Oh boy. Well, this is one for the memoirs, and no mistake. Or the court martial proceedings. Assuming I live long enough for either.
"Tactical telemetry's coming in now," the comms ensign reports. "Uh, there's a lot of it, sir, but I think we can handle it -"
"Yeah," I say, "yeah. Maybe. Maybe we can wield the whole Imperial Guard like some sort of blunt instrument...."
"The Imperial Guard will do whatever it takes, sir," says Tallasa, with appropriately icy emphasis.
"I never doubted it. La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas."
"Universal translator didn't get that last part, sir."
"It's not important. Never mind." I study the tactical display. There are a whole lot of incoming enemy ships. Vulcan ringed-needles, swoopy Romulan designs... the massive bulks of Scimitars, including the flagship, Valikra's old ship, the Raven's Heart... and other ships, too. Ch'Haras was right, there are more ships here than anybody'd thought were in the Hegemony fleet. So what are all the extras? The answer is obvious as soon as I look... big, heavy, slow-moving... "Freighters," I say aloud.
"Sir?" says Tallasa.
"Freighters. The Hegemony fleet is bringing in a whole flock of freighters. Why? Something tells me they ain't filled with yummy candy. Have we got anything working that will get a sensor scan of some cargo holds?" */*inference---military materiel and equipment---separation of ship classes is inefficient*/* Oh, good. The deep thoughts of Two of Twelve on tactics, strategy and logistics - that stuff never gets old.
"One of the sensor buoys for the outer tactical net is still operational," Saval says. "I believe I can get some readings through that." He frowns over his console. "Resolving.... The imaging is not clear. Some of the freighters, though, are carrying heavy radiation shielding around extremely dense material. Others have a cargo of complex organic molecules -"
"Good enough for me. Tricobalt bombs, and more Pasicide-7." Damn it, who gave that filthy muck a trade name? Did they plan to advertise it? "Damn. Damn. Even one of those, if it gets past the planetary defences - we might not be talking full-on genocide, but it'd still be megadeaths of civilians."
"Sir," says Tallasa. Her face is drawn and grim. "Even with all our tactical data channels maxed out, I'm not sure -"
"That we can coordinate the Imperial Guard well enough to block all those freighters," I finish for her, "and stop the conventional attack from the warships, and deal with those rock-throwing yahoos at the edge of the system." I clutch at my head. "Won't work. Need another approach. Think, Ronnie, think. At night you can hear her brain ticking like a cheap alarm clock. Think." I swivel in my chair, turn to the comms ensign. "Face-ache. Get me a channel to the Messalina."
T'Laihhae's face appears on the main viewer, guarded, impassive, impenetrable. The mass of Hegemony ships is moving closer, now, frighteningly close. Another line of light gleams in space; another missile turned aside by Enfilade. "You were undercover on Vulcan," I say. "Did you get anything from there that could help us? Any idea on what they're hitting Andoria's systems with? Any way we could hit back at them?"
T'Laihhae slowly shakes her dark head. "I was able to glean a certain amount of data," she says, "mostly relating to the Vulcan ships' structure and engines. I do not have their secure computer protocols. All I have, when it comes to communications, is a set of emergency pre-empt codes for intra-fleet address. I don't think putting out a general message on their comms system is likely to help, though."
Something clicks inside my head. "Maybe it will. Set it up."
T'Laihhae frowns, but she says, "Very well." Her hands do something, out of the range of the viewer. The Hegemony fleet is boring in. It's coming in from the opposite side of the planet from Andoria Spacedock, I wouldn't be covered by the space station's weapons even if they were operational. All I have is the Imperial Guard, milling around in low orbit, and the few working defence satellites, which are getting fewer all the time as the Hegemony ships pick them off.
"You'll only have a short time," T'Laihhae says, "before they cancel the pre-empt code... I could use another one, but they are -" a quick flash of smile "- in limited supply. I don't know what you hope to achieve, but... ready when you are."
I take a deep breath. "Put me on."
The viewscreen flickers, shows an abstract holding pattern. "This is Vice Admiral Veronika Grau," I say, "speaking to the officers and crews of the Hegemony ships now approaching Andoria. I'm speaking to you, because I cannot believe that you know what you're doing here. The freighters you're escorting are loaded with genocide materials - poisons and radiation weapons. I do not believe, I refuse to believe, that the Hegemony has found so many Vulcans so lost to logic, so many Romulans so lost to honour, as to participate willingly in a campaign of mass extermination. Whatever you've been told, about your purpose here, it is a lie. Don't let it fool you any longer. Break formation, eject your warp cores, do whatever it takes to get your ships out of this - this obscenity."
"Do not listen to Starfleet's lies!" A voice coming back to me, a voice I know: D'Kalius. "Clear this channel, Grau! You are a rogue and a lunatic, and your lies will not be believed!"
