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Chapter 6

"Capteen, we are detecting over fifty Romulan sheeps. Zay are all armed and ready for combat, sir," Chekov reported.

"Good," Kirk said, "The more ships here, the better. It'll give Spock and the others a better chance of remaining undetected by the Romulans."

"The Romulans are hailing us, Captain – in Romulan," Uhura said, "Should I act as a simultaneous translator?"

"Yes, please do, lieutenant. Do we have visual? I don't think they've ever actually shown themselves to anyone from the Federation. If it wasn't for Nero, we wouldn't really know what they looked like," Kirk replied.

"We do have visual, Captain," Uhura said.

However, he was not ready for the sight that greeted him. Instead of seeing a Romulan on the viewscreen who looked like Nero, he found himself staring into the face of a Vulcan. Kirk couldn't hear what he was saying, as Uhura had muted the sound. The Vulcan just opened and closed his mouth soundlessly until Uhura could catch up and started talking.

"Radaik is my name and I am head of this ship and this fleet of the Romulan Star Empire. We will destroy you and your fleet. Your amassing of troops has not gone unnoticed. We have foiled your plan to attack us ... in... cowardly in secrecy and will fight you here," Uhura translated on the spot.

"I am Captain James T. Kirk of the Starfleet vessel USS Enterprise," Kirk said, "Friendly greetings to you to. We are not here to start a war or attack you. We are merely conducting scientific investigations of the nearby nebula. And I hardly think you can call one ship a fleet, Captain. Oh, and Uhura, are the channels closed when I speak in English?"

"Yes, they can't hear you right now, sir, I will only send my translation," she answered.

"Ok, translate that then. But tell me, are they really talking Romulan? They look like Vulcans to me!" Kirk said.

"It's Romulan alright, Sir," she replied.

He was still smiling, but it was a fake smile now. This was not a laughing matter, he knew.

When Uhura had finished translating the message into Romulan he found that he didn't need his communication's officer to understand the reply. The face that had before looked Vulcan to him was now an ugly mask of rage and anger.

"Captain Kirk, because we are backwards in technology you think we are also stupid, but you make a great mistake. We know of ... jacket... protective clothes...," here Uhura shrugged at Kirk apologetically, "devices and that you planned to attack us in secret of the cloudy night."

Now Kirk felt he understood a little how Spock must feel when they used human sayings and turns of phrases he hadn't come across before – utterly confused.

"There really are no other ships here. If you just conduct a detailed scan of our space, I am sure you will find the same. This is all just a big misunderstanding," Kirk said.

This time they didn't get a reply though. Once Uhura had translated and sent that message, the Romulans terminated the connection in anger.

"Protective clothing, Lieutenant?" he said, turning round to face Uhura.

"I am not sure, Captain. I had never come across the word before, but that is what it would mean if it were Vulcan," she said.

"The languages are that similar, then?" he asked, still intrigued by the Romulan's identical appearance to Vulcans.

"It is well known that the languages of the Vulcans and Romulans both share a common root, Captain. They are not very similar however and xeno-linguists on Earth are not sure how much time has passed since they diverged from a common tongue. It could be hundreds or thousands of years," she answered.

If it were only hundreds of years ago, surely Vulcan historians would know more about the Romulans, he thought bitterly. He remembered back to the battle for Nero's ship. Spock had insisted on coming, claiming Vulcans and Romulans shared a similar culture so it would be easier for him to find his way around once on Nero's ship.

He shouldn't really have been so surprised to see that they looked so similar. It seemed everyone else was aware that they shared some common ancestry, why hadn't he ever thought about this before? But what about Nero's appearance?

"Chekov, what are the Romulans doing now?" he asked.

"Not much, Sir. They seem to be waiting for more sheeps to arrive," came the reply.

So he still had a bit of time to work on a way of getting them out of this. As interesting as the Vulcan/Romulan mystery was, it was not his main priority right now.

"Can we scan their ship from here, Mr Sulu?" he asked, "The Romulans admitted they were technologically less advanced. Can you confirm that?"

"Their shields are no match for our sensors, Captain. I am scanning them right now," and then after a pause he continued, "It indeed appears that they are not as advanced as we had thought. They're armed with nuclear weapons. Captain, their sensor arrays are very basic. I believe that this is the problem. We were worried they might see through our decoy ships and detect the photon torpedoes too soon. But we are encountering the opposite problem. Although they are easily within reach to use their short range scanners and to make visual contact, they are still unable to tell whether these are real ships or not. They can't see them on their viewscreen, but their scanners tell them otherwise. "

"Our deeception was too good?" Chekov asked.

"That's what I believe," Sulu answered him.

"Bridge to engineering," Kirk said, "Scotty, I need you up here, we have a bit of a problem."

As he sat back in his chair contemplating the situation other thoughts started to invade his mind. Were Spock and McCoy actually going to find themselves in some Romulan trap? Spock had said it was an odd part of the quadrant in which to find a ship full of Vulcan ex-patriots. And they only had the Tratters' word that they were Vulcan. Did the Tratters know that Vulcans and Romulans looked alike? Surely they could at least tell Vulcan and Romulan ships apart. Those were indeed very different in shape. Had the Tratters maybe deceived them? Or had the Romulans hatched some awful plan? It was a possibility that he had to consider.

Hope you all enjoyed that chapter! A bit shorter than my average chapter, but chapter 3 was quite long!