The Noise Of Thunder

[WillDexter]

31 OCTOBER, Y169
23:09:56

”Get this ship underway!” Tomolok shouted into the chaos of Dderidex III's bridge, as, on his tactical display, and the main holoviewer, the fires of perdition raged.

The helmsman tore the ROC loose of its moorings, and pushed the torches to their limits boosting the ship clear of its dock, instants before a flurry of missiles destroyed it, while Dderidex II's weapons officer found a target-rich enviroment, to use a Human phrase, in which to employ his twelve heavy, thirty medium, and thousands of light plasma pulse projectors, while Gladiator fighters and Starhawk attack ships launched, boosted rapidly to escape velocity, and charged at the enemy all around them at maximum Q-factor.

“Comms!” Tomolok ordered, as his own ship struggled to boost to escape velocity.”Order the starbase to--”

“All comms are being jammed, Legate Admiral,” the comminications operator replied, as the bridge trembled, burst into flame, went dark, and screamed, the light PPPs unleashing a storm of plasma bolts toward six squadron of danged, twin-nose Frieslander Vampier assault fighters swarming Dderidex III, unleashing both self-propelled quantum penetrators, and five-inch MAHEM beams toward the stellar domination platform's active defenses.

Just ahead of those fighter, the grey on blue wedge from the day's earlier combat cut down a pair of Orion Godfather-class dreadnaughts, part of Circentus-ta's enforcement fleet, with her prow-mounted r-guns, whilst a salvo of self-propelled, quantum-capable ordinance slammed into a dozn War Eagles and King Eagles assigned to the system defense legion, destroying them in roars of brilliant white light.

“Klingon tugs and light tactical transports rapidly closing Justinia Prime!” the sensor operator reported, as the bridge continued to tremble.”They are all carrying troop transport pods, and are being escorted by Klingon police vessels!”

“We have achieved escaped velocity, upcycling, max Q-factor,” the helmsman reported.

“Intercept those transports!” Tomolok ordered.”Vector all available fighters and attack ships to intercept as well! All ships will open fire, when in range!”

Dderidex III surged past exploding orbital dockyards, and derlict warships, aiming itself toward the Klingons now dropping troop transport pods into Justinia Prime's atmosphere, the escorting police vessels turning into the ROC's guns, dying by the score for their efforts, the active defenses dispatching G2I and G1I attack ships and Z-R fighters, as wells as the scores of drones fired from the doomed police vessels' racks, before thy'd shattered under the pummeling from the ten and a half megaton ROC's heavy PPPs.

“Pods re-entering atmosphere,” the sensor operator reported.”Estimated impact zones on tactical now.”

“Order the fighters to interce--” Tomolok started to say, before the bridge exploded, and he found himself slamming into the far bulkhead, as his chair ripped itself free of its mountings.

Everything hurt, a blue-green naze blinding his left eye, and rand down his face, as Tomolok struggled with the restraints of his seat, finally releasing himself, the pain, as he forced himself to stand, almost enough to make him pass out, but he did not, the veteran Romulan Imperial Star Navy officer holding on to consciousness by his fingernails, as he surveyed the burning wreckage of his bridge.

The first officer was dead, a fragment of hull piercing the man's spine, and transfixing him to the deck, like the insects Tomolok collected as a boy, but, the helmsman, weapons officer, and most of the other watchstanders were still at their stations, fighting the increasingly-sluggish ship, Tomolok waving off both thr medical corpsman, and the chief engineer's report, as he regained the center of his command, and held onto the backs of the hrlm and navigation stations for support.

In the flickering main holoviewer, Tomolok saw the grey on bkue wedge closing, guns blazing, as it stood between Dderidex III and its prey, several Federation hulls forming up directly aft of it.

IFF data identified it as the Eagle.

Two raptors, contesting dominance over the sky, Tomolok idly though, as the bridge continued falling down around him. Amost poetic, that.

31 OCTOBER, 2569
23:10:30


“Alter vec to intercept, Number One,” ordered Sonia, without hesitation, as a hundred Romulan and Orion warships disengaged, and vectored toward the Klingons now making planetfall.

“Altering vec, max av,” Angel replied.

“Comms,” Sonia further ordered, as Eagle closed the enemy machine, max av, and sent blue-hot, near-lightspeed ordinance downrange,”vector our fighters in against the enemy closing the invasion force; trnsports are their first and only priority.”

Even as a salvo of quantum lances slammed into a squadron of Kingfishers pouring heavy plasma bolts into Klingon transports and their escorts, the main battery removed a trio of half-megaton Orion dreadnaughts from the sky, their debris, coupled with fragments of intercepted ordinance ripping apart the Romulan ROC caught between the pair of Orions, the enemy goliath emerging from the enough with several of its engine nacelles either torn open or sheared away, trailing plasma, coolant, and annhilating lide and anti-lide in a thick streamer behind it, as it opened fire on Eagle with its seben remaining heavy plama pulse projectors.

Angel violently jerked her ship in every direction at once, as still more Romulan and Orion ships came at Eagle. now joined by a dozen Federation hulls directly aft, as well as by a pair ofwaverider hullform 360-kiloton Frieslander Zeven Provenzen-class light dreadnaughts salvoing four-ton quantum lances from two of their prows, at the same time they vectored streams of MAHEM from their eight, quad-turreted, flank-mounted, 27” guns.

“First Klingon pods have impacted on the surface of Justinia Prime,” Shar reported, as Eagle's six squadrons of 100-ton Vampier assault fighters cut across her bow, the Frieslanders assaulting the enemy capitials with the quartet of five-inch MAHEM guns mounted in each fighter's twin noses, their quartet of two-centimeter tribarrels forward and turreted pair of tribarrels aft seeing off hostile ordinance and fighters, as they made firing pass after firing pass against the combined Romulan-Orion force.

The tactical holoproj split, providing Sonia with views of the fighting in near-Justinia Prime space, and fighting on the surface of the planet, the Romulan ground forces on the planet mounting a hasty, desperate response to the swarms of Klingons and other races vomiting forth from the grounded pods, along with a plethora of armored fighting vehicles and artillery platforms, to overwhelm the Romulan defenders through shock and sheer bloody mindedness.

All while the Klingon transports shorn of their pods began bombing the planet from orbit with their railguns.

“Frieslanders launching heavy starlifters and dropships,” Shar reported, while near-lightspeed fragments of Mercedes' latest main battery salvo sent the wounded ROC's starboard wing careering and burning through atmosphere toward umpact with the planetary surface, the enemy machine doggedly continuing to pour fire from the two remaing heavy PPPs in the port wing, and the one in the nose of the wounded giant, as it began shedding dropships and escape vehicles.

Eagle's own force of six hundred Frieslander armored assault infantry were currently on the starbase, gated there when the ballon had gone up.

“Tell the air group to take out as many of those escape vehicles and small craft as they can,” Sonia ordered, even as Klingon and other allied fighters and attack ships vectored toward intercept with the falling dropships and excape pods, even as a chance shot from Mercedes' next main-battery salvo put the mangled, mortally-wounded ROC out of its misery.

31 OCTOBER, Y169
23:11:23



Howling mobs of monstrous, bear-ape things chraged in a single mass from the five pods now sizzling and colling in the impact craters in the estate's central courtyard, the Slidarian shock troops wielding heavy accelerators and three-bladed Klingon swords sized for their gargantuan frames.

In front of Cirecentus-ta, half of his personal guard decade disappeared in sprays of blood, bone chips, and biomass, as a heavy accelerator round impacted in their midst, the patriarch of House Cirecentus-ta falling back behind the five remaining Tal'Shiar shock troops, as they returned fire with their plasma rifles, while, all around him, the manor, his family's ancestral home since the Exile from Vulcan 4,500 years ago, crumbled and burned.

From the sky, Romulan escape pods fell, and Romulan shuttles landed under heavy fire, not just from the Slidarians, but also from Klingon armored fighting vehicles racing on vector jets and hover skirts from the pods.

Turning toward one of the shuttles which succeeded in landing intact, he drew his plasma pistol, waiting until the century of Romulan marines charging from the shuttle's hold had run past him, before boarding, entering the flight deck, and dispatching the two crewmen making ready to join their comrades on the ground.

Shoving the pilot's charred remains aside, Cirebrus-ta buttoned up the craft, fired up its torches, and lifted, jinking and burning hard in his ascent toward space and his excape rrom Justinia.

Someone had to reach Romulus, warn Imperator Marcus Rolandus of the disaster unfolding in this, the first star system colonized by the Rihannsu exiles, after their long flight from Vulcan, and, most importantly, assign blame to someone other than him.

The Frieslanders, the Cardassians, and their Bajoran subjects, in particular.

