “Sir, I’m concerned with the Klingon’s planetary defense grid. We have no idea which faction is in control of their orbital weapons platforms, and they are quite formidable.”
Trujillo nodded, the gesture lost on Jarrod, whose attention remained fixed on the dynamic activity taking place throughout the system. “Understood, Weaps.” She used her chair’s console interface to activate an encrypted comms channel, a frequency provided her by Kang.
“General Kang, this is Trujillo. We will be in orbit shortly, and we have no wish to be blasted apart by your planetary defenses. If this task force is destroyed while trying to rescue our people, it will ignite another war between the Empire and the Federation. That would serve no one’s interests. If you and your allies are going to get into this fight, this would be the time.”
After a momentary pause, Kang’s sonorous voice answered, “I hear you, Starfleet. Your cloaked escorts stand ready to assist with anything your squadron cannot handle. My allies are working on seizing control of the orbital platforms now. They will be secured by the time you reach Qo’noS.”
“I will take that as your warrior’s oath, General,” Trujillo retorted, severing the comm-link.
“I’m seeing skirmishes breaking out among Klingon formations, Commodore,” Shukla offered from Operations. “Mainly strafing runs on shielded ships or outposts, with little damage to either side.”
Trujillo grunted in reply, then offered, “The Klingon version of counting coup, Lieutenant. Saber rattling just for show. When the real shooting starts, we’ll know it.”
Glal appeared at her side, speaking in hushed tones. “They’ll keep coming for us, sir. We’re endangering the rest of the task force with our presence.”
She nodded slowly, acknowledging the truth of his statement. “But where to go?” she said in an equally muted voice. “Once we break from the pack, we’ll be vulnerable. We can’t just flit around the system, hoping and waiting for their beaming shield to drop.”
Glal’s scruffy beard twitched, hinting at the smirk concealed within. “Might I suggest we go someplace they’d be reluctant to engage us, sir?”
“And where would that be?”
He directed a thick finger to the abbreviated navigation window on her laptop console.
She turned her head, her eyes widening fractionally. “You can’t mean…”
“They’ll hesitate. They’ll have to. Those few seconds might make all the difference.”
Trujillo sat in stony silence for a moment. Finally, she issued a reluctant, hissing sigh. “Given our dearth of better options, I will unenthusiastically accede to your plan, Commander.” She gave him an incredulous look that melted into a grudging smile. “I’m more disappointed I didn’t think of it myself.”
“Just earning my keep, sir,” Glal noted.
“Ensign Garrett,” Trujillo called, causing science officer’s head to snap up from her scopes. “You have fifteen minutes to become a subject matter expert on the Praxis Debris Disk. We’ll be pushing inside the shell of what remains of that moon.”
“Aye, sir,” the young woman replied. Her tone betrayed her surprise, but her voice remained steady.
Trujillo opened a coded comm-link to Exeter. “Captain Kiersonn, it’s likely the Klingon factions opposing us will continue to focus on Reykjavík. To prevent compromising our rescue mission, I’m taking Reykjavík straight into what’s left of Praxis and will do my best to lead them on a merry chase. I’m placing you in command of the task force. Your orders are to focus exclusively on getting our people safely away from here, using whatever level of force you deem necessary to achieve that goal.”
“Understood, sir,” was Kiersonn’s measured reply. “And what of our remaining personnel inside the shell of the moon?”
“We’ll get them out after we’ve lost, disabled or destroyed our pursuers. I’m sending you General Kang’s comms frequency and encryption so you can coordinate with him.”
“Acknowledged, Commodore.”
“Bring out people home, Captain,” she urged.
“We will, sir. Good hunting. Exeter, out.”
“Mister Naifeh, project a course that will diverge from the task force’s as we approach the planet. We’ll want to make a quick departure and then thread our way through the larger debris and into the interior of the largest moon fragment.”
Positioned behind him, Trujillo was unable to see Naifeh’s Adam’s apple bob involuntarily as he absorbed the responsibility tasked him. “Aye, sir.”
Trujillo cast a glance over at the Science station. “Mister Garrett, will the particle density of the micrometeoroids interfere with the Klingon’s cloaking fields as we approach Praxis?”
“Very likely, sir, dependent upon the age and sophistication of the individual units the ships are employing. Even if their cloaks remain active, we should be able to detect the particle wavefront the ships will create as they move through the debris, not unlike an ocean ship kicking up a bioluminescent wake.”
Trujillo nodded slowly to herself. “That’s what I was hoping to hear, Ensign.”
The next twenty minutes were filled with hurried navigational and defense related planning between the senior officers, with the Zaranite Lt. Commander Kura-Ka from Engineering making a rare appearance on the bridge.
His vaguely digitized voice issued from his atmospheric mask as Kura-Ka handed her a data-slate. “I’ve prepared a few surprises for anyone determined enough to follow us in there, sir.”
Trujillo scrolled through the schematics contained on the device, her lips drawing into a tight smile. “Yes, I think these will do nicely, Commander. A less forceful argument than a photon torpedo, but also far less lethal.”
“Approaching separation point, sir,” Naifeh announced. “A course into the PDD has been plotted.”
“Very well.” She handed the slate back to Kura-Ka, who retreated to the Engineering station. “Ops, make sure the other ships are aware of our impending departure. Science, be ready to update navigation telemetry to the helm as the field density increases. Weaps, stand ready to modulate shield strength as we enter the field.”
Affirmations of her orders echoed around the bridge.
Trujillo toggled open the comm-link to the task force. “Scythe-Actual now ceding task force command to Exeter.”
“Confirmed,” Captain Kiersonn’s voice acknowledged. “Exeter now Scythe-Actual.”
She counted down the seconds silently in her head until prompted by her display. “And… separate, accelerating to one-half impulse.”
Reykjavík peeled away from the center of the starship formation and leaped ahead, leaving Task Force Scythe on their orbital approach.
“Contact with the leading edge of the PDD in two minutes… mark,” Garrett apprised.
Trujillo queried, “Klingon activity?”
“Nothing close, sir,” Shukla replied. “Some Birds-of-Prey uncloaking and cloaking in high orbit of Qo’noS but no sign of anyone pursuing us specifically.”
“Thank unspecified deities for small favors,” she murmured to herself.
An alarm tone trilled at the Tactical station, prompting Jarrod. “Now detecting a formation of three K’tinga’s that just decloaked behind the task force, sir. They’re being engaged by a squadron of five Birds-of-Prey that are running interference for our ships.”
