“Red Alert,” April ordered at once, placing the Enterprise at full emergency readiness. Flashing red lights, and a low-pitched siren, added to the tense atmosphere upon the bridge. “Blast,” the captain muttered to himself. “Why Klingons? Why now?”
First encountered by Starfleet only a few decades ago, the Klingons had already proven to be as much a threat to the Federation’s outward expansion as the Romulans had been before them. No surprise then, April surmised, that the Klingon Empire would welcome the failure of an isolated Federation colony like Tarsus IV; it even occurred to him that the mysterious fungus that had devastated the colony’s harvests might have been covertly planted on the planet by the Klingons themselves. Lord knows, April thought, they’re ruthless and cunning enough.
He heard turbolift doors whish open behind him, followed by the impatient footsteps and indignant voice of his first officer. “All right, all right, what’s all the commotion about?” Lorna Simon demanded, right before she got her first glimpse of the metallic blue battleship on the main viewer. “Oh, I see.”
A less effective organization than Starfleet would have retired Commander Simon years ago, but April was grateful that the veteran officer had stuck with starship duty well into her sixties. Short, round, white-haired, and with a penetrating gaze that showed no lessening in alertness despite her advancing years, Lorna Simon always reminded the captain of the sort of tough, no-nonsense grandmother that no one could ever put anything over on. April couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather have at his side at a sticky moment like this one.
“Seems like we have some unexpected company, Lorna, m’dear,” April commented as his first officer dropped her arthritic bones, wrapped in a blue tunic and black slacks, into the science station at starboard.
“Gate-crashers is more like it,” Simon replied acidly. The stiffness in her joints did not stop her from immediately initiating a full-range scan of the oncoming vessel. “Last I heard, this was Federation territory.”
“This far into deep space, I’m afraid that possession truly is nine-tenths of the law,” the captain observed philosophically. On the viewscreen, the oncoming battle cruiser was growing larger by the minute. “I don’t suppose there’s any way we can simply evade them?”
“Negative, Sir,” Ensign Soulian answered. “The Klingon ship is on a direct intercept course, and one that puts them exactly between us and Tarsus IV.”
“Right,” April acknowledged. The untimely arrival of the enemy cruiser was sounding less and less like a coincidence. “You might as well drop out of warp, Carlos,” he instructed the helmsman, “while we find out what this is all about.” He watched the streaks of starlight upon the viewer collapse into discrete and distant points of light as the Enterprise slowed to impulse power. “Let’s just hope our Klingon friends aren’t feeling particularly belligerent today. We have more important things to do right now than rattle sabers at the competition.”
His light tone concealed a deeper frustration. Robert April thought of himself as an explorer, not a soldier, and it was a source of lasting regret to him that the harsh realities of galactic politics had required Starfleet to take on a military capacity along with its more idealistic goals. In a better universe, he believed, magnificent starships like the Enterprise would be solely instruments of peace and discovery, not part-time weapons of war, and yet here even a rescue mission threatened to turn into an all-out battle. The sheer waste and folly of it all appalled him.
“Claw,” he addressed his communications officer, an imposing Apache whose full name was Spirit Claw Sanaway. “Hail the commander of the Klingon vessel. Explain that we’re on a mission of mercy.”
“Yes, Captain,” Sanaway confirmed. His deep voice sounded almost Klingon in its timbre; April hoped that this accidental commonality would help them communicate with the Klingons aboard the battle cruiser.
Lorna Simon looked dubious. The wrinkles upon her weathered brow deepened as she squinted at the main viewer. “Why do I have the feeling that those Klingons aren’t going to be impressed by our altruistic intentions?”
Despite his determination to avoid an armed encounter if that was at all possible, Captain April feared his first officer’s prediction would prove all too accurate. If there was a Klingon word for “mercy,” he had never heard of it.
Aboard the Imperial Klingon attack cruiser Kut’luch, Captain Kor could not believe his good fortune. A Federation starship, alone and vulnerable! A youthful Klingon only recently appointed to his first command, Kor was eager to make a name for himself, and he could think of no better way to do so than to successfully challenge a powerful Starfleet vessel.
