"The Odd Couple"
By Tremor3258
Set in the Iconian War, probably before "Broken Circle" but after "Time in a Bottle". Personal timeline wise anyway. Time travel's bad enough before the history eraser button comes into play. This was an entry for ULC #13 on the official forums, prompt 2 – "The Odd Couple"
Lieutenant Commander Tervan of the U.S.S. Aquila was doing his level best to focus on what was important, during the current issues with the Iconians. The tea helped, of course.
"Maintain current speed at half-impulse," he ordered, "Maintain probe launch rate towards mines on revised trajectory based on data." The Rigelian sipped his tea and studied the tactical plot. The small Nova class had excellent science labs, but at its size, they could only do a few things. The passive capacities of its secondary and primary deflector combination were excellent, and a small occlusion in the probability cone for possible Iconian mines was a worthy risk for keeping an eye on the far more interesting background radiation anomaly in the Draco dwarf galaxy.
After all, the Iconians were winning. Why would they even bother spreading terror weapons? This was one of dozens of potential warp-out points to reorient and get a navigation and timebuoy fix. Once, there had been a refueling station in the area, and its wreckage was still scattering out from the destruction of its fusion reactor by the Iconians two weeks ago. Fortunately, the debris was beyond the usual traffic zone at this point, but they'd laid some warning markers, tedious and simple work.
He wouldn't complain exactly. The Federation depended on Starfleet for rescue and traffic control just as much as dramatic space battles, and it was a logical use of a small, fragile ship in these times. Oh, his ship was in all qualification ranges for tactical, but the tip of a spear was a brutal place to be, and no place for one Walking, either, in his opinion. "Violence was the refuge of the incompetent", he'd heard once.
Starfleet agreed with him, and they'd slowly and quietly been making their way through the war zones. This was Federation space once – primarily Bolian mines and trade depots, and it would be once again, and a ship that would be illogical in combat could prepare for the Federation victory.
"Captain," Ensign Torek, Vulcan, promising future command material, and currently his tactical officer, "We are receiving a distress call at bearing three-six mark two-seventeen. Civilian passenger freighters under attack by a Herald strike group." He was hunched over the board, apparently eager to have something to do and was back-ranging the trace.
"Rebroadcast on secure channels to Alliance Command," Tervan said sharply. "Estimated time to point of origin given current subspace conditions?"
Riiku, the smooth skinned Saurian at the helm answered with commendable promptness. "Sixteen hours at maximum non-emergency speed. Six at maximum survivable stress" Alertness to surrounding conditions in standard conditions showed potential for being promoted out of a piloting slot, and Tervan made a mental note to put a favorable comment in her personnel file.
"Continue rebroadcast – there are ships that will be able to reach survivors before us," Tervan said.
Riiku hesitated, then spoke, "Captain, the Iconians may ignore escape pods. Six hours would greatly increase the ease of rescue operations."
"Or," Tervan said sharply, "the Iconians may still be engaged in clean-up operations. We will arrive with strained deflectors and minimal power reserves, and be unable to even run." The Saurian stiffened and stared forward. Tervan felt a trace of amusement. Were they hoping for meaningless heroics? Had they checked his record?
He'd spent ten years reaching this command, passing all his evaluations – even the test of command had proven navigable to an organized mind, with the experience of hundreds of Starfleet captains to be applied. And though the Nova-class was a little snug, such matters were easily placed below surface concerns by the Vulcans and Rigelians who made up her crew, free to fill their aspirations to serve the Federation without too much interaction with the noisy and disorganized member races.
And, the short missions, delivering rescue supplies, coordinating disaster relief, and the (now, sadly) less-common planetary survey gave him time for his side-project into mapping the small gravimetric eddies and anomalies common in any well-travelled region. Any ability to improve navigation and ship speed helped bring the Federation closer together, and was also, logically, one of Starfleet's important activities, in peace or war.
It'd been his thesis as well. While the close-range sensors looked for metal or magnetic suspensions, the subspace array was free for a bit of larger research.
And occupied thusly, they could pay less attention to distress calls they could hear but would never be able to reach. The ship was too slow, and the Iconians were able to strike too quickly. They simply relayed them on to other authorities and continued their work, as dependable as they could.
