Chapter 78:
Starfleet ships were assembling for attack plan Delta. Just as Cora's vision showed, the Vulcans found it acceptable, after some refinement of it.
Rojor and Renée went to the conference center on Devron 2 built by the Devronians. The Federation teams had figured out with the Devronians a method for them to use a device to speak, and also be able to communicate over subspace, so they didn't need to possess someone to speak anymore.
The Devronians said, "Rojor wants to hear if the Federation plan would work. He knows that we asked for a conference, while the Federation seers do not believe that would be beneficial for the Federation. It would have saved the future of Devron, but we now see that larger goals of the long term future of the Federation, and the planets now in the Romulan Star Empire, can be secured as well with the Federation plan.
Yes Rojor, the Federation plan to scare the Romulans, with your family interceding, should result in the Romulans joining the Federation instead of being its enemy."
Rojor said, "Thank you. The Federation seer, Cora, also said that later, I and my family would face attempts to attack us. She said that the Devronians would use their seeing ability to protect us from these attacks."
The Devronians said, "We will use our abilities to warn you of dangers. We also offer you a deeply sheltered location within Devron 2 for any of you to stay as long as you want to, at any time."
Rojor said, "Thank you. I would like to setup a way to communicate with you."
In the cave two bracelets appeared. The Devronians said, "Rojor and Renée will wear these. They provide a combined magical and subspace method of communicating with us."
It was later explained to them that during the time they were away at New Berlin, Devron already joined the Federation Alliance, and technology had been shared already in both directions. There was also going to be a magical school on Devron 2 for graduates of the magical schools to learn Devronian magical methods. Generally the students would study there for 6 months or a year.
While the fleets were assembling, there was a lot of planning as to exactly how Rojor would contact the Romulan Senate. The sequence of attack plan delta, which included that communication, was already decided.
The briefing of the movement phase of attack plan delta, included this for the starships, "We do not have the means to hide warp signatures while in motion. Our best intelligence is that the Romulans also do not have this ability, although they would likely invent it within the next 200 stardates.
Therefore our arrival will not be a surprise. Expect mines to be prepared. Expect the destination to be guessed, even though our attack vector will change, and only when near the destination will we be heading directly towards it.
We are counting on the Romulans deciding to vector their own fleet to meet ours. There are contingencies if they do not."
The plan was ready. The fleet arrival at the destination, near Romulus, was coordinated to be at stardate 2027.75, which corresponded to October 1st 2027. At the same time there would screening fleets in different directions. Defensive fleets considered sufficient were kept at Devron and New Berlin, in addition to MS with its new colony.
The arrival went according to expectations. A Romulan fleet moved to intercept it in the outer part of the Romulan system. They assembled behind and around a large number of stealth mines. Their ships did not use any stealth, probably to lure the invasion fleet into the minefield.
The Federation fleet sent a cloud of drones towards the Romulans. The Romulans fired beam weapons, but couldn't destroy that many of them. Then there was a large explosion in the minefield, where one of the drones exploded.
With a gap in the mine field, another cloud of drones went through it. The Romulans weren't too worried, since each drone was small and the Romulan shields should be able to handle any explosions that drones of that size could be capable of. If the drones would reach the ships, the ship's hulls could send out a blast of energy that should disrupt any hull breaching capability.
Suddenly each Romulan ship went dark. The Federation had been working on a secret weapon. It was expected to only be effective once, since if it were understood how it worked, counter-measures could be developed.
It was the last research project that Albus Dumbledore was part of. He invented, as a young wizard, a deluminator that could remove light and also apparate people. The research project turned the idea into a small enchanted device on a small drone. It was specifically designed to take down energy shields, at least for a while. It was assumed that damage control on a ship would find a way to reroute power and restore the shields.
The method used against the Orion ships 5 years earlier, was not used in this attack, since it was assumed that the method would have become known by now, and counter-measures devised.
In the instant after the shields were taken down, transporters removed the main power source aboard the ships. Then the main fleet approached and used beam weapons against any functional beam weapons using stored power, and also destroyed the torpedo launchers on each ship.
Apparition devices quickly removed all personnel off the Romulan ships to waiting cargo holds on Federation ships that were defended against hand-held disruptor fire.
