Data: Sorry; I can only update about once a week. As it is, I am ignoring my other stories. :feels guilty: I am glad you liked it though. Are you sure I cannot read you mind, even now? :)
Iluvhawkeye: Glad you liked it. And we talked on the phone ages ago, so hopefully you are no longer confused.
MajorHoulihan22: Yay, new reviewer! Iluvhawkeye told me about you. I will probably not be that cruel, but I do have a few... surprises planned. Glad you enjoyed it!
I had some problems with this chapter, partly because I am not as good at writing battles. Hence, the long time between updates. But, as I seem to have ideas, and it is 2:34 am so no little sister can come begging for the computer, I should update faster. On a side note, I just learned how to do that little line thing. Cool, no? R&R!
"It has been three days and we are still getting nothing!? What is this, a freighter?" Elaina demanded in frustration. The center chair sat cold and empty as the agitated counselor paced in front of the viewscreen. She had been under a lot of stress, with being thrust in command and relying on a Romulan warbird, and who counsels the counselor?
"Sir, we are doing everything we can to get the commodore back, but even a starship like this cannot do everything. Are you sure the Romulans are taking us in the right direction?" a human ensign asked in worry.
"Nothing is sure right now, Ensign," Elaina moaned. "Just keep trying to reach him via communicator. In the meantime, I am going to go replicate a pot of coffee. Be right back." She strode into T'Son's ready room just in time to receive a subspace call from Vokar.
Despite the fact that the communicators had a range of one and one half sectors, T'Son, Qwi, and Toreth had still not managed to contact anyone by the third day. The poor Trio was sitting in a draft of cold air, miserably hoping they would not be found and watching Toreth fiddle with her communicator. The Romulan woman was not patient, and kept narrowing the beam to try and get it to reach just a little bit farther. Suddenly, in an unexpected burst of static, her efforts paid off.
"Th- static ird Kaleh, Subcommander Voka- static this?" the voice on the other end said.
"Vokar?" Toreth cried happily into the piece of metal. "You are alive? This is Toreth." She adjusted a few things and Vokar suddenly came through a lot clearer.
"Toreth! I am so happy you are safe! Just a minute, I have Elaina Darkeir on subspace... she wants to know if T'Son is there."
"T'Son and Qwi are both right next to me. We are fine, aside from being freezing, starving, mentally and physically exhausted, and homesick. Is my ship still in one piece?"
"All three ships are fine, Toreth, but why are you worried about that? You should be more concerned with how you are going to get out of there. A Klingon ship is not a safe place to be if you are Romulan, let alone Chairman of the Tal Shiar and the one who has a bunch of knowledge of the future. What are your coordinates?" T'Son, who had been up to the Klingon bridge to spy, gave Vokar their coordinates. "That's not too far away!" Vokar said with happiness. "Toreth, I will have you out of there as fast as I can. I miss you."
"I miss you too. The next second could not be too soon for me," Toreth said, staring at the communicator with a faraway look in her eyes.
"Oh please," Qwi muttered. "Stop wasting time. You two are acting like a lovesick couple about to be reunited after a long and difficult adventure."
"We might as well be," Toreth said with a grin. "Vokar and I spend almost every moment of our existence together anyway, either in a professional manner or because we are best friends who live on the same ship. The only thing missing is the whole 'one true love thing.'"
"Spare me," T'Son, the least romantic of the Trekkie Trio, muttered as he rolled his eyes and turned away. Toreth laughed softly.
"In all seriousness though, Vokar, please, get me- us- back as quickly as you can. Not only do I not want to stay another minute on this Klingon ship, but they are planning to attack Enterprise. Despite the fact that I am now I Romulan... I watched these people on 2D screens for a year, then stayed and made friends with them for three. I do not want harm to fall to them, Vokar."
"Oh, and what were you planning on doing to me?" T'Son muttered sarcastically. Toreth pretended to be thinking about it.
"Torture, interrogation under pressure, mind invasion, drugs, four lights, anything else you want to know?" she asked casually. Her grin belied her words though.
"Bah," T'Son muttered. Both females gave him strange looks.
"I think now is where I step out," Vokar's voice floated up from the communicator. "I love you, Toreth. Good bye."