“Tactical overlay, holographic,” Trujillo ordered.
Icons materialized in the air between Trujillo and the forward bridge stations, giving her a three-dimensional view of the developing engagement. She observed as Kiersonn reconfigured the task force for greater protection should the K’tinga’s overwhelm their opposition.
“Fighting the urge to micromanage?” Glal asked discretely, sidling up to her chair.
“I’m coping,” she confessed. “It’s his fight now. We’ll have our own soon enough.”
“Penetrating the outer accretion disk of the PDD, Commodore,” Naifeh called from the Helm station.
“Increasing power to the navigational deflector,” Kura-Ka announced. “Now at one-hundred fifteen percent of rated output.”
Trujillo deactivated the tactical hologram, fixing her attention on the navigational information routed to her laptop workstation from the helm.
“Sensor contact,” Shukla observed.
“Confirmed,” Garrett seconded. “Cloaked vessel kicking up a particle wave front at twenty-one, mark one-eight-nine. It’s matching our speed.”
“Size?”
Shukla scrutinized the sensor return. “Too big to be a Bird-of-Prey, too small to be a cruiser.”
Garrett looked up from her displays, her expression pinched. “Commodore, we’re quickly approaching the outer perimeter of the orbital interdiction graviton-web. The gravimetric generators and their anchored receiver-nodes will become more numerous the further we travel into the PDD. We’ll want to avoid crossing any of those graviton beams directly. Weakening or breaking those connections could cause a cascading collapse of the entire grid.”
“Let’s hope the Klingons share our sense of caution, Mister Garrett.”
On the viewer Trujillo caught a glimpse of a pair of robotic drones racing to catch an errant piece of debris that had been flung out of the PDD, returning the flotsam to the accreted disk that surrounded what remained of Praxis. The drones were part of the Federation’s multilayered defense of the planet’s orbital zone, acting as sheep dogs to the graviton-web’s corral.
Trujillo turned in her chair, looking to Kura-Ka at the Engineering station. “Commander, your micro-mines, are they potent enough to cause problems with the containment web?”
“They were designed not to, sir. I conferred with Commander Osaoi herself and we determined that if employed more than twenty kilometers away from a graviton generator, beam or anchor, they should prove benign.”
“Excellent news, and my compliments on your foresight. Please coordinate with Tactical to drop the mines on my command, should circumstances warrant it.”
“Photon torpedo inbound!” Shukla blurted an instant before Reykjavík slewed to port courtesy of Ensign Naifeh’s excellent reflexes.
The torpedo flashed past along their starboard side, nearly grazing the perimeter of their shield bubble before detonating in an aggregate of heavy mineral debris.
“Why didn’t we see them decloaking to fire?” Trujillo asked accusingly.
“I… I don’t know, sir,” Shukla stammered, his cheeks coloring.
“Commodore,” Garrett replied in an even tone, “it appears the accretion of ionized particles at the apex of the Klingon ship’s wavefront as it passes through the micrometeorite debris is clouding our sensors. They were able to decloak briefly, loose a torpedo, and recloak without us seeing it.”
Trujillo grunted at that, commenting, “It appears they do not share our reticence to damage the graviton-web.”
“Well,” Glal observed dryly, “they’ll be the ones cleaning up the mess… and evacuating their homeworld.”
“Helm, decrease speed to one-quarter impulse. Weaps, firm up the forward shields. We’re pushing in, Klingon objections be damned.”
* * *
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War in a environmental disaster zone... Yeah - that's not going to get politically delicate... And some hothead just threw a couple of photon torpedoes into it.
Really enjoying this angle of the story - in no small part because we're facing that in the growing tension with Russia and potentially irreversible damage to the North Sea. Not that I would ever accuse you of being topical...
Really great story angle. I'm also looking forward to more with the delightful K'mpec - keep it coming!
Thanks!! rbs
Really enjoying this angle of the story - in no small part because we're facing that in the growing tension with Russia and potentially irreversible damage to the North Sea. Not that I would ever accuse you of being topical...
Really great story angle. I'm also looking forward to more with the delightful K'mpec - keep it coming!
Thanks!! rbs
Gibraltar is throwing a party and he forgot the Roylans. ::sighs:: Just kidding. You write fantastic battle scenarios, sir. Keep up the great work!
The only thing you can always count on is for Klingons to be Klingons. Relentless to the point that they don't even care if they blow up their own blown-up moon, and more in the process.
I'd say that this is just a really great piece of action-writing, but that would be news to exactly no one.
I'd say that this is just a really great piece of action-writing, but that would be news to exactly no one.
* * *
“Steady,” Glal coaxed gently as a brief thruster burst nudged the shuttle forward. He needn’t have coached the pilot so, as it was he who occupied the small-craft’s pilot seat.
Ahead, through the shuttle’s cockpit viewports, was the great glowing exhaust port of a Klingon warship’s idling impulse engine.
Ensign Garrett, seated in the copilot’s chair, touched the control interface delicately, though such subtlety wasn’t necessary. At the behest of her inputs, a low-powered repulsor beam deposited an explosive charge on the Klingon’s hull, a meter from the engine’s exhaust port.
“I can’t believe this is working,” she murmured as she remotely activated the transponder on the device.
“Don’t jinx it,” Glal grumbled, secretly pleased at his mastery of Human idioms. “And wasn’t this your idea in the first place? Why are you shocked at our success?”
“I’m not, sir… not really. I’m mostly surprised the Klingon navy is throwing nearly century-old ships at us.”
Glal gave a short, barking laugh. “Thank the Great Herd that’s the case, or this plan never would have had a chance.”
Before them was a D-4 class cruiser, a relic of the Federation/Klingon war nearly seventy-five years earlier. Parked within the fragmented remains of Praxis, the cruiser had been lying in wait, hoping to ambush the elusive warship Reykjavík.
Despite the aged vessel they commanded, the warship’s captain seemed a wily old warrior who’d elected to place his or her ship very nearby a graviton node that served to anchor a dozen others. They doubtless knew full well that Starfleet would hesitate to attack the ship so close to a critical component of the graviton web gluing together Praxis’ largest shards.
However, its proximity to the node also degraded the warship’s sensor acuity, a situation that Garrett had determined to exploit. With Kura-Ka’s help, she’d designed a stealth-probe equipped with a sensor scrambling emitter that Reykjavík had sent to sneak up behind the already partially blinded D-4. Once in position, the probe sent errant sensor returns to the warship’s aft scanning array, allowing one of Reykjavík’s shuttles to approach undetected.
