The Vigilant
First Destiny
Part 1 - Epitaphs
by Chad Sharpe
(chadsharpe2001@yahoo.com)

First Destiny
Part 1 - Epitaphs

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"- Wendell Phillips (1852)

CHAPTER ONE

Stardate: 8575.1
Year: 2290
Planet: Nepenthe (Federation Protectorate)
Location: Auregan-Tarai Corridor

As soon as she materialized, Captain Oria Zihar ran her blue hands down the front of her red uniform jacket. Voted "Most Fastidious Cadet" in the Class of '61, Zihar didn't like going into hostile situations rumpled. And it didn't get much more hostile, or potentially hostile than this.

Hot, parched electric winds ran over her hairless, ridged head. As soon as she felt ground beneath her, she awkwardly reached across her girth to pull her phaser out of its holster. Yeoman Brice had hurriedly clipped the holster onto her belt as she had rushed to hop on the transporter pad, and she hadn't had time to rearrange it. With each second crucial, having to reach across her expanding paunch for her weapon could have fatal consequences.

Now is not the time to be thinking about my mid-section, Zihar chided herself. She needed to be focused on dodging any intended or stray disruptor bolts or projectiles. She instinctively crouched, her small black eyes taking in everything around her.

The other three members of Away Team Beta had also quickly pulled out their weapons, and the four of them formed a wheel of hurt for any potential attackers. Moving slowly around in unison, their fingers tensely arched on triggers, the team assessed their immediate surroundings. Realizing that no one with ill intent was there to meet them, they relaxed somewhat. The storm's interference had prevented the ship from getting a secure transporter lock on the crew of the downed shuttle, but she had been willing to risk it to save them. However, Zihar felt a residual tingling in her joints, as if the re-materialization process wasn't quite complete. She could only hope that nothing vital was lost to the winds of Nepenthe.

The team had transported onto a clearing several miles outside of the planet's capital city Fazorh. The spot was the closet to the crash site that Zihar was willing to go. The captain had been hesitant to have Transporter Chief Wilcox place them any closer. Beaming into an electromagnetic storm was dangerous enough without also having to contend with any hostiles that might be waiting for a rescue unit to salvage the shuttle and its inhabitants.

Though she knew that her Security Officer, Lt. Avek, also bald, but a lot more imposing than she, had wanted to be dumped right into the teeth of conflict. She glanced at him briefly, admiring how his uniform molded, like a second skin, onto to his taut, muscular frame. Though Bolians were not as susceptible to the sexual aura exuded by Deltans as much as other humanoid species, she had more than once guiltily imagined what it would be like to have his strong, tapered fingers massage her bifurcated pate. Oblivious to her fantasies, Avek scanned the dark woods beyond the clearing, his beautiful, sparkling eyes clouded by suspicious alertness.

The situation on Nepenthe had deteriorated so quickly that none of them had had a chance to switch to the more appropriate gray and tan landing party uniforms. But thankfully, Avek had been able to meet them at the transporter pad with four pattern enhancers. The tripods would provide amplify the transporter effect, providing additional protection against the ravages of the storm. The Deltan carried the aforementioned items strapped haphazardly to his back with ease, his phaser rifle deceptively resting in the crook of his left arm.

Dr. Plin Regos, the ship's Chief Medical Officer, was holding his phaser far out from his body, his disdain for the weapon apparent. The grandson of a Talarian Patriarch, he no doubt saw weapons as the tools of savages and lower castes, even though the Talarian government required military service for all of its male citizens. His disdain also seemed a bit incongruous with his own history of distinguished military service in the Talarian Militia before the fall of his family's regime had led him to the Federation and Starfleet. His past was not something Regos opened up with Zihar about or anyone else onboard either, she guessed. The hawk-faced, Vandyke-sporting doctor spent almost all of his waking hours at work or in his quarters. The captain wasn't sure if his aloofness was based on the strict patriarchal nature of Talarian culture, the social customs of his lineage, or just because he was an anal sh'arb.

Zihar wouldn't have included the prickly aristocrat on the mission if she didn't have the utmost confidence in his medical skills, if not his bedside manner. In contrast to the phaser he held at arm's length, he clutched a jeweled, oval shaped non-Fleet issue medical kit, close to him with his other hand. She didn't know much about her Chief Medical Officer, but she did know that he counted the kit among one of his most prized possessions. So long as he did his job well, Zihar didn't care what he carried his medical instruments in. The doctor seemed so attached to his case that he would probably sacrifice a couple of the crew for it, she darkly joked. Namely the females.

Rounding out the team was Lt. D'Iata, from the planet Cait. The wiry felinoid Science Officer was using his extraordinary sense of smell to sample the winds for signs of danger. The charged, magnetic atmosphere was making the ends of his rich, orange mane stand up. His nose twitched furiously and his tongue darted in and out of his thin lips with abandon. She could tell that he was trying hard to overcome the smell of fried particles and sizzled electrons. The air was heavy with the scent of the oncoming storm, the winds reaching out like scouts for an invading army. Dark clouds were already starting to circle over them, and she could imagine the storm moving quickly over the land towards them, ionic-laced lightning spewing out of magnetized clouds like the outbursts of a petulant deity.

The clearing they had beamed into provided scant cover, the anemic trees and brambles suffering from triple bouts of seasonal change, leached soil, and the frequent electromagnetic and ion storms that wracked the planet, a gift of Nepenthe's revolving around an unstable, blinking yellow super giant. Charged winds rustled through the trees unabated. The trees had surrendered years ago to the relentless tides of nature and the cosmos.

Transfixed by the weight and metallic smell of the approaching storm, Zihar ordered the Caitian, "Mr. D'Iata, try again to reestablish contact with our team." Communication with Away Team Alpha had been lost almost forty minutes ago, as the shuttle McKinley was shot out of the sky while returning to the Solstice.

A simple extraction Starfleet Intelligence had informed her. Yeah right, Zihar harrumphed to herself. 'All you have to do is pick up a person and deliver him to prearranged coordinates,' Admiral Morrow had informed her, his disarming smile framed by his distinguished salt and pepper mustache. Robert had always hit her with that Cheshire smile when he was about to put her beautiful blue Bolian head on the chopping block. Of course he had weaved his spell before he informed her that this "person" was Colonel GaH'Qel, an infamous war criminal and alleged terrorist from one of the immutable civil wars that the Klingons always seemed to embroil themselves in, and that the "prearranged coordinates" were actually inside the Neutral Zone, where a Klingon battle cruiser would be waiting to escort the deposed warlord back to their homeworld to stand trial for his past misdeeds as well as his suspected involvement in a rash of terrorist assaults inside the Empire during the post-war years. He's done it to me again, she thought. He's going to owe me big time.

Zihar found the idea of a Klingon "war criminal" to be oxymoronic. This GaH'Qel guy must have done something really horrible to be hit with that label. Exactly the kind of person she wanted on her vessel for several days. That is, of course, if the colonel survived or if they could actually get to the guy, which was looking doubtful at this point. What she wouldn't give to have access to an old Bolian land crawler right now. The old, armored vehicles, relics of an almost forgotten past on her world could cut through and run over anything, which many Bolians in times past had used to do just that.

D'Iata had bent to one knee, perhaps more for affect than effect, pulling out the newer, more user-friendly tricorders from a second holster attached to his belt. Due to the storm, the ship's sensors couldn't track the lost crewmembers. Hopefully the tricorder carried enough juice to punch through any interference or jamming of subspace signals for a short-range radius. Tapping a few buttons on the small silvery blue rectangular device, D'Iata looked up at the captain and shook his head. "Nothing but static sir," he snarled in frustration, flashing a sharpened fang.

"So, what are our options Captain?" Avek asked, the darkly expectant look on his face revealing that he would probably not like her choices. He had opposed her joining the landing party, arguing in the Transporter Room that it was not proper to leave the Solstice without its two senior officers; First Officer Lindsey Cortez had led the mission to the citadel headquarters of the planet's ruling Central Authority to extradite GaH'Qel. Lt. Commander T'Lin, a counter terrorism specialist on loan from Starfleet Intelligence, a prescient addition, and her colleague, Lt. Ivax, a Dimoran, had accompanied Cortez. Due to the sensitive, highly political nature of the assignment, it was supposed to have been a simple in and out procedure, no more than an hour. Pick up the colonel, do the requisite paperwork, etc., etc, and be on their way. But of course things rarely ran as smoothly as she hoped.

Looking at Avek, Zihar answered, "First, contact Solstice to inform them of our safe arrival. Chief Wilcox only placed us slightly off our targeted mark of several kilometers from the projected crash site. We split up in teams of two. Radio silence unless absolutely necessary and I want your tricorders checking for life signs on a low EM band to lessen interference and to avoid detection. I'll take Mr. D'Iata and we'll take the right flank. You and Dr. Regos will take the left flank. We'll move in on the shuttle and any potential attackers in a classic pincer move. Element of surprise, sheer audacity, and all that."

The Deltan Security Officer gave his captain a dazzling smile in response. Why was she so weak for males, irrespective of species, with rows of shining teeth? If only starships had counselors, she might be able to take time to find out.

"I like your plan Captain," he answered. "I like your plan a lot."

CHAPTER TWO

"Incoming audio message from the surface," Lt. Joshua Colbert said, his nervous excitement raising his voice an octave. "It's Captain Zihar."

"Put it on speakers," Lt. Antonia Maceo Museveni, ship's Operations Officer, informed him. The fifth in the chain of command, even though it felt more like the 45th, Museveni uneasily occupied the captain's chair in the depressed center of the circular Main Bridge of the USS Solstice, NCC 2105. The upper ring of the Constitution-class vessel buzzed with activity as crewmen ran to and fro from workstation to workstation.

She felt out of place being in the center of things. She was usually off to the side of Captain Zihar, making sure that the ship' operating systems were running at peak performance and readiness levels. Now, the only system whose readiness she had to worry about was herself, and she didn't like it one bit. She stole a glance at her old station, now being manned by the preternaturally stoic Yeoman Brice.

Though Lt. Commander Jenara Tamor, the vessel's Chief Engineer, was still onboard, and technically should be in command, the testy Orion had pointedly informed Museveni with about as much tact as an Orion could muster that her place was in Engineering and Museveni's was on the bridge, and rarely did the two orbiting systems inhabit the same galaxy.

Museveni had taken Tamor's comment in stride, her desire to have a semblance of order and structure on the bridge in a crisis overriding her concerns for protocol. So long as the crew were accepting of Museveni's command she had no complaints, and she would let Captain Zihar handle all of the reprimands when she returned.

Gripping as much of the large, black leather armrests of the command chair that her tiny hands would allow, Antonia cleared her throat before speaking. "Captain?"

Seconds of silence answered her. Then, "Lt. Museveni? Where's...Tamor?"

Clearing her throat again, and hoping her voice didn't crack, Museveni replied, "Sir, the Chief is in Engineering...preparing the ship for emergency evacuation," she added quickly. For her taste, a little too quickly.

"Okay," the captain said slowly, spreading out each letter in the word before she proceeded. "Lieutenant, I want you to inform Chief Wilcox"...a spike of static cut into the transmission... "ramp up the juice"... "for emergency"... "when the pattern enhancers are set."

"Captain Zihar, we can't hear you clearly," she informed her Commanding Officer. "You're breaking up."

Another burst of static invaded the ship's speakers. "Also... Ensign Thelar prep a shuttle. I want our best...ready...get a lock...retrieve...Alpha." Museveni wasn't certain if the captain had even heard her previous message.

"Were getting some interference from the storm," Colbert unnecessarily informed Antonia. Waves of angry static followed the Communication Officer's pronouncement.

"...keep the lines...open...Central Admin...if they can send...could be..." Antonia strained to catch as much of the garbled message as she could.

The well-placed elbow thrown into Ensign Thelar's ribs by Lt. Mordo, the ship's Navigator momentarily broke her concentration. The Andorian Helmsman and the Tellarite Navigator had forged an unlikely friendship on the Solstice. Unlikely because of the historic enmity held between the Andorians and Tellarites. However, the only remnant of the ancient rivalry present between the two was the torrid pace of practical joking and one-liners carried on between the two, which often entangled other crewmembers.

"...Zihar...out."

Museveni stamped her foot loudly against the metal deck. Getting their attention, she pinned them both with an icy stare. Though usually amused by the pranksters, she didn't feel that now was the time for levity with so many of their fellow shipmates in harm's way. Especially Avek...She pushed her thoughts of the Deltan away to focus on trying to carry out her captain's orders.

Rising up in her chair, though still feeling dwarfed by it, Museveni raised her voice, injected as much authority into it as she could hope for. "Okay people. Mr. Thelar, get down to Shuttle Bay 12 and prep a shuttle for departure. Mr. Colbert, try to reestablish contact with the Central Authority's Citadel. Everybody else, stay sharp and stay ready."

Not used to just waiting for things to come together, and wanting to do something to help her crewmates, Museveni got out of the captain's chair, stepped up the Main Bridge platform, and headed towards her usual post at the Operations Console. Yeoman Brice quickly relinquished the seat. The coal-haired Alpha Centauran's reserve slipped slightly as Lt. Museveni walked past her console and headed towards the turbolift. "Mr. Colbert," Museveni spoke in mid-stride.

"Yes sir?" Colbert had turned around in his chair, his receiver hanging limply from his ear.

"You take the conn. Keep trying to get in touch with the Central Authority. When you do, send the transmission down to Engineering."

"Engineering?"

"Did I stutter Mr. Colbert?"

"No ma'am. I mean sir."

Before Museveni replied, she stepped into the brightly lit turbolift. Pressing a button to hold the doors open, she saw Colbert hurriedly leave his station to assume the center chair. "Good. Carry on Mr. Colbert."

