Unfortunately, the dawdling crawl of T’Voras’s two ten-vessel squadrons was something he had no power to influence, any more than he could avoid the necessity of leaving his command, the Dhivael, on a long orbital trajectory just beyond the remote debris zone that marked the far boundaries of the red giant star’s planetary system. To bring the large mother ship any closer to her midsystem target world would be to risk immediate detection by the enemy outpost on Draed’ulhei, which enjoyed the protection of an automated early-warning grid whose subspace-transmitted alarms would be triggered instantaneously by the entry of any unauthorized warp-driven vessel.
A sublight Nei’hrr-class attack raptor, however, had no such limitations. Therefore the small assault craft that T’Voras now piloted, leading nineteen of his bird-of-prey’s finest flyers to coast ever deeper into the massive red giant star’s deep gravity well, had the best chance of catching the enemy unawares on the surface of Draed’ulhei, the innermost of the system’s two neighboring habitable worlds.
Provided, T’Voras reminded himself, that we succeed in entering the planet’s atmosphere at the proper coordinates, and at the appropriate angle.
And that Centurion T’Vak, whom T’Voras had left in charge of the Dhivael, took no action that might inadvertently reveal the large, T’Liss-class bird-of-prey’s presence at the edge of this system.
The planet, the middle child of a fertile family of thirteen worlds, hung in T’Voras’s forward port like a glowing aquamarine gem and grew steadily before his eyes. Even after the squadrons reduced their velocity for entry approach, the raptors would hit the atmosphere at multiple hundreds of mat’drih per eisae, and would have to endure hull temperatures of several thousand onkians as their deceleration continued. Under such unforgiving circumstances, there would be no second chances.
T’Voras keyed open the squadron’s scrambled EM-band frequency, a wavelength and transmission mode chosen for the purpose of avoiding detection by either ground-based subspace transceivers or those that comprised Caernu’mneani’s systemwide detection grid.
“Ehrie Hwi to Ehrie Squadron and Khoey Squadron,” the commander said into his throat mic. “Cut speed and assume atmospheric entry formation. Synchronize your planetary approach data.”
He listened as nineteen terse acknowledgments came in, in numerical order, from both the Green and Orange squadrons, from Ehrie Kre to Ehrie Dha and Khoey Hwi to Khoey Dha, confirming that both raptor groupings had arranged themselves into a single random formation that closely mimicked the long tumbling ellipse of a swarm of small meteors making its terminal approach to the planet. By the time the enemy forces on the ground realized that something other than an inconsequential spray of interplanetary rocks was headed their way, it would be too late for them to mount any significant defense.
As the blue-green crescent of the planet grew too huge to be contained by his forward windows, T’Voras breathed a quiet prayer of supplication to the D’ravsai—the Great Brothers—and all the other ancient deities of Romulus. And though he felt reasonably certain that none of them had any interest either in him or his men, he placed their fates squarely in the gods’ hands.
Saturday, November 8, 2155
Berengaria VII
In the experience of Lieutenant Richard Stiles, the best time for dragon-watching was during the half hour or so before sunset brought the curtain down on the purple twilight that dominated the daytime hours. Earlier in the day, the majestic creatures tended to be inactive, sleeping off the red giant Berengaria’s heat—oppressive despite the generally thick cloud cover—as they stored up their energies for their nocturnal hunts in and around the nearby Vale of Mists and the surrounding foothills.
After sunset, of course, it was safest to observe the graceful, leatherwinged flyers from the safety of the observation deck on the roof of the still-under-construction multistory starbase complex. Specimens of Draco berengarius were far less likely to approach the base closely enough to endanger anybody than they were to seek more traditional native prey in the tracts of thick jungle that predominated from the perimeter of the starbase all the way to the Vale.
One of the great gray dragons—which Stiles’s own research had proved was not a dragon, nor even a reptile—glided close to the horizon at the moment, its spread-winged silhouette splayed momentarily across the bloated red sunset. Buoyed aloft thanks to the relatively small planet’s Mars-like gravity and the system of internal gas bladders that filled and surrounded the creature’s deceptively tough tubular skeleton, the dragon rose on a thermal updraft before swooping away.
A few kilometers in the distance, and directly in the creature’s path, stood the cluster of weathered-looking stone observation towers, laboratory spaces, and flat dwellings that had housed Berengaria’s Vulcan population for the past half century. In the jungle beyond the Vulcan compound, the rapidly encroaching darkness emphasized a telltale orange flare of another early-rising night flyer; this one had already begun igniting the hydrogen sulfide-bearing compounds contained in its forward air bladders, probably to roast a surprised prey animal in its tracks.
A movement in Stiles’s peripheral vision drew his attention back toward the nearly completed sunset that still girdled much of the purpling horizon. Another shadow was quickly crossing Berengaria’s distended disk, followed by another, then another, and another. Outside of their seasonal migrations, he had never seen such a large grouping of dragons assembled in formation. Several of the flying shapes even seemed to be breathing fire into the jungle beneath them.