Kor stood proudly upon the bridge of his warship, which he had balefully named after an assassin’s blade. Dim, purple light—the color of spilled Klingon blood—shone down on him through the metal grillwork of the ceiling, streaking the bridge with incarnadine shadows and adding a florid tint to his silver-and-black military uniform. A golden sash, stretched across Kor’s stocky chest, proclaimed his status as the ship’s undisputed commander. Shrewd, dark eyes swiftly assessed his crew’s readiness for battle and found their status satisfactory. Stationed at their respective posts, the warriors under Kor’s command were no less hungry for battle; the scent of their courage and anticipation enriched the musky, pressurized atmosphere of the bridge. “Visual!” he ordered in Klingon, impatient to look upon the face of his enemy.
The pale, pinkish countenance that appeared upon the main viewer was disappointingly mild in appearance. All humans were soft and spineless, Kor knew, at least compared to Klingons, but he had hoped for a somewhat more impressive antagonist nonetheless; the genial-looking human male before him, with his concerned brown eyes, fluffy chestnut hair, and nauseatingly sincere expression, reminded Kor more of a middle-aged librarian than a Starfleet commander. He could sense his crew’s dashed hopes for a glorious battle. The human didn’t even have a decent beard!
“This is Captain Robert April of the U.S.S. Enterprise,” the human said. “We are engaged in a vital rescue mission that cannot be delayed. With all due respect, I request that you let us continue on our way without incident, unless you wish to assist us in our rescue operation, as a gesture of goodwill between our two peoples.”
Kor blinked in confusion. What sort of greeting was that? Where were the threats and challenges, the boasts of one’s prowess and weapons? Didn’t these humans even know how to address a worthy opponent? Scowling, the Klingon captain let his dark face freeze into a stem and forbidding mask.
“I am Kor, captain of the Kut’luch,’ he said coldly, icy disdain in his eyes. He spoke in the human’s own barbaric tongue, the better to demonstrate the efficacy of Klingon military intelligence. “You and your vessel will turn back at once, or be destroyed.” He would have preferred to ask for the other starship’s unconditional surrender, but his orders from General Korrd were clear; Kor’s first priority was to ensure that no Federation vessel approached Tarsus IV, not to capture any stray starships. He could only hope that, Kahless willing, the Enterprise would dare to defy Kor’s ultimatum, even though, sadly, he fully expected this Captain April to turn tail and run at the first blast of disruptor fire … if not before.
On the viewer, the human scowled, but his voice remained distressingly bland. “I’m afraid you have no jurisdiction over this sector,” April pointed out, as pedantically as any hair-splitting Vulcan sophist. “I repeat, we are on a mission of mercy.”
“Mercy is for weaklings,” Kor replied contemptuously. “And do not waste my time speaking of ‘jurisdiction’ or any other legal nicety.” He spoke to April as he would to a credulous child. “Here in the untamed reaches of the galaxy, you humans must learn, all true authority is a matter of arms—and the will to use them.”
“I don’t believe that,” the human insisted, “and I never will.” He leaned forward in his chair, as if to narrow the physical and philosophical gulf separating him from the Klingon commander. “Sentient beings a
re capable of better things, of a higher standard of behavior.”
“It matters little what you believe,” Kor stated, losing interest in his dialogue with the naive Federation captain. He longed for battle, not mere intellectual debate. “Our disruptors are locked on your vessel. You have two of your minutes to depart this sector; if you remain, your vessel and your crew will be obliterated.”
April shook his head sadly. “Retreat is not an option, Captain. The lives of eight thousand colonists are at stake, and I’m not about to abandon those people now.” His expression hardened, the stubborn set of his jaw seemingly at odds with the crinkly laugh lines about his eyes and lips. “I must warn you, Sir, that while the Enterprise will not fire the first shot, this ship can and will defend herself if necessary.”
Kor lifted a bushy, angular eyebrow. Something in April’s voice caught the Klingon commander’s attention, and he regarded his human counterpart with new interest. No doubt the captain’s warning was mere Federation posturing, and yet … perhaps April’s blood was a more potent brew than he had originally assumed? For the first time since initiating communications with the Starfleet vessel, Kor let a sly smile raise the comers of his lips. Maybe this Captain April might actually provide him with the conflict—and the glory—he craved.
