IPX Icarus – Earth Space – One Light Minute Out from Earth Orbit

Local Time – 2351

"Report."

"Emission trap still in operation, power at minimal for observations, telescopes trained on the area, we're a good light minute away to reduce the chance of being spotted, ma'am," Dr. Edward Morden announced.

Captain Miriam Keller stood up from the conn and crossed over to the young Earthforce New Technologies contractor. "Is our sensor suite ready to go?"

The man with swept-back dark hair nodded. "The entire system is online and green across the board."

"Good." She smiled at the young man. Despite his lack of experience, Ed Morden was quite bright and, surprisingly, a nice guy. Often, he'd told her how head-over-heels he was for his fiancée. Keller was happy that they had a chance to live to see their wedding day now that the Federation and the Klingons were here to help Earth survive the Minbari onslaught.

After she had returned to her command chair, Keller scanned the bridge of the advanced exploration spacecraft noting that her crew members were completely focused on their panels. They'd been given a very important mission and were certain the ship's cutting-edge stealth technology would keep them from being noticed by the Alpha Quadrant starships in geostationary orbit over the Earth's International Dateline. Although several high-ranking officials were going to be aboard two of the alien starships to view the operational test of the Federation's planetary shield generators, Earthforce Intelligence believed it would be a wonderful idea to have the Icarus' state-of-the-art sensors monitor the destructive force produced by the twenty-one ships as they fired on the shield for several reasons. First, the brass wanted to be certain the aliens weren't sandbagging Earthforce with an attack that was more show than substance. Second, they badly desired to obtain independent measurements of the capabilities of the Federation and Klingon weapon systems.

Although, officially, the Icarus belonged to IPX, in truth, IPX was a front for the military's New Technologies Command. Normally, IPX scoured known space, performing archeological digs on dead worlds to uncover alien artifacts to advance Earth's technology. So, it was unprecedented that IPX could gain knowledge about alien tech in Earth's own backyard. Keller's orders were to keep the Icarus where she was until the test was completed and the alien starships had withdrawn. Afterwards, the Icarus would hightail it to the Earthforce Falkland Island's Intelligence Base, hopefully bringing a treasure trove of information about the power of the visitor's armaments.

As she settled into her seat to watch the show, a rating reported, "Captain! A vessel just appeared out of nowhere a half kilometer off the port bow!"

"What?! Show me!"

The main view screen snapped on and revealed one of the small Bird of Prey vessels suspended in space with the business ends of both disruptors pointed at them.

"They're hailing us!"

She sighed heavily and shook her head. How in the hell did they notice us? she wondered. "Open a channel," she commanded.

The view screen shimmered once again. Now the screen showed a Klingon female bathed in crimson light that enhanced the angry expression on the woman's face. She was seated in a throne-like chair and glared at Keller as if she could peer deep into the Earthforce officer's soul.

"This is the IKS Malevolent and I am Captain Gi'ral, the commander of this vessel. You are in a restricted area. You shall state an acceptable reason for being here if you do not want my ship's disruptors to fire upon your pathetic vessel!"

Keller struggled mightily to maintain a neutral expression on her face. Earthforce had wanted to gain the information about the aliens' weapons surreptitiously. However, it was as plain as the nose on her face that ship had already sailed off into the sunset. Recalling the briefing she'd been given how it was best to stand firm with the Klingons and show no fear, she said, "I am Captain Keller of the EAS Icarus. We have been ordered to observe the operational test of the planetary shield by Earthforce command."

Now the Klingon woman sneered at her. "Is that so?"

"It's the truth. Or…are you calling me a liar?"

The alien captain narrowed her eyes at Keller then growled lowly. Shortly after Miriam had begun to grow concerned that Gi'ral was going to make good on her earlier threat, the Klingon woman suddenly appeared to relax right before she gave Keller a predator's smile. "Why would I call you a liar, Captain Keller? After all, we are allies, are we not?"

"Indeed, we are, Captain Gi'ral," Keller agreed magnanimously.

"In that case, you may remain on station and take your readings. Of course, in the interests of our consistently improving the relations between the members of our alliance, the Malevolent shall be here to ensure that nothing…untoward happens to you and your gallant crew during the test."

An uneasy Keller forced a thin smile onto her face in response. "Thank you, Captain Gi'ral. That is most…accommodating of you."

"Think nothing of it, Captain Keller. Malevolent out!"

When the image of the Klingon woman faded from her screen, Keller suddenly noticed the beads of perspiration that had trailed down her aching spine to pool uncomfortably in the waistband of her undergarment.

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IKV Pagh – Transporter Room

Local Time – 2355

"General Hague and Lt. Commander Lochley, welcome aboard the Pagh!"

Elizabeth Lochley struggled to avoid swooning from the musk-laden air in the room. The tall, swarthy master of the Klingon battlecruiser swept his hand, gesturing for the Earthforce officers to leave the platform to join him and another Klingon male on the deck. The other man appeared to be a few years older and a few inches shorter than Commander Klagh.