A moment later, the flock of newcomers swooped across the Vulcan compound, their exhalations immolating the towers below them.
Oh, no, Stiles thought as he watched the first dragon he had spotted ignite, caught in a crossfire and instantly incinerated beneath and between two of the newly incoming winged shapes.
Shapes that had been constructed by the intentions of sentients rather than the random ministrations of nature. Unimaginably fast winged shapes that now appeared in a sudden profusion beyond counting, shapes that looked about twice as large as the genuine dragon that had just been blown out of the sky so callously. Swooping, menacing shapes whose bellies bore the aggressive red plumage that Stiles had read about in reports filed by those few who had seen them and lived to log the experience afterward.
How the hell did they get past the grid? he thought.
Hoping to get a quick warning out to Captain Hutchinson at Starbase 1 and Chief Scientist T’Kumbra at the Vulcan facility, Stiles pulled his communicator out of his uniform jacket. He flipped open the grid just in time to see it vanish in a hailstorm of fire and broken plasteel.
Nei’hrr-class Attack Raptor Ehrie Hwi
Less than a quarter of the way through the slow return voyage to the Bird-of-Prey Dhivael, the passive sensor alarm on T’Voras’s console was activated, the lights flashing a baleful green. He wasted no time turning on the secure intership EM channel.
“Ehrie Hwi to both squadrons,” T’Voras said into his throat mic. “Confirm presence of an incoming Starfleet vessel.”
“Khoey Hwi to Ehrie Hwi,” came the acknowledgment. “Starfleet vessel confirmed. It is entering orbit around the target.”
“Very well, T’Vak,” T’Voras said. “Maintain velocity and heading. Since we have already neutralized the target, we need not risk attracting their attention.”
“But this is not just any Starfleet vessel, Commander,” the other squadron leader said with an audible edge of impatience. “It reads as the same configuration as Enterprise.”
Although the mission had been accomplished flawlessly, Commander T’Voras did not wish to give any of his more ambitious junior officers—especially Centurion T’Vak—an excuse to try to oust him from his command in order to pursue glory and prestige for himself.
“This is Ehrie Hwi,” T’Voras said. “Bring both squadrons about, and assume attack formation mnha’lli.”
Starship Discovery NX-04
Travis Mayweather had
spent his entire life in space. But in all that time he had never seen such wholesale devastation, apart from the Xindi sneak attack on Earth. The images from both the high-resolution sensors and the sensor drones Discovery had launched from orbit had offered the same revelation: Berengaria VII had been brutally and thoroughly scrubbed of all human and Vulcan life, and it had all happened within the past day or so.
“Whatever hit them came quickly,” said Captain Curtis.
“That must be why all we received was an automated distress signal,” Mayweather said, staring at the image of the blue-green world’s equator. The deep black scar in the greenery, punctuated by the still-settling ejecta plume in its center, was plainly visible on the main bridge viewer even at Discovery’s present high orbit of nearly one thousand kilometers.
“The Vulcans have been doing research on Berengaria VII for fifty years before we started building our starbase out here,” Curtis said.
“Those equatorial jungles are a gold mine, pharmacologically speaking,” Lieutenant Carpenter said from the science console. “Who knows how many disease cures have come out of all that plantkingdom biodiversity?”
“And to think the Vulcans didn’t want a Starfleet presence at first,” said Curtis. He sounded almost bitter as he added, “They gave us permission to build our starbase near them only because Starfleet agreed to protect them.”
“As I recall, the local Vulcans were pretty grudging about it,” Carpenter said. “Most of them were scientists and pacifists.”
“A fat lot of good it seemed to do them,” Curtis said. “Whatever took down the Vulcans wiped out our starbase as though it wasn’t even there.”
Maybe it serves them right for turning their back on Earth, Mayweather thought, though he instantly regretted the sentiment.
“Captain, I think we already know what hit them,” Carpenter said.
Mayweather nodded in agreement. “An asteroid strike wouldn’t have left a hard radiation signature like the one we’re reading down there.”
“All right,” the captain said. He sounded weary, as though he was only belatedly acknowledging a fact he would have preferred to see disproved. “The Romulans appear to have gotten through the defense grid somehow, just like they did on Deneva. Any sign of the hostiles?”
“Not so far, Captain,” Carpenter said. “Wait a minute.” Her eyes suddenly grew wide. “I’m reading a swarm of bogeys, headed toward the planet from outsystem. Moving at high impulse.”
“Romulans?”
Lieutenant Commander Brent shook his high-domed head and scowled at his tactical console. “I’m reading them as small ships, Captain, but not like anything I’ve seen the Romulans use before. If they are Romulan, they’ve got to be one-person fighter craft.”
“Tactical Alert,” Curtis said. “Polarize the hull plating.”
On the main screen before Mayweather, a swarm of birdlike shapes, replete with ventral markings that resembled feathers and claws, resolved themselves into view in Berengaria’s pitiless blood-red glare.
