Note: Prologue + Chapters 1 through 11 Available through Request.

The Dancer Prince
Chapter 12

Written by Ambassador Yrishna Wolf.

The insignia of the old Monarchy seemed like a small dot on the agile starship that crossed Cardassian Monarchy space en route to the Segan Monarchy. As it entered Segan Monarchy sovereign space, it activated all its anti-detection devices and quickly entered hyper-transwarp. The red hyper-transwarp nexus seemed to engulf the starship as it headed at incredible speeds towards its intended target. The operation, authorized by the allied Cardassian Monarchy and the Supreme Militants' Union signalled a new friendship and a new balance of power in the Selevenar Galaxy that even His Majesty the Crown Prince Vladimir Rosbourg was completely unaware of. The vessel glided gently across through the hyper-transwarp nexus, and seemed to be at home in it, as it should be the vessel was designed for this kind of work. She was accomplishing speeds which were unheard of by the old standards of the Segan Monarchy, and the vessel was now heading back to the region where it was designed in search of her sisters.

Captain Desmond stared across the viewscreen as an officer walked into give him a status report on the efficiency of the hyper-transwarp engines. Captain Desmond signed off the report as he turned his eyes onto the view screen. For approximately a week, they would be looking at this red hyper-transwarp nexus as it took that long to get to the Segan Monarchy. Once there, they would have to drop out of hyper-transwarp as Segan vessels knew exactly how to pick up a vessel travelling within a nexus. For Segans, who had mastered the art of detection, it was like throwing a pebble inside a pond a finding it from 500 kilometers away. Captain Desmond, however, was very apprehensive about the situation. He contained the sole operational Clarel class heavy destroyer in the universe, and he wasn't about to let this Ghost starship fall into the hands of the enemy.

"Secure all compartments for drill duty," Desmond whispered to his first officer, who tapped in the code, "Initiate whatever combat drill you think is appropriate."

"Understood," The first officer replied, smiling as he tapped in the codes, within seconds the ship shook heavily and seemingly began to loose speed.

"Alert! Alert!" The Operations Chief Officer shouted, as he looked at his console, "I'm reading a pressure overload in the coolant chambers of the hyper-transwarp drive."

"Take us out of Hyper-transwarp," Desmond turned to his first Officer, "General Quarters, #1."

"Aye, Captain," The first officer glanced at his console, and shouted through the intercome, "General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands man your battlestions, General Quarters, General Quarters, all hands man your battlestations."

"CONN, Engineering," The Chief Engineer shouted through the intercom, aware that this was a drill, "We're reading a massive overload in the hyper-transwarp drive, we're going to need to eject the drive before it exploads!"

The hyper-transwarp nexus disappeared around the ship as the ship seemingly exited the transwarp nexus, the ship shook slightly as the flight control officer reported a succesful exit out of the nexus, Desmond turned to the intercom, "Engineering, CONN. eject the hyper-transwarp drive."

"Captain," The Tactical Officer stated calmly, "I'm reading 3 Mary-Rosbourg class starships heading our way, I think they're detecting us because of the hyper-transwarp drive."

"Understood," Desmond glanced over to the navigation's officer, "Initiate evasive pattern Omega 3, arm all weapons, prepare for battle."

"Setting course, bearing 249 mark 88," The navigation's officer announced as the ship banked a hard right, missing a phaser fire from one of the Mary Rosbourg class destroyers, "Tactical, I'm going to give you a shot...stand by."

The Clarel Class starship displayed its increased agility as it made a ninety degree angle turn up, firing its forward phasers in an awkward fashion. Its Larisa guns caused the shields on the Mary-Rosbourg class starships to fluctuate wildly as it returned fire, hitting the aft shields of the Clarel class starship. The starship in turned spun wildly on its axis confusing the targeting system of the Mary-Rosbourg class starships. The navigations officers of the vessels were no doubt surprised to see that the vessel they were shooting at still had power within it as it mustered more power to increase speed. As it turned on its side, it fired off three EST torpedoes, all of them hitting the lead ship.

"Direct Hit," The Tactical Officer announced, "Maximum damaged scored, 20% drop in power readings on the lead vessel."

"We're hit," The Operations officer chimed in, "Aft shields at 89%, shields are holding."

"Stand by for another run," Captain Desmond ordered, turning to his first officer, "Any particular move?"

"Recommend the Lalpha maneuver," The Executive Officer replied, as the ship turned around for another pass at the pursuing Mary-Rosbourg class destroyers.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"The Cardassian Monarchy has been extremely inactive in the Delta Quadrant, we had to arrest several Federation activists and expell them last month, this month there were none," Vladimir Rosbourg's prime minister reported as he glanced over the next order of business, "The Styx report that they will take care of investigating the Cardassian element and the reason for their lack of... activity."

"Good, if the Styx are going to take care of it," Vladimir surmised, looking over the tactical readouts on his desk, "Then maybe we can transfer some of the ships near the Cardassian border back to the Delta Quadrant, there's also been an unusual amount of activity between the Supreme Militants' Union and the Cardassian Monarchy."

"The Royal Defense Agency didn't report anything unusual, your majesty," The Prime Minister reminded Vladimir, he always seemed to be transfixed with ideas of conspiracies against him, "Are you certain you want to ruffle the feathers of the Supreme Militants' Union?"

"The Supreme Militants' Union is a tiny bird compared to our allies," Vladimir smirked, looking back at the tactical readouts, "The Styx are pleased that we were able to take the whole of the Segan Monarchy so easily, they've visited yesterday to reassure me of their full support of our actions."

"I..I..I see," The prime minister's voice became less confident, it was one thing to have Vladimir rule the Monarchy, but the Styx were awefully close to His Majesty and were too involved in the decision making process, "There is also the matter with the Federation and Carnian problem."

"You tell our Ambassadors to shut their trap and that we have no comment," Vladimir snapped, as he pulled the intelligence files concerning the precarious involvement of Segan agents in stirring the pot near the Carno-Federation border, "You should tell our agents to go to Level 2, I want to see the Carnians and the Federation go further into this crisis. Perhaps we should display the Federation some of our 'latest intelligence readings from the Sego-Carnian border, especially the ones showing massive troop deployments near the area of conflict.'"

"Very good, your majesty," The Prime Minister smirked at the ingenuity of the plan, "I'll transmit these images with the next intelligence package to our mission in the I.A.P. and the Federation, with express orders to relay the images as stealthily as possible, how will that do, your majesty?"

"Perfect, it will please me as much as it will please the Styx," Vladimir Rosbourg glanced over, noting that Alexander's transport was due back soon, "Anything else on your agenda, Prime Minister, how is our prosecution handling the shooting down of the appeal?"

"We're doing really well, we should have the 200,000 Segan guilden bribe into each of the judges by 17:00 hours today," The prime minister replied, looking outside the window, "The appeal should be no problem in your attempts at getting the media to become...state-controlled."

"Excellent, keep me posted, Prime Minister," Vladimir Rosbourg, turned around, watching as Alexander's shuttle," Well, I need to see my son, Prime Minister, you're dismissed, see you tommorow."

"Thank you, your majesty," The Prime Minister stood up, bowed to Vladimir and walked out. Vladimir was now left to offer a cold welcome to Alexander, his first born son.