He had enough sway with the Senate and the Continuing Committee to at least ensure him command of sufficent forces to pun--

[WillDexter]

304-69M2
23:11:23


He was supposed to have won.

The Emperor's Light shone through him, he was supposed to have won!

Nagala stood amidst the burning chaos of his own CIC, watching as icons representing his battlestars blinked furiously on DRADIS, before going dark, while lesser beings, Xenos trash, Servitors, ran riot through his formation.

“--outnumbered, outgunned,” that blonde slut's voice said over wireless,”your weapons and defenses destroyed. For the sake of your crew, stand down your vessel, surrender your command, and prepare to be boarded.”

“Sir--” his treacherous chief of staff started to say, before Nagala drew his bolt pistol, and cut him down where he stood.

“We will die at our posts, as the Emperor commands!” he screamed gun still in hands.”Am I clear?!”

Four more battlestars died in the DRADIS repeater slate, leaving only Tian Lung just barely operational, with Flame of Purity bearing down on him.

“I will not face a comissarial tribunal for doing my duty, and serving my Emperor,” he added, before picking up the handset next to him, and tell adama's little bitch to go frak herself.

“Engineering,” he then ordered, eyes on the DRADIS icon of the battlestar Flame of Purity,”on my word of command, you will detonate all remaining remass. Helm, put us in a collision course for the Fla--”

304-69M2
23:12:04


“Fire,” Kara ordered, her battlestar's gunners complying, the icon representing the flagship of the Alliance Fleet blinking madlt on DRADIS, before going dark.

“Gods,” she whispered...ten thousand crew on that ship, not all of whom were loyal to Zarek or supportive of the inhumanity inflicted by those who were.

Only allied vessels on the DRADIS repeater slate now, all of First and Second Solar Fleets either destroyed, or derelict.

Hundreds of thousands of Alliance spacers dead, or trapped aboard lifeless hulks, not all of them true believers.

“Armsmen to the Raptors,” she ordered over wireless.”Prepare for SAR operations.”

The depth to which the Monothiests would sink, the violence, the projection, the false-flag attack on Zarek himself sat a rally on Valhalla during the election, the absolute, unwavering depravity and hypocrisy amongst even the least of them, that was a matter of record, no matter how agggressively the Monothiests and the media had tried rewriting that record, but...not all those she'd killed could be as depraved as the true believers, many had just joined for the steady paycheck, repliable access to medical care, university credit, three hots and a frakking cot, not for any idea of the Alliance, any cause other than survival.

And, even the depravity of the true believers was insufficent justification for killing them, but, what else was there for those who wanted everyone else dead, because everyone else didn't think as they did?

Reasoning and reconciliation hadn't worked, very gesture of good will, every frakking attempt to forgive, and take thrm back into society weaponized by the Monothiest cocksuckers at the same time they scorned and mocked the other side's compassion, while blaming them for the violence practicced and preached by every devout Monothiest.

“SAR Raptors away,” Helo reported, his eyes also on the DRADIS repeater.

“I wonder,” he said, in an aside to Kara,”what we could've done differently, to avoid all this?”

“Yeah,” Kara replied.

“You and me both, buddy,” she added.

“You and me both.”

31 OCTOBER, Y169
23:13:18

Kahless wrote that a people must fight or die.

He never said there would be any glory, any satisfaction, to be had in the fighting.

Thought Admiral Prince Karthok epetai-Trawnrudo, seated at the center of IKV Admiral Kang's harshly yellow-lit bridge, mused on this, as, in the master holotank, broken hulls, dissipating plasma, and faintly-glowing metallic debris floated in the void, backlir by the sullen red giant star Crone, at the edge of the WYN Star Cluster.

No glory.

No satisfaction.

Neccesity.

Simple, oppressive necessity.

Same as when he'd led the fleets of three Households against the Rom 3rd Star Legion, and annhilated them utterly at the Three Suns, before coming here.

His people--all people—had to fight, or they became kuve to those who called themselves master, kings, gods, when, themselves being kuve, were servitors to silence, darkness, death.

Also as Kahless himself had written, when he'd gone to war against the Old Kings rwo thousand yeears ago.

“Sir,” the C11 battlecruiser's communications specialist reported.”General Robak reports all resistance has been overcome; Acrpolis is ours.”

One city, on an entire planet, no matter that it had been the seat of the planetary government.

No matter, even, that it had been subjugated,

Kuve would fight to the death, of themselves, and others, before accepting they were not masters, not gods.

They would never accept the equality, the chance to not be servitors, offered madnamiously by the victors.

They would find a way to win, to destroy everything, because the naked stars themselves bore witness to their utter, complete inferiority.

“Acknowledge,” Karthok said aloud, having no further orders for the Slidarian commanding his House's ground forces; he would know not to rest, to prepare to defend what he'd helped secure, to aid his allies in further offensives, when the time came.

The riddled hulk of a four and a half megaton warship drifted into view...Klingon marines, along with those of their allies were aboard that drifting hull, and others like it, each full of servitors eetermined to bite at the hand offered in assistance, die with their teeth in the throats of those forced to fight them, because they would not live in peace, because, to them, equality was the same as being kuve.

The commander of the Klingon Imperial Defense Forces silently continued contemplating the fighting which, out of necessity, must come, if all were to live.

[WillDexter]

31 OCTOBER, 2569
23:15:00

“Thank you,'” Admiral Kurn-sutai Mogh said, as he sipped the steaming mug of Benedict's private, and illicit, stock. “I've not had a decent cup of kaffee, since the beginning of this accursed war of Kowron's.”

Standing at the center of Mea Culpa's wardroom, Benedict nooded, as Kumerian, seated at the recliner at the sofa's right arm, remarked,”one of the many deprivations brought about by Kowron's pact with fekiri,, kinsman.”

“With Earthers,” Kurn remarked,”though, I suppose that is a distinction with no difference.”

“I,” remarked Grand Legate Casak Damar, head of the Crdassians' Central Command,”would've preferred a glass of kanar.”

Both Klingons and Kai Kyra Nerus made faces at the mention of kanar, Kumerian then observing, after another sip of black coffee,”I don't think the Roms much care for either, Grand Legate.”

“No,” Damar replied, adding,”you are correct in that assessment, Vice Admiral.”

“Though,” the Cardassian added,”it would've been preferrable for your forces to have assured the destruction of both Romulan star legions, before continuing on to Bajor.”

“My decision,” Benedict replied.”I wanted to conserve my forces, win through to Bajor, and make our stand there; given that, iy was inevitable dome of the Romulans would scatter and run to where they rally and regroup.”

“Which,” Kurn remarked,”is why my kitumba sent my fleet here, instead of joining in on the attack against Justinia. The artifact of the Old Kings is to be protected at any cost.”

“Correct,” Benedict replied, Kyra adding,”we can all agree the Celestial Temple must be protected.”

“You would think,” Damar remarked,”the Prophets would be able to do that, without our intervention.”

”'If there are gods, they do not help,'” Kumerian said.

“An ancient Klingon proverb,” he explained,”long before the time of Kahless.”

”'The Gods lift up those who lift each other,'” Navarch Fenris Jurgen remarked, before refilling his mug from the porcelain coffeepot at the center of the coffee table.

“We're all there is,” Benedict said,”either way. The artifact cannot fall into the hands of the Romulans or anyone else with malign intentions.”

“Agreed,”Damar conceded,”as does the rest of the Central Command, the Obsidian Order, and the Detapa Council, which is why we've deployed the 1st and 2nd Guards Orders to Bajor.

Status of the Olbrecht?” he then asked Legate Admiral Elim Garrak.

“Waiting, along with the Bajorans' system defense forces, on the opposite side of Bajor Prime,” the Crdassian Prefect of Bajor replied,”though I've taken great pains to keep the various infiltrators within the Obsidian Order's ranks from knowing this.”

“Quite...good,” he then said, after a sip of coffee.

“Those infiltrators,” he added,”have also informed their various masters that the Bajoran system, and the artifact are currently defenseless, due to the rash decision to ambush the former 2nd and 7th Star Legions with all our forces in-system. Including Babylon Prime's small fighter wing.

Given both the importance of the artifact, and the impracticality of attempting to aid in the defense of Justinia, the only reasonable course of action available to whoever's commanding the remnants of the 2nd and 7th Star Legions is to come here.”

“In what numbers?” Damar asked.

“Anyone's guess,” Benedict answered.”We were more concerned about blowing through them than in counting coup, but, worse case scenario, as postulated by my intelligence officers, is the equivalent of a single star legion, 1,950 warships---”

“Plus,” Kurn remarked,”whatever pirates in the Circentus-tas' payroll join them, according to the assessments of my own intelligence officers.”

“Correct,” Benedict said, as he finally poured himself a mug, and allowed himself to enjoy the simple pleasure—and vice—of strong, hot, black coffee.