"I love you too, Vokar. May the smiles rejoice the day we meet again," Toreth said in typical poetic manner. Reluctantly, she slowly closed her communicator, and turned around to see her former best friends grinning.
"You think he's handsome, you want to date him, you-" Qwi sung teasingly.
"Now who's wasting time, Miss Congeniality," the irate Romulan muttered as she stalked by, or as well as one can stalk in an air duct. However, Qwi noticed that she did not deny the song's veracity.
Spock sat in his chair, watching the stars on the viewscreen go by. Though a Vulcan, he almost understood Kirk's mentality about wanting trouble when boredom struck, and he supposed that sometimes that attitude was... logical. Despite the fact that boredom was technically what got the Federation into a quadrant-wide war (for had Kirk and Bones not been bored, they would have never eavesdropped on the Trekkie Trio's conversation, and Toreth would never have become Chairman of the Tal Shiar and started the war), it had also given the Federation advanced technology through T'Son and Qwi.
Spock wondered what was going on with those three now. Who knew where Toreth had gone after she disappeared ten long years ago? Qwi and T'Son were being sent off to the Romulan border last he checked. He did not know if they were still alive or not. Maybe they had killed each other. It seemed possible. Toreth had really been the only link between the two at the time of her disappearance.
"Captain, sensors are reading a disturbance directly ahead... holy cow, that's a torpedo!"
"Shields," Spock said, just in time. The torpedo from nowhere caused a substantial dip in power though. Two more torpedoes followed the first one, again, seeming to come out of nowhere. Was there perhaps a rip in the space-time continuum here? Were these torpedoes from nowhere in actuality coming from a different timeline or universe?
"Sir, sensors are picking up two Federation ships coming towards us at high warp speeds," the same ensign said. "They will arrive in four minutes, three seconds, Captain. Should I hail them?" Spock gave a short nod as the ship lurched again, nearly sending him out of his seat. It was a long four minutes, with the poor Enterprise trying to evade something that might or might not exist. But at last, the two ships got there, and two things happened simultaneously. A Romulan warbird decloaked and the Nathan-class ship finally answered the hail.
"Lieutenant Commander Elaina Darkeir," the Betazoid on screen said by way of greeting. "The warbird is friendly and a Klingon bird-of-prey that can fire while cloaked is attacking you. We need to get a decent enough scan to pick up a human, a Vulcan, and a Romulan so we can beam them out of there before we destroy it. Can you help?" Spock thought for a moment. Human, Vulcan, Romulan... that sounded familiar.
"I can help. Would you be referring to Commodore T'Son, Captain Qwi, and Toreth?" Spock asked. Elaina's face registered surprise even as she snapped to someone in the background to "put more power to the sensors while Vokar keeps firing," whatever that meant. Clearly, the lieutenant commander was not normally in command.
"Yes," she said. "If myself, Commander Ruen, or Subcommander Vokar give you coordinates, can you transport all three of them to your ship?" she asked.
"Affirmative," Spock said as he called up a few reports from other areas of the ship. All the Enterprise could do now was wait for more information, and, illogical though it was, hope that Elaina and her interesting friends knew what they were doing. And Spock knew better than most that when the Trekkie Trio was involved, even the simplest of tasks also managed to somehow go horribly awry.
The space battle continued, though by this point it was clear that Korok had no chance. Faced with a Romulan warbird and three Federation starships, some of whom new the ionized gas trick, he was as good as dead. However, he would not let his three prisoners escape so they could go on to destroy more Klingon ships. He suspected they would move towards the transporters and try to beam themselves out while their ships were close, and he was distracted. They had underestimated him.
Korok entered the transporter room to a furious Trio held immobile by a few security guards. At his nod, they released the Trio and stepped back. T'Son, Qwi, and Toreth stood in a line, staring defiantly at Korok. Had one known them earlier, he or she or it could have seen the closer-than-family friendship these three had shared those long years ago. Korok got out his disruptor.
"I may be defeated while fighting for the Klingon Empire, and I do not mind," he said. "That is an honorable death. However, they will undoubtedly try to beam you away, and I cannot allow you to live and continue to give information that will help destroy the Empire. Therefore, good bye. There is a saying on Earth- ladies first." With that, he pointed the disruptor at Qwi and fired.