And besides, they were only in a small survey ship, not one of the modernized battleships the shipyards had been producing rapidly. Even the Iconians were unlikely to deal with something so minor, and if they did, they were almost certainly dead, so it was a matter unnecessary of consideration.
So, the work continued. Minutes of nothing aggressive, highlighted by tiny variations in the galactic medium millions of light years away.
"Captain," said his tactical officer, Ensign Torek eventually, "We have a priority-coded request for navigation information and a rebroadcast request from an Alliance ship."
"Send it," Tervan responded, and gave it no more mind. Some mission was coming to a conclusion no doubt.
Thirty seconds later, space screamed as gateways erupted all around the Aquila. Unheard on the red alert, Tervan's tea cup shattered on deck.
************
Approximately five minutes earlier time-wise, and fifteen light-years or so as the Warbird flew, things were perhaps more exciting. A dozen small freighters carrying refugees had been routed together by some idiot Admiral An'riel seh'Virinat was hoping she'd be allowed, politically, to have shot. At least that many ships together had managed a distress call out, but they should have never been gathered enough to become a target.
The Iconians, true to form, had slammed into the concentration of fleeing civilians, but they couldn't resist playing with their food. The Simurgh had been close enough, with some considerable effort on the part of Veril, her chief engineer, to make it with four of the ships still relatively intact. Propelled on a wave of profanity from two Reman dialects, and radiation cascading from nacelles, the Caprimul had dropped a minute outside combat range from a small squad of a Quas and a handful of Baltim popping in and out of reality.
The Quas was taking pot-shots at the freighters' engines, antiprotons smearing gamma radiation, contaminating the next generation even if the survivors were rescued. An'riel felt a twinge in her gut at that, these were Bolians, not her people, but even the Tal Shiar she would not condemn to end their bloodlines.
An'riel would normally consider the odds fairly decent, but the freighters weighed against her. "Any luck at all establishing a tactical link?" she asked, studying the holographic main display. Ship positions on it stuttered and telegraphed positions, any data from the freighters was being relayed on a vocal link, and their rapid transit and Iconian interference was polluting their own sensors. The friendly freighters themselves showed a hash of status codes indicating systematic and cascading failures. There had been almost a dozen, but five were left.
The Trill shook his head, "The Iconians aren't having any trouble keeping those tubs completely locked down. About the only things their engineers can manage is containment, and I've got some reports they're being boarded. I'm not getting any bandwidth anywhere and Starfleet's grabbed so many technicians lately they haven't even been able to tune their dampers." The Trill tapped controls, shifting channels, and listened on a directional pickup.
Tovan, at tactical, cursed briefly. "Sorry," he said as heads turned, and more formally, "Cruiser just locked weapons on us and the Baltims just changed their attack patterns. Energy gateway opening. Subspace gateways opening. They've learned enough to go to attack posture quickly, at least." Portals opened up on the near side of the freighters as the raiders angled, taunting. The portals would break up any attack run, and despite all the Alliance's efforts, there was no indication where an opened subspace gateway would deposit its travelers, yet.
Jalel reported as Tovan finished, updating status indicators on the displays, "I've verified on all the freighters, they're reporting Herald forces falling back on all ships, and retreating to gateways." He frowned, "Even without allowing for exaggeration, the enemy count is low." Jalel winced briefly. "Veril is reporting singularity circuitry still recovering from warp, at least a minute until we can begin charging."
"All right," An'riel said, "Perhaps Imperial Intelligence was right and the Heralds are reaching the limits of their Reserves." She smiled, briefly at that. "But the Republic would still like to verify, sensor priority after targeting is for emission profiles and energy signatures." Her tactical and science team signaled affirmation. One of the worst problems for fleet morale was that simply they had very little idea how well they were doing against the Heralds, when ships could disappear and then reappear in attacks hundreds of light years away. Factor in the easy manufacture of ships like the Beltims and tracking fleet strength was nearly impossible.
"But there are a half-dozen ships calling for vengeance, so these Heralds must end here. Battle alert." The chimes sounded, formally, the ship was already ready for combat but there was a comfort to such theatrical gestures.