Antonia released the holding button and the doors shut. With a whoosh Museveni was on her way to personally check on the readiness of the Engineering Department and deal with idiosyncrasies of its Chief Engineer.

CHAPTER THREE

Commander Lindsey Cortez yanked her head back into the McKinley, a volley of bullets flying past her, some hitting the shuttle with a thud. She held her black phaser so close to her face that her lips could taste its cold metallic tang.

Taking a deep breath, Cortez stuck her head back out of the opening and then fired several beams in the direction that the bullets had come from, before again retreating back into the shuttle to avoid the retaliatory fusillade. She was thankful that their attackers didn't have energy weapons. At least that was one thing going in their favor. A few phaser or disruptor weapons could reduce the remaining hulk of the McKinley into a slagheap in a couple of minutes.

The only downside to their sanctuary was that it could explode at anytime. Lindsey fought hard to not allow the harsh, oily smell of leaking coolant; the acrid smoke and the heat of unidentified burning things somewhere in the wreckage dull her senses or reaction time. She had to stay focused, not only for herself, but for her crewmates and their special cargo.

As if he knew that her mind flickered on him, their passenger spoke.

"Might I be of assistance? I am pretty handy with a phaser."

Lindsey looked at him, her pale blue eyes dissecting the colonel, the war criminal and so-called terrorist mastermind. On cursory inspection, he didn't seem all that dangerous. Rather gaunt for a Klingon, at least she guessed he was from the stories she had heard about them, because she had never actually seen one in person herself, his swarthy skin was covered in fresh blood from a large gash carved across his smooth forehead. The thick, purplish fluid ran down his face, dripping off of his angular nose and his ragged goatee. However, his small eyes were clear of pain and full of fire. Cortez was struck by their glacial intelligence.

This extraction had been full of unwelcome surprises. First, she had been shocked to learn of a clandestine expatriate community of Klingons living on the failed human colony of Nepenthe; a planet close to the Romulan border but tucked safely enough inside of Federation space. Second, she had been even more shocked to discover that these Klingons had smooth foreheads, not the proud, vicious row of ridges she had believed that all Klingons now sported.

Though her Academy history texts had contained pictures of smooth headed Klingons, her classmates as well as her professors had debated whether the changes to Klingon physiology had been cosmetic or that the more human-looking Klingons had been altered for infiltration purposes. Some had theorized that there different Klingoid racial groups or subspecies. Still others had proposed that the less fierce looking Klingons had merely been humans or very human-like beings assimilated into the Klingon system, front line cannon fodder to test the Federation's resolve. No one could really be sure. It was a subject that she hoped to find out more about from GaH'Qel, if he was cooperative, during their journey to the Klingon border. She had been a little unsettled about how communicative the prisoner had been since they had picked him up from the Central Authority's Citadel in Fazorh. From what she had heard about Klingons, she hadn't been given the impression that they were a chatty race or one that prized small talk, unlike humans or Bolians. Perhaps the realization of the noose around his neck had put him more in a talkative mood, she pondered.

Cortez knew though that some of her crewmates might find her willingness to talk to the war criminal distasteful. Dr. Regos immediately came to her mind. However, Lindsey felt that they weren't much better than the colonel, because they were sending the man to certain death once they handed him over to the Klingons.

Rubbing the wedding band on her trigger finger, and oddly thinking of her husband Manuel, Cortez answered GaH'Qel. "I don't think so. Continue looking after Lieutenant Commander T'Lin and yourself. How badly are you hurt?"

The corners of his mouth spiked downward, but the colonel dismissed his injuries with a wave of his hand. "This is nothing," he said firmly, sticking a finger deep into the wound. In spite of herself, Lindsey reflexively flinched at the demonstration. Smiling at her discomfort, the colonel continued, his rich voice soft, almost conversational. "I have experienced much worse. Believe me."

Lindsey found herself nodding at the sad sincerity she heard in his voice. It almost made her flick the phaser she had retrieved from the unconscious Lt. Cmdr. T'Lin. Almost.

Presently, GaH'Qel kneeled over the injured security guard, a hypospray in his hands. Though Cortez had not wanted to give the colonel access to an instrument that might be used as a weapon, she and Ivax hadn't had much choice. The bad guys had been on them less than ten minutes after the shuttle had took off, knocking the climbing McKinley out of the sky and into woodland area on the hinterlands of the capital city with a lucky, or preternaturally skillful shot of some kind of anti-aircraft projectile that took out the shuttle's portside nacelle.

Even though GaH'Qel had not been bound when the Authority's Central Guard had turned him over, and thus far had been very cooperative, seeming almost resigned or relieved about the hand over, Lindsey was still uneasy about giving him too much free reign. Obviously whoever had downed the McKinley had taken a lot of time to make the blow a glancing one; in her opinion to bring down the shuttle with minimum casualties.

"Any idea who might be trying to kill us?" Commander Cortez asked, not wanting to let the colonel know that she realized that the blow inflicted on the shuttle was crippling, not fatal.

"No I don't," the colonel replied, looking deeply into Cortez's eyes. The gesture seemed to accentuate the truth she heard in his voice. Of course, he could've learned of the human comfort with people who looked them in their eyes when they spoke to them. Plus, mass murderers were probably also convincing liars. "I do have my suspicions though," GaH'Qel rubbed his bearded chin in contemplation.

"Really? Care to share?" Lindsey almost laughed at the airy tone of the repartee amid hails of bullets and energy bolts.

"As you could see from the throng who had gathered to protest my extradition and to denounce the Central Authority, the Federation, and the Empire, a lot of people would like me to remain here. They feel that the Federation is betraying their commitment to my people-the real Klingons by handing me over to that gang of usurpers masquerading as Klingons, the false Empire."

"You don't say," her flippancy belied a piqued interest in the complexities of Klingon society, biology, and culture. What is a real Klingon she had wanted to ask, but she held her tongue.

"Yes I do say Commander. Some of my compatriots may feel that way, but I do not. I am a Klingon, a proud son of the House of ZoraQ. I have fought on countless battlefields for the greater glory of the Empire. I have nothing to hide and I am ready to face the 'judgment' of mortals if it will ensure peace between the Federation and the inferiors because my passage into Sto-Vo-Kor is all but assured."

Cortez was disturbed by how strained the colonel's voice sounded as he wheezed out his assertion. From what Lindsey had heard about Klingons such a speech should've shaken the fragile shuttle wreckage to its foundations. She was no doctor, but her gut told her that the colonel wasn't as healthy as he might have her believe. She was sure that Dr. Regos would jump at the chance to examine the colonel once they had made it back to the Solstice. The dearth of knowledge about Klingons, from politics to biology, was an embarrassment to the Federation's intelligentsia.

GaH'Qel was quiet for a moment, his manner sad and reflective. Very un-Klingon, or perhaps, truly Klingon after all?

The colonel continued. "Using deduction, I doubt the Klingon Empire is trying to kill me. They will have that pleasure soon enough. Also, it is doubtful that some native group or revenge seeker is trying to kill me, though I do have my detractors, because the shot was mainly meant to disable the shuttle not to destroy it. So, it appears that some splinter, extremist element has taken it upon themselves to 'rescue' me, though they could've done it in a much gentler way. Then again, my people don't know the meaning of the word gentle." He smiled at the observation, but the smile quickly receded as he darkly opined. "As for you and your crew, I think my rescuers will be even less gentle than they have been with your shuttlecraft."

"I agree," replied Cortez, without specifying what it was that she agreed with. She tightened the grip on her phaser, her other hand moving to cover the other weapon at her side.

The commander had noticed GaH'Qel also staring at the errant phaser. The colonel then looked at her, his small, cold eyes boring into the Turkana IV native, searching for a weakness he didn't find. Noticeably sighing, GaH'Qel straightened the silver baldric on his venerable black and silver mesh Defense Force uniform before returning his attention to the severely injured Vulcan. For the first time, Lindsey noticed that the colonel's uniform seemed more tattered by time and disuse than by the crash. The remaining medals on the baldric also seemed to be tarnished, though she couldn't be sure if the creeping darkness of surrounding woods was playing tricks with her eyesight.

Perhaps GaH'Qel had given up so easily on his request for a phaser because giving up had become a habit for him. A Klingon warrior-a Defense Force colonel no less-with lost heart? It almost boggled her mind.

Cortez turned her attention to T'Lin, her normally harsh face softening as she saw her comrade on the door way of death, her chest rising and falling with great effort, as her broken body struggled for breath.

She had to admit that GaH'Qel had done more than an adequate job of keeping her alive, even carefully removing the several shards of plastic and metal that had punctured the counter terrorism specialist's unmarked-until now-face. Without the quick evacuation to Solstice's sickbay T'Lin would carry the scars of this unfortunate visit for the rest of her life.

Welcome to the side of Starfleet not shown in the vid-clips or recruitment promotions, Cortez mused. The side containing the many lives shattered and sacrifices made to maintain and defend paradise. Where just a routine assignment on an insignificant backwater world could have fatal consequences.

T'Lin's battered body, God forbid her corpse, would be an icy reminder that no assignment in Starfleet was too small or unimportant...that death stalks everyone.

Cortez tore her eyes away from T'Lin and GaH'Qel's battlefield ministrations, to glance at the Dimoran security specialist. The small, lithe Ivax was nestled behind the console in the bow of the shuttle, his grayish fur slicked with sweat, coolant, or condensation. Or maybe blood? She couldn't be certain because she didn't know Dimoran blood looked like.

If Ivax was injured it didn't appear to slow him down. The butt of the phaser rifle was snuggly secured against his slender shoulder, the barrel sticking out of one of the cracks in the front view port. His concentration totally in front of him, he said nothing as he went about his deadly work.

The rodent-like Dimoran's trigger finger barely moved as he struck target after target, his well-trained eyes cutting through the gathering dusk and camouflage of the forest. Cortez had heard about the legendary accuracy of the blowgun tribes of Dimorus, but she had never imagined such primitive marksmanship could be so readily transferred to modern weapons.

Realizing that her reverie had went on a little longer than it should, putting more pressure on Ivax and possibly lessening their chances for survival, Lindsey swooped up the other phaser. A little off balance, she poked her head out of the opening and fired off a two-fisted round. Knowing it was foolish not to save T'Lin's phaser until after her own weapon's power cell depleted, her impatience had overrun her common sense.

Part of her foolishness and impatience was based in part on the deeply seared belief in her captain. Cortez knew that Captain Zihar would save them. A landing party was probably making its way to them even as the thought formed in her mind. Of course they might all be dead by the time they got there, her inner cynic scolded in an attempt to dampen the blossom of faith in her heart.

Always torn between hope and cynicism, Lindsey sought to speed up the inevitable, whatever or whenever it might occur. As she prepared to fire off another two-phasered round, her silent wish was immediately granted when a small, globular object sailed by her head into the cabin of the shuttle. Its explosion sent her to the final darkness with an ironic smile on her lips.

CHAPTER FOUR

Its presence hidden by a cloaking device, the Klingon Battle cruiser Reclaw sat comfortably in orbit beside the Federation starship. The D-5 class warship had been in synchronous orbit, shadowing the starship for several hours without a hint of detection.

Lady Torem saw it as another good omen of the success of her mission. Standing by the command chair occupied by her son Korrin, on the chill, dank bridge, she pulled a heavy cloak, studded with medals, more firmly around her slender shoulders as another icy premonition sliced through her. Or so she hoped her palsy was from the cold touch of destiny and not the Ba'ltmasor Syndrome coursing through her body on its terminal destination to her brain.

Torem knew there wasn't much time for her now, and she hoped that her dream could outrace her fate.

The medals on the cloak reflected grimly in the garish red light drenching the bridge. The targ's hide garment was musty in addition to being heavy, scented with the smell of dried bloodwine stains and old age. The cloak and the medals belonged to her husband, the revered Dahar Master Drok, whom had earned the honors after a lifetime of service to the Klingon Empire.

She felt it fitting to wear his accursed medals as she plotted the death of the one thing he loved more than anything.

Torem looked again at the viewer that dominated the tip of the diamond-shaped bridge. With sepia fingers she traced the gentle outlines of the silvery white starship lying unknowingly vulnerable before her. The design was one she recognized from her intelligence reports. The starship belonged to the same class of Federation warship as the Enterprise, captained by the infamous James T. Kirk, whose perfidious exploits were legend in the Klingon Empire, and whom she had privately cheered each time he had humiliated the pretenders befouling the Great Hall on Qo'noS.

Taken as she was by the Federation starship, her heart froze in her chest each time she allowed herself to look at the world beneath them. Nepenthe, a reddish, rust colored world, battered by the capriciousness of its system's sun, was in and of itself entirely unremarkable. It was its inhabitants; the last Klingon survivors of the old order that held sway for her and fired her imagination. Torem was certain that some of her old friends and comrades in arms were still alive, the proud bearers of galactic imperial majesty now subsisting on scraps on a dying Federation reservation.

"Communications!" Korrin growled, breaking the spell Nepenthe held on her. Torem then turned her attention to the crew of the Reclaw, her dark eyes fixing on the target of her son's command: an attractive female Communications Officer named Keval.

A top graduate of the Ogat Training Academy, and a brave soul to proudly display an almost ridge-less forehead, a decision that doubtless had kept her career trajectory and social standing on a constant downward slope, Torem couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealously whenever she looked at the kyamo Keval. The young officer's boldness only reminded her of her decision to partially undergo the alterations of the ChaQ'ReH. A decision she often told herself were born out of necessity, but that she often wondered if they weren't also the product of her own cowardice. Unconsciously, she rubbed the thin row of ridges running through the center of her forehead, the spiny range feeling more alien than usual.

"You have been monitoring the communications of the Federation vessel," Korrin snapped. It wasn't a question. "Report!"