"General, Lt. Commander Lochley, I would like to introduce you both to my first officer, Captain Kaa'lak."

The other Klingon nodded curtly to them.

Then General Hague smiled and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Captain Kaa'lak."

Klagh suddenly grinned and almost caused Lochley to shudder at the sight of the man's sharp incisors. "Now that the introductions are out of the way, please follow the captain and me to our bridge," he said as the two Klingons led the Earthforce officers out of the room.

As the quartet strode through the fairly brightly lit corridor, she noticed that every crewman she saw was a Klingon. Apparently, their vessels weren't as diverse as Federation starships. Although both of the Alpha Quadrant powers were technically aliens to the Earth Alliance, she preferred the brighter, more antiseptic environs of the Federation ships.

She had had her heart set on viewing the operational test of the planetary shield grid from the bridge of the Valkyrie. However, Secretary Hannah had opted to pull rank on General Hague and had chosen the Federation starship for General Bainbridge and herself. She snorted to herself quietly. Although she couldn't blame the Secretary of Defense for being drawn to the Valkyrie's captain—the man was quite easy on the eyes, after all—Elizabeth knew that no woman could compete with the Amazonian Vulcan, who happened to be the man's wife, in his eyes.

Soon, Klagh and Kaa'lak led them into an elevator car. It smoothly sped off and shortly deposited them onto the spacious nerve center of the alien warship. Klagh then indicated with a sweep of his right hand where he wanted them to stand—next to the throne-like chair in the middle of the bridge. Once they were situated, he took his seat and snapped, "May'yalt!"

In response, all other conversations on the bridge stopped dead in their tracks and the focus of every Klingon, save for the Commander's, was on their particular stations. "General, Lt. Commander, I'd just given the order for the crew to ready for battle," he explained. "Jlit'Daq!"

When the view screen shimmered on, the Commander had apparently believed the two Earthforce officers were intelligent enough to forego providing an explanation of his last order to them. The screen displayed a panoramic view of a battle line of Federation starships and Klingon warships suspended above her planet in geostationary orbits. As she studied the images on the screen, Lochley recognized the odd quad warp nacelle configuration of a Constellation class vessel. "Is that the Valkyrie in the middle of the formation?" she asked.

"Indeed that is, Lt. Commander Lochley," Klagh remarked. "Her sister ship, the Hathaway, is on the extreme port side of the formation."

"I see," she replied. "Thank you, Commander Klagh."

"You're welcome, Lt. Commander Lochley."

She shot a surreptitious glance at the alien, hoping he wouldn't notice. Given how curt most Klingons tended to be in their interactions with the Starfleet humans, she was a bit surprised how polite he had been to both General Hague and her in nearly every interaction they ever had with him.

Then she turned her gaze toward the screen once more. Along with the pair of Constellation class ships, she noticed two of the Predator destroyers were positioned on either side of an Avenger light cruiser. Between that small squadron of escorts and the Constellations, she, at first thought there were a pair of the Constitution class cruisers loitering in space. However, when she took another look, she realized that one of the starships was actually a Belknap strike cruiser. On the opposite side of the Valkyrie between Tynen's ship and the Hathaway, Lochley saw four of the Andor class missile cruisers that rounded out the Federation contingent.

Suddenly she gasped when three of the huge Bird of Prey Klingon warships decloaked directly under the Valkyrie on the starboard side of a Klingon cruiser that reminded her of the Pagh. "Commander," Hague asked, "is that other warship the same class as your vessel?"

"No, General. The Ravisher is a D7-M battlecruiser. A decade ago, she would have been designated as a heavy battlecruiser. Now she is a medium unit in comparison to the C7 class."

"Thank you for clearing that up for me," Hague said.

"You're most welcome, General." A moment later, Klagh shot a hard look at the crewman manning one of the stations closest to the main view screen and snapped, "Move us into firing position on the starboard side of the K'vorts!"

"Aye, sir!" the crewman responded as he guided the battlecruiser forward.

Shortly after six of the Klingon destroyers that reminded Lochley of menacing manta rays powered into their positions below the Klingon cruiser line, a crewman turned from a panel that appeared to be the communications station to glare at Klagh. "Commander, it is Fleet Captain Tynen. He has opened a channel to all of the ships in the task force."

Klagh grunted. "Put him on our speakers."

"Aye, sir!"

"This is Captain Tynen. Lt. Mazan has provided the target coordinates to you. All ships lock on and prepare to fire on my command."

"Weapons!" Klagh snapped. "Are we ready?"

"All weapon systems are targeted and locked in, sir!"

"Very well."

"Task Force," Tynen commanded, "open fire!"

The lighting on the bridge dimmed and the battlecruiser shuddered as pulsing red orbs of light hurtled from the ship toward the apparently defenseless planet below. The orbs then were shortly followed by streams of crimson, azure, and emerald coherent energy beams, pouring out from the bows of the twenty-one ships.