“Ah, Captain,” Kor said wistfully, “how I wish I could believe you.” He lowered his wiry, compact frame into the command chair at the center of the bridge. Glancing at the nearest chronometer, he saw that the Enterprise’s two minutes of grace were about to elapse. “Permit me to demonstrate that Klingons, unlike humans, do not bluff.”
“End transmission!” he barked at his communications officer in Klingon, then thrust his fist at the gleaming Federation starship that reappeared upon the main viewer. “Fire at will!”
Kor’s swarthy visage vanished abruptly from the Enterprise’s viewscreen. Robert April didn’t need a full strategic analysis to guess what was coming next. “Brace yourselves, children!” he warned the bridge crew in typically avuncular fashion. “Looks like we’re in for some rough weather.”
A blast of white-hot disruptor fire lit up the viewscreen, momentarily overpowering the brightness filters. April blinked and looked away from the screen, but the glare quickly faded. “Shields are holding,” Lorna Simon reported promptly, even before the initial glow of the disruptors had entirely dispersed, “but these greasy-faced hooligans mean business. That was no warning shot.”
“No,” April agreed. “Our Captain Kor doesn’t strike me as particularly tentative in his approach.” He realized that he had no choice but to retaliate; the Klingon Empire had to learn that the U.S.S. Enterprise was not easy pickings. “Carlos, return fire. Lasers at full intensity.”
“Yes, Sir!” the helmsman complied. A binocular targeting scanner extended upwards from beneath a flap at the left end of the conn. Florida placed his face against the mounted viewer as the ship’s short-range sensors fed him data on the range and composition of the enemy vessel. A second later, an incandescent crimson beam sprang from the Enterprise’s forward laser banks to strike the forbidding battle cruiser at its prow. Scintillating bursts of green-blue energy flashed where the high-intensity, gamma-range laser beam broke against the Klingons’ deflectors. “A direct hit, Captain.”
“Brilliant,” April praised the young officer, while concealing his deeper ethical qualms from his crew. There were nearly two hundred men and women aboard the Enterprise, he recalled, whose lives were now as much at risk as those of the famine victims on Tarsus IV. He owed his crew the best defense this spanking new starship could muster. “Hit them again, Carlos. Show them what this beauty can do.”
The Kut’luch met the Enterprise’s lasers with a blistering barrage of their own. Blinding discharges of raw, destructive energy strobed the airless gulf between the two warring ships. Savage pyrotechnics exploded in eerie silence, the polychromatic effulgence of the dueling lasers and disruptors bouncing off the burnished hulls of both vessels to create a dazzling light show that was more or less wasted on the lifeless vacuum bearing witness to the blazing, high-tech hostilities. ’Twould be a beautiful sight, Robert April mused ruefully, if it weren’t so bloody senseless….
Kor grinned wolfishly as another shock wave rocked the bridge. His dark complexion glistened beneath the blood-purple radiance of the battle lights. The surprisingly robust defiance offered by the Enterprise set his warrior’s heart pounding in his chest. The two ships were proving to be quite evenly matched, and April, that unprepossessing and seemingly innocuous specimen of humanity, a much more formidable foe than Kor ever could have hoped. So much the better, he exulted privately, gripping the hard steel armrests of his command chair. After all, the greater the foe, the more glorious the battle.
“Captain!” shouted the officer in Klingon at the auxiliary systems monitor, an upstart young warrior named Kruge. “Our aft shields are weakening at three positions.”
“So?” Kor snarled back at him. “Are you suggesting we retreat?” The scorn in his voice eloquently testified to what Kor thought of that proposition.
“No, Captain! Of course not! I only…” Kruge hastily redirected his gaze onto the instrument panel before him. His shaking hands did their best to look busy. “Attempting to restore shields, Sir!”
Kor smirked, enjoying the junior officer’s discomfort; it was necessary to remind these unseasoned whelps that they were not yet captains in their own right. Kor’s own first commander had abused Kor mercilessly—until Kor slew him in honorable battle upon that commander’s own bridge. Someday, I too will fate such a challenge, from Kruge or his ilk, Kor reminded himself, but not today.