Keval cleared her throat before speaking. "Yes, Captain. The commander of the vessel has beamed down with a small team to retrieve Colonel GaH'Qel. It appears that the shuttle carrying him had been shot down into some woodland several miles outside of the capital city of Fazorh."

Torem found herself impressed with the fortitude of the Federation captain willing to risk her life to save her crewmembers by transporting through an electromagnetic storm. Even though she had worked before in league with Starfleet Intelligence and had personally witnessed the valor of more than one Federation warrior to know that bravery was not solely a Klingon trait, she still found herself amazed by this particular captain's example. It almost made her regret what she must do to this captain and her crew, making this display of bravery ultimately futile.

Without acknowledging the Comm. Officer, Korrin nodded and shifted slightly on his throne-like chair to gaze at his mother standing calmly at the base of the chair's upraised platform.

She appraised him for a few seconds as well, unable to refrain from smiling at her son. Even seated, Captain Korrin of the Reclaw still cut a dashing figure, tall and menacing, his long indigo-colored hair fell about his armored shoulders like the lava flows of Kri'stak. A traditional bright gold baldric, the only thing she had that had belonged to his father, was draped across his silver metal breastplate. An almost beautiful child, and magnificent warrior, marred only by the cable-like ridges running along both sides of his head, and meeting in a thin range of ridges in the center of his forehead. But that imperfection would be removed soon enough, she thought to herself.

Though she would never be able to forgive herself for the pain she had caused him, the dishonor she had heaped upon him to keep him alive, Torem couldn't help but take a measure of pride in her son, a dagger honed by decades of torment and deceit, suffering and guilt, ready to strike against their enemies, all of their enemies.

Turning away from his mother's beatific inspection, Korrin returned to looking at the screen with a stern gaze.

"Captain Korrin," she spoke, her imperious voice speckled with grains of concern. "Your thoughts? The Brigade has acted according to plan, but there are always unpredictable factors. Do you think the colonel may have been injured in the assault on the shuttle? I hope those idiots don't get too overzealous in their assignment." She did her best to remove the emotion from her voice, the crew studiously ignoring her failure. Korrin's only reaction was an almost comically Vulcan-style raised eyebrow.

"The storm has severely impeded all efforts to locate the shuttle's passengers or ascertain their conditions. We can only...hope." Korrin said the last word slowly, forcing it out of his lips for her benefit and her benefit alone. What would I do without you? She thought to herself, knowing she could not openly express that sentiment to him.

The captain then motioned for her to step up onto the platform, leaning close to her ear after she complied. "Lady Torem," Deigning from calling her mother in public, Korrin continued, his words came slower, softer, for her ears only and his voice was more measured. "Your presence here was not necessary," he revealed in a moment of startling impertinence and shocking vulnerability. "If things go awry here, it will jeopardize everything."

Torem leaned away from her son, fighting an instinctual urge to strike Korrin for his both his insolence and his display of concern. Overly observant crewmembers might mistake it for weakness, and a mutiny or assassination attempt was the last thing they needed to deal with while so much of the outcome of their mission remained in doubt, despite her feelings of confidence.

"You worry too much my son. How can things go wrong with you, the Empire's greatest warrior, by my side? I've known failure, I've seen it come, smelled its foul stench, recoiled in its hardened grasp. But I feel that the page has finally turned in our favor. I can no longer live a lie, and I had to be on hand to oversee the mission. I had to see my son be reacquainted with his father."

Korrin smiled at the compliment, bowing his head in respect. Rising again to face his mother, a ripple of worry ran through his brown eyes. "How do you think he will react when we reveal our hand?" Korrin asked, knowing that she knew whom he was talking about.

Torem spat loudly onto the deck plate at her feet, the action drawing the attention of two or three of the bridge crew. They quickly returned to their work when their curiosity was greeted by Torem's smoldering stare.

Her gaze still on the readily compliant bridge crew, she answered her son's inquiry. "Drok and his ilk are of no consequence," Torem began, refusing to give the Dahar Master the customary reverence his title demanded. "He sought to make us both trophies, his prizes of war, his monuments to the great victory of his kind over ours, but all he did was delay the inevitable, and the dust of his vapors will join the countless others that will pollute the ocean of stars while our people inherit their destiny." She concluded, shaking with conviction.

Despite the depth of her venom she sought to keep her voice low as she could, until she could ensure that all of the bridge crew was totally loyal and fully committed to her cause. Though she knew that all of the officers of the Reclaw thrilled at the prospect of battle with Starfleet, as any Klingon warrior would, some of them, the naturally ridged members of the crew might balk or sabotage her plan if they knew its ultimate goal. Once the colonel was in their possession, she would have her son purge the crew of the pure bloods.

Korrin sat back in his chair, and pulled on one of the tips of his long, drooping mustache, his heavy brow furrowing as he sought to put together his thoughts. Working his lips silently, as if working up the courage to voice his concerns, the captain finally spoke. "Do you think he can be trusted?" He asked softly again with no need for elaboration, his usual gruff voice smoothed by tenderness. "Could this not be some elaborate hoax, or trick by the Federation? The humans are without honor, and may be luring us into a trap to secure their precious piece with the Empire." He exhaled after finishing, as if a weight had been lifted from his heart.

Taken aback by his accusation, Torem reached within in the folds of her crimson dress for the dk'tahg blade strapped to her thigh. Catching herself, she stepped away from the platform, before she made a mistake and forced her son to kill her to maintain his honor and the loyalty of his soldiers.

"How dare you!" she exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at her son. "How dare you insult my intelligence, blacken his honor!" Now shivering more from rage than the chill of the bridge, Torem threw her husband's cloak to the deck.

"Mother, you are not yourself." His previous reticence lost in the heat of frustration, Korrin quickly rose out of his seat, rushing to envelope her in his arms in order to prevent another disgraceful outburst. She beat against his strong embrace, but he refused to let her go, his vise-like grip on her becoming more constricted.

The captain looked to the side, wincing as her nails dug into his face. "Dhomir!" He yelled to his burly Weapons Officer. The hulking gunner, with surprising speed, essayed from his chair in an alcove to the right of the command chair, and stood at attention by Korrin's side.

Turning to his side, Korrin held his mother out to his subordinate with both arms. "Take her to her quarters." He ordered the gunner. "Be careful not to harm her." Korrin warned. Reaching into one of the pockets of his dark brown pants, he pulled out a syringe and a vial of clear liquid. Sticking the needle into the vial, he filled it full of the vial's contents, tossing it aside afterward to shatter on the deck. Korrin quickly jabbed the needle into his mother's neck before she could protest or put up more of a fight.

Nodding his understanding, Dhomir swooped her off of her feet, moving his huge face from side to side to avoid her swings, staggering slightly each time the back of her spiked boot connected with one of his tree trunk legs. The dedicated soldier continued on his thankless mission, not even putting Lady Torem down when he reached the lift located in the aft section of the bridge. She craned her neck around to make eye contact with her son.

Seemingly unfazed by his mother's tirade, Korrin met her gaze. "I will call you back to the bridge when the time comes," He gave as a salve before turning his attention back to the viewer and the Federation starship. His armor plated back was the last thing she saw before consciousness was engulfed by shadows.

CHAPTER FIVE

Antonia Museveni interrupted Jenara Tamor in the middle of a harangue. The glacially beautiful, green-hued Chief Engineer, resplendent even in a bulky white radiation suit, stood over two crewmen as they struggled to set a large cylindrical piece of equipment upright.

"You oafs!" Tamor roared, "Plasma injector rods contain extremely dangerous material. A mishap could irradiate the entire Engineering Section! Didn't you learn anything in Warp Mechanics 101?"

Museveni noticed that everyone else in Main Engineering was casually ignoring their commanding officer's tantrum as if it were a frequent occurrence. She also took note that none of the engineering crew made any effort, least of all Commander Tamor, to help the two crewmen-a human and an almost ridiculously tall Caldonian, with their labors.

The rest of the crew, a collection of white radiation suits and one-piece red and tan Cadet jumpsuits, were all looking askance, seemingly more entranced by the constant throb of the squat warp core running the length of the Engineering section, a pillar of swirling colors and deadly energy.

Antonia realized almost immediately that she didn't like the shroud of submission that she felt hanging over the department, and that she didn't like the person who had wrought it-Chief Tamor. Though she would love to tell Tamor what she thought of her, she couldn't: court martial for insubordination being one, and the famous vicious streak of Orion women being another.

However, she was not alone in her distaste. Many of the Solstice crewmembers had had unpleasant encounters with the harpy. Avek, Thelar, Mordo, even the perpetually nervous Colbert, and she herself had created secret effigies of the Orion to use as target practice in their Armory sessions. Antonia didn't know why Captain Zihar kept her around. Though the captain was known for being a somewhat jovial maverick, with an affinity for oddballs and legendary tolerance, Museveni had personally witnessed how Chief Tamor was barely deferential even to her.

Though minimally respectful, Commander Cortez had ensured that everyone, Tamor included, stayed within the proper boundaries of the chain of command, with arctic forcefulness if necessary. Strangely, Cortez and Tamor got along pretty well, perhaps the Orion's only comrade on the whole ship.

Antonia squared her shoulders before she spoke. "Commander Tamor?"

The Chief Engineer whipped her head around, her amber eyes gleaming with annoyed fury. "What is it Lieutenant?" She had made certain to emphasize Museveni's subordinate rank. Oh, how she wanted to take a swing at this woman. "We are in the middle of a Level Three diagnostic." Tamor added quickly as if to dismiss any and all additional questions.

"Can I speak with you in your office?"

Tamor's eyes narrowed, and she regarded the Operations Officer coldly. "What is this about?"

"Your office. Please?" Antonia set her jaw, and planted her feet. She was not going to allow Tamor to push her around. This time, at least.

Perhaps recognizing the Saturn-bred stubbornness in Museveni's body language, the Orion acceded. "This way," she said, turning toward a small alcove directly across from the warp core, and leaving the crewmen to their task of still righting the plasma injector.

The small office was neurotically neat, with nothing out of place. An auxiliary workstation was also in the office, manned at the time by Lt. Junior Grade Goseb, the duty engineer. The reptilian Kressari didn't even look up from his console when Tamor and Museveni entered. His incessant hissing increased only slightly in response.

Well trained, Antonia mused.

Tamor pulled off her thick white gloves and sat wearily behind her empty desk, a rare show of fatigue on her part. She gestured for Antonia to take a seat, which she did. In her more charitable moments, Museveni often wondered if the uber-nastiness of the Chief Engineer was partly a mechanism Tamor used to disassociate herself from the pervasive stereotype of promiscuous Orion slave women.

Tamor seemed as cold and asexual as a Vulcan and as demanding as a Zakdorn, but the energy she put into her persona, if indeed her callousness was fa‡ade, must have borne a terrible psychic toll on her. Of course, it was all futile speculation, Museveni realized. Perhaps if she had paid more attention to her own coursework in General Psychology instead of the strapping young classmate sitting beside her she might have been able to make a better analysis. In any event, Tamor had a lot of issues, and no matter how hard she might try to take people's attention away from her raw erotic magnetism, it showed through the Chief Engineer's smoldering eyes.

Even Museveni found herself slightly taken in by the amber eyes, aflame with restrained passions perhaps hotter than the stars around them.

"What do you want?" Tamor's peeved voice cut through her musings with the precision of a razor blade.

"Permission to speak freely sir?" Antonia asked with hesitation. She didn't want what she might say to get her brought up on charges, even though more than likely it would result in Tamor feeding her into the warp core. Or trying to at least.

"Of course. Why even ask? You're running the show on the bridge."

Museveni sat back in the hard metal chair and began rotating her hands to her help her generate her thoughts. She was a person who spoke with her body as much as her vocal cords, particularly with her hands. Picking her words carefully, she began, "Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"There's nothing to talk about. You are a bridge officer; your place belongs on the Main Bridge. I am an engineer and I belong in Engineering. I thought I made that clear Lieutenant."

An angry vein began pulsing along Museveni's jaw line and she felt her temperature rise at Tamor's rudeness. "I don't think Captain Zihar or Starfleet regulations would see it that way."

"Well, Captain Zihar hasn't informed me that she has a problem with it." Tamor retorted.

Normally Antonia sought to ignore the Chief Engineer's poor attitude and sullenness, but these weren't normal times. A sizable part of the command staff was in danger, including Avek, and she saw no reason for Tamor's hostility. She didn't know if it was a cultural trait or not, but at the moment she didn't care.

"Damnit, what is your problem? Both the captain and the commander are down on Nepenthe, and we've lost contact with them. There's an electromagnetic storm and they are possibly engaged in hostilities..."

"Tell me something I don't know. What does that have to do with me being on the bridge?"

Fighting the urge to employ some choice words she had picked up during her formative years exploring the Saturn orbital docks, Museveni merely gnashed her teeth, and bit softly on her tongue to prevent it from flying out of her mouth and making a bad situation worse.

A familiar chime saved Tamor, or perhaps Museveni, from receiving some very harsh words or worse. Tamor swiveled in her chair to a console behind her. She flipped a button, and barked, "Tamor here."

"Uh Commander, we have an incoming visual message from the surface." Antonia recognized Colbert's high-strung voice.

"Pipe it down here," the Chief Engineer tersely replied. "Tamor out." She slid her chair over so that Museveni too would be able to look at the small screen as it blinked to life.

Though the picture was grainy, Antonia could fairly make out a large, dark face filling the frame. The grimness radiating from the wrinkle headed Klingon seemed to add even more tint to his olive skin. A rough patch of cloth covering his left eye also added to his formidable visage. A large man, with a spiky gray goatee, but no mustache, he regarded them both for a few seconds before he spoke. "I am Central Administrator Mu'rad. Which one of you is the captain?" Museveni was pleased that the sound was good even if the visual wasn't on the communication link.

