Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War

by Michael A. Martin

  “You believe I am doing these things?” T’Pau asked.

  T’Pol nodded. “Excellency, you cannot deny that your reticence has aided in the destruction of an entire civilization.”

  “I do deny it,” T’Pau said, the slope of her eyebrows forming an extremely acute angle above the bridge of her nose. “That was Kuvak’s doing. I had no knowledge of his providing assistance to Haakona until it was too late to avert the consequences.”

  “Irrelevant. Kuvak has answered to you since you assumed Vulcan’s highest office, T’Pau. You are therefore responsible for his actions.”

  The younger woman’s mouth opened and closed for several heartbeats, without emitting any sound. At length, T’Pau nodded and dropped her gaze, a gesture Ych’a could interpret only as one of grim acknowledgment.

  “The blood of Haakona is on my hands,” T’Pau said. “I can never change that. But I need not compound my errors by sanctioning more destruction.”

  T’Pol’s angular face seemed to lengthen in disappointment. “Then I have failed again,” she said. “Your mind remains unchanged. Earth will continue to stand essentially alone against the Romulans, even if the result is humanity’s extinction.”

  T’Pau met T’Pol’s beseeching gaze, as though attempting to offer succor. “When I first took office, humanity’s leaders all agreed that the time had come for ‘Earth to stand on its own two feet.’ Those were Captain Jonathan Archer’s words.”

  “Much has changed since then, Administrator,” T’Pol said.

  T’Pau nodded. “Granted, Commander. But I have faith in the resourcefulness of the human species.”

  “As do I, Administrator,” T’Pol said. “But this isn’t about faith. It’s about fulfilling our obligations to our closest ally.”

  Her expression growing suddenly stern, T’Pau said, “The Haakona disaster has proved that the stakes are now far too high for Vulcan to risk meddling any further in this conflict.”

  Both women lapsed into silence, watching each other and waiting. It seemed to Ych’a an opportune moment to speak.

  “Administrator, I have been out of circulation for the last two years. However, I can think of at least one other Vulcan operative who is almost certainly still interfering in the Romulan conflict as we speak—regardless of any decisions you have made.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Day Six, Romulan Month of Tasmeen, 1183 YD’E

  Tuesday, June 24, 2159

  Gasko II

  THE BREVITY OF THE FIGHT for control of the shipbuilding complex had come as no surprise to Subcommander Terix; with a few notable exceptions, the Ejhoii Ormiin radicals weren’t known for their combat prowess. Terix’s men, by contrast, were all drawn from elite units attached to Valdore’s Fifth Legion. They had completed every phase of today’s assault, from the surprise landing to the securing of the dissident base’s perimeter, in less time than it took an enlisted uhlan to consume a meal in the crew mess.

  What had surprised Terix was the identity of the man in charge of the small group of dissidents his strike force had captured today. His black paramilitary garb reduced to charred rags, his cheek and brow a mottled, livid green mass of second-degree burns, there could be no mistaking him for anyone else.

  “Ch’uivh,” Terix said, allowing more of his incredulity to show than he had intended. “Or would you prefer I call you Captain Sopek?”

  The traitor’s words came in short, rasping gasps, as though the very act of breathing pained him. “You seem…surprised…to see me.”

  Terix leaned against the heavy obsidian-surfaced desk in what remained of the traitor’s disruptor-seared office. He was tempted to dismiss the pair of guards that he’d posted just inside the blast-charred doorway but decided that doing so would be imprudent.

  “The Tal Shiar reported that they’d killed you,” Terix said.

  The traitor chuckled, then groaned in pain. “You can’t believe…everything…the Tal Shiar tells you.”

  Terix shrugged. The Tal Shiar had been reliable enough in obtaining the coordinates of this planet and relaying that information to Terix’s logistics unit. When it came to information about Ch’uivh/Sopek, the spy bureau may have had a different agenda. Perhaps the bureau had its own designs on the man and thus preferred that anyone who wished to detain him believe instead that searching for him would be an exercise in futility.