"Scan those freighters!" I yell back. "Scan them, check out the radioactives and the toxins, and then tell me who's a liar and a lunatic! And look at those plasma flashes we've all been seeing on sensors - those are relativistic missiles, aimed at Andoria, deflected by the skin of our teeth! Don't believe me or D'Kalius, use your own eyes!"
The screen flickers and goes blank. T'Laihhae's voice says, "Channel has been blocked."
"Do you think that worked, sir?" asks Tallasa.
"Take a look at that fleet. There can't be that many genocidal fanatics in the Hegemony, even now - my guess is, most of those commanders will have been told some plausible lie, about running relief supplies in against Reman terrorists or some such malarky. Once they know different -"
"Movement in the Hegemony fleet," says Saval. He quirks his eyebrow at me. "I'm showing... warp core and singularity core ejections. Some ships, both Vulcan and Romulan, have altered course... some vessels are even exchanging fire."
I can see it on my tactical display, the tight formation suddenly wavering, losing momentum, icons for weapons fire and explosions speckling the map.... Well, what do you know? An enemy fleet thrown into confusion, ships disabled, all just by using high moral persuasion. Maybe I do belong in Starfleet, after all.
"The freighters are still on course," Tallasa reports, puncturing my mood.
"Well, at least it's a start," I say. "Let's see how D'Kalius copes with having random gaps in his command structure.... But you're right. The guys in the freighters have to know what they're really doing, they have to be the genuine fanatics. We need to break D'Kalius's organization down completely." My mind is racing, neurons misfiring at the speed of light. "If we can turn this into a big hairy furball... our lack of tactical coordination won't matter, if nobody's organized at all. And in a straight one-on-one fight, the deelybopper heads were always better than the Roms. Um. No offence meant."
"None taken, sir," says Tallasa in tones that would make liquid helium shiver.
"Command and control. Think, Ronnie, think." D'Kalius's flagship will handle a lot of the strategic coordination... but the Raven's Heart is a big, obvious target, he won't be fool enough to run his whole tactical net from there. */*distribution of assets obviates necessity to protect single vulnerable points---collective command systems inevitably enjoy superiority over centralized command and control assets*/* - oh, pipe down. Anyway, even the Borg use localized control links, vinculums, to handle the bulk data processing. Where's D'Kalius's vinculum?
Annoyingly, the answer pops into my head as soon as I start thinking in those terms. "There. That D'ridthau." The warbird is squatting fat and happy in the rear-centre of the fleet, in the wrong place to be a rearguard, too far back to be the lead ship of a battle group... just nicely placed to watch the freighters and monitor them on their attack runs.
"Are you sure, sir?" asks Tallasa.
"No. But it makes sense. D'Kalius must have some dedicated tac control, and that ship is the right type and in the right place to do it, and I can't figure what else it might be doing. So if we take that one out, besides all the other confusion that's going on, D'Kalius will lose coordination." I take a deep breath, hold it, let it out slowly. "Face-ache, tell Tylha and the Imperial Guard to stand ready to engage enemy units on an individual basis. We're going to splatter D'Kalius's fleet all over Andorian local space, and then the Andorians can mop them up. Jhemyl, set course, two five mark one seven. Combat speed, weapons and shields to maximum."
A sober silence descends on the bridge. It's one time when I'm very glad of working with so many Klingons and Andorians... they know what this means, and they're not going to make a big deal of it. We have an excellent chance of getting in to the middle of the Hegemony fleet and killing that warbird. Our chances of getting out, though, under the guns of dozens of warbirds and Vulcan cruisers, would have snowballs in hell shaking their heads sorrowfully.
"Course locked; engaging," Jhemyl says. "Weapons ready." The Falcon surges forwards.
"Four minutes to estimated weapons range of the Hegemony ships," says Tallasa. "Five minutes to engagement range with target." We can take their fire for that extra minute. I think.
Annoyingly, I can't come up with an appropriate quotation. Last words of Harry Harbord "Breaker" Morant? That's not going to lighten the mood. Sydney Carton? This doesn't feel like a far, far better thing. Admiral Farragut? Oh, come on, way too corny.
*/*dissolution of individual unit is not to be feared---the collective continues---the individual unit remains within the collective consciousness---reconnect---priority---u
Oh, now there's a great line to go out on.
"Two minutes," says Tallasa in a dead level voice.
Then Saval yells, "Ships decloaking!"
The warbirds shimmer out of the darkness, hulls gleaming, weapons arrays flaring into ominous life, ribbons of plasma fire reaching out, eye-hurting globes of plasma torpedoes streaking across the sky -
And they're not aimed at me.
"Hard about, three hundred mark two niner two!"