"I am in command," Antonia answered before Tamor could comment. Mu'rad looked at her as if he wanted to ask another question. Obviously changing his mind, he slowly shook his gray head. "Lt. Antonia Museveni," she added a little too quickly. "Captain Zihar is on the surface looking for the shuttle. Any word?"

Raising a bushy eyebrow in response, Mu'rad replied. "We believe that the shuttle was attacked by a splinter group of dissidents opposed to the hand over of Colonel GaH'Qel."

"That's a brilliant deduction," Tamor sarcastically chimed. The Central Administrator seemed not to catch on.

"Thank you Orion. But it was the theory of my Central Guard Chief, BI'ka. She is in the field right now, with a team approaching the crash site. The unilateral actions of your captain, though admirable, were not necessary. In fact, it might put not only the colonel and your shuttle crew more at risk, but endanger her life as well."

Unilateral? Museveni incredulously thought. What the hell was the captain supposed to do when communication with the Central Authority was severed, by the storm or on purpose for all they knew? If the Central Authority couldn't anticipate the actions of this splinter group how effective would they be at rescuing the shuttle crew? After all, some of these Klingon refugees had been avowed enemies of the Federation only decades ago. How could the captain, or now, she be certain that the Central Authority or elements in it had not been involved in the attack? Of course, she asked none of the questions manically spouting in her mind. In her best imitation of a commanding officer, Antonia asked instead. "Central Administrator, what information can you give us about this splinter group, and how else might we be of assistance to your rescue party?"

"The group calls itself the Qui'Tu Brigade. It is the paramilitary wing of a much larger dissident political faction seeking autonomy from the Federation. Colonel GaH'Qel has had some ties to the group, the extent of which our sources are not certain. Not doubt the Brigade members see GaH'Qel as a patriot and his hand over as a sign of the growing collusion between the Federation and the counterfeit Klingon Empire."

Mu'rad spoke with more conviction than a general briefing required for Museveni's taste, deepening her concerns about the Nepenthe government's complicity in the attack.

"As for your assistance Lieutenant." (Antonia wondered why everyone had to say her rank with that dismissive tone.) "It is greatly appreciated, but unnecessary. I am impressed that your captain transported through the storms, but we can take care of things on the ground. Our rescue team is filled to a man with some of the finest warriors ever to draw breath. We will return your captain to you safely, as well as the general to your custody. Qapla'!" Not waiting for a response, the Central Administrator severed the link. The screen went dark.

"Communication link severed," Colbert informed them on the intercom.

"We are well aware of that," Tamor snipped, but her bright eyes focused on Lt. Museveni. Meeting her withering gaze, Antonia was surprised to glimpse just a fraction of concern seeping through the fierce orbs. The concern in the Chief Engineer's eyes almost unnerved Museveni as much as the intensity of the Orion's glare.

"Carry on Commander," Museveni said softly, not feeling fully in the moment, her worries pulling her toward Avek and the powerful connection they shared. Though she was not a psychic or an empath, she knew with a certainty that he was not dead, but she couldn't say that about anyone else. And she couldn't say how long her beloved would remain alive. The thought of losing him had taken the fire out of her conflict with Tamor. She found herself instead wanting to run to a shuttle bay, commandeer a shuttle and rush down to Nepenthe, swooping down in the nick of time to beam everybody out of the path of the approaching storm and the wrath of this Qui'Tu Brigade.

But of course, she knew she couldn't. She belonged on the bridge. She couldn't actually believe that she was agreeing with Tamor, but she had to admit that if she wanted anyone to be in a position to save Avek, the captain, and the others, then she would prefer it to be her.

Nodding at the Orion and then Goseb, who had sat softly hissing throughout the duration of the briefing, Museveni got up from her seat and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Tamor asked, but Museveni knew the engineer already knew the answer, but perhaps wanted her to say it for some petty sense of vindication. Or perhaps for something more?

"I belong on the bridge," she replied without looking back.

CHAPTER SIX

Knowing it was probably not the smartest move, but doing it anyway, Captain Zihar stepped out from behind the mass of brambles she had been using as cover, raised her phaser high into the air, and shot off a high pitched round. The roaring winds, building with the strength of the approaching storm, seemingly quieted as the beam spiked into its maw.

The action got the attention of the ring of Klingons surrounding the shuttle, and her un-conventionalism was rewarded with a bevy of nasty looking disruptor barrels all turned in her direction. She wasn't too nervous, emphasis on too, because she knew that the other three members of her team were using her distraction, a decision once again protested by Lt. Avek, to circle around the Klingons and set up crossfire positions.

The flash and roar of an explosion had helped the landing party zero in on the wreckage. Zihar hadn't been too surprised that both Regos' and D'Iata's tricorders had both recorded Klingon life-signs, about a dozen, at the shuttle, but what the Klingons had been engaged in when the team reached them had surprised her. The Klingons, half dressed in black and gold Defense Force chain mail and the other half adorned in a motley assortment of fur and rags, had formed a half circle around two bare-chested combatants, one of whom was female. The other was a husky male, his protruding gut not impacting the fatal grace of his movements. The group had seemed oblivious to the inert forms that Zihar had been able to barely make out lying still in the McKinley's wreckage.

A sweep of Regos' medical tricorders had confirmed at least one of their worst fears: Commander Cortez was dead, Lt. Cmdr. T'Lin was critically wounded, and Lt. Ivax had suffered a severe concussion. The confluence of Klingon life signs, as well as Starfleet Medical's ignorance of Klingon physiology, was making it impossible for Dr. Regos to ascertain the condition, even the identity of Colonel GaH'Qel.

Zihar would find time to grieve for Commander Cortez later. She knew that Lindsey would want her to complete the mission of returning the crew and the colonel back to the Solstice more than an empty platitude-filled memorial. Despite her knowledge of her First Officer's lack of sentimentality, Zihar was momentarily rocked by sadness at the prospect of informing Manuel of his wife's death. It had only been a few months ago that she had spent time with them on Mars and Manuel had tried to enlist her into a conspiracy to convince Lindsey to take a position at Utopia Planitia shipyards so that they could began concentrating on a family. If only Zihar had taken his imploring more seriously then Lindsey now might not be lying dead, surrounded by a pack of bloodthirsty Klingons.

"Federation! What are you doing here?" The harsh voice lanced through Zihar's pain. The Klingon female, her naked torso puffed out without a hint of self-consciousness, had pushed beyond the ring, and was imperiously standing only a few meters away from her. The Klingon didn't register, or more likely, care about the phaser in the captain's hand. The wicked three-bladed dagger in the woman's right hand might also have had something to do with her lack of trepidation.

Zihar noticed a latticework of tiny cuts running across the warrior's small breasts, rivulets of violet-colored blood coursing over her dusky skin. The woman's brow was smooth, her scarred face lean and predatory, and a crown of ebony hair hung about her shoulders in thick, dusty braids. Impatient as well as imperious, the Klingon barked at the captain again.

"We don't need your help Starfleet. We are warriors. As soon as I dispatch of this pahtk," She paused, jutting her chin in the direction of the large Klingon male huffing beside her, "then we will hand over your crew and the colonel."

Not sure how to respond, Zihar simply introduced herself. "I'm Captain Oria Zihar of the Starship Solstice." The mention of her title produced several murmurs among the Klingons. The female warrior gave her a quick, hard grin.

"I am Chief BI'ka of the Central Guard..." Before she could finish, the huge Klingon suddenly sparked to life.

"Starfleet would not send a captain to face a battle alone," he said derisively, furrowing his slightly knobby forehead, and shifting his deep-set eyes from side to side as he swept the edges of the forest. The captain noticed that he was breathing was much more ragged than BI'ka's. He hunched his shoulders as if to hide the heaving of his chest as he struggled for breath. She wondered if he was trying to hide his tiredness, his weakness from her or his fellow Klingons. "How many more came with you Bolian?" He demanded, pointing his knife at Zihar. She stepped back and shook her head from side to side, partly out of reflex and as a signal for her team to stay put and not reveal themselves yet by showing that she was not in immediate danger. At least I think I'm not, she conceded.

"It doesn't matter if she brought any army Terk," BI'ka aggressively interjected herself back into the conversation. "This is a matter of honor, and they will not interfere."

"Matter of honor?" A perplexed Zihar asked.

"A challenge has been declared Bolian. Qab jlH nagil. The victor gains possession of your craft and its inhabitants-what's left of them-and the general." Terk began stroking his shaggy beard in anticipation of his imminent victory. Ignoring him, Zihar looked at BI'ka.

"He is correct, except about the outcome," BI'ka grinned again as several of the Klingons, the ones dressed in the Defense Force uniforms laughed.

"That's unacceptable! This is a Federation protectorate and Federation law..." Zihar's emotional control finally slipped at the thought of the senseless barbarism of a trial by combat going on while her crew and possibly Colonel GaH'Qel might be dying. Not to mention the gall of the Klingons to think that they could barter with the lives of her crew and the body of her departed First Officer, her friend. Zihar wasn't going to let that stand. She aimed her phaser at Terk. "This ends now! Back away from the shuttle and my crew."

"Federation!" Terk sneered, not moving an inch. "Federation law. Starfleet procedures. We are warriors. Pull the trigger. Strike me down and I promise your carcass will hit the ground before I have reached the gates of Sto-Vo-Kor."

Raising her free hand, BI'ka shouted, "Think before you act Captain! I thought that is what your Starfleet Academy taught you." Rustling sounds around the outskirts of the forest momentarily distracted Zihar. It must be her landing party; jumping the gun, but a show of force right now might be the best thing, she surmised.

"Captain." It was Avek and he sounded strange. Not wanting to take her eyes off of Terk, but transfixed by the oddly plaintive note in the Deltan's voice, Zihar turned her head in his direction, and then lowered her phaser in resignation. A lithe Klingon female stood behind the Tactical Officer, a disruptor shoved into the back of his baldhead. Zihar saw his black phaser tucked into the warrior's thick belt. D'Iata and Regos were similarly rousted from there hiding positions seconds later; each with weapons pointed at their heads too. All of their captors wore Defense Force uniforms.

"We are warriors Captain," BI'ka spoke with a glimmer of pride in her voice as she looked on at the work of her compatriots. "Soldiers of the Old Empire. Federation tactics and tricks are nothing new to us. You will allow the ancient rites of challenge to be carried out because you have no choice. I can assure you that you will receive your crew and its bounty at the conclusion. I give my word as a warrior and a daughter of the House of Ch'Pec." BI'ka bowed slightly, turned her back to the captain, and headed back into the circle. Terk followed suit.

Reluctantly, the Klingons in the circle lowered their weapons and eagerly resumed their roles as spectators. The three Klingons holding Zihar's team began pushing their captives toward the throng so that they could see as much of the action as possible. Putting her phaser back into her holster, the captain resignedly followed them, the howling wind mirroring her own despair.

CHAPTER SEVEN

An eerie, all too familiar whistling greeted Lt. Mordo as the doors to Shuttle Bay 12 swished open. Behind him bristled Transporter Chief Daniel Wilcox, a grizzled, pock-faced Terran from Galen IV and in front of him he spied Ensign Thelar running a scanner over the shuttle's starboard nacelle's phaser emitter. The young Andorian was happily trilling away at one of the many unknown tunes picked up from his travels that he used to torture friend and foe alike with. Mordo, sharing quarters with the serial whistler, often took the brunt of the abuse.

The Kilimanjaro was a cargo shuttle, larger than standard personnel shuttles, with enough space to accommodate two flight crews, which was more than the number of people that needed rescuing down on Nepenthe. Cargo shuttles were also equipped with their own transporters, which Mordo knew would be essential to the success of their rescue operation.

Oblivious to the newcomers, the Andorian walked around to the other side of the eggshell colored shuttle, to check the port side's plasma emitter, his twin antennae twitching in rhythm with his warbling.

"Is the shuttle ready for launch?" The Tellarite asked, satisfied with the thump and muttered curse he heard before Thelar answered him.

"Ouch. Mordo is that you? You could at least inform me of your presence before sneaking up on me like that." The ensign walked back around the shuttle, the rectangular scanner in one hand while the other rubbed a patch of his white haired head. He straightened up immediately when he realized that his cabin mate wasn't alone. He stood rigidly at attention, his antennae drooping slightly in embarrassment.

"Sorry sir." Thelar apologized, as much to Mordo, technically his superior officer despite their friendship, as he did to Wilcox, whom he outranked but respected very much. Wilcox, in his long Starfleet career, had seen action on several battlefronts against some of the biggest threats the Federation had ever faced. A hard man, with a taste for Saurian brandy and a good story, Thelar had taken to him even before Wilcox had set foot on the Solstice several weeks ago. The Andorian had accompanied Captain Zihar to Spacedock where Wilcox was among the several dozen fresh crewmembers reassigned to the ship before the Nepenthe mission. Thelar had intimated to Mordo that he had sensed an almost Andorian quality in the new Transporter Chief: a pent up savagery unleashed only when absolutely necessary.

It took a few seconds for Mordo to understand the ensign's change in demeanor.

"At ease," he informed his friend, dismissively waving a hairy hand. "Lt. Museveni wants me to head the recovery operation. She wants us to fly down through the electromagnetic interference and beam out the captain and the other crew. Chief Wilcox's," he paused, dipping his fleshy head in the human's direction, "transporter expertise will be most useful in the completion of this mission."

Forgetting protocol again, Thelar asked incredulously, "You mean she wants us to fly into the heart of an electromagnetic storm while also contending with hostile forces that have already demonstrated their ability to shoot down our shuttles?"

"That's why they pay us the big bucks," Wilcox added, with a predacious grimace-smile.

"Pay us? Big bucks?" Puzzled, the Andorian looked at Mordo. The junior Lieutenant shrugged his broad shoulders. They both looked at Wilcox for an explanation, but the Transporter Chief merely laughed.