Not birds, Mayweather thought as the apparitions continued their relentless approach. Hawks.
Or Raptors.
“Picking up a new bogey,” Brent said. “Smaller than these ships. Metal.”
“Range and heading?” said the captain.
The main viewer abruptly flashed a blinding white, which was followed by darkness, screams, and a horrible tumbling sensation.
Wiping the blood away from his brow yet again, Mayweather watched in silence through the escape pod’s port as Discovery’s battered hulk receded into the distance.
Molecular fires blazed all across the hull of the brand-new NX-class starship, and had already nearly consumed the forward sections that had been closest to the nuke with which the Romulans had surprised them.
“I can’t believe we let them destroy her before the paint finished drying,” Brent said, seated on the narrow bench beside him. “Never thought I’d see the inside of one of these lifeboats except in a drill.”
“It’s better than hanging around for a warp core breach,” Mayweather said, though he couldn’t help but agree with the tactical officer. When he’d served aboard Enterprise, most hostiles had used directed energy weapons of various sorts rather than old-style nukes. Such weapons could be lethal when detonated within a certain radius of a starship’s hull, despite the latest in hull-polarization systems. In this case, the nuclear blast had blinded and crippled the ship just long enough to enable the pack of Romulan fighter craft to inflict mortal damage.
“Don’t worry, Travis,” Carpenter said from Mayweather’s other side. “The captain made sure the distress call and the log buoy got out, in spite of all the damage.”
Mayweather noted that Carpenter had pointedly avoided mentioning that Captain Curtis had died getting those final tasks accomplished.
Discovery blew herself into countless fragments amid an expanding cloud of superheated plasma and metal vapor that showered the entire vicinity with small pieces of tumbling debris. The only parts of the late NX-class starship that seemed to be at all intact were the red parallelogram-shaped shrouds that had covered the lifeboats prior to their hurried launch from the primary hull’s dorsal section.
As he watched a couple of dozen of the bright yellow, wedge-shaped lifeboats make their way toward the blue-green planet below, he wondered if anybody would hear Discovery’s final mayday calls in time to help any of her crew.
And if the Romulans would let any of them make it all the way down to the surface.
Attack Raptor Ehrie Hwi
”Preparing for atmospheric pursuit of survivors,” T’Vak said.
“No,” T’Voras said into his throat mic, throttling down his engines. He had learned much from the overeagerness he had displayed during his encounter with the Terran freighter he had destroyed during the test missions of the arrenhe’hwiua telecapture system. Besides, he already had more than enough explaining to do as it was, having misjudged the capabilities of this new Terran ship’s armor sufficiently to have destroyed it rather than capturing it for study in the Romulan Star Empire’s shipyards.
“Turn the squadrons about and fall back to the Dhivael, T’Voras told his subordinate. “Let this scattered Terran crew survive to spread fear among their kind.”
TWENTY-SIX
Monday, November 17, 2155
Enterprise, near Threllvia IV
“THE DISTRESS CALL IS COMING from the Andorian Imperial Guard Destroyer Ka’Thelan Krotus, Captain,” said Ensign Hoshi Sato as she listened to the voices chattering in her earpiece. “She’s taken heavy damage from three Romulan birds-of-prey. And she reports complete failure in every one of her critical systems, including the backups.”
That last news sent a chill up Archer’s spine. Just like what happened to the Kobayashi Maru, the Miracht, and probably the Yeager, too, he thought, recalling the remote-control hijacking Enterprise had only narrowly avoided as well.
“Don’t tell me,” Malcolm said, leaning forward across the tactical console. “We’re closer than any of their own ships are.”
“Threllvia is one of Andoria’s most remote colonies, Lieutenant,” T’Pol said, looking up from the hooded scanner at her science station.
Reed straightened and nodded toward the exec. “And Andoria’s forces have been spread pretty thin these days, ever since...” He busied himself at his console displays rather than completing the sentence he had left hanging in the air, as conspicuous as a sign written in meter-high letters of fire.
Ever since Vulcan decided to hide in the basement until the Romulan storm blows over.
Archer turned his chair forward so that he faced Ensign Leydon, who was manning the helm. “How quickly can we reach the Krotus?”
“About twenty minutes at warp five, Captain,” she said.
“Do it,” Archer said as he rose and approached Hoshi’s comm console. “Tell the Andorians we’re on the way.”
Hoshi’s face fell abruptly. “I was already tr
ying to do that. But now I can’t raise the Krotus. They’re no longer transmitting.”
Damn it, Archer thought. This may have just changed from a rescue mission to a recovery operation.
Eighteen minutes later, T’Pol’s sensor readings transformed the captain’s dismaying speculations into cold, hard fact.
“I’m reading an expanding debris cloud with strong duranium and polyferranide signatures,” T’Pol said. “It is definitely the remains of the Ka’Thelan Krotus. And the cloud’s sensor profile is consistent with a sudden catastrophic failure of the ship’s antimatter containment system.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Star Trek : Enterprise) Page 24
