Less than a year had passed since Archer had first tangled with Krell, when the hostile fleet admiral had been intent on destroying the Klingon Empire’s own Qu’Vat colony, including its inhabitants: Klingons who had been infected with genetically mutated augment virus. Although Doctor Phlox had succeeded in synthesizing a cure for the plague—partially by using Archer as a guinea pig to create antibodies—Krell still attempted to go ahead with the colony’s destruction, personally leading a trio of Klingon battle cruisers against both Enterprise and Columbia.
It was only after a canister containing the metagenic Qu’Vat virus ended up aboard the admiral’s ship—dispersing an aerosolized virus and infecting the Klingon leader and his crew—that Krell called off the attack on Qu’Vat in favor of perfecting a cure to the illness.
The viewscreen before Archer melted to black for an instant before the shadowed face of the Klingon fleet admiral appeared to replace it. Archer recognized the mane of white and brown hair, and the white goatee with a center braid that defined Krell’s aggressive appearance. But something seemed subtly different about him. When Krell leaned forward, the difference immediately became clear.
“What do you want, Archer?” Krell asked. He sounded as angry as he had during the confrontation at Qu’Vat, and a pair of large hooked teeth still protruded from beneath his upper lip, but the dusky-hued ridged Klingon that Archer had seen before was gone. In his place was a more human-looking Klingon with less pronounced ridges. He looked more like a swarthy human pirate from Earth’s South Sea islands than he did a Klingon warrior.
“Why have your ships attacked Draylax, Admiral?” Archer said, not allowing his expression to convey any shock at the change that time and retroviruses had wrought upon the warrior whose visage once could have made children cry.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, human,” Krell said, emphasizing the final word as if it were a curse.
“Three of your vessels have attacked Draylax without provocation. You have command of the fleet, Admiral. Order them to withdraw.”
Krell sneered and leaned back again into the shadows behind him. “You credit me with too much power, Captain. There are many admirals and generals who wield authority in the Klingon Empire, and my…influence has been reduced of late due to…certain changes that have occurred.”
“Changes within the Klingon military, or changes to you?” Archer asked, pressing the point. “I can’t imagine that you’d let anybody take any authority away from you, Krell. It was always my impression that you were one of the most powerful warriors who ever drew a blade on Qo’noS.”
Krell wound his beard-braid around one finger, tilting his head to crack his neck languidly. “Your flattery is noted, Captain, but your understanding of a warrior’s place in our society is lacking. Especially when such a warrior has been infected with a pernicious disease.”
“But you helped to bring an end to the disease, and stability to the Empire,” Archer said, exaggerating the truth to almost elephantine proportions. “That should have brought you commendations and honors.”
“Perhaps if I had not been changed by the virus, that would be true,” Krell said, leaning forward again and growling into his monitor. “Your physician is responsible for my shame. His perfidy has bought him my undying enmity. I will one day paint the walls of my cabin with his blood.”
Archer stood his ground. “What does your shame have to do with Draylax? Are you so spiteful that you would be willing to strike the first blow of a war in a system that can barely defend itself? Is that the legacy you would leave to your children?”
“First, even if the Empire were to engage in the attack you speak of, it should be no cause of concern for you humans, or your so-called Coalition of Planets,” Krell said, all but growling his words. “You are meddling in interstellar affairs that are beyond your grasp.
“Second, the Klingon Empire has ordered no hostilities against Draylax. If we had, I would know about them.”
Krell moved in closer, until his angry face nearly filled the monitor completely. “I have not sworn a blood oath against you, Archer, but that can change. Whatever tenuous honor you have accrued inside the Empire in exchange for your help in curing the metagenic virus is balanced on the tip of a d’k tahg. Be careful that you do not slip down the edge to your doom.”
The screen abruptly went black, and Archer realized a few seconds later that he was holding his breath. Even across light-years and through a viewscreen, an angry Klingon could be both formidable and intimidating. He hoped he wouldn’t have to encounter Krell in the flesh any time soon.