"Never mind," he said. "All that matters is that is that our captain and our crewmates are in danger, an extradition remains to be completed, and we've got our orders."

Shaking his course, woolly head in agreement, Mordo added, "You are quite correct Mr. Wilcox. So, are we ready Mr. Thelar?"

"As ready as she's going to get." He affirmed, apparent pride in his work beaming through his pores.

"All right, Ensign, begin preflight launch protocols." Even though Mordo tried to sound as nonchalant as possible, his snout twitched nervously as if it smelled the stench of impending disaster.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Though she had every confidence in her ultimate victory, joyously Terk was prolonging the inevitable.

"CHEGH-chew jaj-VAM jaj-KAK!" BI'ka squealed in sensual delight as she dipped under another of Terk's lumbering manic thrusts, scoring a deep, swift cut through the underside bicep of his knife arm. She twirled away unscathed. At least for this particular encounter.

"The day is almost over for you," a wheezing Terk spat out through clinched teeth. He was no longer trying to hide his exhaustion. His dk'tahg had fallen into the dust by his feet, his knife arm hanging bloody and useless on his right side.

Out of respect for her opponent's resiliency, BI'ka threw her own blade off to the side, eliciting both growls of disapproval and howls of surprise and respect. Custom had allowed her to finish the unarmed Terk since he had been disarmed in honorable combat. However, BI'ka saw a bigger picture. A more decisive honest victory; one without weapons might only not allow the Central Authority to honor its commitment to the extradition, but also to show the dissident factions the honor of her side.

Seemingly unnerved by the unexpected gesture, pain and confusion roiling in his eyes, Terk lunged at her. With a preternatural quickness fueled by fury, he caught BI'ka off guard. She stumbled back with a start, falling down and twisting an ankle in the process. Biting back the pain with a yelp, she struck out with her other foot, hitting the rampaging leviathan square in his right inner thigh. He doubled over in reaction, and she quickly grabbed the long ends of his shaggy beard; yanking his head down to meet her rapidly rising forehead.

Purplish blood splayed out of Terk's mouth as his large head flew back. Despite the force of the head butt, Terk remained standing, though his legs were rubbery. With a large paw he wiped the violet smear across his lips.

Fighting the ringing in her eyes, BI'ka maximized the few seconds that her head butt had granted her. She raised her injured leg in the air, bending it with as much grace as she could manage. She balanced her weight on her good leg and then stretched out her arms, assuming the resting bird motion, the KoH-man-ara, the first move of the Mok'bara martial arts style. Even the winds stilled in anticipation of the execution of a martial artistry almost as ancient as the elements themselves.

Recognizing the maneuver, Terk laughed. His harsh, grating howl infuriated her. "Pretty moves will not save you now," he bellowed before he lunged again, apparently overcome by battle frenzy.

Banking on the predictability of his charge, BI'ka lashed out, her kick timed to shatter the rampaging Terk's face. Surprise, followed quickly by confusion, met her when her boot sailed through empty air. What?

As quickly as her synaptic impulses registered that her foot had not made a jarringly satisfying crunch into muscle and bone, she felt a large force rip through her balancing leg out from under her. She hit the ground hard, her head meeting the earth with a deafening smack. Her sharpened teeth clacked painfully in her mouth, slicing into her tongue.

Mouth welling with blood, pain shooting through her injured ankle and now broken leg, BI'ka tried to laugh, but instead bit back her mewling. She was almost as hurt by being tricked by Terk as she had been by the damage he had inflicted. She couldn't believe such an animal, a Ha'Dlbah, had been able to feign battle frenzy to fool her. Expecting a head on charge, he had gone low, turning his barrel shaped body into a rage fueled missile to take out her good leg. The changing nature of fortune, she darkly mused. Fortune can be such a bitch. Out of the corner of her dimming vision, she saw Terk's huge, misshapen form rise slowly to victorious feet.

BI'ka reached into the pocket of her dirty, shredded pants and pulled out a thick, silver amulet. Her father Ch'Pec had given her the jinaq upon her completion of the Second Rite of Ascension. Only then had he felt that she was worthy enough to take a mate. So much of her life had been built by his example, and she felt both regret for her failure and joy at the prospect of a glorious death to tell her father about when she saw him again in Sto-Vo-Kor.

BI'ka entangled the cold strand of jewelry between her fingers and defiantly looked up into the vast shadow looming over her. She was unafraid to traverse the River of Blood to be with the other members of her House in eternal glory.

With his good arm, Terk grabbed her by the throat, lifting her halfway off the ground. Her remaining strength ebbing, BI'ka frantically dug her fingernails into the iron forged arm, scoring several futile streams of blood for her efforts. Switching tactics, she then began sweeping her arms at his face, trying to scratch out Terk's eyes. He kept his large head out of reach of any serious harm, receiving only a few scratches on his face to match the marks on his arm.

Terk smiled and chuckled at her attempts to blind him, the nectar of imminent victory dulling his pain. Large paw firmly around her neck, he began to squeeze, crushing the breath out of her body. BI'ka had sought to go to her ancestors with a defiant scream, but her air passageways had been constricted under the force of her killer's grip.

It was to be a slow, agonizing death. It was a worthy death. Terk wouldn't take so much time to kill her, to prolong her death if she hadn't been such a worthy, dangerous opponent. Her clawing became more for show for her soldiers, but BI'ka's thoughts had already shifted to what lay beyond the mortal veil. She made sure to look at Terk as her life slipped away, to burn her face into his memory, to etch her eyes into his soul.

Her vision began to swim as darkness overtook the peripheries of her sight. Her lungs were afire, wailing for oxygen that would not come. Her heart thundered in her chest, blocking out all other sounds. Everything slowed down and the whole world became just her and Terk's killing hand. She had thought that before death she would see images of her life or loved ones, or gain some profound insight that would answer the questions mortals struggled with during their existence.

The pain, the fire drowned out all such illusions. Lights exploded in her mind's eyes, and she imagined it being the gleam reflected off of a sea of armored warriors, standing at attention, in revue, waiting for her addition to their ranks. Oblivious to Terk's perplexed grunt, BI'ka opened her arms to embrace eternity.

"Sorry about that," Thelar winced more from embarrassment than pain as the Kilimanjaro lurched violently to the left, causing him to bang his knee on the bottom of the Flight Control console. "Adjusting portside thrusters to accommodate for the turbulence." Long, delicate blue fingers crawled quickly across the helm's polished surface. The shuttle righted itself immediately, but continued to shudder as it dove deeper into Nepenthe's fiery atmosphere and the fatal embrace of the electromagnetic storm.

It seemed as if heaven and earth had gone mad, each bound together in a riotous orgy of power, color, and sound. The EM bursts flashing through the roving storm clouds wreaked havoc on the Kilimanjaro's instrumentation.

The interior lighting of the shuttle went out as the small vessel was lashed by another emission. The strike shut off main power, briefly leaving the shuttle a hostage to merciless gravimetric forces, engulfing them in darkness as they began to hurtle to the planet below. Before they grew frantic in their attempts to jumpstart the ship's propulsion systems, the lights came back along with a restoration of main power as quickly as it had knocked off. Mordo slammed a hairy paw on the blinking Navigation console and muttered an unintelligible curse in ancient Tellarite. His bluster seemed to do the trick, as the panel sparked to life.

"Haven't heard that one in a long time," Wilcox quipped as he probed the swelling lump on his forehead, courtesy of the low hanging bulkhead over the Transporter station.

"Are you alright?" Thelar asked, risking a look at Wilcox for a second before focusing back on his panel. Mordo did likewise.

"Don't worry about me," the venerable chief replied. "Crashing will hurt a lot worse than this little bump on my head."

"ETA?" Lt. Mordo asked gruffly, trying to steer the team's focus back to the task at hand.

"Four minutes," Thelar answered.

"The locus of the storm front will reach the crash site in two minutes," Wilcox added, adjusting the Kilimanjaro's sensors from his control board. "From the readouts it looks like a scourer."

"Scourer?" asked Thelar, intrigued.

"Back on Galen IV, before the terraforming took hold, the southern continents were plagued by these wild storms which they named 'Scourers' because they scoured everything in their path. This storm here," he paused as he pointed at the viewfinder, "looks just as destructive."

The sobering news sparked the quartet to work harder. Terse questions and responses replaced the usual air of jovial, often frivolous conversation that both Thelar and Mordo thrived on.

"One minute to storm impact," Wilcox neutrally intoned, emotion leached from his voice.

"More power to impulse engines," Mordo ordered. Setting his jaw, Thelar complied, focusing his total concentration on rescuing his crewmates. Come what may, he wasn't going to let them die. No matter the cost.

CHAPTER NINE

"Mev Yap! Mev Yap! Enough!"

The roar shook Zihar out of the trance she had been in, as she had stood transfixed by the slow death of the warrior BI'ka at the hand of Terk. She turned her head to the source of the voice, entranced by an almost equally mesmerizing, tragic sight.

Standing on unsteady legs by the McKinley, the lifeless body of Commander Cortez hanging limply from his quivering arms, the source of the bellow spoke again. "No more blood will be shed this day for me." He shook his head in sadness, blood running of his face in fat purple drops. "I am not worth it. Stay your hand Terk, son of Lorba." A collective gasp ran through the throng of Klingons.

Terk looked at the bloody apparition in a stupor, his hand still encircling BI'ka's throat. However, Zihar noticed that his grip apparently had loosened a bit for now the female warrior was sucking in gulps of air, and coloring was starting to return to her ashen face.

"Colonel?" Terk asked, shocked and confused. So, Zihar thought, the analytical side of her mind clicking on, this was a terrorist war criminal? She wasn't sure what to make of the reputed war criminal that appeared heartsick at the prospect of bloodshed.

"What is done is done." GaH'Qel told the massive Klingon. "Our honor is all that we have left. There is no honor in killing a worthy opponent for a moot point. I would rather you kill me than take her life for an outcome that has already been decided. I will return to Qo'noS. It was meant to be."

The old Klingon's searing words made Terk remove his hand from BI'ka's throat, and lower his head in shame. In uncanny unison, the ring of Klingons lowered their heads too. BI'ka, supporting her upper body on her arms, her chest aflame with the burn of oxygen deprivation, struggled to follow suit as solemnly as she could.

Zihar took the moment of silent shame to make eye contact with the other members of her team. She saw a mixture of confusion, frustration, and the gleam of opportunism. Nodding to each of them, her eyes darting to the confiscated weapons tucked into the belts of their meditating captors, Zihar slowly reached for her own holstered phaser. Her nostrils burned with the smell of fried particles, and her own instincts were screaming at her that the storm was almost upon them. She could fill the weight of the imminent maelstrom pressing down on her. There was very little time left to allow the Klingons to cleanse themselves or whatever they were doing before the storm would be upon them all.

"No," the colonel spoke to her, his voice surprisingly tender. "There is no need captain." Zihar froze, unsure of how to proceed. Before she could make up her mind, the sky was ripped apart by a deafening barrage of thunder and lightning, the furious storm lashing out at anything in its path.

Their charges momentarily forgotten, the Klingons began scurrying for cover as uprooted trees and separated branches, armed with sharp brambles, began whipping about and striking the unfortunate. Zihar, her hands covering her head as best as she could, looked around for her crew, as she ran for the scant cover of the McKinley. The other members of her team fell in around her, protecting her as much as their bodies would allow as they made their way to the crashed shuttle.

"The colonel!" The captain yelled, raising her voice to prevent her words from being snatched by the bellowing winds. Zihar tapped Avek on the shoulder, and pointed at GaH'Qel, who was kneeling by a prone BI'ka, Cortez's corpse still in his arms. The colonel was looking downward, apparently talking with the battered warrior.

The hulking Terk was behind the colonel, trying to shield the warlord from the brunt of the storm's rapacious winds and unintended projectiles. "Get the colonel!" Zihar ordered the Deltan, grabbing the pattern enhancers out of his backpack and handing one each to D'Iata and Regos, taking the last two for herself. Instead of talking, she merely pointed at the two spots she wanted them to set up the rods. Then she pointed in the direction of the McKinley. Understanding her intent, they immediately complied with the unspoken orders, trudging against the wind to reach their destinations.

The captain then went about her own tasks, setting up the two pattern enhancers. Once she had finished, she tapped the communicator on her left wrist. Knowing it was futile to try to talk into the device; she instead activated the communicator's locator beacon, and prayed that the signal could escape the massive confluence of electromagnetic energy to reach the Solstice.

Zihar then headed for the shuttle. Reaching it, she crawled into the creaking wreck as the winds rocked the vessel as if it were on the high seas, and began checking the vital signs of an unconscious Lt. Cmdr. T'Lin. Lieutenant Ivax was laid out, face down, over the Flight Control console.

The shadows in the cabin seeped into the captain's heart as T'Lin's life grew dimmer with each tortured inhalation. She immediately looked for Regos until she made contact with the pale eyes of the running Talarian, heading for the McKinley with D'Iata close behind.

Crouching to get into the cabin, the doctor went immediately to T'Lin, pulling out his medical tricorder without Zihar saying a word. D'Iata, who had attended medical school on Cait before joining Starfleet, took a look at Ivax. In spite of the severity of the situation, the captain couldn't help but note the irony of the feline Caitian standing over the rodent-like Dimoran with concern for his health being the only thing on his mind.

In her Academy days, then Cadet Morrow had introduced her to an ancient human form of amusement featured an animated, hapless cat in constant pursuit of a more intelligent mouse. Robert had derived almost endless delight in the tales, which he had told her were called "cartoons." Beyond the lesson of intelligence equalizing or neutralizing brute strength in the eternal survival struggle, Zihar hadn't been able to make much sense of the cartoons. When she returned to Spacedock she would have to ask the Admiral for a copy of his old tapes. The captain could look at them with a different insight now. Why did so many of her thoughts lately turn back to Robert and the metallic comfortable environs of the Spacedock, his old command center, hovering over Earth? She thought, a warming idea in the midst of the coldness of death closing in around them. The dark thought shifted her focus to her other two unaccounted for crewmen: Cortez and Avek.