31 OCTOBER, Y169
23:17:21

The survivors of two of the Imperator's finest star legions had rallied and regrouped in orbit around a former Federation outpost from the days when the Cardassian Sector had been part of the former Neutral Zone.

That outpost now serving as a port of call for those pirate vessels who'd paid for the privilege of operating in Cirenta-ta's territory, their technicians helping to repair the ten ROCs and 1,290 Kingfishers who'd broken and fled the battlefield upon being ambushed by two oppoing enemy forces.

“Are you sure?!” Centurion-Admiral Tecitus t'Relliaeu damnded of the Bajoran male standing before him in Imperial Romulan Warbird Bloodwing's wardroom.

“It has been verified,” the alien haughtily replied, in the mistaken belief his Tal'Shiar connections permitted such insubordination on his part.”The Bajoran system, and the Celestial Temple lie defenseless, with the ships normally defending it all being sent to Justinia, after...encountering your vessels.”

t'Relliaeu bristled.

That had been no mere encounter.

The correct term was “massacre.”

Most of the 2nd and 7th Star Legions had been destroyed by massed gunfire, either while still under cloak, or at the exact moment of decloaking, while many more had been destroyed in a frnzied, confused attempt at resistance, before the order had been given to scatter, run, regroup.

At a nod from their admiral, two of his Reman marines seized the arrogant Bajoran, wrenching his arms behinds his back with sufficent violence as to break at least one of those limbs.

“Take him to a cell,”t'Relliaeu instructed,”keep him there, so loyal Romulans can teach him his proper place at our feet.

If his information proves accurate, he may yet earn the right to live.”

“At once, Centurion Admiral,” the senior of the two Remans replied, before his comrade and he dragged the screaming, protesting, threatening Bajoran from his sight

“I trust you need no reminder of who your true masters are,” he then said to his guest, seated at his right hand in one of the recliners flanking the wardroom sofa, Elt Malcolm Reynolds, senior-most of the pirate captains who called this outpost home, saluting t'Relliaeu with his glass of Romulan ale, replying,”of course not, Centurion Admiral.”

“In fact,” the Human pirate captain added,”I've dispatched a ship to the Bajoran system to confirm the accuracy of the Tal'Shiar's and Cirentus-ta's own intelligence; we should hear from them soon.”

t'Relliaeu smiled, nodding approval, as he sipped his glass of ale.

“I'm glad we understand each other, Elt,” he said,”and, I admire your professionalism; it's something I honestly did not expect from a pirate.”

Reynolds smiled.

“Not my first rodeo,” he remarked.”I know, only too well, where blind trust in intel gets you.”

“I'm glad e agree,” t'Relliawu said, before Reynolds added,”now, for the bad news; the base's techs estimate another six hours before repairs to your ships can be completed, even with cannabalizing the hulks left adrift in the original battlespace.”

“Oh?” t'Relliaeu said, not approving of this at all.

“The primary difficulty is in replacing the quantum tunnel generators,” Reynolds explained,”in the ships that burned theirs out escaping the slaughter, as few of the hulks had jennies even remotely close to being in one piece, while the base's replicators are being pushed to the limmit replacing other component your ships need.”

“Cirentus-ta has other bases,” t'Relliaeu insisted,”other means of acquiring quantum tunnel generators, or whatever else is needed.”

“We're tapping those sources now,” Reynolds replied, assuring the centurion admiral,”you'll have your ships, just, not immediately.

However, that shouldn't be a problem, in the long run, as the forces at Justinia are going to be too busy defending what they've taken against romulus' inevitable response to worry much about the Bajoran system, enabling us to complete repairs on your ships, and to gather every pirate working for the cartel here to assist.”

“And,” t'Relliaeu asked,”how many would that be?”

“Eight, nine hundred, all told,” Reynolds answered,”counting those operating in the Cardassian Sector, throughout the rest of the former Neutral Zone and in Klingon space.”

t'Relliaeu nodded.

“I couldn't help but notice, Elt,” he said,”a number of Starfleet vessels amongst your fleet.”

Reynolds grinned.

“Most chose survival over loyalty to their Federation,” he remarked,”when they found themselves deep behind enemy lines, after the failure of their initial offensive and the Day of the Esgle.

The rest--most of the rest--fetched a pretty penny in the markets back on Romulus.”

The Human pirate then took another sip of ale.

“Their ships, especially the three raiding cruisers, “ he added,”required extensive modifications, but have proven most useful additions to my personal fleet, especially as scouts.

It's one of the ex-Fed raiders, as a matter of fact, I've sent to the Bajoran system, as it has a cloaking device, as well as sufficent speed and firepower to get itself out of any trouble it finds itself in.”

31 OCTOBER, Y169
23:15:00

Under cloak, the 190,000-ton Wolverine-class raiding cruiser Eagle entered the Bajoran system, and closed the space station in polar orbit over its sixth planet.

In another time and place, Elt Ael t'Relliaeu would've taken the chance to study the artifact of the aliens the Klingons called the Old Kings, the Cardassians and Bajorans called the Prophets, and the Romulans simply knew as Vo'kun, that artifact's artificial singularity, deep within the planet's core, radiating immense power, even as it lay dormant, the passive sensors detecting it, in spite of the interference generated by the cloak.

But, that was another time, another place, a different, younger Ael, head filled with duty to Imperator and Empire, visions of the glory she'd achieve underneath the Raptor's Wing, and, someday, even being Imperator in a patriarchial society unchanged from the time of Surak and the Exile 4,500 years ago.

She should've known better, the rebuke she had for her younger self, always would, to the end of her days.

“Am detecting multiple hulls orbiting the station, Skipper,” one of Eagle's former Starfleet crew, Zoe Wright, reported from the science station.

Ael studied the main holotank, managing to make out the thousands of ships now surrounding the station through the distortion the cloak's artificial singularity had on the visual cameras.

The Klingon ships she readily recognized, a mix of older vessels retrofitted with new technology, and new-build ships like the D8, the C11, and the A12.

The rest...unfamiliar to someone who'd been a commander-general in the Imperial Star Navy, before the encounter with the Enterprise, her son's betrayal, and the imposition of the Patria Potestas over twenty years ago.

One of the unfamiliar hulls caught her attention...with only limired passive sensors, it was impossible to get a proper mass reading, but she was big, stark white, bristling with guns along her dorsal and ventral spibes, as well as her wide, tumblehome, eagle-headed prow, the name Hecate in raised letters along the wedge running the length of her starboard side from the prow, almost to the nacelles.

“--Alliance Leviathan-class battlestar,” Zoe continued reporting,”nine Alliance Flight III Hermes-class battlestars, fifty-five Alliance Valkyrie-class battlestars, sixty-two 760-kiloton hulls, identified as Ares-class second-rate starships of the line, a single 950-kiloton Ordo Galactica-class first-rate starship of the line, 190 Alliance Minotaur-class gunstars, and two hundred Alliance Falchion-class escorts, according to the intel collected by Cirentas-ta, the Obsidian Order, and the Tal'Shiar.

The rest are a mixture of Federation, Kzinti, Lyran and Hydran warships.”

“Have we been detected?” Ael asked, since, Imperial propaganda to the contrary, the cloaking device did noy render a ship invisible.

“Negative,” Zoe replied.

To her twin sister Chloe, Ael said,”helm, set a course for Bajor, maintain Q-factor 2.”

“Course for Bajor set,” Chloe replied.”Q2, aye.”

Slower than Ael would've preferred, but with Eagle currently unable to radiate heat and electromagnetic energy, the low analogous velocity was necessary to minimize both.

For the same reason, the ship's pair of heavy PPPs, twelve medium PPPs, and fifty light PPPs were uncharged, leaving Eagle with the plasma-warhead drones in her vertical launch racks, on the secondary hull amidships, to resply to any hostile which forced her to drop her cloak, and fight, for the five minutes it took for the ship's other weapons to charge, load, lock on, and fire.

Ael tried not to think about her ship's chances of survival, if it came to that.

Ahead of her, the squadron of retrofitted Warbirds, one of them a King Wagle, of the Bajoran Militia's System Defense Force, maintained a defensive orbit round the painfully blue-green of Bajot, and Ael couldn't help feeling homesick.

With that, however, came the memories of the tribunal, the abuse, the humiliation, being paraded, naked and chained, with the other slaves through the streets of Tiberia, the Romulan capital, on the way to the slave markets in the capital downport, shunned even by her parents, by the son who'd plotted with Kirk to betray her, frame her for the capyure of Audax's cloaking device, as well as for the Sanguinax Massacre by Sheridan the Butcher.