It also gave her time to wonder on her luck. If they'd arrived late, vengeance was relatively easy in a battleship against the opposition. But they'd arrived early, and so the responsibility to the survivors gave the Heralds a better chance of surviving. The Republic could not ignore innocent victims, even when they probably would be unable to save them.
And there were no reserves in the sector to use either to attack or draw off the Heralds. A few hundred survivors were worth risking their ship, but she could not expose Federation fixed assets that had remained unassaulted to attack. Veril was working miracles on decontamination, but they didn't have warp or singularity tricks at the moment to cut the distance where their cannons were most effective.
"Jalel – coordinate evacuation with our transporter rooms. Also - what bounced the signal to us? Are any ships available?" An'riel asked. She added, "Engage tactical mode, prepare for close-range combat – ready cannons for rapid-fire. Satra, best estimates for transporter range and time."
The ship rattled as it focused purely on combat – they really needed some proper downtime; this was not a long-range exploration vessel with plenty of endurance. But it held, for now. The tactical display updated – half the Raiders popping into subspace and returning to reality near them, the others jumping backwards farther out of their weapon range, but still in range on the freighters.
Satra, tapped her console – months against the Elachi meant she knew how to breakdown a transporter evacuation like the back of her hand. "Nine lifts at minimum, with all the radiation, forty-five seconds to minimum transporter range. Five seconds to weapon range."
"Ready EPS induction tap against Baltim – closest target. Helm, bring us up six degrees and be ready for it to break," An'riel said. "Let us hope if we look ready for a dogfight we can break into close range – Jalel, how long do they need to prepare?
"They're not ready to evacuate. They want us to clear a warp exit corridor now that the Heralds have stopped boarding," the Trill said glumly.
There was silence at that, briefly, broken by the sound of the polaron cannons opening at maximum fire – one of the Baltims glowed, shuddered, and collapsed. "Are their sensors work- no, cancel that," An'riel said angrily. "Send them our specifications, we certainly have the space and capacity! And strongly recommend, based on our tactical assessment: that they evacuate! And use Federation Standard!" she said, as an afterthought.
Jalel listed on a local pickup for a while, and then replied, "Admiral, they prefer to take their chances over boarding an Alliance military vessel."
That was greeted by silence, followed by a set of warning chimes as the Raiders opened fire. The Iconians had an advantage, but "Target priority by proximity! Tachyon beam, EPS induction. All cannons, rapid-fire," An'riel snapped. "Transfer the strategic assessment to my console. Tovan, you have the board – try and drift the dogfight towards the freighters. Transporters have maximum priority for computer and power demands."
An'riel had only glanced at the current status of Alliance forces briefly to confirm they were the closest available ship before responding. They'd been a sector over, slinking their way to a hidden dock for some downtime. The Simurgh's Solanae-derived tricks and Federation-provided quantum slipstream emitters had given them the best response speed, though, and that had been the important thing a few minutes ago.
Unfortunately, things were stretched pretty thinly in both sectors. A few ships engaged in covert or local defense operations – a response fleet in full retreat from a major colony; they were in no shape to help. A few science outposts that hadn't been gobbled up yet. Actually, come to think of it, what had been in shape to relay that signal? "Computer," she said quietly, "Display communications routing table for received distress signal four-seven slash four, please."
She'd been enjoying the distributed control setup of Simurgh's bridge; a dozen wells of controls surrounded by holograms in a sea of grey metal. It came in advantage again, she opened a private channel to Jalel. "Lieutenant Commander, has Starfleet reported any planned offensives in this sector in our data update?"
Jalel, elite officer that he was, took a moment to verify before stating the obvious, "I wish, Admiral. We're down to deep raids at best and supply runs of medical aid along this entire cluster."
"A Nova planetary survey vessel relayed the distress call. They must be an injured heavy ship using a fake transponder to be this deep. Send a request for a wide-broadcast of targeted navigation data for warp-in. Whatever battleship is there, should reply if it is not on a priority mission," An'riel decided, "We will catch them in between our talons, and we should be able to expedite their warp drive repairs afterward."