She looked at the kneeling Regos, his sure hands using a sealant for T'Lin's multiple wounds. "Where is Avek?" she asked. He shook his head in response and looked askance out into the storm.

Alarm piercing her heart, she leaped out of the shuttle before either Regos or D'Iata could protest or volunteer to take her place.

Avek cursed as the phaser blast sizzled by Terk. He knew he wouldn't get another clear shot before the Klingon would be on him. The quickness of the injured Klingon startled him. Terk had already twisted around to face him, a small, serrated knife in his hand.

A kut'luch, Avek recognized. The Klingon assassin's weapon of choice. A most dishonorable, but very effective weapon, he knew. With a quick flick of his wrist the blade sailed through the electron heavy air hitting the Deltan in the shoulder of his phaser arm. He bit back a scream, but the phaser dropped to the ground. Avek began to stagger as his vision blurred, and his chest constricted. He had read that kut'luchs were often dipped in poison, usually Veridium Six, not a fatal dosage, but just enough to weaken the victim to maintain the illusion of an honorable kill in combat.

Who said there was no honor among thieves? He joked, before his legs slid out from under him and his baldpate bounced on Nepenthe's hard earth.

The Kilimanjaro cut through the angry clouds of the electromagnetic storm, flying low over the leeched forests outside Fazorh.

"ETA one minute," Thelar informed his crewmates, his palm planted on the acceleration padd. He fought the urge to go to warp as anticipation built inside him.

"More power. One quarter impulse," Mordo ordered; his voice expectant as well.

"Aye sir," the Andorian answered.

"Long range sensors finally punching through interference," Wilcox added, trying to hide the excitement in his voice. "We are getting life signs. Over a dozen Klingon, several human, one Talarian, Caitian, and a Dimoran," he paused, "...and one Bolian."

"Yeah!" Thelar yelled. "Sorry," he sheepishly added, his face growing a darker shade of blue. Everyone chortled in response, grateful for the injection of levity on the cusp of potential tragedy.

The shuttle blazed onward, leaving scorch marks on the wizened trees and dead foliage in its wake.

Building up her speed, the captain used her phaser to motion GaH'Qel out of her way. The general stared at her in confusion for a second, before he complied. Knowing she couldn't face the cunning deadly Terk face up, and wary of alerting him by chancing another errant phaser blast, she would have to rely on some tricks of her own. She decided to attack from behind, on the left side.

The large Klingon's back was turned to the colonel, his focus on the felled Avek. Zihar pushed aside thoughts of her Security Officer, another potential casualty of a supposedly routine extradition. If the Deltan had been slain, his death would be avenged with maximum pain she promised herself, as the bonds of civilization fell away from her soul.

Despite the modern galactic reputation of Bolians for genial agreeability, the history of Bolarus IX had been littered with all manner of despicable, vile behavior.

Zihar drew on that dubious tradition, her bulk sailing through the rapacious winds as she went into a roll arriving at the distracted Terk's feet. Still oblivious, the Klingon was caught completely unawares when the captain plowed a fist deep into his crotch.

Doubling over in pain, his screech lost in the howling winds, Zihar moved quickly to capitalize on his vulnerability. She hit him in the head with the butt of her phaser, and Terk fell to the ground like a newly chopped tree. The hardness of the Klingon's head combined with the force of Zihar's blow, twisted the metal casing of the phaser beyond usefulness.

Afraid of a phaser coil overload due to its damaged condition, the captain tossed the weapon away. Oddly aware of the dirt now covering her once crisp uniform, Zihar grabbed the three bladed dagger that Terk had dropped after BI'ka had sliced his arm.

Breathing hard from the strain she had placed on her aging body. Got to spend more time in the gym. Zihar climbed on top of the still, startled Terk, digging the blade through his shaggy beard, pressing it against his throat. To her satisfaction, he grunted at the poke.

With cold, hard eyes she slowly pressed the dagger into the Klingon's unforgiving flesh, the metallic smell of blood filling her nostrils as blood welled from the new cut, staining the dagger.

Zihar's light blue skin flushed with battle lust, and she pulled back, shakily trying to convince herself that she had only drew blood to show the rampaging Klingon that she was serious and meant business.

"This ends now," she hissed through clenched teeth. "You will relent and pull back you forces, or I will kill you." She was both frightened and exhilarated by the brutal truth in her voice.

Despite the sharp blade at his throat, Terk risked a harsh, skittish laugh. His eyes bored into her, flashing with bold challenge. "I don't think you have the heart," he croaked.

Neither she nor Terk would ever find out the answer as her world became enveloped by a familiar high-pitched whine and her body dissolved into a million sparkling atoms.

CHAPTER TEN

"Captain, our brothers report that the Federation teams have escaped!" Keval said hurriedly, yanking her earpiece out with barely restrained excitement.

Not even looking in her direction, Korrin calmly turned toward his Science Officer, a bald, wiry warrior scrunched behind a console to his left. "Ferac, what are your sensors reporting?"

Looking up from his screen, its greenish light casting a deathly glow over his drawn face, Ferac answered. "My liege, the Starfleet shuttle has just broken orbit. Several glob-fighters are in pursuit of it."

Korrin stroked his hairless chin. "Excellent." He grinned, running his tongue slowly over his sharp, stained teeth. "Things are continuing to go as expected. I think it is time to move to the next stage in our mission."

"Should I alert Lady Torem?" Keval asked, visibly wincing as soon as the question escaped her lips. Korrin rounded in his seat, pinning her with an acidic stare. He pulled out the disruptor pistol from his shoulder holster and fired off a shot right above the young Comm. Officer's head, dissolving a piece of the bulkhead above her. He chuckled as the comely warrior ducked in a slow reaction to a beam that would've already disintegrated her if he had wished to do so.

Of course he didn't though. Korrin had other plans for Keval. He wished to make her his mate, but the captain had to teach her the proper respect before he broached the subject of the Oath of Union. "My mother is no concern of yours." He hissed. "Your concern should be maintaining surveillance of the Federation ships' communications. We must know everything they know!" The chastened warrior had quickly complied, shoving the earpiece back in her ear. He then turned his attention away from her to glance back at the screen.

Though he had considered waking his mother, Korrin decided against it. After all it had been her sacrifices that had brought them all to this point, enabled the rebirth of the old order to become reality, he had grown increasingly concerned with her erratic behavior, and he didn't want her emotionalism affecting him or his crew's performance in the next crucial moments in which the first nails in the coffins of both the Klingon Empire and the Federation were about to be hammered.

The large, rectangular shuttle was displaying an impressive array of evasive maneuvers as it sought to stay out of the crosshairs of the four, small insect-like fighters in pursuit of it.

"Orog," Korrin said, getting out of his chair to approach the bow of the bridge where the Helm station was located. He placed a gloved hand on the shoulder of his diminutive pilot. The Bekk didn't look up at the captain; he kept his eyes forward and his hands on the battle cruiser's navigation controls. Good soldiering, Korrin thought proudly, had nothing to do with stature.

Pointing at the screen, Korrin instructed his helmsmen. "I want you to move the Reclaw between the Federation shuttle and the attacking fighters. Our shields should easily take any punishment that those decrepit globs can dish out. Also, prepare to extend our shields around the shuttle when I give the word."

"Dhomir," Korrin glanced in his direction at the Weapons Console. The hulking Klingon met his gaze, smiling a saber bearish smile. Korrin growled in response. "Activate our weapons' arrays."

"Yes Captain," he replied.

Nodding with satisfaction, Korrin returned to his seat. Flipping open a hatch on his armrest, he leaned over to bark into it. "Engineering!"

"Yes Captain!" Came the almost instantaneous growl-response of Ja'Os, the Reclaw's Engineering Chief.

"Sowee TAH!" Korak ordered.

"Mr. Gupta, report!" Lt. Museveni barked, hoping that her eyes were deceiving her.

Lt. Rakesh Gupta, the Beta Shift Operations Officer, now sat at her station. The brown-skinned, raven-haired human checked his instrumentation twice before turning to look at her. Wrinkling his thick mustache, Lt. Gupta confirmed her worst fear. "Klingon battle cruiser, D5-class has just de-cloaked off of our port bow, between the Kilimanjaro and the attacking fighters."

"Raise shields! Red alert!" Museveni ordered. Klaxons began screeching as the oval bridge was bathed in blood red light. "Cut those alarms." The offending klaxons muted immediately, leaving an eerie silence to settle over the Solstice's bridge.

You can't win for losing, Antonia thought, rubbing her hands to keep them from shaking. She, as well as the bridge crew had barely had time to process and react to the captain's garbled, cut off message that the Kilimanjaro was coming under fire from pursuing hostile vessels, when the large, gray-green Klingon battle cruiser wavered into deadly existence before them.

"Lieutenant, do we charge weapons and prepare photon torpedo bays?" Tactical Officer Setak asked, an unmistakable strain of tension, in the Vulcan's usually inflection-less voice. Setak, also a Beta Shift Officer, sat at First Officer Cortez's usual post, stoically waiting for a response.

Museveni glanced at his piercing black eyes, and quickly looked away, as myriad tactical training scenarios ran through her mind. She sat up in the captain's chair, trying not to fill so small in it, as a silver of indecision sluiced through her brain. Maybe I shouldn't have been so gung-ho about returning to the bridge after all.

Blessedly, Lt. Colbert came to her rescue. "Klingon ship is hailing us!" he yelped.

"Do it!" Antonia snapped without meaning to, her frustration at her indecisiveness getting the better of her. "Put it onscreen," she said more softly to Lt. Gupta.

A shadowy bridge dominated by a muscular Klingon sitting on a throne-like command chair immediately replaced the image of the harried Kilimanjaro and its pursuers. The camera zoomed in quickly to reveal a better look at the Klingon.

To her surprise, Antonia, a little guiltily and a lot inappropriately, found the Klingon commander somewhat attractive. His skin was of a walnut brown hue, only slightly lighter than hers. Beardless, he had a long, thin mustache that drooped below his chin, and his head was crowned with a luxurious head of hair blacker than even Lt. Gupta's. Its luster almost made her wonder if the Klingon had preened himself for this communication. Klingons didn't have beauty stylists did they?

Before he spoke, he smiled, revealing a row of sharp, brown-splotched teeth. Her illicit interest in him died immediately. "I am Captain Korrin of the Imperial Klingon Battle cruiser Reclaw. We have come to offer you assistance." He said, continuing to smile.

Trying to hide her surprise, but failing, Antonia gave the Klingon a hard look as a counter to his smiling countenance. "I am Lieutenant Antonia Museveni of the U.S.S. Solstice. You are in violation of Federation space and the Organian Peace Treaty. Explain the reason for your violation or leave Federation space immediately." She hated quibbling with this Captain Korrin while the captain and her friends were fighting for their lives. She only hoped that Thelar and Mordo's excellent flying skills could keep her comrades alive until she figured out what Korrin was doing in Federation space.

Korrin's smile dropped from his face, and he appeared stricken by the suspicion in her voice.

"We are the vessel that was scheduled to rendezvous with you to retrieve Colonel GaH'Qel inside the Neutral Zone. However, our Imperial Intelligence service received information that the colonel's terrorist cohorts would attempt a severe strike to secure his release. We came to help avert it." Korrin paused to look off screen for several seconds. Nodding to the unseen person, the Klingon returned his attention to the main viewer. "We have placed our shields around your shuttle. The attacking ships' armament is no match for it. We have also locked a tractor beam onto it to make sure it stays with our shielding radius. It appears that these t'glas have forgotten the meaning of 'severe'.

Stilling a customary urge to thank the captain for his assistance, Museveni scrunched up her face in obvious suspicion. She bolted out of the captain's chair and approached the main screen to make sure that Korrin saw her distrust. "The Klingon High Council has no jurisdiction in Federation space. Your presence here is unauthorized. Release our shuttle now and vacate Federation space immediately, or I will be forced to take offensive measures."

"But if we remove our shielding from around your shuttle now, the terrorists' fighters will be all over it before you would be able to reach it," Korrin exasperated, but still surprisingly good natured, responded. Raising a finger he replied. "Oh yes." Looking over his left shoulder, he ordered. "Keval, send them the transmission."

Antonia looked over at Lt. Colbert, and nodded her head for him to accept it before the Klingon could ask her to. Looking back at the screen, she saw Korrin shaking his head in approval. "Decisiveness is a most honorable trait." He offered.

Museveni didn't reply, she merely looked back the Communications Officer. "Mr. Colbert, what does the message say?"

"It's a high security, encoded communiqu‚ from Starfleet Command, approved by Admiral J. Robert Morrow, acting head of Starfleet Intelligence," Colbert exhaled after reading the first part of the message. "It authorizes the Reclaw to assist in averting a terrorist strike against the Solstice, Nepenthe, or any Federation possession that is aimed at preventing the timely extradition of Klingon enemy of the empire, Colonel GaH'Qel. It looks authentic Lieutenant." He added.

"Verify the authenticity of that message Mr. Colbert, and send an encoded request to Starfleet Command for some answers."

"I also find your thoroughness honorable as well, but now is not the time..." Korrin began, but Museveni cut him off.

"You expect us to believe that Starfleet Command would entrust you with an encoded message of such magnitude without also informing us immediately of the change in policy? Until we receive positive confirmation as to the veracity of your message, my previous demands stand."

"Time was of the essence Captain...I mean Lieutenant," Korrin said, a peevish tone creeping into his voice. "Defense Force members do not always expect explanations in order to act. They do as they are told."

