"Captain! Romulan Warbird cloaking to starboard!"
"Ugh." Captain Alieth, of the USS Keplar, was NOT having a good day. "Wait, what? Romulans? This far into Federation space?"
"Aye, Captain. Should we raise shields?"
"Keep the alert at yellow, Lieutenant. Try hailing them." Alieth wasn't sure why the Romulans were in Federation space, but they may not have been there for hostile purposes. The destruction of Romulus certainly caused tension between the Star Empire, who thought Spock was at fault, and the Federation, who claimed the situation was beyond their control, but not all the Romulans believed that…..right?
The viewscreen flickers, and a Romulan appears, sneering. "Might as well answer your last request, Starfleet." "What is the meaning of this?" demands Alieth. The Romulan replies, "The Star Empire has declared war on the Federation. Goodbye, Starfleet scum."
Before Alieth could respond, the ship rocked with the impact of a torpedo and Alieth looked at a damage report and saw the hull breach and looked at the status but the shields were up so how did the torpedo get through the shields and a thought flashes through her head as the ship rocked again and the hull breach worsens and oh no…
"Lieutenant! How did they know our shield frequency?!" The only way the torpedo could have gotten through the shields was if it were tuned to the exact frequency the shields operated at. But shield frequency was classified and no starship had the same frequency….
"Captain. They tuned their torpedoes to our frequency!"
Great. As if the day could get any worse..
"Get us out of here, Lieutenant. While we still have warp."
As they sailed away, too damaged and disadvantaged to fight, Alieth wondered, how in the world did they know our frequency….