That had given the Senate and then-Praetor Marcus Rolandus all the excuse they'd needed to depose Rolandus' brother, Paulus, murder the Navy Proconsul, Casca Vreenak, expel all women from the Imperator's service, before stripping all women of freedom, rights, personhood, and lock them back into the collars and chains they'd been made to wear from the days before the Awakening on Vulcan 4,500 years ago.

She banished those memories, as they were counter-productive, given present circumstances.

“High orbit,” she ordered Chloe.”Stand by for max av upcycle at the first sign of troublr.”

Eagle nw circled some 1,000 kilometers aroung Bajor, its primary space station, Terok Nor, the craggy, pitted, dull rock which was the moon Derna...and a ship larger than the Leviathan, and unmistakably Cardassian, all orange, tan, and fishlike, sixteen heavy PPP ports along the leading edges of its upper wings, turreted medium PPPs bristling along its spine and prow, Gladiator fighters and 10,000-ton Hideki-class attack ships in a defensive formation around it.

“The Tal'Shiar got it wrong,” Zoe wryly observed.”Cardies built the Olbrecht even larger than the Hutet. If I had to guess, it's probably around the same mass as a ROC, Skipper.”

Ael nodded, making out nearly three thousand Jannisary-class battlecruisers in the dull, dark brown of the two Guards Orders which the Central Command were suposed to have decomissioned, after their Romulan overlords had permitted the Cardassians limited self-rule upon taking the sector fifty years ago.

The Tal'Shiar' operatives in this sector had assured their superiors the Cardassians had indeed complied with that instruction.

The intercom whistled for her attention.

“Bridge,” Ael said,”t'Relliaeu.”

The holo of her chief engineer, Kaylee Frye, another of this ship's Starfleet crew, now floated six inches in front of Ael's right eye.

“Skipper,” she said,”our heat and EM footprint's getting larger, in spite of everything I can think of doing.

I estimate another five, maybe ten seconds before welight up their sensors like a bonfire.”

“Helm,” Ael decided,”break orbit, take us to 150 megaklicks downrange of the Bajoran sun, then drop cloak, and upcycle, max Q-factor, on a course back to Outpost #4; weapons, stand by on drone racks, begin charging all PPPs the instant we decloak.”

Both Chloe and the ship's weapons officer, Ellen Landry answered,”aye, sir,” as Eagle slowly, too damned slowly, broke orbit round Bajor, and vectored toward the system's sun.

[WillDexter]

304-69M2
23:23:45

“--they tried everything,” Howard Phillipps said on the Net,”to destroy our President, fake indictments, stolen elections, assassination attempts, impeachment hoaxes, but, each and every time, our Emperor thrwarted their daemonic designs, protected His Messiah and our savior from the worst--”

Captain Artemis Chao listened to the livestream, picked up by the 85,000-ton pocket battlestar Demetrius, as it drifted in the void between Crone and Ragnar, blacked down, lying in ambush.

“--getting desperate,” Phillips now spoke over screams, chanting, g unfire, snarling animals, breaking glass, and explosions.”Open, naked insurrection against the lawful, sovereign rule of the Emperor and His Chose, violence, the only language the radical Right know how to speak, tantruming like the spoiled children they are, when honeest, hard-working, real men and women refuse to give in to their bullying, election fraud, and weaponized injustice system.”

Three other Osiris-class pocket battlestars also lay in wait for Chao's word of command to strike, each pocket warship, built for commerce raiding, carrying a flotilla of six Falchions, employed largely as scouts, but also used as additional strike craft to attack multiple convoys.

“--clearly rejected Tom Zarek, and his left-wing policies,” some random idiot dared say to Phillips.”Almost all twelve Tribes voted to elec--”

”Liar!” screamed Phillips.”Lies from the loest pits of the Warp! All those votes came from Servitors, lesser Humans, Xenos scum shipped in by the millions across the Red Line, and thry don't count!”

“DRADIS coming on line!” Commander Donal Baine shouted, the dark, freezing CIC coming to red-lit, klaxon-screaming life, the DRADIS repeater slate above Chao's head lighting up with icons representing six civilian transports, two squadrons of Vipers and a squadron f Falchions.

“”Action Stations, Action Stations!” Baine's voice thundered over the sprakers.”Set Condition One throughout the ship!”

“--Camran Paulus,” Phillips said,”a menial whose point of sale job at a hardware supplier in Gudmund, on Valhalla's too demanding of his limited intellect! Those with the courage to fight for our people. And our nation are obligated to pay him, his co-workers, friends, family, and neighbors a visiti, either at his so-called job at 221 Founders Landing, Suite 10B, or at his residence, Tower Six, Apartment #3331, 4226 District Highway 218, pay them a visit, and make them face extreme accountibil--”

“Convoy now 343 carom 12,” the DRADIS operator reported,”920K CBDR! Negative counter detection.”

“All ships,” Chao said over wireless,”upcycle, intercept vector, max av! Weapons, open gun ports, raise all turrets to firing position.”

Demeterius' three quad-turreted 18” macrocannon batteries were normally secured underneath armored shutters of the same DRADIS-scattering material as the rest of the platform to reduce its DRADIS cross section, raised to firing position only when hunting prey.

“Gun ports open, main battery elevated to firing position, all tubes charged and loaded,” Baine reported.”Ficon online, directors tracking. Radio telescopes retracted, long-range passive sensor array retracted, ship is in combat configuration.”

“Max av intercept, aye,” the helmsman reported, as the distance between the wolfpack and the doomed convoy narrowed on the DRADIS repeater.”Gun range in fifteen, won-five, seconds.”

A few seconds after that, came the report from the weapons officer:

“Solution ready, tubes ready, gun range in five, fo--”

”New DRADIS contacts!” the DRADIS operator screamed.”Tree 400 kiloton hulls, bearing zera carom zera, 300K CBD--”

31 OCTOBER, 2569
23:25:58

The ten prow and flank quad 18” turrets on HMS Bucephalus fired once, the four smaller tumblehome and eagle-prowed black ships, lacking any point defense whatsoever, all taking four-ton penetrators, and dying in roars of white-hot light.

The remainder of the 400,000 ton Carolus Rex-class starliner's salvo struck 1,050-ton escorts attempting to swarm Bucephalus, Princess Royal, and King Charles III, eliminating eighteen of the twenty-four Falchions instantly, the other six firing 200-kilogram rounds from dorsal and ventral eight-inch r-guns, as they came, Commander Martyn Pakmer jinking and burning hard, while the 3,800 interceptors under the control of Sub-Lieutenant Kristina Gudmundsdottir's AuxCon team fragmented incoming ordinance, before ripping the six remaining hostile escorts to shreds.

“Scope clear,” Executive Warrant Officer George Saint John reported from radar.”Convoy continuing on vector for Necromunda.”

“Maintain present vec, Number One,” Commodore Maugarite Dermond ordered,”max av.

Eyes open, the lot of you. Those aren't likely the only raiders between here and Ragnar.

Guns, excellent shooting, as always.”

“Sir,” was Lieutenant Commander Christina Plum's quiet reply.

The Dark Horse and her wingmates were now passing through the Kuiper belt between the Crone and Ragnar systems, Rita watching, as on the master holoptoj, Alliance tugs---an engineering section on one end, a small command and crew section on the other, a skeletal framework in between—latch onto selected asteroids, moving them toward the orbital factories that had recently been brought back online round Ragnar I, where the asteroids would be broken down into raw material for the industrial replicators, which woyld then build new ships, amongst--

“Twelve artificial singularites,” George called out,”plus twenty by twenty-two, won-five-zera megaklicks downrange, closing nearest Alliance tug, niner-seven decimal two-niner terakips.”

“EM spectrum information,” reported Lieutenant Commander Yanet Adyleira from intel,”indicates one squadron, Terran Dominion Putin-class destroyer leaders running under cloak, and at low av to keep their heat and electromagnetic footprint to a minimum.”

“Hostiles splitting up,” George reported,”four at plus twenty-six by twenty-tree, four maintaining previous vec, four at minus twenty-five by twenty-three.”

“Vectoring Shield Maidens and CAP fighters to intercept,” Tina reported.”All remaining Lightnings launching on intercept vectors.”

“Altering vec to intercept,” Martyn reported.”Maintaining max av.”

31 OCTOBER, Y169
23:29:14


”Drop cloak!” Commodore Benjamin Sisko shouted.”Helm, increas speed to Q16! Weapons, open fire, when in--”

Terran Starship Oskar Dirlewanger's bridge exploded, went dark, burst into flame, and screamed all around DesRon 343's CO, holding on to the arms of his chair, as the 75,000-ton Putin-class destroyer leader's twelve 18” r-guns returned the fire of a trio of 400-kiloton hulls bearing down on...his five remaining ships...at Q-factor 13.