  Ah, the twisted life of a spy, Terix thought. He rejoiced that he had answered the call of the soldier.

  Moving at a brisk clip, Centurion Sitav—a young male officer dressed in a combat-distressed uniform—entered the office, a padd clutched in his hand.

  “Report,” Terix said as he accepted the padd from the centurion. After all the setbacks—not least of them the radicals’ sudden abandonment of their facility on Carraya IV and the disappearance of the reconnaissance mission—Admiral Valdore was going to expect good news for a change.

  “We’ve counted seven completed vessels in the Ejhoi Ormiin manufacturing and storage complex, Subcommander,” Sitav said.

  “Warp-seven-capable vessels, Centurion?” Terix allowed himself a slender reed of hope that Dr. Ehrehin’s elusive dream of avaihh lli vastam not only might have come to fruition, but had also fallen right into his lap.

  “Apparently so, Subcommander.”

  Terix grinned. “Have you found evidence that the radicals might have launched any of their new vessels prior to our arrival?”

  “No, Subcommander.” Sitav shook his head. “We appear to have caught them in the midst of their final preparations.”

  Terix nodded. “What about the vessels the radicals stole from us—our original avaihh lli vastam prototype and the Vulcan cruiser they took from our base near Achernar?

  “We can find no sign of either vessel, Subcommander,” Sitav said. “However, our chance of tracking them down will greatly increase once the engineering teams determine exactly how to operate the seven new high-warp vessels we captured today.”

  Terix hoped that was so. Those missing ships had doubtless served as templates for the construction of the Ejhoi Ormiin’s new vessels. The Romulan military could not afford to allow that situation to continue.

  Still, Terix thought, space is large. And scouring it from end to end for two ships can take a great deal of time.

  “Tell the engineering team that Admiral Valdore is going to expect results very soon,” Terix said.

  “At once, Subcommander,” Sitav said, reprising his salute. Then he turned smartly on his heel.

  And nearly collided with Decurion Ahrrek, the assault team’s principal engineering specialist, as he entered the office.

  Terix found nothing encouraging in the engineer’s demeanor or appearance. The younger officer sounded slightly out of breath and his uniform was askew, as though he’d come all the way from the hangar complex at a dead run.

  Terix displayed an impatient scowl, hoping to encourage the nervous young decurion to explain himself. “Well?”

  “Subcommander,” Ahrrek said, his tone infuriatingly tentative and cautious, “the engineering team has encountered something of a problem…”

  * * *

  The Hall of State, Dartha City, Romulus

  Admiral Valdore momentarily turned away from the holodisplay above the massive sherawood desk in his office. “Kllhe’mnhe,” he said, muttering the ancient scatological curse under his breath.

  Raising his voice back into the audible range, he faced Terix’s image and said, “What kind of problem are you talking about, Subcommander?”

  To his credit, the younger officer did not flinch at Valdore’s steely tone. “None of the new ships we seized are flyable yet, Admiral.”

  Though he knew he might have placed too much trust in the optimistic nature of the assault force’s initial sit-rep, Valdore experienced a palpable sense of disappointment. He could no longer count on quickly committing the captured fruits of the Ejhoi Ormiin’s avaihh lli vastam technology specialists to the struggle against the expans
ionist hevam and their allies.

  “Can you pilot the vessels out of the hangar?” Valdore asked.

  Terix nodded. “We can do that much, Admiral. We may even be able to fly the craft safely under impulse power, or even possibly at the low end of the warp scale.”

  Valdore scowled. “Then your engineers should have no difficulty throttling the engines all the way up from there.”

  “Decurion Ahrrek advises very strongly against making the attempt,” Terix said.

  “Explain.”

  “All seven of the new ships appear to lack a handful of crucial command-and-control components and programming. They appear to have been present during a recent battery of static tests and then removed afterward. We’ve found no trace of them so far, but we’re still searching.”

  “The Ejhoi Ormiin must have hidden them deliberately to prevent our using the ships against them.”