More importantly, he hoped that the fleet admiral hadn’t been lying to him. But if the Empire really had not authorized the hostilities now being directed at Draylax, then what was really behind the danger toward which Erika Hernandez and Columbia’s crew were hurtling at this very moment?
To say nothing of his own people, who were speeding toward the very same fate just as quickly as Henry Archer’s mighty warp-five engine could carry them….
FIFTEEN
Friday, July 18, 2155
Columbia NX-02
“WE DON’T HAVE any other choice,” Captain Erika Hernandez said, feeling a single cold bead of sweat escaping her hairline and moving down between her shoulder blades.
Sitting at the edge of her captain’s chair, she spoke to her senior helm officer in a steady voice. “Evasive maneuvers, Mister Akagi. Every salvo you dodge will earn you an extra hour of sack time every day for a week.”
“Hai, Captain,” said Lieutenant Reiko Akagi. Hernandez didn’t need to see the pilot’s face to know that she was smiling broadly even as her hands deftly moved over the ship’s helm controls.
Hernandez turned partially around, catching the worried glance of her XO, Commander Veronica Fletcher, before her own gaze settled on Lieutenant Kiona Thayer, her senior tactical officer. “Kiona, bring to bear everything you’ve got. I have a feeling this could be the fight of our lives.”
As hyperbolic as that statement might have sounded, Hernandez suspected it would prove not to be an exaggeration once the battle was through. I hope we’re still around then to debate that, she thought grimly.
But the odds didn’t look good. Even as Columbia had arrived at Draylax, the three Klingon battle cruisers began firing on the planet below, even though several expanding clouds of glittering metallic debris provided mute testimony that they had already dispatched Draylax’s defense ships some time ago. Fletcher had noted that the Klingons appeared to have been holding back, as though they had been waiting for Columbia to decelerate into orbit around the principal inhabited planet of the Draylax system. Hernandez had to admit that the tableau before her looked suspicious as hell.
Damn, I wish Archer was here along with his ship, she thought. The last time they had faced a trio of Klingon cruisers—above the Qu’Vat colony—it had been she who had helped him. At least two Starfleet ships against three Klingon vessels had seemed a fairer fight; this time it would be three against one.
She toggled a switch on her chair’s com unit. “Lieutenant Graylock, whatever you do, don’t be stingy with the power to our hull plating. We’re about to take some heavy fire.” She didn’t wait for his affirmative reply; she didn’t need to. He was as good a chief engineer as Tucker had been during his brief time aboard this vessel, before he’d been billeted back to Enterprise.
“Take her down to block the disruptor cannons,” Hernandez said. “Polarize the hull plating, and double it up here on the bridge and in engineering.”
She turned toward Fletcher. “Veronica, get Major Foyle and the MACOs ready for a ship-to-ship transport. I know it’ll be risky, so let them know that it’s not mandatory. Volunteers only. But if we can catch even one of their ships with its proverbial pants down, we might be able to get our guys on board and take over.”
Fletcher nodded and moved swiftly to a com station to call Foyle. Hernandez knew that there probably would be few volunteers. MACOs might
be brave to a fault once they get to the battle, but I doubt that many of them trust the transporter enough to risk buying the farm with it before they get close enough to see the whites of the enemies’ eyes, she thought gloomily.
Still, she had wanted to try that maneuver for a while now, and the time to try seemed to have arrived at last. The Klingons might not suspect such a bold gambit when they so clearly outnumbered their opponent. Just imagine what we could learn if we actually manage to capture one of their cruisers, Hernandez thought. The idea sent an added jolt of adrenaline surging into her veins.
“Coming into effective weapons range in forty seconds, Captain,” Akagi said. The bridge’s main viewscreen showed one of the battle cruisers directly in Columbia’s flight path.
“Give me one more hail, Sidra,” Hernandez shouted back to her communications officer, Ensign Sidra Valerian. When she saw the red “go ahead” light appear at the bottom of the viewscreen, she squared her shoulders and put on her best “scolding teacher” face.