The Falcon breaks off her attack run, heeling sharply to the side - because our target is already haloed in flame, the beams of half a dozen dark-gleaming Mogais tearing down its shields, scarring and melting the armoured hull -
"Sir," the comms ensign reports in bewildered tones, "I have a signal - ship's identification is the Zdenia -"
"Put him through!" The main viewer changes. "Obisek, I could kiss you!"
"Perhaps later," the Reman leader says. "We received Vice Admiral T'Laihhae's transmissions and mobilized as quickly as we could. D'Tan has assembled a Republic task force, but it is taking him time to get diplomatic clearances to move a war fleet into the Federation heartland." The scarred nightmare face moves in a smile. "Fortunately, I am neither expected nor required to be diplomatic. Incidentally, my forces engaged with a squadron at the outskirts of the system, who seemed to be engaged in launching relativistic projectiles. You should waste no time in looking for survivors from that force."
I thought there hadn't been any lines of plasma on the screens for a bit. "Got to love a man with a big ambiguity," I say. "Those freighters. They're loaded with megadeath weapons, and if any of them get to the planet, it's going to be a disaster. It's like they say in an old Earth epic... gotta catch 'em all."
Obisek grunts. "We will do our best... but this situation presents difficulties." He glances to one side. "Breaking communication. I have company - and so, I think, do you."
One look at my tactical display tells me he's right. A Vulcan cruiser is coming at me, weapons hot, the needle point of that graceful hull aimed at my heart... ahh, not quite. He's slewing around to present his energy broadside to me, aiming to knock my shields down to nothing before swinging back to fire a torpedo salvo into my unprotected hull. Textbook stuff.
I snap out orders, and the Falcon turns and lunges, facing the Vulcan and passing over its prow, so close that the two ships' shields brush together and flicker. Warp plasma sprays from our nacelles, shrouding the Vulcan in energy-charged fog, tearing relentlessly at its shields. Our aft weapons arrays spit phaser beams and torpedoes into the cloud... and, by the time we swing around, there's very little left of the cruiser for our fore weapons to lock on to.
Don't ever textbook-stuff me, Vulcans.
I spare a look for the overall state of the battlefield. So far, it's going to - what would be a plan, if I'd had a plan. The Hegemony fleet has come completely apart, scattered by defections in its ranks, by the loss of the control ship, by the sudden onslaught of the Remans. The Remans themselves are circling like vultures, their warbirds slipping in and out of cloak... the Andorian ships are rising from low orbit, phasers blazing, hungry for kills.
Andoria local space is now the scene of what might be the biggest, worst organized, starship dogfight in history. Neither D'Kalius nor I has even a hope of controlling it.
"I have a targeting solution on a freighter," Jhemyl says, her normally calm voice edged with fury.
"Let's hit it."
The phaser arrays blaze into life, torpedoes roar out of the tubes. Our beams rake along the freighter's hull, slicing into the cargo pods. Ghostly white mist spills from the ruptured containers: Pasicide-7, spraying harmlessly into space, to be degraded and destroyed in Procyon's solar wind. Torpedoes slam home, and the freighter is an eye-searing flash and a fading memory. One down. How many to go?
"Incoming transmission," the comms ensign reports. "Starfleet frequency... USS Kyllikki."
Nothing's coming our way for the moment. "Steer three seven five mark three six two," I snap, and then, "All right, let's have it. On screen."
The viewer flickers, and displays a face I don't know; a sharp-featured Vulcan woman with short reddish hair. "This is Vice Admiral T'Pia, commanding Stellar Survey Group 274, aboard the USS Kyllikki," she says. "I have one Nebula-class, one Intrepid-class and three frigate groups. We are here to assist."
"Veronika Grau, USS Falcon. We've got to stop those freighters you can see from getting to Andoria."
"Noted." T'Pia frowns. "You are in combat with Romulan warbirds. My science vessels have the ability to set up a tachyon detection grid. This would neutralize the Romulans' advantage in cloaking, which might be a more productive use of my resources than sending them directly into combat."
Well, she's talking sense. But then I wouldn't expect anything else of a Vulcan... except... Vulcans haven't been doing what we expect, lately.
I look her hard in the eye. Her eyes are green, and very hard. "Why are you here?" I ask.
"I received an all-points broadcast transmitted by Vice Admiral Shohl. I have worked with her on a previous occasion, and I do not believe her to be an alarmist." The green eyes flicker for a moment. "I believe Vice Admiral Shohl can vouch for me, if needed."
I have to ask. "You're a Vulcan. Can I trust you?"
Vulcan eyes. It's like watching a slot machine, as the thoughts whir behind them and settle into a result, thump-thump-thump. "I understand your position. Unfortunately, Captain M'eioi of the Trinidad has neither the experience nor the onboard computer capacity to manage a tachyon detection grid. I can offer you this facility, Vice Admiral Grau. Whether or not you can trust me... is a decision that only you can make."
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