A cascade of silver sparks erupted from an overloaded processor at Kor’s right. A fraction of the fiery spray fell upon the back of his hand, singeing his flesh, yet the pain only increased his enthusiasm for the battle. “Arm fusion torpedoes!” he demanded.
Kor was the scion of a noble house; he knew that his enemies (and any Klingon with a drop of ambition in his veins had enemies) whispered that he had attained his rank through family connections and not by virtue of his abilities and valor. Nor after today! he vowed. Defeating the Enterprise would silence his critics for good.
“Fire torpedoes!”
Aboard the bridge of the Enterprise, the overhead lights flickered momentarily, as precious power was diverted to the depleted deflectors. Captain April felt the ship’s artificial gravity fluctuate, inducing a temporary sensation of light-headedness and nausea. That simply won’t do, he resolved; he couldn’t have his crew getting spacesick in the middle of combat. He hit the intercom button on his starboard armrest, opening a direct line to engineering. “Doctor Marvick, this is April. Stabilize that gravity!”
“We’re doing the best we can,” his chief engineer protested indignantly. Judging from the petulant whine in his voice, Laurence Marvick sounded personally offended by (a) the Captain’s order, (b) the Klingon assault, or (c) all of the above. “You can’t just subject a sophisticated mechanism like this vessel to such an extreme battering and expect every system to function at peak efficiency.”
“The Enterprise is a starship, Doctor, not a piece of crockery.” The captain spoke with more heat than he normally preferred to employ, but this exchange only convinced April of something he had already suspected for some time: he needed to replace Marvick at the first opportunity. Although unquestionably a brilliant engineer, and one of the Enterprise’s original designers, the man was simply too high-strung for a mission in deep space. Marvick belonged in a research facility somewhere, not aboard a starship exploring the final frontier.
Unfortunately, replacing Marvick would have to wait until such time as they weren’t being attacked by hostile Klingons. “I want you to listen to me, Doctor. This is not a request. I expect up to remain up, down to stay down, and gravity to adhere to strictly terrestrial standards. Am I making myself understood?”
The captain’s stern words had the desired effect. “Yes, Sir,”
Marvick assented, with rather less temperament than before. “I’ll see to it myself.”
“Thank you, Doctor. April out.” He clicked off the intercom and, within moments, felt gravity (and his stomach) settle back into place. That’s more like it, April thought. Beyond transferring Marvick, he further resolved to have the gravity generators reinforced with additional shielding the next time the Enterprise docked at a starbase. This was the last occasion he wanted to worry about the ship’s gravity during an emergency.
Assuming, of course, that we come out of this donnybrook alive and well. A grimmer scenario lurked at the back of his mind; he knew too well that, above all else, he could not let the Enterprise fall into the hands of the Klingons. The security of the entire fleet could be threatened if Klingon engineers were able to probe the captured ship for her technological secrets. As much as he cherished the lives of his valiant crew, April fully intended to destroy his astounding ship before surrendering her to the enemies of the Federation. I can only pray it doesn’t come to that, he thought.
“The Klingons have armed their torpedoes,” Lorna Simon announced suddenly, her gaze glued to her sensor readouts. Looking past the coruscating clash of the two ship’s energy weapons, April spied an intense orange flash emanating from somewhere on the undercarriage of the battle cruiser’s prow. That first flare was immediately followed by a second orange discharge.
“Incoming!” Florida blurted, yanking his head back from targeting scanner. His fingers danced rapidly over the weapon controls.
Accelerating rapidly to near-warp speed, twin torpedoes zoomed at the Enterprise. Diverted from their attack on the Kut’luch, the starship’s lasers manage to intercept the first torpedo, causing it to detonate prematurely. The thermonuclear explosion expanded outward in the vacuum, and the resulting shock wave shook both vessels. The Enterprise’s duranium framework rattled audibly, and warning lights blinked on all over the bridge. The acrid smell of burning circuitry violated the ordinarily pristine atmosphere breathed by April and his crew. Lieutenant Roberts coughed loudly as she raced to put out an electrical fire beneath the engineering subsystems monitor. Scorch marks marred the front of her blue duty uniform. If that’s what a miss feels like, April thought gravely, what would a direct hit do?
Star Trek: Enterprise Logs Page 7