Shockingly, the destructive beams all struck a spot several miles above the Pacific Ocean. While the phasers and disruptors continued to assault the energy field that protected the planet, the red orbs hammered the same spot with pinpoint accuracy. The orbs erupted into blinding flashes of light every time they struck the shield and almost caused the view screen to overload from the intensity of the matter-antimatter annihilations that Lochley believed was unleashed hellfire.

For several minutes that felt like an eternity to her, the attack continued unabated. Then she almost jumped out of her skin when she heard Tynen say, "All units, cease fire!"

"Secure all weapons, go to condition yellow," Klagh ordered. "Kaa'lak, scan the planetary shield."

The first officer gazed into a hooded instrument on the top of his panel and said, "Shield strength was at 97.25% at the beginning of the test. It is now…holding at…96.15%."

Klagh smiled and nodded. "Not bad, Rex," he murmured lowly. "And excellent targeting, Lady Etana!" he drawled. "Comms!"

"Yes, sir?"

"Contact the Valkyrie! Send my compliments to Commander Rex and Lt. Mazan!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Commander."

Klagh turned to regard the General. "Yes, General Hague?"

"How did the test go?"

Klagh grinned. "Quite well, actually. The shield performed optimally even though Lt. Mazan did an excellent job of finding the weakest spot of the grid. What a woman! She thinks like a Klingon warrior!"

"Excuse me, Commander," Lochley said. "The shield strength dropped by one percentage point after an assault by twenty-one ships for a period of…five minutes or so?"

"Yes, but we knew where the weak spot was and exploited it ruthlessly. Of course, the shield is regenerating so it's probably back up to its original strength. Am I correct in that assessment, Kaa'lak?"

"You are, sir. My readings show the shield strength has recovered to its original status before the attack."

"There, you see? Nothing to concern yourselves. The shield strength over Earthdome is nearly 99.9 % at all times. Your world is well-protected."

"But you only attacked with twenty-one ships!" she observed. "The Minbari will have hundreds!"

Klagh shrugged. "True. However, their weaponry is weak and puny in comparison to ours. Besides, we had the luxury of firing upon the shield without the distractions of the defense satellites, the ground based phaser cannons, and photon torpedoes from the surface of your moon."

"You need not be troubled, Humans," Kaa'lak added. "Although we impacted the shield with enough destructive force to destroy the entire surface of your world, the Federation shield system you now possess is so powerful it would have taken a thousand starships or Klingon warships to bring it down after nearly a day of continuous fire."

"Really?" she asked. "After five minutes, how much force did you use against the shield?"

#

IPX Icarus – Earth Space – One Light Minute Out from Earth Orbit

Local Time – 0007

"Are you certain about those readings, Mr. Morden?"

Morden shot a haunted look Miriam Keller's way. "I'm dead certain about them, ma'am."

"They unleashed twelve gigatons on that shield with just twenty-one ships?!"

"Yes, ma'am. And that was only the damage caused by their torpedoes. The beam weapons struck that single point of the shield with 100,000 terawatts of energy. Captain, for five minutes, they fired on our planet with the same amount of energy Earth receives from the sun during an entire year!"

She stared woodenly at the young man. If their readings were correct, and she had no reason to believe they were not on the nose, these aliens, truly that's what they were, were so powerful that Earthforce had no hope of being able to stand against them. Earth's fleet numbered in the thousands but many of those ships were corvettes and not the heavy units. Yet, even with all of the heavy units working together, they couldn't match the sheer destructive power of twenty of the visitors' ships!

"Captain," the rating at comms announced, "The Malevolent is hailing us again!"

"Open a channel," she murmured. What does that witch want now? she wondered.

Soon, the view screen shimmered on and displayed the image of Captain Gi'ral who looked at Keller with an expression on her exotically beautiful face that reminded the human of the old idiom 'the cat who ate the canary.'

"Hello, Captain Keller. I trust you were able to obtain informative sensor readings from the test with your, shall we say, fairly primitive equipment. However, if your sensors happened to be overloaded by the output of the Empire's mighty weapons, we would be happy to provide the results of our scans to you for your edification. My science officer would only require a few moments to transfer the information onto one of your...quaint data drives."

An annoyed Keller forced herself to remain calm and to refrain from screaming 'go screw yourself' to the Klingon harpy. Instead, she gritted out, "That won't be necessary, Captain Gi'ral. My crew was able to gather enough data to complete the mission."

"That is good. Well, since our presence here is no longer required, we shall take our leave. Good day, Captain Keller," the other woman said before she terminated communications. Moments later, after the Klingon's face had flashed off of the screen, the image of the Bird of Prey lingered for several seconds before it faded from view like a ghost.

Now that the Klingon vessel had apparently departed, there was nothing left for the Icarus to do there. "Helm, take us to Earth. Once there set our orbit for insertion in the South Atlantic re-entry corridor."

The ship had to return with the information that Earthforce had wanted. However, once the brass had it, she had a funny feeling they'd have a hard time accepting their report.

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