The shuttle Siglufjörður, piloted by Lt. Commander Glal, had gamely approached the somnolent warship and attached mines near her impulse engines and aft disruptor bank.
Their mission complete, Glal began to back the shuttle slowly away from their now mined target. Eyes on the controls, he offered, “You know it wasn’t necessary for you to come out here, Ensign.”
“Nor you, sir,” she rejoined, dropping a small comms-relay in their wake that would amplify Reykjavík’s detonation commands if and when they were issued. “We’ve plenty of shuttle pilots aboard, Commander. I seem to remember you volunteering to be here.”
He smiled grimly within his beard. “True enough, but we hardly needed to send our chief science officer out here on this errand.”
“My plan and my probe, sir. Respectfully, I couldn’t just sit back and let someone else risk their life for an idea I hatched.”
“Commendable, but that kind of thinking may hold you back, Mister Garrett.”
Garrett adjusted the fictitious sensor inputs from their probe to compensate for the newly deployed comms-relay. “Please elaborate, sir.”
“Having skin in the game is all well and good for a junior officer, but if you have any ambitions of advancement to senior officer rank, let alone command, it’s important to make peace with the fact that you’ll have to send others into harms way, regardless of whether or not it was your idea.”
“I will keep that in mind, sir, and I do appreciate the advice.”
He spared a quick glance over at her. “I am glad to have you along, Ensign. Just between you and me, the commodore sees advancement potential in you, as do I.”
Garrett’s cheeks colored as she studiously fixed her attention on her displays. “Thank you for saying so, sir.” She cleared her throat, announcing, “I’ve picked up Reykjavík’s nav-laser. Locking on and setting a course for home.”
* * *
“The last mine is in place, Commodore,” Shukla noted from his Ops console. “Siggy is signaling they’re returning.”
Jarrod glanced up from the Tactical board to add, “The mines on the D-4 and D-7 are confirmed as armed and awaiting triggering signals. Only the Bird-of-Prey remains unaccounted for.”
Trujillo nodded fractionally, eyes appearing to probe the enhanced view of the debris-strewn pocket of the moon where Reykjavík had been holed up for the past six hours. “Thank you, gentlemen. Maintain zero-emission status and continue silent running.” She added an uncharacteristically wry, “If anyone here possesses extra-sensory abilities, please be so good as to deduce the coordinates of that Klingon scout.”
Jarrod let a frustrated sigh slip out. “If it were anyone other than the Klingons, crippling those other ships would likely draw out the Bird-of-Prey.”
“And yet it is the Klingons, Lieutenant,” Trujillo affirmed with equal vexation. “So, they will sit idly by as we sunder their fellows and wait for us to show ourselves. More honor in not sharing a prize kill.”
She called, “Computer, location of Sogh K’mpec?”
‘Sogh K’mpec is located in the primary crew lounge, deck seven, port-ventral compartment.’
Trujillo rose from the command chair. “Mister Shukla, you have the conn. I’m going to inquire with our guest what gambit might lure out that pesky scout.”
* * *
It was dark within the rubble-cluttered interior of Praxis, and only a dim haze of light illuminated the congested asteroid mass as viewed through Reykjavík’s viewports.
“Every hour they continue to scramble the planet’s transporter frequencies will increase the public’s outrage and strain the High Council’s tolerance,” K’mpec noted with satisfaction as he stood gazing through the lounge’s large bay windows. “The chancellor’s little expansionist war has resulted in more death and loss than our military anticipated.”
Trujillo sat behind him, her chair pushed out and away from the nearest table. “Public outrage? Is that the wedge you’ll try to use to split the High Council?” she asked.
“One of them,” he conceded.
“How do you stop a war that’s proved so expensive in lives and materiel without dishonoring the sacrifices of all the warriors already lost?”
K’mpec pondered that for a long moment, finally answering. “Even if we pursue this current offensive to a successful conclusion, we’ll have lost. We have neither the ships, soldiers, nor the economic power to maintain control of those conquered border territories. We’ll end up mired in endless struggles against multiple insurgent movements, costing us more lives, more ships, and all the while those powers opposed to the empire will funnel materiel to those groups, weakening the empire by proxy.”
He glanced back at Trujillo. “I must convince the Council that victory now will lead to a slow, painful defeat over time. We must marshal our strength, expand our industrial base, and come to grips with the Praxis Crisis. We’ve permitted the Federation to cope with the worst of the disaster’s fallout for decades, an indolent disregard that has allowed your government to wield far more influence with our leaders than should have been acceptable.”
She smiled grimly. “I won’t dispute your assessment. It has, however, kept the peace for thirty years.” She rose from her chair, moving to join K’mpec at the viewport.
“We’ve identified and taken steps to incapacitate two cruisers that followed us in here, but there’s a troublesome scout that won’t show itself. I would appreciate any advice you might offer on how to draw them out.”
“How many other pursuing navy ships did you immobilize on our run in to the debris disk?” K’mpec asked, sidestepping the question.
“Three that we know of,” Trujillo replied.
“You’ve embarrassed the navy. As such, you’ve made Reykjavík the kind of prize that could make a ship commander’s career. Whoever’s out there waiting for you, they won’t move until you do. Provide them the irresistible target of your ship, and they’ll attack.”
“Nothing else will suffice?”
“No,” K’mpec said emphatically. “They are Klingons.” He looked askance at his Human companion. “You would do well to come to grips with your own liabilities before battle is joined, Commodore.”
She gave him an appraising look. “How so?”
“You care about the fate of Qo’noS, and you will take steps to avoid damaging the systems that keep Praxis’ remains intact. The Klingon commander of that ship out there will use that to their advantage, if they can.”
Trujillo reflected somberly on the ramifications of that insight. “The homeworld means nothing to them?” she asked finally.
“It surely does, but no self-respecting Klingon captain would put the welfare of our home planet before their personal honor and the pursuit of glory. They have their priorities, after all.”
"They are Klingons, after all," Trujillo parroted, voice tinged with irony.
This elicited an approving grunt of assent from K'mpec.
* * *
_____________________________________
“Steady,” Glal coaxed gently as a brief thruster burst nudged the shuttle forward. He needn’t have coached the pilot so, as it was he who occupied the small-craft’s pilot seat.