Jalel nodded, and An'riel refocused on the battle. Two more raiders had been shattered, but there were always more – the Iconians seemed to roll them out like fighters from a carrier bay. One more freighter had been picked off, antimatter containment either collapsing from damage or its engineering team losing out to the Iconian's virii. Perhaps four, maybe as many as eight hundred more gone in a flash of light, and she could, Elements help her, give them no more acknowledgement then that if she was to save any of them.
She snapped orders, small adjustments to their attack approach and utilizing Simurgh's marvelous and overtaxed systems that much more finely as they slowly clawed their way towards transporter range. Every meter was paid in Heralds, but cost them time, energy, programming reserves… which equaled that much fewer Bolians. This was the calculus of lives that had kept her going through the early days before the Republic had been recognized by the great powers, where saving anything as worlds died was considered a victory for those who wanted to live free under the Raptor's Wings.
It had, apparently, merely been practice. But it had been useful and effective, at least today. She felt the change before it showed on scanners, the tempo of battle suddenly slacking, the Raiders breaking off attack runs early.
Satra reported it first, "Long-range gateways opening – the cruiser is retreating, Admiral!" A moment later, the galaxy-pattern of the Iconians Sphere-protected gateways made itself visible to the eyes. The Raiders gutting the freighters ceased and pulled back towards the gateway as well, seeking larger game. A brief cheer went up.
"Emergency evasive power, current course for five seconds, then turn one-eight-zero. Revert from tactical mode, ready torpedoes and cannons for scatter volley. Start gravity well induction," An'riel said calmly. Simurgh lurched, briefly free of Newtonian physics as it dashed free of melee and spun, deploying projectors and advanced sensors to capture and twist a knot of gravitons among themselves until reality shrieked. The Raiders turned, but were unable to escape gravity's embrace, shear wracking at their hull integrity.
To add to the humiliation of the natural laws of the universe, high-speed torpedoes and heavy polarized energy bolts smashed into the cluster of Herald ships, ripping open more micro-singularities. The combined tidal effect overwhelmed containment on one, then a second Baltim, their warp core detonations spilling over the other weakened ships, and finishing them in a titanic wave of fire.
Three freighters remained, leaking plasma and spot fires erupting and then ceasing as free oxygen was consumed, and Simurgh, white hull covered with scars from spot burn-throughs on the shields, lights flickering in several sections as polymorphic virii were wiped out, but still intact with some fight left.
"Drop shields, tell Veril to expedite radiation cleanup to prepare for brief period of high warp speed. Work with medical – full power to hazard emitters to expedite isolation and containment of EPS point overloads. Get Hiven to assemble a team to convert environmental sections over to Bolian standards," An'riel said, radiating calmness. "We can prepare a full damage report later." Circuits were overloaded through the outer wings, shields were busy cycling, power levels were fluctuating, and the warp coils were still cooling off, but Simurgh had chosen its name well, coming through the fire again. In the grand scale of battles, this was barely a skirmish. It would be if they could get to a repair bay.
She had other points of Duty than just her ship though. "Tovan," An'riel said calmly, "Lock weapons on the freighters, and ready security teams for boarding, if needed. Jalel, get me visual communication please to the remaining ships." Given that the Admiral had apparently scared off a Herald squadron with force of presence, even Jalel did not protest this violation of Starfleet protocols.
Fortunately, they weren't Starfleet. The captains of the refugee ships apparently remembered this as well as they opened their protest and immediately stopped, seeing the ridged brows and pointed ears of the majority of the Simurgh's crew, either Rihannsnu or Reman. The bridge was dark, alien in origin, and the dark skinned captain at its center sat leaning forward, head resting on folded fingers, waiting in anticipation.
Silence was as good an opening as riposte, one of her debate teachers had said. "Captains. You are to have your crews abandon your ships and come aboard. Your preferences and feelings of the Alliance fleet's combat effectiveness are immaterial. Failure to comply will result in my being forced to bring your shields down and force compliance. You have thirty seconds to begin evacuation procedures."