“Max av, aye!” Ensign Shel Finkel reported from the helm, blood running down his face, as, on the flickering main holoviewer, Nasser,Netanyahu, and Taliban all went up in roars of white-hot light.

“Vector?” Finkel asked, as Sisko's executive officer, Commander Mikhail Rozhenko, continued vectoring blue-hot metal downrange at near-light speed.

”Get us out of here!” Sisko ordered, even as Dirlewanger and Mao Zedong shot past the three hostile starliners.”Plot a course back to Valhalla, max Q-factor!”

“Aye, sir!” Finkel said, Senior Chief Edwin Ascher reporting from the science station,”enemy fighters and drones in close pursuit; Anglo-Swedish starliners overcycling their generators, altering vec to pursue!”

“Damn,” Sisko swore, as his bridge continued trembling, burning, screaming, going dark, as the destroyer leader's 750 interceptors fragmented incoming relativistic ordinance, only for many of those fragments to tear through his ship.

One of those fragments impacting with a violence which whipped Sisko back and forth in his chair, as several consoles exploded, ripping the burning corpses of those seated before them free of the deck to slam into the bulkheads.

“Speed dropping,” Rozhenko, now flying the ship from his station, reported.”Now Q8.9, continuing to fall; starboard nacelle has been penetrated, reactor, torch, and quantum generator, all destroyed.”

“Overcycle the remaining generator!” Sisko ordered the jumpsuited rating at the bridge engineering station.”We must--”

[WillDexter]

31 OCTOBER, Y169
23:31:07


“Showtime,” Captain Kelvar Garth said, as, under cloak, and at a Q-factor of 2.3, the 190,00-ton Wolverine-class raiding cruiser USS Stingray closed the orbital facilities around the planet Saguiniax.

“Drop cloak, increase speed to Q16, open fire, all PPPs and drone racks on any targets of oppotunity,” he instructed his helm and weapons officers,”but, do not do more than superficial damage to the orbitals or the groundside facilities.

We only want to scare its governor into negoiating the protection fee in Circentas-ta's favor, not leave the planet in a state where it can't make those payments at all.”

As Garth, Garth of Izar once, before the Romulan advance and Buckner's coup left his 432 crew stranded deep within enemy lines with no support, said this, his ship accelerated to its max Q factor, and opened fire with its two dorsal-mounted PPPs abd twelve medium PPPs on the dorsal and ventral arrowhead primary hull, while, from the dorsal midships secondary hull, plasma-warhead drones flew from the vertical launch racks, destroying frieghters, orbital weapons platforms, the retrofitted Wardbirds of the system defense patrol and attack craft, while the batteries of light light plasma pulse projectors slammed into fighters launching from several of the orbital stations on an intercept for the Stingray.

One of Lieutenant CommanderEjan Thrax's heavy PPP bolys smashed apart hangar bay modules on the largest of Sanguinax's stations, formerly Federation Neutral Zone Outpost #8, bruning bits of metal flying off into space in all directions.

“What did I just tell you, Mister Thrax?” Garth demanded, as some of those fragments punched holes in other parts of the station to send bodies and bits of the station's interior into the void.

“Superficial, sir,” his Andorian weapons officer replied, destroying an agricultural station with a burst from the ventral starboard medium PPP.

“We have a starship closing us at high speed!” Commander Bear Evigan reported from the science station. “Presently at 331 mark 7, 290,000 kilometers downrange!”

Garth smiled.

“Frieslanders are nothing, if not prompt,” he observed.”Engineering, Bridge, load all debris into disposal tubes, as well as a matter-antimatter device; Mister Sekal, on my mark, come about to course 334 mark 90, and pun—”

“Sir,” Ensign Mori Tomichi reported from comms,”we're being hailed...on a Starfleet channel.”

“Sir,” Evigan reported,”that ship's...the Prometheus, reported lost with all hands over a year ago...”

“As I'm sure were we, XO,” Garth replied.”On screen.”

Prometheus' bridge, much altered from what it had been a year ag, now appeared on the main holoviewer, a handsome, red-headed woman, greying at the temples in the center seat, a grey-headed man in a business suit standing beside her.

“Garth,” Captain Kathryn Janeway said in her gravelly smoker's voice, as the arrowheaded 200,000-ton strike cruiser, the only one of its class, matched Stingray's present course and speed,”I have someone here who'd like to talk to you.”

“Captain Garth,” said the Chairman-elect of the Federation Council, without preamble,”I believe that ship is Federation property, and I'd like it back.”

“Weapons fit on Prometheus,” Evigan reported,”twenty-four 27” MAHEM beamers in six quad turrets on the dorals and ventral primary hulls, four forward dorsal torpedo tubes, loaded with Frieslander-manufactured quantum torpedos, plus two vertical-launch drone racks on the dorsal midships secondary hull, also loaded with q-torps.

All weapons are locked on us.”

Garth nodded.

“Mister Chairman,” he said, after a few moments,”it seems you have a point, and are quite prepared to defend it. I, on the other hand, would love nothing more than to come home, assuming there was any Starfleet left to come home to.”

“The frieslanders have taken in siome of Sixth Fleet's survivors,” Baranov replied,”and Admiral Sheridan has several starships under his command in the Justinia system.”

“John SheridanZ?!” Garth asked.”The Butcher of Sanguiniax?”

“The same,” Baranov answered.”His conscience got the better of him, while in another time and place, and, for the moment, he knows where his duty lies.

As, I'm sure, do you.”

“After you, then, Mister Chairman,” Garth said, after another few minutes.”Helm, lay in a course for Justinia, max Q factor.”

31 OCTOBER, Y169
23:40:22

“Even with our ships,” Mal said to Ael's treacherous bastard son,”you're not going to be able to rake the system, Centurion-Admiral.”

The two men were in Wolverine's wardroom, looking over the data gathered by Eagle on the Bajoran system floating ovr the table between them.

Over two thousand ships were waiting in polar orbit overan artifact similiar to what Mal's own people called the Emperor's Kight, those ships including several Alliance gunstars and battlestars, most prominent of these being a four and a half-megaton Leviathan-class battlestar, desifned and built after the war on which Mal had fought on the wrong side, both morally and factually.

He shrugged off the feeling of homesickness which had gripped him more powerfully as of late, the holofootage moving from Bajor VI to Bajor Prime, where two fleets of Cardassian Janissaries clustered protectively around a second, illicit, Cardassian battleship, this one with the mass of, but considerably more firepower than a Romulan ROC.

“Seems the Tal'Shiar,” Mal observed,”have been feeding the Imperator and his court a line.”

“Yes,” t'Relliaeu sourly agreed.”They shall pay for that, Ely, mark my words.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Mal remarked,”but, that doexn't change the situation, now, does it?”

“I will have to ask for reinforcements,” t'Relliaeu acknowledged, looking for all the world like he was close to vomiting.

“Whether,” he added,” the Navy Proconsul is willing to agree is another thing, given our present situation.”

Mal suppressed a grin...the “oresent situation” found the Rom star legions in what was formerly Gorn and Fed space caught overextended, spread thin, and pushed inexorably back by fresh Terran Dominuon fleets and those of their allies, their supply lines as close as the nearest of the Terrans' new mobile starbases and the mobile bases of their allies from other realities.

While, in the Roms' eastern territories, their ships were having a bad habit of simply disappearing, without a trace or a by your leave, with the most recent disappearance being that of the elite 9th Star Legion deep inside what had been Paravian space, before the Gorns had annhilated them back in the late 960s.

The Tal'Shiar had been pretty good about that info not reaching the ears of the average Rom, but House Circentas-ta had its own agents iwithin the Romulan intelligence and sercurity service, and Mal had, in his years of voluntary exile, had built up his own network of agents within those two organizations.

“I don't see how Longinius or Marcus Rolandus will have much of a choice,” Mal said,”not if they want to use the artifact to look for reinforcements of their own, given the present situation.

It might even be sufficent inducement for the Tholian advisors to take a more active part in the war.”

This only served to increase t'Relliawu's unplesantness, the Tholian Will's advisory contingent being a sore point amongst loyal Romulans ever since Imperator Dderidex the Great had gone begging to them for technological assistance, after losing the first war to the Earth-dominated Feds back in the 960s, at the same time the Star Empire faced being assimilated by the Gorns, most Romulan officers and Senators accepting Tholian assistance as a necessary evil, especially after a technologically-enhanced Star Empire had humiliated the Feds in the second war between them, and had, for a time, broken Earth's hegemony over the Federation.

Necessary, but still evil, given the price for Tholian assistance was the Star Empire fighing a series of wars against the Klingons, who'd lost a not insignificant chunk of their territory to the Tholian refugees.

“I'd just as soon prefer the Star Empire licking the Klingons boots,” t'Relliaeu finally said, Mal diplomatically avoiding any mention of the two successful Klingon incursions into Romulan territory.