“Klingon cruisers, this is Captain Erika Hernandez of the United Earth Starship Columbia. You must cease fire immediately, or we will open fire on your vessels. Your continued aggression will be considered an act of war not only against Draylax, but also against Earth and Alpha Centauri.”
“The central ship is charging her weapons,” Thayer shouted.
“Then so do we,” Hernandez said, leaning forward in her chair. “Employ evasive maneuvers, and send them a full phase cannon salvo, maximum intensity.” The tactical alert lights activated even as she gave the command, casting the bridge into forbidding shadows.
The viewscreen image changed as the ship arced between the central Klingon cruiser and the blue-white planet below it, as the hull-mounted sensors realigned the sweep of their imagers. Hernandez saw two bright greenish arcs exit the belly of the Klingon ship, and she braced herself for their arrival, digging her fingers into the arms of her chair.
Columbia shuddered as the disruptor beams struck the primary hull, causing the viewscreen image to crackle and waver momentarily.
“Hull plating down fifteen percent,” Lieutenant Commander el-Rashad shouted from his science station. “The other two ships are altering their trajectories. Looks like they’re going to try to catch us in a crossfire.”
Hernandez studied the main viewer, where the other two enemy ships were indeed moving toward positions flanking Columbia. “You know that tactic you’ve been wanting to try for far too long, Reiko? The Niagara Barrel Roll?”
She thought she heard a gulp of surprise coming from the woman at the helm. “Are you certain now is the time?”
“If not, we might not get another chance,” Hernandez said. She toggled her com unit, tying into the shipwide intercom system. “All hands, brace yourselves. We’re gonna have a bit of a tumble.” Tapping another button, she said, “Karl, you’re gonna need to make sure that the inertial dampers hold up.”
Akagi had once told her that despite her Japanese heritage, the one thing she loved more than anything else on Earth was quintessentially North American: roller coasters. Hernandez couldn’t stand them herself, and thought the simulation rides she had endured in Starfleet’s flight training program had to be more than realistic enough to satisfy whatever death wish seemed to motivate roller-coaster aficionados.
“They’re charging their tubes, ready to fire,” el-Rashad shouted. “All three cruisers!”
As the viewscreen showed the first hint of green energy coming from a disruptor bank on one Klingon ship’s ventral side, Hernandez heard herself give an order. “Roll it, Reiko!”
The words seemed to leave her lips in slow motion, but the reaction to them was anything but slack. As Akagi manipulated the controls, Columbia began to twist in a corkscrew fashion. The ship’s hull groaned as it spun, and Hernandez felt almost as though she were trapped in a high-speed centrifuge despite the accelerated inputs to the artificial gravity plating and the inertial compensation system. The maneuver overwhelmed the hull sensors, transforming the image on the central viewscreen into a jumbled and pixelated mess, but the fact that the ship hadn’t encountered a disruptor blast—or six—in the several seconds since the cruisers had opened fire seemed to imply that the maneuver had worked.
At least for the moment.
“Get us steady and return fire!” Hernandez shouted. A few moments later the ship seemed to lurch toward its port side, pulling everyone on the bridge a bit off balance.
“Firing now,” Thayer said emphatically, as gravity and inertia returned to their proper ratio, and the viewscreen rebooted to display a short-lived blue wash of outgoing phase-cannon fire.
The image cleared quickly; just ahead was the battle cruiser that had been farthest from Columbia at the outset of the battle. Hernandez could see clearly that Columbia’s phase cannons had communicated very clearly with the hostile vessel’s aft engine areas.
An instant later, the Klingon warship’s impulse engines exploded, sending a bright sphere of plasma expanding into space as the interior gases escaped and ignited. The conflagration quickly caught on throughout the hull-ruptured cruiser, and in moments both the secondary and primary hulls exploded as well, sending jagged hunks of debris and the remains of the vessel’s burning nacelle pylons and long, fractured neck tumbling in random directions, with some pieces falling toward the planet while others tumbled outward into space.