The one on the right spoke up, "The Federation will never allow an act of piracy to-"
An'riel cut him off, "Captain, I am sure the Republic will arrive at an appropriate figure of compensation. You are welcome to submit your complaints to your representative on the Federation Council and have a Board of Inquiry opened into my actions, should you attempt to continue. However, without even a detailed sensor scan I can see how poorly your warp engines are responding – do you believe in your current state you have the engineering capacity to change your warp signature before the Heralds track you down again? Ten seconds"
Silence met that. A moment later, with a brief look towards each other, the shields on the freighters dropped. An'riel dropped the link. "Begin evacuation, order security crews in transporter rooms to assist and initiate triage. Satra, you are released to sickbay. Prepare a casualty list as soon as possible. Jalel – pass navigation broadcast from the Aquila to navigation to prepare to assist. Tovan, log the location of the freighters – we will leave them unscuttled, perhaps the Heralds will ignore them and their captains' will be at ease." She checked her board, "Rest easy children, we have a brief rest but we must leave within five minutes to balance our luck."
Even total shock didn't last long to a Rigelian. "Red alert. Emergency Evasive pattern alpha-three," Tervan ordered as the bridge's lighting shifted to alert status. "Transfer power allocation to defensive plan two. Prepare sensor dispersion probes. Return fire, priority to targeting incoming probes. Torek, generate a threat assessment." Shields snapped on automatically as the first beams struck them, the lurch of impact overwhelming even the rumble of the impulse engines reaching full speed. Shields strained, but held, barely, from the first wave. Phasers lashed back, barely warming the first of three enemy cruisers.
He tapped on his command console – updating the log to confirm procedure had been followed by his officers, he would not have them disparaged in death. All was approaching battle readiness on the Aquila, for all it would do them. Simply in the raw physics of energy, they were absolutely outmatched. He checked his orders were followed, and frantically looked if there was some gap left uncovered they could spin their warp drive up in.
"Redistributing shields – overall at forty-three percent, shields three and five have temporarily collapsed. Radiation damage reported through section seven on deck five!" Torek said with the expressionless urgency that passed for panic among Vulcans. "Three Quas-class cruisers, at least eight Baltim raiders, so far. Assigning identifiers to enemy ships on tactical plot."
"Adjust our vector fifteen degrees to starboard," Tervan said, "Prepare probes for sensor scramble package on cruiser target Beta." They didn't have guns, they didn't have shields, and they didn't have the warp capacity to sprint away, but by all that was just, his team could rig a fake sensor signature set. And it would be easier if they could drift the middle and starboard cruiser together a bit closer.
Some luck was still with them, and their probe, equipped as perfectly as his crew could manage for local conditions, shot at high speed, burning its impulse engine out in seconds to avoid counter-fire, and then exploding in a wave of mass and subspace-shadows, throwing dozens of Aquilas onto Herald targeting scopes and throwing wave-guides out of alignments. Weapons fired wildly across space, a few impacting other Herald ships, but mainly, not hitting the real Aquila.
"Navigation calculations, find minimum point where we can prepare for warp-out. Any direction will suffice – Starfleet tactical briefings indicated the Heralds rarely pursue via warp," Tervan said, sweating slightly.
Riiku reported, "Navigation report still running, Captain – I have a complete view of local space out sixteen light seconds. Submitting three best vectors and originating points for minimum interference with light boundary to primary tactical."
"We're still transmitting that status report?" Tervan said, concerned. He'd not considered it was on-going, just one of the many requests of the larger Starfleet.
"Yes sir, on high-band encrypted," Riiku said without worry. The Saurian was doing her job, and knew her captain had a better grasp on the strategic situation. He was the one on board who had a chance of getting them out of this.
"Sensors – overlay the vector for the navigation request on tactical," Tervan ordered. "Change encryption to second alpha set, and await response." The second round of fire came in, attenuated by the distraction they had caused, but still blowing down the port shield. This was not in the tactical manuals.
"Correct response received," Riiku stated, holding, barely, onto her station through the fire. "They are requesting a hazardous terrain update for our current location." She tapped her console in irritation once the dampers stabilized, "Timestamp's odd – they must be at high warp."
"What?" Tervan said, as his mind switched gears. "Label the Herald ships as radiation sources and transmit – bring us onto their approach vector." Tactical showed that the Heralds had thinned their own numbers and were still confused, but some of their light units were on the approach. "Torek – maximum array fire, clear away the probes nearest to us."
The Vulcan bent to his task – flooding power to the phaser arrays, emitters firing sequentially as targets briefly locked. The Vulcan methodically switched through the targets. Tervan opened his mouth to yell as one of the two cruisers firing blindly appeared on the viewscreen, but was too late before the phasers lanced out.
