Fallout 31

Shalo
"Status?" I demand, as I stride onto the bridge.

"Gateway is powering up," K'Gan reports. "No indication as yet who is coming through."

"Have there been any communications from the high command?"

"No, sir."

"Then we must assume the worst. Put me in contact with the Federation ships." I take my seat in the command chair, trying to project a confidence that I cannot feel.

Shohl's face appears on an ancillary display, then Grau's on a screen beside it. "I will say this," I tell them. "The Chancellor did not, does not, condone the act at Bercera IV. If this - visit - comes from those responsible for that... then my ship stands with Starfleet."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see K'Gan stiffen. Well, he is my First Officer, if he wishes to challenge, let it be now.

But he does not. Instead, he says, in almost pained tones, "That is the honourable course."

So, I muse, if we fail, he will share in my disgrace... that would be a pity. We must not fail, then.

"You'd better do the talking," Grau says. "At least, some of it. If there's going to be any talking."

I nod. "In case there is not," I say to K'Gan, "launch wings one and two." The first wave of Shohl's Scorpion fighters is already on the screen, hanging close in tight formation about the carrier. I have no doubt that the rest of her fighters are waiting on their launch rails now.

Our three ships drift at low impulse speed towards the gateway, Shohl in the centre, Grau on her starboard flank, myself on her port. The gateway is pulsating, almost shuddering, as the energy builds up.

It happens quickly. One instant, the mouth of the gate is empty; then, there is a terrific flash of light, and the ships come through.

Five ships. Four K'tinga cruisers, in two pairs, the pairs flanking the slab-sided massive shape of a VoD'Leh carrier. Fighters are already pouring out of its launch bays, taking up station in an arc ahead of it.

"We are being hailed," K'Gan reports.

"On screen. And cut in Starfleet. We need have no secrets."

On the main viewer, a glowering face appears, a face I recognize.

"Lieutenant General Shalo. This is Councillor T'Jeg of the House of Toros. You are ordered to stand down and return to Qo'noS, there to await reassignment to other duties." His eyes flicker; he, too, has ancillary screens showing my companions. "Starfleet. There is nothing for you here. Stand aside."

"I live to serve, Councillor," I say. "Merely transmit the confirmation codes authorizing the High Council's order, and I comply."

"Confirmation codes -?" T'Jeg seems to swell with rage.

"While you're at it," Shohl says, "you'd better transmit your diplomatic clearances. Otherwise, you are an enemy vessel outside Klingon territory, and you will be fired upon."

"I am a member of the High Council!" T'Jeg yells. "I am not to be questioned by - by underlings and Federation weaklings! Obey me now, or I will have your heads!"

On my command console, an image is taking shape: a transmission from the Virtue, sketching the tactical situation, offering a suggested battle plan. I touch the screen, trace lines with my fingertips, making my own suggestions. Shohl is doing likewise....

"With respect, Councillor," I say, almost absent-mindedly, "the Chancellor is also a member of the High Council, and it was from his own lips that I received my orders. You must show the proper authority, if you are to countermand those."

"And Starfleet," says Shohl, "has some questions for the House of Toros. On that basis, I'm ordering you to stand down your fighters, drop your shields, and transport over to the King Estmere. I give you my personal guarantee that you will be treated... appropriately."

"You order me? Your head, Andorian! I will take your head!"

Ronnie Grau laughs wildly. "It shall never be said that I doffed my head for the boast of a heathen line."

"My Starfleet colleague expresses herself poetically," I say. "Nevertheless, the House of Toros stands implicated in this affair, and the Chancellor will require answers, as well as the Federation. You must make ready to provide those answers, Councillor."

"Answers? I will give you my answers now!" T'Jeg turns to face an unseen bridge officer. "Wipe them from the skies!" And the viewer goes blank.

"Launch wings three and four," I say to K'Gan.

T'Jeg's forces are advancing in a traditional Klingon pattern, the fighters sweeping forwards in an imposing curve before the bulk of the carrier, the cruisers threatening on his flanks. It is a formation designed to impress and intimidate; it has served that purpose in many a frontier system, terrorizing many a minor power....

It is not, though, the wisest choice for facing Starfleet.

T'Jeg no doubt expects a straight fight, his carrier versus the King Estmere in the middle, while his cruisers take on the Garaka and the Virtue in pairs. It is not a plan that any of us wishes to cooperate with.

Instead, Virtue and King Estmere both heel over hard to their port sides. Shohl's carrier fires her disruptor cannons at one K'tinga, then turns even more sharply, presenting a rear arc in which a weapons hardpoint glows green, then lashes out with an eye-hurting bolt of light. A Romulan plasma hyperflux beam. It bites through the cruiser's failing screens, sears across the hull, green-white flares of plasma fires bursting out in its wake.

"Designating that cruiser Target One," I say, "and firing."

At the same time, Virtue fires her phaser lotus and forward cannons in a wide-angle spread at T'Jeg's fighters. The imposing arc dissolves at once into chaos, To'Dujs exploding in puffs of flame.

Target One's shields are down, and my disruptor beams will keep them down - at least long enough for my Hargh'peng torpedo to slam into the target's hull, and add its lurid violet radiance to the green of the plasma fires. Meanwhile, Target One's cruiser consort - now Target Two - is receiving the attentions of my S'kul fighters. Their antiproton blasts will keep that cruiser occupied while I finish his wounded consort.