  “I agree, Admiral. Unless they took the components off the planet entirely before we arrived. Regardless, if we try to bring any of the engines up to full capacity without first taking the time to reverse-engineer the missing pieces, a runaway reactor breach is a virtual certainty. I wish I had better news to report, Admiral.”

  As do I, Valdore thought, pondering his options. For the first time since his Honor Blade had feasted upon the blood of the Ejhoi Ormiin traitor Nijil, the admiral experienced a small yet sharp pang of regret for having sent the tam’a’katr of his chief technologist down to cold Areinnye and into the chill grasp of Bettatan’ru and Erebus.

  But the admiral had a war to win. He could spare no time for self-recrimination or second-guessing.

  “Instruct Decurion Ahrrek to make the replacement of the missing components and protocols his top priority,” Valdore said. “I expect his crews to work around the clock.”

  “It shall be done, Admiral,” Terix said.

  “And continue the search for the original pieces. That is your top priority, Subcommander. Use any means necessary to recover what’s missing and get it into Ahrrek’s capable hands as quickly as possible.”

  “The search is already ongoing, Admiral.” Terix’s face took on the calculating smile of a raptor. “In the meantime, I will interrogate the captured Ejhoi Ormiin personnel myself, starting with their leader, Ch’uivh. One way or another, we will get these ships flying up their full capability.” He saluted smartly. “Jolan’tru, Admiral.”

  “Jolan’tru.” Valdore returned the salute unsmilingly, then shut down the connection.

  Taking stock of the day’s events so far, Valdore decided to regard the assault on Gasko II as a qualified success, his inability to use the radicals’ new ships notwithstanding. At least he had prevented the Ejhoi Ormiin from using their new vessels to undermine the power of the Romulan military or the Praetorate itself. He considered the destruction of Haakona, ill-advised though it had been when the late Admiral Dagarth had carried it out more than a year ago. Thanks to the multilayered inefficiencies that were built into the vast bureaucracies that distributed men and matériel across the Romulan Star Empire, the war resources that had been committed to the Haakonan front were only now making a difference in the war that raged all along the Empire’s hevam front.

  The war against the upstart colonizers from the Sol system, those who would push the Romulan Star Empire off the map’s edge, could at long last get properly under way.

  Imagine the terror of the humans and their increasingly reticent allies, he thought, exulting, after we discover how to bring the war into their very backyard at warp speeds that they now can scarcely imagine.

  NINETEEN

  Friday, November 21, 2159

  Enterprise NX-01

  Vorkado system

  DURING THE WAR’S EARLIEST engagements, Jonathan Archer wondered about the limits the Romulans placed on the number of ships they deployed at the tip of their spear. In many instances, if the enemy had equipped each invasion squadron with even a few additional ships, several battles that had become costly stalemates might have ended in victory for the Romulans. It made no sense that such tenacious fighters would be so reticent about doing what was necessary to win decisively. After all, the Romulan Star Empire had been plying deep interstellar space longer than Earth had; it was hard to believe that humanity’s most determined enemies had reached the limits of their galactic infrastructure or their war-production capacity. There had to be another reason behind this fortuitous parity.

  Archer had heard stories about the enemy being distracted by a different conflict, along a second line—a wide band of space that faced a frontier region on the far side of Romulan space, relative to Earth and the Coalition worlds. However, he had begun to hear fresh rumors that the Romulans had recently won this second campaign. Commander T’Pol had been able to corroborate these stories, to some extent, based on information she had gleaned during her most recent trip to Vulcan. If true, the intensity of the Romulan war effort would increase markedly, perhaps by at least a factor of two. What remained unknown was how many additional ships and troops the Romulans would bring to bear along the forward edge of Earth’s war effort, and how soon.

  Not to mention, Archer thought, how much farther back the Romulans might force us. Prime Minister Samuels’s plan to limit the combat front to the radius of the notoriously unreliable Vulcan warp-field detection grid that marked the effective boundaries of the Sol system might be about to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  Archer was relieved to have an excuse to put such grim matters aside—once Malcolm Reed confirmed that the Romulan warbird the Starship Intrepid had discovered entering the Vorkado system seemed to have arrived there alone and unescorted.