Now knowing exactly where the Aquila was, the Heralds targeted it with renewed fury, and what shields they rebuilt collapsed under the strain.
"Ensign Torek!" Tervan said fiercely, "Stand down from tactical and let your relief take over." Torek's face was smooth as he stood to comply, though other bridge officers shifted uneasily.
Before Torek could move away to be replaced by another Ensign, the ship gave an especially fierce lurch, and he fell against the console, arm breaking with an audible snap. Ensign Salmer bent to help him, tactical console beeping for attention but ignored for the moment.
"Captain, helm is not responding – we're in some sort of generated ion field and the impulse coil is overloading!" Riiku said excitedly. "Our speed is at three percent of full impulse. Orders?"
"Sensor officer, can you tell which ship generated it?" Tervan said, mind clicking through possibilities. He'd heard some specialty ships had been outfitted to disrupt impulse drives for intelligence operations, but it hadn't worked its way down to line briefings yet. He grabbed the arms of his chair as another beam hit somewhere on the ship, hearing a deep thud being conducted through the ship's hull.
"Negative, Captain, but the field appears to not be perpetuated – field strength is decaying – given time, engineering may be able to tune our engines to compensate," the sensor officer reported. Judging by the current shower of sparks, engineering had its own problems. "Herald attacks slowing, sir."
"Prepare for boarding combat," Tervan said, automatically. "Riiku, did the Alliance ship give any sort of ETA?"
"I'm not sure, Captain, it was all via navigation protocols," the Saurian answered miserably. "But it may not do any good - their reference frame to Newtonian space has drifted – the timestamps on the messages were a minute in the future."
"All remaining power to shields and ready to link tactical computers on Alliance protocols," Tervan said, trying to regain his mask of command.
Torek had finally gotten out of the way, and Salmer was able to sit down and bring their rudimentary tactical systems back under control. "Captain, tactical got a data packet update on side-bad with recommended shield and communication frequency settings."
"Implement," Tervan said, and turned to look at his sensor officer, who bent over to check the ignored long-range sensors. "Captain – gravimetric array is picking up a subspace energy spike. Something is breaking the FTL barrier, and it's absolutely massive."
"On screen," Tervan said – and the screen switched from tactical to show a flash of light as a starship returned to reality. "Not the Enterprise, then," he said aloud, faintly disappointed.
It was a Republic warbird, oversized compared to Federation tech for its power, and the usual overdone avian styling, their singularity cores forcing plenty of open space into the hull design. This one wasn't blood-colored, at least. The cream-colored plating was burned and discolored in places, apparently having seen recent action, but it seemed intact from quick inspection. After another second's inventory, he placed it as one of the knock-offs of the Federation's Dyson program, the fleet support ships that had gotten rammed through as 'science destroyers'.
Tervan admired a very neat warp insertion – whoever piloting knew their ship, but wondered what they were thinking at arriving at such close range when power was still flowing from the warp drive to shields and engines. Then, things then got very busy for several seconds, and Tervan was only able to reconstruct the sequence in memory later.
Given the positioning data fed earlier, the warbird had been able to drop into weapon's range, catching the Heralds by surprise, and space shimmered as several Republic battleships were summoned into being as photonic allies, providing cover as their weapons lanced into the Heralds. The Aquila's tactical board fairly whined as the warbird swept space with a high-energy sensor sweep, followed by a blast of tachyon and proton energy lanced from the main deflector at the center Herald cruiser. The Quas's shields shuddered and inverted, shields spilling energy out that the Aquila's grid, having been forewarned, was prepared to receive, restoring their shielding.
Even as that pulse rang out from the Quas, a singularity appeared behind it, tearing at the Herald ships that had been gathering to board. Space itself began to spark – some new technique Tervan wasn't familiar with, though it didn't seem healthy for anything material in range. The warbird's signature spiked as it dumped power to weapons – and opened up with a polaron barrage and salvos of proximity torpedoes.