“Good shooting, Kiona,” Hernandez said, excited despite the fact that she would have preferred to avoid the engagement with the Klingons entirely. Good intentions aside, Hernandez knew that she was committed now to fight to the finish—and that the two remaining cruisers would be even tougher to stop now that blood had been drawn. There will be no negotiating now.
“Bring us about, and let’s see if we can keep the other two off-kilter.” She realized that even though her stomach was still lurching a bit from the spin maneuver, it had worked very well indeed. She didn’t expect it to become a standard maneuver, however.
“We’re receiving a hail,” Ensign Valerian said from her station at the rear of the bridge.
“Are the Klingons finally coming to their senses?” Hernandez asked with a smirk. She knew better; the most likely reason they were calling was to spew invective and to make threats about feasting on her entrails or some other such macho nonsense.
“Not exactly,” Valerian said.
The image of two menacing Klingon cruisers set against the star-flecked blackness beyond Draylax vanished, to be replaced by a far warmer and more welcoming sight: Captain Jonathan Archer and the bridge of Enterprise.
“Think you could use a hand, Captain?” Archer said, a grim smile on his lips.
“Well, I haven’t been able to talk any sense into them so far, Captain,” Hernandez said, gesturing outward as if toward the Klingons. “In fact, they’ve ignored all our hails and warnings. We had to destroy one of their ships before you got here.”
“That makes the odds a bit more even,” Archer joked. “Two against two is a much fairer fight.”
“What’s your ETA, Captain?” Hernandez said, eager to make the coming fight an even-money proposition.
“We’re nearly right on top of you already,” Archer said. He turned his head slightly, speaking to someone off-screen. “Fire to disable.”
Hernandez tapped a button on her chair’s arm-mounted console, and the forward viewscreen switched to a view of the other ships. Enterprise was thundering forward, having apparently just dropped out of warp, and its pulsed phase cannons threw a series of blasts toward the central Klingon aggressor that had been pouring the heaviest fire onto the surface of Draylax.
The beams arced over the enemy vessel’s hull, and it visibly shuddered, but did not move further. Instead, the Klingon launched a salvo of projectiles at the swift-moving Enterprise.
“Bring us to bear against the third ship,” Hernandez said. “Try hailing them one last time, but prepare to fire again at my signal.”
Looking at the v
iewer, Hernandez saw that Archer was making a pass toward the other ship as well, essentially trapping the vessel between Enterprise and Columbia. The Klingon cruiser arced to starboard, attempting to flee—Hernandez thought she understood Klingon pride well enough to imagine the ship’s captain would no doubt claim the maneuver was really only a means of “regaining the defensive high ground”—but Hernandez knew that Akagi was already matching the hostile’s new course.
“Still no answer,” Valerian said.
“Target their nacelles,” Hernandez ordered.
Suddenly, the Klingon vessel slid off the viewscreen, as if vanishing.
“What happened?”
“They braked!” Fletcher shouted, staring goggle-eyed from a computer station she was using. “They just cranked their reverse-thrusters all the way up. We just overshot them!”
“Shit!” Hernandez ordered, “Polarize the aft plating! Get Archer back on the—”
A moment later, the ship shuddered violently, and Hernandez had to grab the arms of her chair to avoid being tossed to the deck. The rest of the bridge crew were similarly jostled, but they had all braced themselves solidly just prior to Akagi’s earlier evasive maneuvers.
“Status?”
“Our starboard nacelle took a hit, Captain,” el-Rashad said, a hint of panic in his voice. “We’re venting quite a bit of plasma.”
The viewscreen image switched perspective to the aft end of the ship’s saucer section; from that vantage point, Hernandez could see very clearly the extensive damage the starboard nacelle had sustained, and the energetic plasma that was rapidly escaping from it. Beyond the nacelle, she saw the sapphire glow of Draylax, the Klingon cruiser, and something else.
Enterprise firing.
A heartbeat later, the phase-cannon blasts from Enterprise ignited the impulse drive module at the aft end of the Klingon ship’s secondary hull. Within seconds, the second cruiser turned inside out as the resulting explosions tore it to pieces, its decompression as spectacularly violent as the conflagrations that had taken apart the first vessel.
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