Ahead, through the shuttle’s cockpit viewports, was the great glowing exhaust port of a Klingon warship’s idling impulse engine.
Ensign Garrett, seated in the copilot’s chair, touched the control interface delicately, though such subtlety wasn’t necessary. At the behest of her inputs, a low-powered repulsor beam deposited an explosive charge on the Klingon’s hull, a meter from the engine’s exhaust port.
“I can’t believe this is working,” she murmured as she remotely activated the transponder on the device.
“Don’t jinx it,” Glal grumbled, secretly pleased at his mastery of Human idioms. “And wasn’t this your idea in the first place? Why are you shocked at our success?”
“I’m not, sir… not really. I’m mostly surprised the Klingon navy is throwing nearly century-old ships at us.”
Glal gave a short, barking laugh. “Thank the Great Herd that’s the case, or this plan never would have had a chance.”
Before them was a D-4 class cruiser, a relic of the Federation/Klingon war nearly seventy-five years earlier. Parked within the fragmented remains of Praxis, the cruiser had been lying in wait, hoping to ambush the elusive warship Reykjavík.
Despite the aged vessel they commanded, the warship’s captain seemed a wily old warrior who’d elected to place his or her ship very nearby a graviton node that served to anchor a dozen others. They doubtless knew full well that Starfleet would hesitate to attack the ship so close to a critical component of the graviton web gluing together Praxis’ largest shards.
However, its proximity to the node also degraded the warship’s sensor acuity, a situation that Garrett had determined to exploit. With Kura-Ka’s help, she’d designed a stealth-probe equipped with a sensor scrambling emitter that Reykjavík had sent to sneak up behind the already partially blinded D-4. Once in position, the probe sent errant sensor returns to the warship’s aft scanning array, allowing one of Reykjavík’s shuttles to approach undetected.
The shuttle Siglufjörður, piloted by Lt. Commander Glal, had gamely approached the somnolent warship and attached mines near her impulse engines and aft disruptor bank.
Their mission complete, Glal began to back the shuttle slowly away from their now mined target. Eyes on the controls, he offered, “You know it wasn’t necessary for you to come out here, Ensign.”
“Nor you, sir,” she rejoined, dropping a small comms-relay in their wake that would amplify Reykjavík’s detonation commands if and when they were issued. “We’ve plenty of shuttle pilots aboard, Commander. I seem to remember you volunteering to be here.”
He smiled grimly within his beard. “True enough, but we hardly needed to send our chief science officer out here on this errand.”
“My plan and my probe, sir. Respectfully, I couldn’t just sit back and let someone else risk their life for an idea I hatched.”
“Commendable, but that kind of thinking may hold you back, Mister Garrett.”
Garrett adjusted the fictitious sensor inputs from their probe to compensate for the newly deployed comms-relay. “Please elaborate, sir.”
“Having skin in the game is all well and good for a junior officer, but if you have any ambitions of advancement to senior officer rank, let alone command, it’s important to make peace with the fact that you’ll have to send others into harms way, regardless of whether or not it was your idea.”
“I will keep that in mind, sir, and I do appreciate the advice.”
He spared a quick glance over at her. “I am glad to have you along, Ensign. Just between you and me, the commodore sees advancement potential in you, as do I.”
Garrett’s cheeks colored as she studiously fixed her attention on her displays. “Thank you for saying so, sir.” She cleared her throat, announcing, “I’ve picked up Reykjavík’s nav-laser. Locking on and setting a course for home.”
* * *
“The last mine is in place, Commodore,” Shukla noted from his Ops console. “Siggy is signaling they’re returning.”
Jarrod glanced up from the Tactical board to add, “The mines on the D-4 and D-7 are confirmed as armed and awaiting triggering signals. Only the Bird-of-Prey remains unaccounted for.”
Trujillo nodded fractionally, eyes appearing to probe the enhanced view of the debris-strewn pocket of the moon where Reykjavík had been holed up for the past six hours. “Thank you, gentlemen. Maintain zero-emission status and continue silent running.” She added an uncharacteristically wry, “If anyone here possesses extra-sensory abilities, please be so good as to deduce the coordinates of that Klingon scout.”
Jarrod let a frustrated sigh slip out. “If it were anyone other than the Klingons, crippling those other ships would likely draw out the Bird-of-Prey.”
“And yet it is the Klingons, Lieutenant,” Trujillo affirmed with equal vexation. “So, they will sit idly by as we sunder their fellows and wait for us to show ourselves. More honor in not sharing a prize kill.”
She called, “Computer, location of Sogh K’mpec?”
‘Sogh K’mpec is located in the primary crew lounge, deck seven, port-ventral compartment.’
Trujillo rose from the command chair. “Mister Shukla, you have the conn. I’m going to inquire with our guest what gambit might lure out that pesky scout.”
* * *
It was dark within the rubble-cluttered interior of Praxis, and only a dim haze of light illuminated the congested asteroid mass as viewed through Reykjavík’s viewports.
“Every hour they continue to scramble the planet’s transporter frequencies will increase the public’s outrage and strain the High Council’s tolerance,” K’mpec noted with satisfaction as he stood gazing through the lounge’s large bay windows. “The chancellor’s little expansionist war has resulted in more death and loss than our military anticipated.”
Trujillo sat behind him, her chair pushed out and away from the nearest table. “Public outrage? Is that the wedge you’ll try to use to split the High Council?” she asked.
“One of them,” he conceded.
“How do you stop a war that’s proved so expensive in lives and materiel without dishonoring the sacrifices of all the warriors already lost?”
K’mpec pondered that for a long moment, finally answering. “Even if we pursue this current offensive to a successful conclusion, we’ll have lost. We have neither the ships, soldiers, nor the economic power to maintain control of those conquered border territories. We’ll end up mired in endless struggles against multiple insurgent movements, costing us more lives, more ships, and all the while those powers opposed to the empire will funnel materiel to those groups, weakening the empire by proxy.”
He glanced back at Trujillo. “I must convince the Council that victory now will lead to a slow, painful defeat over time. We must marshal our strength, expand our industrial base, and come to grips with the Praxis Crisis. We’ve permitted the Federation to cope with the worst of the disaster’s fallout for decades, an indolent disregard that has allowed your government to wield far more influence with our leaders than should have been acceptable.”
She smiled grimly. “I won’t dispute your assessment. It has, however, kept the peace for thirty years.” She rose from her chair, moving to join K’mpec at the viewport.