“Bloodwing,” the centurion admiral, with great reluctance, said over comms,”t'Relliaeu. Communicator, I need a secure channel to Navy Proconsul Longinnius Tebak, on Romulus.”

31 OCTOBER, Y169
23:58:16


“The Roms you ambushed,” Garth said to those assembled in the captured Romulan starbase's conference room,”about 1,300 survivors, regrouped at the former Outpost #4, after, breaking and running. Cirentas-ta took over the Neutral Zone outposts in the Cardassian Sector, after the Romulans took over the former Neutral Zone during the last war, and are using them as bases to refit and repair their fleet of pirates.”

“Thirteen hundred ships,” Rear Admiral John Sheridan said,”wvwn with reinforcements from the pirates, won't be enough to take either Justinia or Bajor.”

“Doubtlessly,” the young Klingon emperor, Kharn, remarked,”thry know this by now. My uncle reports a cloaked ship was briefly detected orbiting Bajor Prime; we have to assume the Roms or the local pirates, know of disposition of forces in the Bajoran system.”

“Meaning,” Miyazaki said,” the Romulan commanding the urvivots is going to have to call on reinforcements.”

To the Frieslander admiral, Karel vander Houten, she asked,”what can we reasonably expect the Star Empire's response to be?”

“The Terran Dominuon and their allies are pressing the Romulans hard, pushing them steadily back through what had formerly been Gorn space,” vander Houten replied,”while, iin the eastern part of Romulan-controlled space, their ships have been disappearing, without trace, most recently, the 9th Star Legion, sent into Paravian space to investigate the disappearance of the 11th Star Legion, have, thrmselves disappeared, though the Tal'Shiar have taken great pains to hide the truth.”

The Frieslamder admiral, tall, closely-cropped blond hair, and piercing blue eyes, then added:

“Rolandus will commit the Praetorian, 1st , and 3rd Star Legions, as it is all he has a a strategic reserve; there are four other star legions in the Romulan system, as well as two more being assembled, but, those will be needed for the defense of Romulus and Remus themselves.

Some in the States-General were hoping to exploit the situation by offering our services directly to the Romulan government; the recent Navy Act was to have authorized construction of a third fleet for this purpose, leaving the recently-acquired former Starleet veessels to carry out our protection contracts for House Circentas-ta.”

“While others,” Baranov spoke up,”saw this as an opportunity to go their own way, and end their unequal deal with Circentas-ta, the House's constant interference in the Big Four's attempts to collect from the Alliance what was owed them for the use of their mercenaries being a particular sore spot.”

“They were willing to assemble their enforcement fleet to collect from Roslin and her rebels,”

“Only as part of a larger strategic purpose of forcing us out of Necromunda and the Bajoran system,” Miyazaki reminded him.

“Yes,” rumbled the only other Klingon in the room, aweel-muscled, taller, older man, iron-grey hair, neatly-trimmed beard, a thought admiral's silver baldric across his Deep Space Fleet gunmetal grey uniform tunic.

“We've...interrogated,” Prince Krenn epetai-Rustazh added,”several Rom agents, including Maximus Circentas-ta himself, and, through them, we have become aware of many close to the Rom Imperator, including Maximus' son, Aronious, the current Praetor, being in league with the Terran Dominion and its allies.

In particular, the Cirentas-tas and their allies in the Senate and the Rom Star Navy, are known to be taking direction from the Terrans' First Minister, the former head of Section 31, prior to Buckner's coup, Mitchell Slidell.”

“Bester,” Sinclair corrected.”Alfred Bester. He disappeared from our reality, when B5 was being attacked.

At the time, he was director of the Psi Corps, an organization of human telepaths created by the Earth Alliance back in the 2160s.”

epetai-Rustazh nodded.

“The strategem in question,” he said,”was more likely developed by an Earther fleet admiral named Solomon Tarsos, also instrumental in Buckner's coup; he is currently the Terran overlord of the WYN Cluster and himself suspected by the Galactic Reserach Unit of having extra-universal origin.”

“That is confirmed,” vander Houten said,”by Captain Pendergrast, as well as your Admiral Benedict; Tarsos is from their reality, the apparent victim of his own political machinations.”

“A constant in any time and place, I suppose,” observed Epetai-Rustazh.

“I propose a pre-emptive strike against Outpost #4,” he thn said, a projection now floating above the conference table,”using the Mobile Strike Fleet, one of the Frieslander fleets, and the Kumerian household fleet. This will eliminate the survivors of the 2nd and 7th Star Legions, and their pirate allies.”

Sheridan couldn't see a flaw in that suggestion, usually a bad thing as battle plans went.

“I concur,” Miyazaki said.”This will still leave two fleets, the Starfleet ships, and B Prime's own forces to hold Justinia against whatever the Romulans send to retake it.”

“While leaving the Cardassians, and Benedict's ships to hold the Bajoran system,” Sheridan agreed, before asking Baranov,”who will command the Starfleet contingent? I'm...not exactly pooular with most of the Starfleet rank and file, especially not amogst the Sixth Fleet.”

“Doesn't matter,” Garth spoke up.”You have the rank, and we aren't spoiled for choice.Personally, I'd love nothing better than to preside over court martial for what you did on Sanguinax, but, taking back our Federation's more important than seeing you hang.”

All Sheridan could do was nod his head...Georgiou had told him much the same thing, when he'd returned to this reality, and she'd reluctantly promoted him.

“Correct,” Baranov said to Garth.

[WillDexter]

07) And, Death Will Have His Day

1 NOVEMBER, Y169
00:41:27

”My family's blood cries for theirs in return!” Aronious Circentas-ta thundered, his words echoing off the stone walls of the War Room, set two kilometers deep beneth the Imperial Palace, in Tiberas, throne city of the Romulan Star Empire.

“Vengaance aside, Dominus,” cooed Navy Procounsul Longinnius Tebak,”we cannot allow the enemy, especially the Klingons to hold the Justinia system, the Cardassians, Bajorans and Frieslanders to rebel against our rule--”

“Or,” the tinny voice of Ambassador Eskrai said throuugh the speakers on the Tholian's enviromental suit,”for the portal to remain in the wrong hands.”

These three stood on either side of Marcus Rolandus, Imperator of the Romulan Star Empire, as he watched the impending end of his realm on the massive holotable below.

The war, the vengance of his people against the Humans and their Federation, which had begun so gloriously a year ago, was now going very badly, more so than the Tal'Shiar allowed anyone to know, the newly-formed Terran Dominion, with its new fleets and allies from other realities, had pushed his overextended,, thinly-spread star legions from the former Federation's Primary Member Zone to the former Gorn homeworlds, and, it would not be long, before Rolandus would have to concede those, and continue falling back, eventually to the former Neutral Zone, maybe even to the doorstep of the Romulan system.

Then, there was the matter of the 9th Star Legion, one of Rolandus' elite formations, bearing his personal standard.

Legate Admiral Mendak's last communication had been on the border of what had been Paravian space, two days ago, with silence after that, the 9th having been dispatched from the strategic reserve to ascertain the fate of several other star legions who's gone missing in that part of what was theoretically Romulan space.

And, now, not only was Rolandus faced with rebellion in the Cardassian Sector, acquired during the last war with the Humans, but an incursion by the cursed Klingons in Romulan space, and in the system of the first world colonized by Rolandus' ancestors, after their long flight from Vulcan 4,500 years ago.

His strategic reserve now numbered three star legions, with another four being built in the yards over Remus and Romulus.

Even if Rolandus could wait until he had all sevenn star legions, he couldn't commit them all, without leaving the homeworlds defenseless.

But, he had to deploy his own Prsetorians, as well as 1st and 6th Star Legions, for reasons given by these three at his side.

All the reasons, especially blood vengance, as Rolandus' continued rule was at the suffereance of Cirentas-ta and his supermajority in the Senate, both the product of Human, Orion, and patrician Romulan intervention, same as Rolandus' own rise to the Imperial throne.

The irony was not lost on him.

Over twenty years ago, he'd sacrificed the lives of loyal Romulan citizens, both in space and on Saguinax to set up his own coup.

To save the Empire of his forefathers from egalitarianism, inclusion of women and non-Romulan subjects in the political, cultural, and social life of the Empire, and other things a younger, surer Marcus Rolandus had been certain would lead to decay, ruin, and death for his people.

Only to become the last Imperator, all his forefathers had built coming to a disgraceful end under the boot of the Humans, almost five millenia of history and achievement wiped clean from the galaxy, as Rolandus doubted the Klingon belief that the stars themselves would rember the Romulan Star Empire, were it to pass.

Part of saving the Empire was the faint hope of the Romulans finding allies, perhaps even other Romulans, in other realities.