  Perched on the edge of his command chair, Archer watched the hostile vessel gradually swell in the bridge viewer until it filled nearly the entire image area. Because of the arthropod character of the dozen or so weapons tubes that bristled from its green, battle-scarred ventral hull, Archer thought the small but powerful ship more closely resembled some crablike ancient sea predator than a bird.

  “Have they noticed us yet, Malcolm?” Archer asked, his gaze still riveted to the screen.

  “They’ve shown no sign of it so far, Captain,” the tactical officer said in his clipped, businesslike Leicester accent. “They’ve obviously seen some action recently. Maybe their sensors are damaged and they haven’t yet had the opportunity to make repairs.”

  Archer nodded, acknowledging the possibility, though he wasn’t convinced. “And they might be playing possum—trying to draw us away from our convoy to give other ships we haven’t detected yet a chance to get close enough to pounce.”

  That was an outcome Archer couldn’t permit. The new starbases at Calder II and Beta Virginis V—in reality they were hastily constructed forward operating bases, or military FOBs, rather than the fully appointed starbases Starfleet had originally planned to establish during more peaceful times—couldn’t wait any longer for the supplies the convoy carried. The supply problem had become so critical that Starfleet Command had seen fit to divert Enterprise to the task of helping the Intrepid and the Republic shep-herd the convoy through the final legs of its vitally important journey.

  T’Pol looked up from her science console. “I must point out that leaving the Romulan ship unmolested will do nothing to ensure the convoy’s safety later on.”

  “Good point,” Archer said, rubbing his bristling jaw.

  “I wonder what Captain Ramirez and Captain Jennings are planning,” said Lieutenant Sato.

  “I don’t want to break subspace silence to find out,” Archer said.

  “Evidently neither does Ramirez,” Reed said, intent on the new data his console was displaying. “Intrepid has just broken formation with the convoy and is now on an intercept course for the Romulan vessel.”

  “Republic is now executing a similar maneuver,” T’Pol said.

  “Her trajectory is a mirror image of Intrepid’s,” said Reed. “It’s an extremely well-coordinated maneuver. They’ll con
verge on the Romulan vessel, entering weapons range from her port and starboard sides in thirty-two seconds.”

  A classic pincers attack, Archer thought.

  Ensign Elrene Leydon, the young helmswoman, turned her chair so that she faced Archer. Her eyebrows were raised, forming mirror-image question marks.

  “Maintain position, Lieutenant,” Archer said, suppressing his impulse to charge into the fray despite the battle plan that he, Captain Ramirez, and Captain Jennings had already agreed upon; whatever might become of either Intrepid or Republic, Earth could not afford to lose Enterprise, any more than Starfleet’s struggling forward operating bases could afford to lose the contents of those convoy vessels. “We have a convoy to protect.”

  As he slowly counted down the seconds, Archer breathed a silent prayer that his fellow captains weren’t flying their vessels right into the teeth of a Romulan trap.

  Imperial Warbird Aoi’fvienn

  “Two of the vessels are closing on us quickly, Captain Khazara,” said Uhlan Rhadak from the sensor station. “Approaching from opposing lateral trajectories.”

  Like a pair of airborne mogai hunting on the wing, Captain Khazara thought.

  Ever since the Aoi’fvienn had suffered damage during the recent attack by a surprisingly well-armed convoy of Andorsu—a species that had always taken pains to avoid altercations with the Romulan Star Empire—Khazara had prayed to Akraana that his vessel would succeed in limping to a friendly repair facility before any hevam vessels got in his way.

  Abandoning his thronelike command chair, he rose to his feet. “What kind of vessels?”

  Rhadak looked up from his scanner, his forehead a road map of concern. “Hevam vessels, Captain. Their forward tubes read hot.”

  “Both vessels are opening fire,” said Decurion T’Linaek, who was running the tactical board.

  “Full Alert!” Khazara shouted, just as the lights dimmed and the deck rocked sharply, sending him sprawling.

  Enterprise NX-01