“We’ve identified and taken steps to incapacitate two cruisers that followed us in here, but there’s a troublesome scout that won’t show itself. I would appreciate any advice you might offer on how to draw them out.”
“How many other pursuing navy ships did you immobilize on our run in to the debris disk?” K’mpec asked, sidestepping the question.
“Three that we know of,” Trujillo replied.
“You’ve embarrassed the navy. As such, you’ve made Reykjavík the kind of prize that could make a ship commander’s career. Whoever’s out there waiting for you, they won’t move until you do. Provide them the irresistible target of your ship, and they’ll attack.”
“Nothing else will suffice?”
“No,” K’mpec said emphatically. “They are Klingons.” He looked askance at his Human companion. “You would do well to come to grips with your own liabilities before battle is joined, Commodore.”
She gave him an appraising look. “How so?”
“You care about the fate of Qo’noS, and you will take steps to avoid damaging the systems that keep Praxis’ remains intact. The Klingon commander of that ship out there will use that to their advantage, if they can.”
Trujillo reflected somberly on the ramifications of that insight. “The homeworld means nothing to them?” she asked finally.
“It surely does, but no self-respecting Klingon captain would put the welfare of our home planet before their personal honor and the pursuit of glory. They have their priorities, after all.”
"They are Klingons, after all," Trujillo parroted, voice tinged with irony.
This elicited an approving grunt of assent from K'mpec.
* * *
_____________________________________
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Very much enjoying the shrewd (and still bloodthirsty) K'mpec. More K'mpec, please!
Very fun tactical situation and tactical and strategic analysis. I'm wondering if we'll get some insight into the rivalries inside the council chambers. With a complete furball going on in orbit, is the council even convened - or are they at each other's throats from a safer distance?
Totally off-topic, but I have to be impressed that the platform supported Siglufjörður. I used a bit of Russian on occasion and most platforms turned the Cyrillic characters into little boxes with "x" in them.
Very fun tactical situation and tactical and strategic analysis. I'm wondering if we'll get some insight into the rivalries inside the council chambers. With a complete furball going on in orbit, is the council even convened - or are they at each other's throats from a safer distance?
Totally off-topic, but I have to be impressed that the platform supported Siglufjörður. I used a bit of Russian on occasion and most platforms turned the Cyrillic characters into little boxes with "x" in them.
I'm getting flavors of Chain of Command and Balance of Terror here. Both great classic and tense Trek episodes and this is no different. Trujillo will have to play some high-stakes poker with her elusive foe and one wrong move could cost her more than this mission. Game's on.
Time to call in those reinforcements, hiding behind the bread in the cupboard.
* * *
The alarm sounded, a surprisingly benign chime seeing as it likely presaged a battle to come.
She silenced it. “Ten hours,” she noted stolidly.
Trujillo and Glal sat in the ready room, staring across the desk at one another. A glass was positioned in front of each of them, containing a small measure poured in honor of the impending fight. It was one of their longstanding traditions.
“Time enough for Kiersonn to have recovered most of our technical personnel,” Glal acknowledged. The Tellarite inclined his head towards the glasses. “What do you have for us this time, sir?” He picked up the glass and swirled its contents as he observed the amber fluid play against the surrounding light.
“Macallan, barrel aged twenty-five years. Bottled in 2147. I received a bottle of it from Admiral Munroe when I made captain.”
“The bottle,” Glal said reverently. “Rumors abounded that you had such a trophy among your collection.” He studied her carefully before asking, “Why now, sir?”
“I wanted to open it before I did something that would disappoint the admiral,” Trujillo confessed. “We may have a resounding success out there today, or we may start a war. We might kill an entire world in the process. I’d rather crack that bottle with clean hands, as it were.”
Glal bobbed his head sagely at this, accepting the logic of her argument. He raised the glass in a toast. “Augh’toom,” he offered.
‘To a successful endeavor,’ the universal translator in his combadge obligingly provided.
“Salud,” she answered, leaning forward to touch the glasses with a soft clink before they both took a sip.
“Oooh…” was all Glal could say. “You Humans certainly do know how to ferment.”
Trujillo stared at her glass appreciatively. “And this is just the neck-pour. If we live through this, you and are going to have to create a serious deficit in the contents of that bottle.”
Glal drained the rest in a single draught, taking a moment to swish it around in his mouth before swallowing. “I would enjoy that very much, sir.”
The commodore took her time with her glass, savoring the liquid in a series of deliberate sips. Finally, glass empty, she stood. Glal followed her through the parting doors out onto the bridge.
“Commodore on the bridge!” Jarrod called as the senior officers stood from their stations in deference.
“As you were,” Trujillo said, moving to assume the captain’s chair from Lieutenant Shukla.
“Situation unchanged, sir,” Shukla advised as he in turn relieved the ensign manning the Operations station. “Our boobytrapping of the Klingon warships still appears to have gone unnoticed, and there’s been no sign of the Bird-of-Prey.”
“Understood,” she replied, settling into her seat. “Engineering, restore power to nominal levels. Weaps, bring shields and defensive systems to the ready. Helm, set course for Habitat Node-11 and execute at best speed, owing to local conditions.”
In the tightly confined innards of Praxis’ remains, Reykjavík was forced to bull through the debris at low speeds while creating a wake that was far more visible to sensors than Trujillo would have liked. Regardless, they forged ahead, mindful to avoid the graviton lattice that maintained the cohesion of the rubble field.
A tense half-hour passed, with the bridge crew maintaining strict discipline. The only conversations were duty related, brief exchanges so as not to distract one another from their sensor displays or status readouts.
The silence was finally broken by a sensor alert at Operations. “Contact,” Shukla advised, “picking up Klingon D-7 cruiser. Range, seventeen kilometers, bearing 297-mark-130 at one-hundred ninety kph.”
Trujillo glanced to Garrett at Science. “Is that the one we tagged?”
There was a brief pause as Garrett checked her sensor returns. “Yes, sir. She’s got mines on her port nacelle and impulse engine.”
“Have they detected us?”
Shukla fielded that. “I don’t believe so, sir. Their sensor sweeps are too generalized to have locked onto us as yet.”
“Alter course to avoid them, if possible.”
Reykjavík adjusted to skirt around the old, prowling cruiser, resuming their original course only after it was certain the warship wasn’t following them.
Another twenty minutes of plowing through meteoric debris brought them to a habitat constructed within a sizeable shard, perhaps three-quarters of a kilometer in diameter. The station’s structure seemed to extrude through the surface of the asteroid, as though having grown from inside.