The shielding matrix of the Herald ships had been hit from an unexpected angle, and the matrix itself had been heavily disrupted by Romulan tricks – they offered little resistance as swarms of torpedoes exploded, and containment of the smaller ships was overwhelmed, adding to the chaos. In a blaze of radiation and confusion, hundreds of Iconian battle thralls died in seconds.
The young bridge officers on the Aquila could only stare as the situation went from death to victory in a scant few seconds. Tervan felt a spike of jealousy he worked to suppress at the speed of the warbird's systems and its crews' reaction speed as a dozen systems coalesced into an angel of death in mere moments.
"Incoming hail," Riiku reported. Tervan nodded, and a creature with unusual coloration for a Romulan – dark-tan and auburn-haired, though the brow ridges indicated no unusual cross-pollination appeared in her family tree.
"Admiral seh'Virinat," she identified herself, "Of the R.R.W. Simurgh. Many thanks on behalf of our crew for your response, Captain. You saved hundreds of lives with your response, and I will note your bravery in my report to your government." She hesitated briefly, studying a readout, "What is your ship's status? My engineers need some time for emergency repairs, but I expect they will have the quantum slipstream system available shortly and we can return to Alliance-held space."
She looked up somewhat grimly, "We did very well thanks to your help, but we are carrying refugees and can expect a Herald response shortly, and I do not believe they will be so obliging. Our little opening salvo works very well, but requires optimum conditions."
"Bravery?" Tervan managed, surprised. Yes, they were going to die well.
"Your volunteering your location for a navigation update lured the Heralds to try and attack an Alliance squadron, and then gathered them closely enough the Simurgh was able to launch a concentrated strike." The Romulan admiral briefly patted an armrest. "Unfortunately, this ship is unable to sustain that level of damage output, or the Heralds would be less of a problem. We should, perhaps, continue this conversation elsewhere. Is your ship warp-capable?"
Bait. He inwardly seethed, but went into the captain's business of arranging a nearby rendezvous and return to spacedock. "Yes, the Heralds were arranging for capture, it seems – my mission in the area must be necessarily cut short," he said curtly.
The Romulan winced, briefly – perhaps a trifle theatrically. "I apologize, but you will have the thanks of New Romulus Command and the Bolian government." Tervan gave a dubious look.
Several days later, he finished giving his report to the strategic analyst who'd cut his orders originally. Given several hours to patch their worst hurts, the Simurgh had been able to let them ride in their slipstream (the Admiral, apparently, knew many of the right people as much advanced tech had been stuffed on her ship) thanks to the vast size disparity between a Nova and well, anything built by the Romulans.
"I apologize I was unable to finish my survey for mine debris, though it is clear the Heralds still had gateways on standby in the area," Tervan said, standing at attention, "Though I do need to protest having my mission co-opted, even by an allied government."
The analyst nodded, "Yes, and the Aquila requires at least a week to be considered mission-capable again, the shipyard tells me. You should probably forgive the Admiral, she's one of the Republic's officers without portfolio, and has access to the Alliance's latest technology, it's easy to forget how the rest live."
Tervan sniffed at this, "Regardless, she was playing very fast and loose with our group's lives, and the refugees, is my understanding. Saving any of them was a near impossibility, without disrupting other operations. The manual exists for a reason."
The analyst smiled, "Yes – the combined experience of thousands of captains, but there are situations that are not covered very well. Are you familiar with Article 14 of the Charter?" The human waved a hand when the captain opposite him shook his head hesitantly. "I may have to tell you more on that later."
Franklin Drake turned on a screen showing a section of space near the old Argama sector. "I'm sure you're not familiar with our work in the Kyana system, but have you ever read Professor Manheim's research?"
The Rigelian nodded in response. "Naturally, the man was a visionary, and time-space interactions are at the heart of deep-subspace observation."
"Excellent," Drake said with a slight smile, "While your ship isn't prepared for this mission, I'd like to put your name forward for a special assignment. There is a Federation lab that does limited chroniton research. We did not want to move them to cause any interruptions, as their work may be vital against the Iconians, but the base missed its last check-in. Being in old Romulan space, I'm afraid you already met your escort, but your report on her behavior will be viewed very carefully."
Tervan grinned, ferally at that.
A/N : May follow-up on this later for the two having to work together far more closely, or if Drake's just providing 'motivation', heh.