Before Museveni could offer a retort, the Klingon waved her silent. "We don't have time for this. My science officer has just sent a sensor reading to me informing me that your shuttle's engines have sustained irreparable damage. An antimatter explosion is imminent."

Without answering, Antonia looked at the Solstice's junior Science Officer. "Mr. Tran, are you picking up an antimatter build up as well?" The beefy young officer looked up from his workstation and vigorously nodded in the affirmative.

The deck plates rattled beneath her feet. Museveni whipped her head around to peer at Korrin. "What was that?" she demanded. Perplexed, the Klingon merely shrugged and looked off screen again himself.

"Two of the fighters just attacked us. They scored direct hits on our aft shields," Setak answered the question she had thrown at Korrin. The low megaton yields of their weapons were too insignificant to cause any damage."

"Mr. Setak, please disable those fighters," Museveni ordered, almost casually. The Vulcan's thick, strong fingers mauled the console, pressing buttons with forceful grace. Less than a minute later, he replied. "Our phasers have disabled the two ships. They appear to be heading back to Nepenthe. Two more vessels are left. They are engaging the Klingon vessel."

"Engaging!" Korrin roared, "And I thought Vulcans didn't have a sense of humor." Looking off screen again, he shouted. "BaH!"

"The two vessels have been destroyed." Setak informed her matter-of-factly, his true feelings, if he had any for the Klingons' callous regard for life, were buried under years of emotional suppressive training and practice. Sometimes she wished she had been born a Vulcan.

"Was that necessary?" Museveni asked, outraged at the casual murder of even people who had just been trying to kill, or maybe already had killed or hurt her crewmates.

"We can debate that later!" Korrin snapped. "I am going to lower our shields so that we can beam over the crew from the shuttle, then we are going to scuttle it with our disruptors. I will then beam over your crewmates to you, and we will proceed with Colonel GaH'Qel to Qo'noS where he will pay for his crimes. I suggest you move your vessel a safe distance away from the explosion." The Klingon sliced the air above him with his finger and the link went dead.

The viewer was dominated by the sight of the Klingon cruiser backing away from the fiery shuttle, its ventral disruptor ports glowing an eerie red as their weapons banks prepared to discharge.

"Try to hail the shuttle and inform the captain of Korrin's plan," Antonia told Lt. Colbert. She stepped up to the upper ring of the bridge and headed over to his section. She walked with poised, measured steps, trying to appear in control even as she felt events slip more and more out of her control.

Before she could reach him, Colbert threw up his hands. "Nothing. I don't know if it's the radiation emanating from the Auregan-Tarai sun or if the Reclaw is jamming communications. In any event, it all equals no way to get word to the captain. We're totally at the Klingons' mercy," he gasped. "Sorry," he added quickly before anyone could respond.

Ignoring Colbert's outburst, Museveni reached his console but turned her gaze to the bow of the ship, and the Helm and Navigation joint console. "Ensign Nedra. Move us to a safe distance away from the explosion, but don't lose sight of the shuttle or the Klingon warship."

"Aye sir," the Tiburon Helm Officer responded, her large ears flapping as she complied with the order. Almost immediately, she felt the thrum of the engines gently rattle the floor as the Solstice moved slowly away from the Kilimanjaro.

Walking over to the Tactical console, Antonia peered over Setak's seat to spy the readout of the Reclaw's weapon's complement. "Keep all phaser banks and photon torpedoes locked on that vessel. Also be on the alert. Korrin may have brought some friends."

"I concur." The Vulcan agreed with her assessment. Lt. Museveni nodded, and returned to the captain's chair, placing her hand on its headrest while she helplessly watched events unfold on the main viewer.

"Reclaw reporting transports are complete," Colbert chirped, but Antonia didn't respond. Her eyes remained fixed on the large, grayish green warship as it slowly moved out of the blast radius of the doomed shuttle. The gun port in the maw of the snake-headed shaped bow glowed an angry red.

"Klingon ship is powering ventral disruptors," Setak needlessly informed her. "Klingon ship is preparing to fire."

Antonia held in a gasp as the Reclaw's cannons fired two shots, consuming the rectangular shuttle in a ball of crimson energy. Her heart stopped in her chest as terrible thoughts raced through her mind. Hopefully she hadn't sat idle and allowed a Klingon vessel to kill her captain and her crewmates in front of her.

Giving Lt. Colbert a quick look, she was about to order him to hail the Reclaw, but he cut her off. "Lt. Museveni," he said, his voice strained with worry. "Captain Korrin is hailing us."

"On screen."

The main viewer shifted from the atomized remains of the Kilimanjaro once again to the Reclaw, and its commanding officer. However, he was no longer sitting, but standing in a gloomy, cloistered room. Antonia, and she were certain the rest of the crew were overjoyed that a shaken, but very alive Captain Zihar stood beside him. Museveni could make out the metallic ring of a transporter pad behind them, but they were standing in the way of her identifying its occupants.

"We have your crew safely aboard our vessel," Korrin informed them, smiling with seeming relief. "We also have the prisoner." Looking down for a second, the Klingon looked up, a shadow now across his handsome features. "I regret to inform you that you have several casualties...two fatalities. Your captain has requested that we beam the injured and departed to your ship first." Captain Zihar said nothing. She merely slumped her shoulders and lowered her blue, clean-shaven head. Oblivious to the Bolian's pain, Korrin continued. "Your Transporter Chief Wilcox will oversee the transportation process...He is a quick learner." Korrin motioned with his hand, and the human stepped into the camera's frame. Wilcox smiled, his scarred visage making the reassuring gesture seem threatening.

"You don't have anything to worry about," the Transporter expert assured her. "I'll get them where they need to be."

Museveni's fingers dug into the back of Captain Zihar's chair, and she locked her knees into place to keep from swooning. Saddened at the prospect of any of her comrades dying, even T'Lin and Ivax who had only come aboard for this mission, there was a sickeningly selfish part of her that wished that death or injury hadn't claimed Avek. She was certain that the connection they shared, the intense chemical bonding that occurred whenever a Deltan mated would've informed her in some way if her lover had not made it, and in her heart she felt he was still with her, though the connection felt weakened. Or at least she hoped he was still with her.

"Lieutenant?" Korrin asked, the peeved tone again in his voice. "Are you listening? We will need for you to lower your shields in order to transport your wounded. Please provide transport coordinates." Still silent, Captain Zihar nodded her assent with the Klingon's request. Wilcox moved out of the camera's range, presumably to begin preparing to beam out their colleagues.

The camera then rotated to the transporter pad, where Dr. Regos kneeled by two prone figures, both wrapped in dark sheets. The fourth occupant on the pad, the gray skinned Ivax, was sitting up right, a makeshift bandage torn from the arm of his red duty uniform wrapped around his head. The Dimoran appeared oblivious to the pain and death around him, as if he were in another world.

Antonia shook her head free of her clouding fears. "Yes, of course Captain. Mr. Gupta please inform Sickbay that we have incoming injured and one deceased. Provide the Reclaw the coordinates to our medical facility." Fighting the urge to demand that the medical team reveal immediately who the casualties were, Museveni looked instead at Lt. Setak. "Mr. Setak...lower shields."

"Aye," the burly Vulcan replied slowly, returning her gaze before his large fingers went to work at his panel. "Shields are lowered."

Nodding her thanks, Museveni then looked back at the main viewer. "Captain Korrin, please initiate site-to-site transports to our Sickbay."

"Thank you Lieutenant," Korrin smiled again, jabbing a finger in the air. "So'wl'chu'!"

"Lieutenant Museveni," Gupta said, looking up from his workstation. "Several transports have commenced. The beam-ins have been routed to Sickbay. Dr. Regos has already sent confirmation."

"Thank you Mr. Gupta," Antonia replied as she sat back down in the captain's chair, feeling in a few seconds it would be off limits to her when Captain Zihar strode back onto the bridge to reclaim it. Or so she hoped. "We are ready for our next round of beam-ins." She informed Korrin.

He nodded his understanding, and Museveni watched as both captains stepped out of her line of sight and she watched as her comrades Diata, Mordo, and Thelar hobbled to the transporter pad, propping up a wobbly Avek among them. Antonia's heart thundered in her chest with such force at the sight of her lover, that for a second she feared that it might actually wrench itself free from her sternum.

Korrin stepped back into view, dimming her joy somewhat, and repeated his finger jabbing.

"Lieutenant!" Gupta shouted, his rich accent splayed with fear. "There appears to have been a transporter malfunction..."

"What?" Museveni was half way out of her seat, but she caught herself and looked at Korrin. "What?" She repeated.

Looking as horrified as she felt, Korrin replied. "We have experienced a malfunction. We are working on it immediately." He cut off his reply, and bellowed at his crew, whipping his long mane of hair around him like a cat-o-nine tails.

In the Klingon transporter room, pandemonium had broken out as Captain Zihar, eyes wide with terror, leaped to assist Transporter Chief Wilcox, as he frantically worked the transporter controls. A stout Klingon also worked beside Wilcox at the transporter station, cursing more heavily with each failed attempt. The image of the Klingon transporter room blinked out suddenly, replaced again by the image of the Reclaw hovering in space.

"What?" Museveni asked again, looking at Gupta as she jumped out of her seat and up the steps to the upper ring of the bridge to her old Operations post, as a terrible, bleak darkness washed over her.

"The four life signs Tellarite, Caitian, Andorian, and Deltan have been beamed into outer space!" he gasped, dread stealing the oxygen from his lungs.

"Find them! On screen!" Museveni snapped to everyone and no one in particular. Someone quickly complied. Her stomach constricted at the site of the four specks floating in the vast, cold and hungry darkness of space. "Magnify!"

The Solstice's forward sensors zoomed in on the four Starfleet officers, clutching at their throats, muscles twitching madly from asphyxiation, their eyes popping out of their sockets, as their bodies screamed for air.

"They only have a few minutes left!" Gupta, his rich timbre replaced by a high-pitched shriek, informed her.

"Emergency transport!" Antonia yelled in response.

"Aye," Lt. Gupta replied. "I...I ...I can't get a lock on them." He cried.

"Why?" Antonia moaned; her eyes riveted to the tragic struggle for life playing out on the main viewscreen. Gupta rapidly set to finding out the answer, pushing buttons on his companel with frenzy.

"It's a tractor beam," Gupta answered, perplexed. "The Klingons have locked a tractor beam on them."

"The Reclaw," Setak breathed, interrupting the Ops Officer as fear shred through his usual reserve, "is powering weapons."

"Huh?" Antonia replied, dazed and numbed as her lover and her friends were dying before her eyes. The first blast returned her to reality. Surprisingly able to maintain her footing, Museveni grabbed hold of the Operations console.

"Direct hit to Main Engineering," Setak intoned. "Warp engines are offline. Impulse engines damaged but functional."

"Raise shiel..." Museveni attempted to yell as another deadly volley of Klingon disruptor bolts slammed into the Solstice, ripping her away from the Ops station and wildly pitching her over the railing onto the lower deck of the command center. Her head hit the metal decking with a cold, pitiless smack. Consoles erupted and sparked around her, the bridge lights blinking off and on, matching her states of consciousness. Voices, screams faded in and out, as if they were far away or she was submerged under water. Her vision swam before her, as she felt strong, sure hands pull her up by her arms. Avek? She thought, in blissful disorientation.

"Lieutenant are you alright?" Ensign Nedra, asked as she dropped Museveni into Captain Zihar's chair. Antonia shook her head clear again, and tried to speak, but her mouth welled with blood. Spitting the blood, and a tooth along with it, out onto the decking beneath her, she touched her swelling jaw, and forced herself to talk through the pain.

"Red Alert." she mumbled, "Raise shields. Disable that ship." She tried to stand, but fell back into the seat as the ship shuddered under a punishing rain of disruptor bolts.

"Weapons... offline," Setak wheezed, choking on the thick, acrid smoke billowing over the bridge. Before Museveni could figure out a response, the ship groaned, and a shockwave ran through the floor.

"It's the shield generators!" Lt. Tran exclaimed. "They've exploded. Multiple hull breaches on Decks 11 through 19!"

"How did that happen? The Klingons didn't fire where the shields were located," Gupta asked before Antonia could, but no one could answer. Museveni realized that if the Solstice didn't survive the next few seconds, the mystery would be a mute point anyway.

The main intercom sparked to life. "This is Chief Tamor in Engineering," the voice crackled through the hidden speakers, its resonance cutting through the cacophony surrounding it. "The matter/antimatter chamber has been compromised. We are doing our best to prevent a core breach. Don't worry about us. Tamor out."

"Mr. Setak?" Antonia managed to move her swollen jaw just enough to form the words. She scrambled to sit up in her chair, her arms shaking with the effort as the roar of the fires and alarms ringing on the bridge compounded the bulging pain in her head.

"I've rerouted power from nonessential systems to get the aft photon torpedo bay back online."

Rolling her tongue painfully around her mouth, adjusting to the agony, Museveni told the Vulcan. "Cut all power and reroute it to engines and weapons."

"But Antonia," Gupta gushed, the chain of command forgotten in the heat of the moment. "If we divert all power, there will be no way we can transport D'Iata, Mordo, Avek, or Thelar back in time!"

"I know," she mumbled softly, a numb detachment sliding through her shoulder blades, past her rib cage and over her heart. She couldn't sacrifice the many for the few, or the one, though she wanted to with all of her soul. She forced herself to turn in the captain's chair to look at Lt. Gupta, but she spoke to the Tactical Officer. "Mr. Setak. Do it." Then: "Mr. Colbert, send a priority one message to Starfleet Command and any starships within range."

"Aye." Both lieutenants said in unison. Immediately the bridge grew dark as main power was diverted to the key systems. Red running lights casts garish shadows over the mute, stunned bridge. The pall was interrupted only by the sounds of fire extinguishers dousing flames and the pervasive beeping and humming of the still functional systems on the bridge. Antonia welcomed the darkness because it hid the tears she was no longer able to dam inside of her. She sagged in her seat, and prayed to gods she had never believed in.