“Habitat Node-11,” Garrett identified the facility. “Detecting seventy-three lifesigns of Federation member species… and twenty-two Klingons.” She delivered this last bit of news with a dour expression aimed at Trujillo.
“It is the one place the Klingons knew we’d eventually have to show up at,” Trujillo allowed.
“So, they’re taking hostages now, eh?” growled Glal.
“They’ll probably propose an exchange,” Trujillo countered. “Our people for K’mpec.” She favored her XO with grim look. “It’s what I’d do if I were them in these circumstances.”
"That's what worries me," Glal answered sotto voce.
After a moment’s consideration, Trujillo turned to Jarrod at the Tactical console. “Lieutenant, prepare an assault team to storm that facility and recover our people, should that prove necessary.”
Jarrod nodded enthusiastically, “Aye, sir,” before turning his station over to a subordinate and moving for the turbolift.
“Helm, move us to within transporter range.” Trujillo leaned back in her chair, tugging at the bottom of her uniform blouse. “Open a channel to the station, tight-beam.”
The view of the asteroid station was replaced with the image of an irritated looking Andorian male flanked by Klingon soldiers.
“I'm Lieutenant Jaron’Jesh with the JOIM. We’ve been expecting you Commodore,” he gestured to his escorts, “as have our… friends.”
“Good day, Lieutenant,” Trujillo answered. “We’re here to collect you and your people for evacuation. May I presume the Klingon contingent joining you was stationed here to ensure your safety until our arrival?”
One of the Klingons stepped forward as he pushed Jaron’Jesh roughly out of frame. “No, Commodore, that is not correct! I am Commander Verad of the Imperial Navy, and I have been sent to recover the traitor K’mpec from your ship.”
Trujillo shifted in her seat, leveling an inscrutable expression at the man over the comms-channel. “We are here with the express permission of the High Council, and my ship was thoroughly searched prior to entering the system, Commander.”
“Enough words!” Verad raged. “We know you have him! Surrender K’mpec to us and we will hand over your people unharmed.”
“You take hostages and threaten their safety?” Trujillo asked derisively. “Are these the actions of honorable Klingon warriors?”
Verad drew his disruptor from its holster and held it aloft. “These are the actions of a soldier under orders. What do I care for an outworlder’s opinion of Klingon honor?” He leveled the weapon and fired before Trujillo could muster a response.
The image shifted just in time to show Lieutenant Jaron’Jesh vaporized by the disruptor pulse in a shriek of air rushing to fill the void of his passing.
Trujillo rose from her seat slowly, her fists clenched. “How dare you take the life of a Starfleet officer in cold blood?”
Verad appeared unmoved by her obvious outrage. He held the disruptor up again. “Seventy-two of your people remain, Commodore, and my weapon is fully charged. What is it to be, then?”
If expressions could kill, Verad would have been ashes. Slowly, by force of will, Trujillo brought herself under control. “If we were able to locate this person… this K’mpec, and turn him over to you, I have your word our people will be returned unharmed?”
“My word as warrior and member of House KaTaj’j is given,” Verad answered coolly. “Any deception on your part, and I will kill them all.”
Trujillo reached out and terminated the comm-link via her chair’s armrest display. “Mister Glal, collect K’mpec and meet me in transporter room two.”
* * *
Glal intercepted Trujillo in the corridor just outside the transporter bay.
“Sir, we can’t. We just can’t.”
She stopped short, cocking her head as she assessed her XO. “We most certainly can, Commander. The Klingons sent the right man for the job. If I’m any judge of character, Verad will kill every one of our people with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. I can’t bluff my way out of this.”
“Jarrod’s strike team,” Glal said, grasping.
“If we beam in a rescue team, they’ll start shooting hostages. How many lives are we willing to risk with that gamble? And where is Verad’s ship? We don’t see it, but I’d wager he didn’t walk here. Odds are there’s one or more ships under cloak here with us. As soon as we lower shields to beam over the assault team, they’ll decloak and open fire. Then the rescue team’s cut off while we’re fighting for our lives and trying desperately not to damage any of the delicate graviton infrastructure surrounding us.”
“If we give up K’mpec, hundreds of thousands will die, perhaps millions as the Klingon offensive continues.”
She placed a hand on his shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie, her voice softening. “We swore an oath to Starfleet and the Federation, Commander. In this circumstance our people’s lives are the primary consideration. It’s awful, it’s unfair, but it is what it is.”
With that she stepped past him and into the transporter room.
Reykjavík’s resident Klingon guests, both K’mpec and Physician Kardec, stood rigidly, escorted by armed and armored security personnel.
Trujillo strode through the doors, with Glal trailing her. She turned to face the two Klingons. “My apologies, gentlemen, but your countrymen have begun murdering Federation citizens to force my hand. I must return you, K’mpec, to secure the lives of our people.”
“You can’t be serious?” K’mpec replied, his expression caught between disbelief and outrage.
“Too damned serious, mister,” Trujillo rejoined hotly. “They just executed one of our officers and will continue to kill our people until you’re turned over. They’re not buying my denials anymore.”
“You’re signing my death warrant by surrendering me to them, Commodore. All hope of swaying the High Council to oppose the chancellor’s expansionism dies with me.”
Trujillo stepped forward, coming face to face with the young Klingon. “You, me, and everyone else gambled that this little deception would work. It didn’t. I’m now out of options, and I won’t trade seventy-two Federation lives for you, your political influence be damned.”
“Is this how the Federation upholds it’s word?” K’mpec practically snarled the question, causing the security personnel in the room to rest their hands on the grips of their holstered phasers.
“I’m done talking, K’mpec. You have two choices. You can step up on that pad and face your fate like a warrior, or I can have you stunned and beamed over like cargo. Decide now.”
The man stood erect, eyes focused on the transporter pad and all it represented. His face slackened as he seemed to come to terms with this new destiny. “I understand. This was always a possibility.”
He stepped up onto the pad, turning to face Trujillo.
Kardec moved to join him, but Trujillo interceded. “They only want K’mpec. You may remain.”
Kardec swallowed. “I appreciate your gesture, Commodore, but my duty is to remain with my patient.”
“Where he’s going, they won’t need doctors,” Trujillo answered coldly. “You stay.” She gestured for one of the security specialists to move Kardec gently but insistently away from the pad.
“For what it’s worth, K’mpec, I desperately wish this ruse had succeeded," Trujillo said by way of farewell.