To thst end, the portal of those the Klingons called the Old Kings, and the Tholians called the Vo'kun, the only one known to be in Romulan space, had to be secured.

And, Justinia, first of the worlds to fall under the shadow of the raptor's wing, had to be taken back, purged of its Klingon infestation.

Rolandus studied the holotable below him a moment more, before turning to face the Tholian, eyes shielded by the Vulcanoid inner eyelid resulting from mmillenia of evolution on a harsh desert planet orbiting closely to a binary star, as the fiercely-radiating crystalline being would've otherwise blinded the Imperator of the Romulan Star Empire, in spite of the polarized faceplate arachnoid entity's envitomental suit.

“You will provide forces to assist,” he told Eskrai.

“That is--” Eskrai started to object, Rolandus adding, in a tone brooking no nonsense:

“They will assist the Praetorian Star Legion and t'Relliaeu's survivors in securing the Bajoran system.”

Rolandus then turned to Tebak.

“Send word to t'Relliaeu, informing him of this,” he said to his Navy Proconsul.”Then inform the commanders of the 1st and 6th Star Legions to depart for Justinia as soon as possible.”

Crossing his fists over his chest, and bowing low, the Peoconsul of the Romulan Imperial Star Navy said,”at once, Dominius,” before turning on his heel, and leaving the War Room.

1 NOVEMBER, Y169
01:02:00


“I see,” was all Mal would say to Garth, as he floated over the workstation in his quarters.

“Knew it would come to this,” he added.”Least you had the decency to inform me first.”

“Least I could do,” Garth said, with a nod.”You took my crew and me in, when we were thrown to the wolves, and you've been a pretty fair employer.

And, a friend.”

“Thank you,” Mal said, as a comm from the bridge warned the Roms were an instant from detecting the encrypted comm from Stingray.

“Fair winds and following seas, Mal,” Garth, warned by his bridge crew of the same thing on his end, then said, before discomming.

“Exactly as we expected,” said Ael, sipping a cup of hot herbal tea.”Both from Rolandus and from the forces holding Justinia.”

Her son, moments before, had informed Mal of Rolandus' decision—moments after Mal's own agents had done so—the Praetorian Star Legion of the fleet of Tholian “advisors” en route from Romulus to Outpost #4 to aid in the attack on thr Najoran system.

“We must prepare,” the former Romulan commander then said.

“Eagle will lead the defensive patrol round the base,” Mal decided.”Moment you give the word, I'll reprogram the minefield to attack only Rom ships. Then the rest of our ships will launch, and attack any Rom either still in dock, or thsat's managed to launch.”

“Leave Bloodwing to me,” Ael insisted.”I ask just that from you, Malcolm.”

“That was always my intention,” Mal replied.”You brought the little frakker into this world, so you get to take him out, as my mama used to say.”

That got a rare smile from his second in command.

“It is the least I owe him for his treachery,” she remarked.”I only wish the Butcher was coming, so I can repay him for those of my people he massacred.”

Mal grinned.

“Maybe later,” he said,”after we hook up with them. After all, friendly fire incidents tend to be common in war.”

“They are, in truth,” Ael agreed, taking another sip of tea.

”Very common,” she added.

305-69M2
01:24:20

“That wasn't a request,” Tom Zarek, President of the Twelve Tribes, said to the Terran vice admiral seated on the opposite side of his desk.

“And,” Vice Admiral James T. Kirk replied, as two of Zarek's guards left their posts by the door, and approached Kirk's chair,”you forget byour pl--”

The guards roughly hauled Kirk from his chair, bent him over, and held him in place, while Zarek, an obedience collar in his right hsnd, rose from his desk, and took his time walking up behind Kirk.

“We can do this with your cooperation,” he said,”or, with you cooperation, after I break you, then make it clear, even to a lesser Human such a yourself, who the man in the relationship is.

Your choice, Admiral.

Please bear in mind, your superiors aren't here, and you are. By the time I have to worry about them, you will be both obedient and cooperative, one way or the other.

Again, your choice. What say you?”

“Three of my fleets,” Kirk decided.

“Along with two of mine,” Zarek said, motioning the guards to stand Kirk up, and release him. “Your mobile starbase and its remaining four fleets are too valuable to deploy in the liberation of Necromunda, and will, instead, remain in orbit over Sparta.”

“You may turn, and face me,” he added.”I prefer to look a man in the eye, when I speak with him.”

Kirk complied, Zarek then told him:

“You mobile starbase will also serve to make good the looses of First and Second Solar Fleets, the battlestars you build for me being in addition to what I have available in the reserve yards of both the Mother and Apollo systems.”

“Crews?” Kirk asked.

“Drafted,” Zarek answred.”Press gangs will round up with scientific, tecnica;, and space-faring backgrounds, as well with any interest in speculative fiction, as all these are a threat to the Alliance my fellow Humans and I wish to build.”

“On that,” Kirk remarked,”Buckner and those who brought him to power would agree.”

“Of course,” Zarek assured.”True Humanity shines brightest in ignorance and darkness, and that's doubtlessly true for what passes as true Human amongst your people, Admiral.”

“White,” Kirk replied,”Christian, cisgendered, straight males, Mister President.”

Zarek smiled.

“Heresy though it may be to say this,” he said,”your race does the right idea, even if they aren't truly Human.”

“Thank you, Mister President,” was Kirk's reply, as, at a command from Zarek, three creatures who clrearly weren't true Human, and never would be, crawled into the sight of men on their hands and knees, two of them sniffing one another's assholes, when his link to their collars told them to.

“You are at least superior to them, Admiral,” said Zarek, when he noticed Kirk's interest in Baltar's traitorous whore of a wife, and his two abominations of daughters.

“Why don't you revel in that, and give thanks to the Immortal God-Emperor you are not now learning the lessons they will continue learning, for as long as I permit them to live.”

“Than you, Mister President,” Kirk said, with a slight nod of his head.

“You're most welcome, Admiral,” said Zarek, before commanding the mother to kneel in a corner, and frakking watch.

[WillDexter]

1 NOVEMBER, 2569
01:33:37

A squadron of 150-ton F4U-4 heavy fighters shot out of the launch tubes as VF-214, the Silver Hawks, ascended through the ventral flight deck doors back into Enterprise, Lieutenant Commander Deiiah Thorez, her heart still pounding, lowering yhe gear, settled onyo the hard deck with hardly a jolt, and taxied into the yow cable of a waiting tractor, which pulled her bird off the flightline, and into the starbosard deck park, while Master Chief Aviation Technician Ciara Rachik powered down, and secured a ship with a thought from her BCI.

Nothing like flying a Constitution-class heavy cruiser.

This was way better, especially since Tori had had a BCI installed at the base of her skull, after Sylvia and she had decided to join the North American Fleet over a year ago.

Part of the reason the Deiian's heart pounded the way it did every time she was with Sylvia; that was how much she loved flying this 150-ton heavy fighter.

She, in fact, had wanted to be a fighter pilot on one of Starfleet's new carriers, but...

She breathed deeply, choosing not to think about what had happened there, why she'd been shunted to the helm of the Hood, anything along those lines; she was here, now, with Sylvia, and, even before Buckner's coup, that just hadn't been possible, given the rise of Terran nationalism, especially white Terran male nationalism, following Buckner's highlu-suspect election to the Chairmanship back in Y164, even though Nyota Uhura had clearly won the popular vote.

She followed Ciara and Senior Chief Gunner's Mate Caitlin Harlow down the ladder leading from the Corsair's airlock hatch, quickly moving aside as a deck crew swarmed her bird, rearming, refuelling, and refitting it, as she made for the airlock and the partition separating the flightline from the ready room, the Marine barracks, the triage ward, and the telegate room.

Sylvia met her halfway, the ravishing, red-headed Human who'd stolen her heart, while she'd been on Hood, almost knocking her over with the sheer enthusiasm and intense passion of her greeting, Tori viscerally aware her lover had showered, and changed out of usual EVA suit into a set of indigo Fleet utilities.

“I take it you missed m--” Tori started to say, just managing to hold Sylvia as closely as she held her, before her lover gave her a kiss which made her giddy and warm, even as it took her breath away.

Naturally, Tori returned the kiss, holding it entirly too short a time, before the warning klaxon forced them both up for air.

Arm in arm, they made for the airlock, stepping through to the other side, just as the flight deck blre itself out, and, one by one, Enterprise's nine AC4H-4C Meteor dropships, each carrying a company of the ship's 900 Marines, entered the flight deck through the opening ventral doors, and came for a landing.

Both women saluted Mister Kirk, as he stood waiting behind the partition, the ship's XO returning their salutes, as the Skipper joined him, Tori and Sylvia repeating this ritual with Admiral Aldrin, who, grinning, remarked,”I didn't break the ship as much this time, Sylvia.”