"The Klingons are jamming our transmissions!" The Comm. Officer squealed seconds later. Not terribly surprised by that revelation, Antonia proceeded with the next step of the rapidly coalescing plan forming in her mind.

"Ensign Nedra, use the impulse engines and inertial drift to turn the ship on its side while as we turn aft. I want the Klingons to think we are dead in the water, so to speak." Museveni whispered.

The young Tiburon said nothing as she translated her commanding officer's orders into action. Almost immediately, Antonia could imagine she felt the tug of the ship as it turned over on its side.

"Mr. Gupta, what is the status of the Klingon vessel?"

"Lieutenant," the Operations Officer replied, the customary warmth gone from his voice. Perhaps forever? "The Reclaw is in stationary orbit. I think they know we are up to something, but just haven't figured out what we are up to. Their shields are down."

"Well, curiosity killed the cat," Antonia remarked, her fondness for old human sayings evident in even the grimmest of circumstances. "Those bastards will find out soon enough. Mr. Setak, what is the status of that torpedo?"

"It's operational," the Vulcan whispered in response, as if talking too loudly might alert the Klingons to their plan. Or he could be logically trying to conserve the thinning air on the bridge with life support cut off, Antonia thought to herself.

Next, Antonia opened the panel on the captain's armrest. She opened a line to Engineering. "Chief Tamor?"

"What?" the Orion responded with her usual rudeness. "I told you we were trying to prevent a core breach down here."

"Don't." Museveni told her.

"What?" Tamor asked again, this time her annoyance was washed away by incredulity.

"Slow down your efforts. I want the Klingons to think the ship is about to implode."

"What?" the Engineering Chief asked for the third time.

An edge of annoyed anger in her voice, Antonia explained her plan. "I want the Reclaw to think we are on the verge of self destructing. I'll make this short and sweet. We've got one photon torpedo bay operational. When I give the word I want you to eject the core, and we're going to fire that torpedo into it."

"You're going to do what?" Tamor screeched. "An explosion of that magnitude at such close range could destroy both ships! Even if we survive and the Klingons take most of the punishment, Captain Zihar is still onboard the Klingon ship and could be killed! Not to mention containing matter/antimatter breaches until whenever you say go is damned near impossible. This is insane!" The engineer roared.

Her anger overtaking her pain, Antonia fired back. "As you said before: your place is in Engineering and mine is on the bridge. I am in command and if you don't carry out my orders I will have you replaced immediately!" Without waiting for a response Museveni cut the link.

"Mr. Brice," she spoke to the Yeoman manning the Navigation console in Lt. Mordo's absence, her voice still quavering with anger over her exchange with Tamor. "Vent some plasma. I want them thinking we might be trying to let off some excess energy."

"Aye Captain," the Yeoman replied, before looking sheepishly back at Antonia. "Sorry," he added.

"The time for 'sorry' is over. If this doesn't work, we'll all be sorry." Museveni answered, as she returned her attention to the predacious Reclaw, hoping that her treacherous captain would take her bait.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"What's happening?" Korrin asked Chief Wilcox; rubbing gloved studded finger over his beardless jaw. "They have no engines, but they are trying to move, trying to create distance. The ship is listing and venting excess plasma; our sensors indicate that a warp core breach is imminent. Could that be the reason for their actions? Are they going to eject their core?" The Klingon tore his eyes from the image of the seemingly hapless Federation vessel on the main viewer and pinned the Terran with a hard stare.

Standing freely by Orog's seat, the human returned Korrin's stare with a glower of his own. "That stunt with the tractor beam was not necessary. Those were some good officers that died needlessly, without honor." Wilcox spat on the deck of Reclaw's main bridge.

In response, Korrin shot out of his command seat, and several other of the bridge crew surrounded the gruff human. The captain grabbed Wilcox roughly by his throat and lifted him easily off of his feet. "What did you say human?" He asked, confidently expecting to see that the Earthling would be terrified at his awesome display of power.

Hard eyes defiant, the scarred man croaked out a laugh. "Your mother has more finesse. Where is she?" He managed to force out of his constricted windpipe before the Klingon captain tossed him forcefully to the floor.

As Wilcox struggled to his feet, the captain yanked free the disruptor strapped to his thigh. Gazing evenly at Korrin, Wilcox smiled with blood soaked teeth. "I don't think you want to do that. You'll never make it across the Neutral Zone without me. You've already gone beyond your boundaries already. How the hell am I supposed to explain this?"

Without replying to Wilcox's threatening plea, Korrin aimed the disruptor at the Terran and pulled the trigger. "That is not what I asked you," the captain snarled. The grizzled human dissolved in a sparkling red cascade. Impressively, he met his death with stoic silence.

Korrin clambered back onto his throne with a huff. "I am the captain of the Reclaw, and that is all you need concern yourself with." He muttered to the singe mark where Wilcox had only existed seconds before.

An unsettling hush snaked through the bridge crew as each sat perplexed by the events unfolding before them, but exhilarated by their recent attack on the Starfleet ship. A large gulp broke the bubble of quiet.

"Captain?" Comm. Officer Keval asked, drops of nervous sweat running down her face. "If what the human said is true, how will we be able to cross the Neutral Zone without detection?"

"We won't." Korrin replied, deigning not to look at Keval. "We came here to start a war and we have made the first strike. We want the Federation to see our faces, to fear our names!" He roared, raising in his seat, seized with the thrill of what was to come, an epic battle wrought into being by his own hand.

Settling back down, his voice became more reflective. "Of course in order for the Federation to know that it was Korrin... who did this to them we must allow this starship to survive. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that it will." His voice filled with concern, not for the crew of the Solstice struggling to survive, but for the possible missed opportunity for his name to be written in the annals of galactic history. "We do have their captain though," he muttered, more to himself than to Keval or any of his other crew.

Looking up suddenly at Weapons Officer Dhomir, the captain smacked his knee and yelped in delight, with a murderous gleam in his eyes. "Dhomir, use our disruptor beams to carve the starship apart before the core breach consumes the entire vessel. That should be enough of a sign of our presence here."

"Yes Captain!" The burly gunner answered crisply, quickly turning around to begin carrying out Korrin's orders.

"Captain!" Science Officer Ferac looked up from his console to peer at the viewer. "The Solstice is ejecting it matter/antimatter core! I suggest that we move away to a safe distance. A massive explosion is imminent."

Transfixed by the display of the stricken vessel, its aft section now facing them, Korrin watched as a long cylindrical object, with wild blue energies pulsating within it, was released from the belly of the ship. It erupted out of the vessel with force, heading for the Reclaw as if it had been programmed to.

"Orog, inch us back 2000 kellicams. GhoS!" The large, predatory ship began moving out of the blast radius. The Reclaw was almost clear, when Dhomir, whom Korrin considered stouter of heart than even himself, whelped. "Federation ship has just fired a photon torpedo!"

"What?" Korrin whipped his head around to look at the Weapons Officer to see if the son of Duruk wasn't playing one of his many practical jokes. The worried look on the hulking gunner's face told him otherwise. "But they're weapons were offline..."

"Raise shields!" The captain commanded, unconsciously gripping his armrests, expecting the torpedo to hit the Reclaw, but cause limited damage due to their strong shielding. After it glanced off of them, he decided that he would destroy the Federation starship outright. His mother would just have to be mad at him. Their would be plenty more ships to destroy and symbols to be made in the days to come.

"Captain," Dhomir said nervously. "The torpedo wasn't aimed at us...it was aimed at the core cylinder."

The captain opened a line to Engineer JaOs, madly twisting dials on the armrest of his chair. "Engines to maximum warp now!" Korrin yelled into the built-in speaker. The captain then pointed to Helmsmen Orog. "Get us away from here! Go! DaH!"

Korrin grabbed his knees in nervous anticipation as he once had during his years as a first year Koliay under the exacting General Kang's instruction at Ogat. His eight-chambered heart nearly exploded in his large chest when he heard the familiar whine of the warp engines tremble the battle cruiser and felt the ship turning away from the exploding matter/antimatter cylinder.

"Yes!" Korrin, unbidden, cried as the stars on the viewer elongated as the Reclaw went to warp.

"Warp engines engaged," Orog confirmed unnecessarily.

The captain was about to order that the cloaking device be initiated and for them to make their escape across the Federation's Romulan border, when a powerful shudder ran through the vessel, nearly knocking him out of his seat.

Holding on to his armrests, he sat upright. "What was that?" He roared, looking around wildly, as instrumentation shrieked and exploded around him. Before anyone could answer him, the Reclaw was hit again. The force of the blow wrested him from his throne and left him by Keval's console clear across the bridge.

Scrambling to his feet, rivulets of pain coursing through his body, Korrin looked over to the Communications console, expecting the bright Keval to have a ready made answer for what had just happened.

The sharp, proud officer lay dead at her blackened, smoking console, her once beautiful brown eyes staring sightlessly at him, a shard of metal deeply lodged in the center of her smooth forehead.

All thoughts of survival momentarily forgotten, the Reclaw rattling apart around him, Korrin grabbed the Comm. Officer's delicate face in his rough fingers, and stared into her eyes. He threw his head back as a powerful howl ripped from his lips for the woman he had loved. Only in Sto-Vo-Kor could he gaze upon her radiant, unmarked face again. The idea was so tempting that it wrapped around his heart, seizing him with such force that he momentarily lost all interest for the mortal realm. He kneeled beside Keval, cradling her face and stroking her hair as he whispered things to her that he had never found the time or the courage to reveal to her in life.

A powerful hand gripped his shoulder. "Captain, the warp engines are offline. We are caught in the grip of a shockwave caused by the exploding core cylinder." He heard Dhomir's voice, but it sounded far away as if he were miles underwater. Korrin remained by Keval's side, trying to hold on to the wisps of her essence that had not yet been drained by death.

A vicious slap to his exposed cheek, followed by a much softer, unexpected voice aroused him from his dementia. "Korrin, my son. Keval is gone. What you hold in your hands is nothing more than an empty vessel, a husk."

Looking up wildly while reaching for his disruptor, Korrin was stilled by the imperious gaze of his mother. Lady Torem stood in front of him, hands on her hips, her heavy red dress flowing about her.

Nostrils flaring with displeasure, but her eyes betraying her concern, she offered a hand to her son. He quietly took it. "Mother what are you doing here?" Informed that the anesthesia in the syringe was supposed to put her to sleep for hours, Korrin asked dully.

"Medical potions are not what they used to be," his mother replied with a devilish smile.

Despite his recent loss and the chaos erupting around them as the Reclaw continued to twist in the grip of the shockwave, Korrin made a mental note to personally execute his Medical Officer Rorc for incompetence and/or disloyalty as soon as they made it to the jev'YuQ Fragments. He would not make the mistakes that Drok had made in underestimating his mother. Shakily, Korrin reclaimed his command seat.

"Where is GaH'Qel?" Torem asked unable to hide her excitement.

"After Rorc checked him, he requested to be placed with our prisoner, the starship captain." Korrin replied, a bit annoyed by the inquisition as the Reclaw fought for life.

"You took a prisoner! A Starfleet captain! Have you seen the colonel, talked to him yet?" Torem asked, a flurry of questions bursting from her, forcefully gripping his arm, her need to know intense.

Firmly rooted in reality again, Korrin regarded her coldly. "The answers to those questions mean nothing if we don't survive! Mother, let me do my job!" He yanked his arm out of her grasp.

Stepping back with a start, Torem frowned with rebuke, but lowered her head. "I shall find out myself," she replied quietly before leaving the bridge.

"Status!" Korrin barked, not looking back at his mother, his eyes glued to the static filled viewer barely providing the bridge crew with a glimpse of the wall of energy washing over them. Stinging smoke and the heat from several burning consoles filled the bridge. The smell of charred flesh invaded Korak's nostrils.

"We have lost main power, our shields are down, and our weapons are offline," Dhomir, a sheet of purplish blood running down his face, informed the captain. "But we have escaped the worst of the blast."

"Where are we?" Korrin asked, looking in the direction of Orog, but not finding his post vacant. Looking downward, he saw the helmsman's smallish form splaying out on the deck.

"We are in Romulan space," Ferac bleakly informed him. "My instrumentation is damaged. I can't ascertain the exact location."

"You mean to tell me we are dead and defenseless in Romulan space!" He roared to no one in particular. "I am sure that they have already been alerted to the massive rupture in the subspace field caused by the damned Federation yIntagh!"

Though he spoke out of anger, he found himself impressed by the courage of the young starship commander Museveni. Despite his lack of contact with humans, he had believed most of what the Information Ministry had said about them. Unlike his mother, he didn't believe that everything the Ingan'jIH new order said were lies. But perhaps she was right in that too...

Korrin opened a line to Engineering. "Lt. JaOs, how long will take you to get the impulse engines and warp engines back on line?"

"The impulse engines five hours; the warp engines thirteen at a minimum." The engineering chief soberly answered.

"Get to it," Korrin replied. "Dhomir, what about our weapons systems?" Large arms elbow deep within the bowls of his console, its faceplate lying on the deck beside his chair, the Weapons Officer looked up from his task, a flash light stuck in his teeth. Shifting the small beam around with his tongue so that he could speak, he spat out. "An hour," before he went back to work.

Not satisfied, but knowing that arguing or exhortation would not increase the speed of his crew's efforts, Korrin rose from his seat. "I will be in my state room..." He began, but the rest of his sentence died in his throat as the viewer snapped into clear focus, and a dark green shape wavered into existence before them. The captain's stomach knotted with a fear he would never admit aloud at the sight.

The remaining survivors of the Reclaw's bridge crew, all gasped, seemingly in unison: "Romulans..."