He nodded once, definitively. “As do I.”
Trujillo moved to toggle a comms control on the transporter console. “Trujillo to bridge, patch me through to the habitat.”
“Aye, sir. Channel open.”
“Trujillo to Verad, I am beaming K’mpec over to you. I expect the immediate return of our personnel, unharmed. Let me be clear, their safety is the only thing keeping you alive. If you betray me, I’ll destroy every one of your ships in this debris field and every graviton emitter I can find on my way out. We’ll see how enthusiastic your people are for continued war while the sky is literally falling.”
There was a pause, followed by Verad’s voice, now sounding significantly less conceited. “I understand, Starfleet. Let’s be done with this.”
“Energize,” she ordered, and K’mpec vanished in a cascading field of energy.
Her jaw tight with repressed anger, Trujillo remained long enough to see the first group of Starfleet engineering personnel beamed over from the habitat.
As she turned to leave, Kardec stepped up to her.
“Why keep me behind?” he asked.
“You damned well know why,” Trujillo replied acidly as she shouldered past him and out of the compartment.
* * *
The alarm sounded, a surprisingly benign chime seeing as it likely presaged a battle to come.
She silenced it. “Ten hours,” she noted stolidly.
Trujillo and Glal sat in the ready room, staring across the desk at one another. A glass was positioned in front of each of them, containing a small measure poured in honor of the impending fight. It was one of their longstanding traditions.
“Time enough for Kiersonn to have recovered most of our technical personnel,” Glal acknowledged. The Tellarite inclined his head towards the glasses. “What do you have for us this time, sir?” He picked up the glass and swirled its contents as he observed the amber fluid play against the surrounding light.
“Macallan, barrel aged twenty-five years. Bottled in 2147. I received a bottle of it from Admiral Munroe when I made captain.”
“The bottle,” Glal said reverently. “Rumors abounded that you had such a trophy among your collection.” He studied her carefully before asking, “Why now, sir?”
“I wanted to open it before I did something that would disappoint the admiral,” Trujillo confessed. “We may have a resounding success out there today, or we may start a war. We might kill an entire world in the process. I’d rather crack that bottle with clean hands, as it were.”
Glal bobbed his head sagely at this, accepting the logic of her argument. He raised the glass in a toast. “Augh’toom,” he offered.
‘To a successful endeavor,’ the universal translator in his combadge obligingly provided.
“Salud,” she answered, leaning forward to touch the glasses with a soft clink before they both took a sip.
“Oooh…” was all Glal could say. “You Humans certainly do know how to ferment.”
Trujillo stared at her glass appreciatively. “And this is just the neck-pour. If we live through this, you and are going to have to create a serious deficit in the contents of that bottle.”
Glal drained the rest in a single draught, taking a moment to swish it around in his mouth before swallowing. “I would enjoy that very much, sir.”
The commodore took her time with her glass, savoring the liquid in a series of deliberate sips. Finally, glass empty, she stood. Glal followed her through the parting doors out onto the bridge.
“Commodore on the bridge!” Jarrod called as the senior officers stood from their stations in deference.
“As you were,” Trujillo said, moving to assume the captain’s chair from Lieutenant Shukla.
“Situation unchanged, sir,” Shukla advised as he in turn relieved the ensign manning the Operations station. “Our boobytrapping of the Klingon warships still appears to have gone unnoticed, and there’s been no sign of the Bird-of-Prey.”
“Understood,” she replied, settling into her seat. “Engineering, restore power to nominal levels. Weaps, bring shields and defensive systems to the ready. Helm, set course for Habitat Node-11 and execute at best speed, owing to local conditions.”
In the tightly confined innards of Praxis’ remains, Reykjavík was forced to bull through the debris at low speeds while creating a wake that was far more visible to sensors than Trujillo would have liked. Regardless, they forged ahead, mindful to avoid the graviton lattice that maintained the cohesion of the rubble field.
A tense half-hour passed, with the bridge crew maintaining strict discipline. The only conversations were duty related, brief exchanges so as not to distract one another from their sensor displays or status readouts.
The silence was finally broken by a sensor alert at Operations. “Contact,” Shukla advised, “picking up Klingon D-7 cruiser. Range, seventeen kilometers, bearing 297-mark-130 at one-hundred ninety kph.”
Trujillo glanced to Garrett at Science. “Is that the one we tagged?”
There was a brief pause as Garrett checked her sensor returns. “Yes, sir. She’s got mines on her port nacelle and impulse engine.”
“Have they detected us?”
Shukla fielded that. “I don’t believe so, sir. Their sensor sweeps are too generalized to have locked onto us as yet.”
“Alter course to avoid them, if possible.”
Reykjavík adjusted to skirt around the old, prowling cruiser, resuming their original course only after it was certain the warship wasn’t following them.
Another twenty minutes of plowing through meteoric debris brought them to a habitat constructed within a sizeable shard, perhaps three-quarters of a kilometer in diameter. The station’s structure seemed to extrude through the surface of the asteroid, as though having grown from inside.
“Habitat Node-11,” Garrett identified the facility. “Detecting seventy-three lifesigns of Federation member species… and twenty-two Klingons.” She delivered this last bit of news with a dour expression aimed at Trujillo.
“It is the one place the Klingons knew we’d eventually have to show up at,” Trujillo allowed.
“So, they’re taking hostages now, eh?” growled Glal.
“They’ll probably propose an exchange,” Trujillo countered. “Our people for K’mpec.” She favored her XO with grim look. “It’s what I’d do if I were them in these circumstances.”
"That's what worries me," Glal answered sotto voce.
After a moment’s consideration, Trujillo turned to Jarrod at the Tactical console. “Lieutenant, prepare an assault team to storm that facility and recover our people, should that prove necessary.”
Jarrod nodded enthusiastically, “Aye, sir,” before turning his station over to a subordinate and moving for the turbolift.
“Helm, move us to within transporter range.” Trujillo leaned back in her chair, tugging at the bottom of her uniform blouse. “Open a channel to the station, tight-beam.”
The view of the asteroid station was replaced with the image of an irritated looking Andorian male flanked by Klingon soldiers.
“I'm Lieutenant Jaron’Jesh with the JOIM. We’ve been expecting you Commodore,” he gestured to his escorts, “as have our… friends.”
“Good day, Lieutenant,” Trujillo answered. “We’re here to collect you and your people for evacuation. May I presume the Klingon contingent joining you was stationed here to ensure your safety until our arrival?”