Sylvia laughed.

“Yeah,” she remarked.”Was kinda bored, to be honest.”

“Never satisfied, her,” was Mister Kirk's comment, to which the Skipper commented,”you were a CHENG once, Mister Kirk.”

“I suppose ya have a point, Kimball,” he replied,”and not the one atop your pretty little head.”

The Skipper laughed, as Tori and Sylvia walked past them, toward the ladder leading to the crew deck, in search of, first, some grub, then...well, you know.

Tori had to burn off her excess adrenaline somehow, after all.

1 NOVEMBER,2569
01:36:45

“Telemetry coming in from our drones, Mister McKinstra,” Engineering Tech 2C Annesha Cartwright reported from intel, Lieytenant Andrea McKinstra echoing the drone telemetry to the command station's left-hand tactical holoproj.

NAS Enterprise sat in a berth in one of Justinia's orbital dockyards, while a dozen of her Picadors surveyed the former Federation outpost some nine hundred forty teraklicks downrange.

An extensive collection of orbital dockyards surrounded an asteroid covered in metal and bristling with heavy PPP emplacements, a dense ring of matter-antimatter mines and ortillery platforms, in turn, girdlind asteroid and dockyards, while, beyond the outpost's defenses, two hundred ships, averaging 190 kilotons in mass, actively patrolled.

It was only a few moments, before IFF tags appeared over all those ships, data on which had been helpfully supplied to the North American Interstellar Fleet by their Federation allies.

In fact, one of those ships was a Federation hull, or, rather, a former Federation Starfleet Wolverine-class raiding cruiser, re-armed with Romulan weaponry and painted black with red lettering.

The others bore the bullet-shaped, square-nacelled profiles of Orion ships, in particular, Orion Raider pirate ships, also armed with Romulan weapons.

Andi glanced away from the tactical holoproj, studying other holoprojections floating in front of her.

Enterprise's stores of replicator feedstock had been fully replenished, same with her remass, both lide and auntie, with what little damage the ship had suffered in her recent battle having already been repaired.

She turned at the sound of someone climbing the ladder leading up from the ship's flight deck, Andi's heart quickening, in spite of herself, at the sight of tousled flame-red hair, freckled face, and smiling green eyes.

No, goddamnit, Andi told herself ay seeing Lieutenant Stephani Rhoads standing there, still in her flight suit, telling Andi “hey.”

“Hey,” Andi said back, her chest tightening, even as her heart pounded.”What are you--”

“Just wanted to see how you were doing,” Stevie said.

“I'm fine!” Andi snapped, breathing deeplu, then relenting:

“Really, I'm okay, but, you...shouldn't be up here, Mister Kirk'll--”

“Mister Kirk was the one who said I could come up here,” Stevie, her tone indicating hurt feelings, replied,”but, if you don't--”

“No,” Andi insisted, cause she didn't want to hurt Stevie,”no, you're good...I-i j-just...”

She trailed off, blushing, as she turned her attention back to the tactical holoproj, and all the green Romulan birds sitting in dock, undergoing repairs...most of them were four and a half megaton Kingfishers, with only ten ten-millon ton ROCs visible, nearly all of them in various stages of repair, none of them looking as if they could move under their own power anytime soon.

Andi uploaded this to theSkipper's and the command team's BCIs, before checking on the status of the main battery, nodding, as she noted the magazines were all fully stocked, and a string of ten four-ton penetrators were in the breach of each weapon, ready for firing singly, or in any number up to the entire string, at a thought from her.

“I-i see you're busy,” Stevie then said,”so I'll get out of your hair, I-i just wanted to see how you were...”

She trailed off, Andi, swallowing, turning back around to look her in the eye.

“Thank you,” she said to Stevie, as her heart threatened to blow up inside her crushing ribcage.

Then, before she could think better of it, she added,”how bout breakfast, or, whatever meal it turns out to be, after...after we get done at Outpost #4.”

Fuck.

She couldn't take that back.

Worse, part of her didn't want to take that back.

Please, Andi pleaded silently, desperately,say no.

“I'd like that,” Stevie said instead.”After the battle.”

“Yeah,” Andi, trapped by her own stupid mouth, said, forcing herself to smile.

“After the battle.”

1 NOVEMBER,2569
01:40:09


As was her custom, Sonia was on the flight deck, shaking hands with, and chatting a bit, with Eagle's recently-hired force of six hundred Freislander armored infantry, their suits of grey powered armor smeared with dried green and russet fluid, their two-centimeter tribarrels and six-centimeter calliopes still smoking from recent combat.
Nor erre these the only reminders that these weren't Sonia's marines, almost all six hundred of whom had been female and Human.

These two battalions of Freislanders weren't either, exclusively, with even a Reman or two amongst their number, with pallid features and dark glasses covering their eyes against the glare of the flight deck's fibre-optic lightguides.

Eagle's skipper moved from the taller of the two Remans, a sergeant first class, according to the insignae on the collar of his suit, to the woman next to him, distinguished by her closely-cropped iron-grey hair, light grey eyes, pointed ears, an adjutant underofficer's stud on her collar, a pair of six-centimeter storm guns, a scabbarded, wicked looking tribladed sword on her left side-opposite a large-calber service pistol.

And, the fact she was Romulan, of course, a powerfully-built one for her height.

“Mynheer!” she barked out.”Adjutant Underofficer Drucilla Saavik, at your service!”

“Stand easy, Drucilla,” Sonia ordered, the older Romulan, who could be well into her second century for all Sonia knew, relaxing, only just.

“If you don't mind a personal question, Drucilla,” she then asked,”how old are you?”

“One hundred eighty Earth years, Mynheer,” was Drucilla's answer.

A hundred and eighty...sodding fuck.

Even amongst the Commonwealth nations, given medicine which actually existed, the average lifespan was just broaching 120, maybe 150 amongst Highborn such as herself.

Amongst Theos, of course, fifty, maybe sixty at the outside, and the average patriot [o]might[/u] have access to cloning to extend his miserable life.

“It is a product,” Drucilla explained,”of my people's shared evolution with the Vulcans; the Romulan lifespan, assuming a healthy lifestyle, is estimated to be 350 of your years, Munheer.”

“Christ,” Sonia interjected.

“Missing in action,” a skinny, weedy little Human git two spaces down from Drucilla, quipped,”after 2,569 years.”

“Mynheer,” he hastily added, as several in the ranks started chuckling, and Drucilla flushed dark green.

Hiding a smile at an old joke, even in her time and place, Sonia walked over to the git in question, shaggy red hair, florid face, green eyes, smoking tribsrrel carelessly slung over his shoulders, almost obscuring the major's insignia on his collar.

“And you might be?” Sonia demanded, staring the git in his eye, causing him to shrink away from her.

“Major Dieter Ghent, [/o]Mynheer,[/i] commanding Second Battalion,” Ghent replied, Sonia barking out ”Fuck's sake, man, come to attention, whrn a superior officer addresses you!”

“I give anyone permission to laugh?!” she asked, quieting the few who had laughed at the unfortunate Ghent, who snapped to ramrod-straight attention, causing his tribarrel to whip across his suit with a loud clatter.

“Lord,” Sonia remarked, suppressing another smile, as she added,”whoever allowed you to pass out of academy should be taken out back, and shot.”

“I was promoted rrom the ranks, Mynheer,” Ghent replied.

“And, what damn fool was behind that?!” Sonia, impressed, but not daring to show it demanded, a redheaded man, average height and build, stepping out from the head of the front most rank, approached Sonia, and said,”that would be me, sir!”

Sonia turned her gazeaway from the sweating Ghent, looking into the granite eyes of his superior, a colonell's insignia on his collar, a storm gun patrol-slung and ready over his right shoulder, an old-fashioned officer's sabre scabbarded opposite his service pistol on his left hip.

Yes.

Sonia had read up on him during the flight to Justinia.

He was stranded in another time and place, same as her..

“Reilly, is it?” she asked.

“Colonel Sean Reilly, sir,” Reilly replied, before launching into a defense of his man:

“Ghent has an unfortunate tendency to gob off at the wrong moment, but, he's agood man, a damned fine officer; he was my senior NCO, at...it's not important, but he's served me for years.”

Ghent, as well, then, Sonia mused, before turning back to Ghent.

“Apologies, Mister Ghent,” she said, smiling,”I was just having a bit of fun at your expense. I'm sure you're an excellent officer, and equally sure your history will turn out to be a most interesting tale indeed.”

Glancing at his fellow castaway a moment, Ghent turned back to face Sonia, commenting,”you have no idea, Mynheer.”

“No idea at all,” he added,” his eyes staring a thousand meters past Sonia, as, for the first time, she noticed the Saint Christopher's medalling round the man's skinny neck.