Shohl's Scorpions are busy, too. Three quarters of T'Jeg's fighters are already eliminated, and the remaining To'Dujs - outclassed individually, and outnumbered three to one - last barely seconds against the Scorpions, which then turn their attention to the carrier. Their plasma weapons and torpedoes flare against its shields -

- while I attend to my two targets, and Shohl and Grau go after the cruisers on the other flank. Shohl's disruptor cannons are blazing, and her torpedo tubes are spitting globes of plasma at a frankly alarming rate; Grau is closing on the last cruiser now, her phaser cannons hammering its shields to nothing. T'Jeg's forces are firing back, of course....

"Standard disruptors only," K'Gan reports.

"Of course," I say. "They have never needed better." The House of Toros is a house of merchants, sitting safe and happy behind the lines, never having to deploy its forces for anything more than routine intimidation of minor systems. Naturally, they think themselves warriors - what Klingon does not? But thinking so does not make it so.

Still, it is never wise to underestimate one's enemy.

"Target Two launching torpedoes," K'Gan reports.

I count off, silently, in my head. "And... phase," I order. There is a slight alteration in the tone of the Fek'lhri engines, the faintest shift in the quality of the light on the bridge... and a deep, uneasy feeling inside me, as my ship and my body move out of sync with conventional reality. It is unsettling, on an intuitive and fundamental level, to have a salvo of photon torpedoes pass through us as though we were empty space.

The white light of a warp core breach banishes the spectral green and violet glows around Target One, and my ship snaps back into phase in time to launch an inarguably real Hargh'peng into Target TWo. Against all the odds, the cruiser has brought down two of my S'kuls. I check; the flight deck transporters recovered the crews in time, replacement fighters are already on the launch rails. I wonder, fleetingly, how many of T'Jeg's crews have survived. The carrier is using its weapons without discipline, alternating between swatting at Shohl's swarming Scorpions, and firing at King Estmere herself. As a result, T'Jeg has brought down no fighters, and barely succeeded in working up a glow from the Recluse's Reman-designed shields.

A row of plasma torpedoes stretches, like gleaming beads on a string, between King Estmere and the cruiser I've designated Target Three. As I watch, a torpedo strikes through the cruiser's shattered shields, burning deep into its hull. A second strike follows, then a third, then the core breaches and Target Three is gone. Shohl's remaining torpedoes realign themselves, acquiring new targets. Most of them go for Target Four, the cruiser now being cut to pieces by Grau's phasers; three, however, turn in space to aim themselves at the VoD'Leh. I check Target Two; its shields are down to nothing, my S'Kuls have nearly severed one nacelle - it is out of the fight, and will soon be dead.

"Beam arrays," I order. "Target the VoD'Leh's shield emitters."

Disruptor light flashes out from my ship, striking with remorseless precision at spots on the carrier's hull. For an instant, I fear I have failed; then the VoD'Leh's shield wavers and drops. It will be restored in minutes - if T'Jeg's crew is even minimally competent - but, in the meantime, Shohl's Scorpions strike home with their stinging blows, and the approaching plasma torpedoes proceed unimpeded to their mark. A brilliant flare announces the death of Target Four, and both King Estmere and Virtue swing around to bring their forward arcs to bear on the carrier.

The plasma torpedoes strike. Thick slabs of armour boil away, the side of the VoD'Leh's hull becomes a tangled inferno of white-hot broken metal, burning in a dozen atmosphere leaks. For a smaller vessel, that might be a mortal blow, but the VoD'Leh is so huge, its vital parts so well-defended, deep in its interior -

But it prompts a reaction, nonetheless. "Hail from the VoD'Leh!" K'Gan reports.

"Hold fire!" Shohl, Grau and I shout the order as one. Too late, I fear, for Target Two, whose broken, burning hull is drifting powerless away from my fighters... but they hold their fire, obedient, nonetheless.

T'Jeg reappears on my main viewer. There is fire behind him, but it is no more than the sparking of a transient surge along the EPS grid. Such trivia does not even distract an experienced combat commander... but T'Jeg is no combat commander. He has proved that today, that is certain.

"I wish to explain," he says, his words tumbling hastily over each other. "It pains me to admit this, but I am but the tool of others in this matter. Let me describe to you -"

And then he glows with a fiery light, and his words burn away to nothing, as does the mouth that speaks them.

Confusion erupts on T'Jeg's bridge; I hear shouts, weapons fire; I see the flash of disruptors, see people running to and fro - for an instant, there is someone on the screen, a Lethean with a gun in his hand, and I think I recognize him - then he is gone, and there is only the noise of fighting.

A voice screams, from somewhere to the side of the viewer, "No Starfleet prison camps! No dishonour! Ramming speed!" And the comms link goes suddenly dead.

The VoD'Leh springs to life, its impulse engines flaring into maximum overdrive, turning to bear straight down on the King Estmere. As a final gesture, it is a splendid one, a valiant one... a quintessentially Klingon one.

Our guns shred the carrier into white-hot ruins before it gets within three kilometers.