One of the Klingons stepped forward as he pushed Jaron’Jesh roughly out of frame. “No, Commodore, that is not correct! I am Commander Verad of the Imperial Navy, and I have been sent to recover the traitor K’mpec from your ship.”
Trujillo shifted in her seat, leveling an inscrutable expression at the man over the comms-channel. “We are here with the express permission of the High Council, and my ship was thoroughly searched prior to entering the system, Commander.”
“Enough words!” Verad raged. “We know you have him! Surrender K’mpec to us and we will hand over your people unharmed.”
“You take hostages and threaten their safety?” Trujillo asked derisively. “Are these the actions of honorable Klingon warriors?”
Verad drew his disruptor from its holster and held it aloft. “These are the actions of a soldier under orders. What do I care for an outworlder’s opinion of Klingon honor?” He leveled the weapon and fired before Trujillo could muster a response.
The image shifted just in time to show Lieutenant Jaron’Jesh vaporized by the disruptor pulse in a shriek of air rushing to fill the void of his passing.
Trujillo rose from her seat slowly, her fists clenched. “How dare you take the life of a Starfleet officer in cold blood?”
Verad appeared unmoved by her obvious outrage. He held the disruptor up again. “Seventy-two of your people remain, Commodore, and my weapon is fully charged. What is it to be, then?”
If expressions could kill, Verad would have been ashes. Slowly, by force of will, Trujillo brought herself under control. “If we were able to locate this person… this K’mpec, and turn him over to you, I have your word our people will be returned unharmed?”
“My word as warrior and member of House KaTaj’j is given,” Verad answered coolly. “Any deception on your part, and I will kill them all.”
Trujillo reached out and terminated the comm-link via her chair’s armrest display. “Mister Glal, collect K’mpec and meet me in transporter room two.”
* * *
Glal intercepted Trujillo in the corridor just outside the transporter bay.
“Sir, we can’t. We just can’t.”
She stopped short, cocking her head as she assessed her XO. “We most certainly can, Commander. The Klingons sent the right man for the job. If I’m any judge of character, Verad will kill every one of our people with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. I can’t bluff my way out of this.”
“Jarrod’s strike team,” Glal said, grasping.
“If we beam in a rescue team, they’ll start shooting hostages. How many lives are we willing to risk with that gamble? And where is Verad’s ship? We don’t see it, but I’d wager he didn’t walk here. Odds are there’s one or more ships under cloak here with us. As soon as we lower shields to beam over the assault team, they’ll decloak and open fire. Then the rescue team’s cut off while we’re fighting for our lives and trying desperately not to damage any of the delicate graviton infrastructure surrounding us.”
“If we give up K’mpec, hundreds of thousands will die, perhaps millions as the Klingon offensive continues.”
She placed a hand on his shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie, her voice softening. “We swore an oath to Starfleet and the Federation, Commander. In this circumstance our people’s lives are the primary consideration. It’s awful, it’s unfair, but it is what it is.”
With that she stepped past him and into the transporter room.
Reykjavík’s resident Klingon guests, both K’mpec and Physician Kardec, stood rigidly, escorted by armed and armored security personnel.
Trujillo strode through the doors, with Glal trailing her. She turned to face the two Klingons. “My apologies, gentlemen, but your countrymen have begun murdering Federation citizens to force my hand. I must return you, K’mpec, to secure the lives of our people.”
“You can’t be serious?” K’mpec replied, his expression caught between disbelief and outrage.
“Too damned serious, mister,” Trujillo rejoined hotly. “They just executed one of our officers and will continue to kill our people until you’re turned over. They’re not buying my denials anymore.”
“You’re signing my death warrant by surrendering me to them, Commodore. All hope of swaying the High Council to oppose the chancellor’s expansionism dies with me.”
Trujillo stepped forward, coming face to face with the young Klingon. “You, me, and everyone else gambled that this little deception would work. It didn’t. I’m now out of options, and I won’t trade seventy-two Federation lives for you, your political influence be damned.”
“Is this how the Federation upholds it’s word?” K’mpec practically snarled the question, causing the security personnel in the room to rest their hands on the grips of their holstered phasers.
“I’m done talking, K’mpec. You have two choices. You can step up on that pad and face your fate like a warrior, or I can have you stunned and beamed over like cargo. Decide now.”
The man stood erect, eyes focused on the transporter pad and all it represented. His face slackened as he seemed to come to terms with this new destiny. “I understand. This was always a possibility.”
He stepped up onto the pad, turning to face Trujillo.
Kardec moved to join him, but Trujillo interceded. “They only want K’mpec. You may remain.”
Kardec swallowed. “I appreciate your gesture, Commodore, but my duty is to remain with my patient.”
“Where he’s going, they won’t need doctors,” Trujillo answered coldly. “You stay.” She gestured for one of the security specialists to move Kardec gently but insistently away from the pad.
“For what it’s worth, K’mpec, I desperately wish this ruse had succeeded," Trujillo said by way of farewell.
He nodded once, definitively. “As do I.”
Trujillo moved to toggle a comms control on the transporter console. “Trujillo to bridge, patch me through to the habitat.”
“Aye, sir. Channel open.”
“Trujillo to Verad, I am beaming K’mpec over to you. I expect the immediate return of our personnel, unharmed. Let me be clear, their safety is the only thing keeping you alive. If you betray me, I’ll destroy every one of your ships in this debris field and every graviton emitter I can find on my way out. We’ll see how enthusiastic your people are for continued war while the sky is literally falling.”
There was a pause, followed by Verad’s voice, now sounding significantly less conceited. “I understand, Starfleet. Let’s be done with this.”
“Energize,” she ordered, and K’mpec vanished in a cascading field of energy.
Her jaw tight with repressed anger, Trujillo remained long enough to see the first group of Starfleet engineering personnel beamed over from the habitat.
As she turned to leave, Kardec stepped up to her.
“Why keep me behind?” he asked.
“You damned well know why,” Trujillo replied acidly as she shouldered past him and out of the compartment.
* * *
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Well - definitely hard-nosed. I want to see how K'mpec maneuvers his way out of this - and if there is any good will left between him and the Federation once he manages it.
...or was the switch already in place?
Talk about one coming out of left field - definitely a head scratcher! Thanks!!! rbs
...or was the switch already in place?
Talk about one coming out of left field - definitely a head scratcher! Thanks!!! rbs