The plan was to destroy the Romulan ships after removing all people, but the ships were quickly set by the Romulan commanders to self-destruct. This was expected, and the transportation of the crew was fast enough to rescue them before the ships exploded. During the planning the Vulcans made sure that there was enough transport capacity and speed.
All Federation ships were far enough away to not be damaged by the explosions. The unmanned drones were expendable.
The Federation ships then surrounded Romulus, staying out of effective range of the planetary defenses. With this plan, the planet Remus was ignored and bypassed.
Missiles were sent from the planet, and from the space stations, but they were destroyed before hitting Federation ships. Some other Romulan ships arrived, but the Federation repeated the same deluminator attack against them.
A message was sent to the planet, "Send the planetary leadership on a shuttle, approach the fleet and turn off power to the shuttle."
The entire Romulan Senate, went up in a shuttle and powered down. After scanning them, each was apparated to a secure area and had their weapons removed. They were brought to a conference room surrounded by a viewscreen, showing several Romulan planets, and different ship warp signatures. They were offered a variety of refreshments and told to sit.
A Tellarite admiral said, "I am Admiral Xalond Gleth. We will now discuss the future of the Romulan people. Our actions of war against you were not due to any hostile actions on your part. They were based on your future intentions and capability to become our enemy.
Before you consider responding with threats, you should know that we take your threats seriously. Perhaps the only potential enemy we have met so far that we do take seriously. We therefore chose a moment where we had the advantage to remove a threat.
You might ask what happens now? The fact that we called you here to talk, means that there are options."
A Romulan said, "I am Proconsul Merrok. What options are you offering?"
A Human said, "I am Kotov Georgiyevich, Federation Alliance diplomat. You might ask yourself why we considered you a threat. It is due to your intelligence and ability to research advanced technology. If we had allowed a hostile peace you would have gained our secrets and built upon them. You would have presented a credible threat to the Federation. As a result our policy would be that of controlling Romulus after causing its military surrender.
However, a combination of predicting the future and our meeting Rojor of House Radaik gave us and you another option. Under that house, Romulus can be a free people among the many free peoples of the Federation Alliance. Romulus would share technologies freely, be able to develop its society as it chooses to, and become prosperous.
In addition, while we predict a supernova of your system in stardate 2387, the Federation will do everything possible to research how to prevent it, and in the possibility that it cannot, to relocate everyone affected.
What Romulus will not be able to do, under any of its options, is to rule other peoples and planets. Every non-Romulan on Romulas will be interviewed and given the option to go elsewhere. Remus will have its own government, and have the option to remove all Romulans there. The same status will occur on all other places with a population being ruled by Romulans.
You should be aware that this entire meeting is being broadcast to the people of Romulus.
You should also be aware that the people on your ships that we attacked have been safely removed to our custody and will be returned to their home planets at the conclusion of our agreements.
Our demands for a peaceful option are this.
The resignation of all members of the Senate, leader of the Tal Shiar, and other major institutions of Romulan government.
We will send our people to rule instead, or we will accept House Radaik doing so, if it gives its agreement to live up to our requirements.
The Romulan Star Empire will be no more. Instead there will be a Romulan government of the planet Romulus. Other planets will form their own government. Free association could be agreed to between the new governments, but there will be no rule over another.
There will be no slavery.
People wishing to leave a planet, who have another place willing to accept them, will not be prevented from leaving.
Romulus joins the Federation Alliance. This will give it access to Federation technologies, and will require sharing all of its technologies.
The population will not be prevented from receiving information from the Federation Alliance.
As part of the Federation Alliance, Romulus will be contributing military resources to it. All Federation members agree to fight against any member who attacks another without Federation agreement. The Federation Alliance is not forgiving of betraying the Federation.
Romulus will be given a vote in the Federation Alliance decisions equal to its resource allocation requirement, which is based upon the size of its economy."
The siege of Romulus continued, until a transmission from the planet said, "The reformed Romulan Senate of House Radaik accepts the Federation requirements and has removed from senior office all others. It hereby dissolves the Romulan Star Empire."
The Federation dispatched some of its fleet to visit all Romulan controlled systems, to enforce the agreement. Those systems that were settled by Romulans would be required to form their own government, which later could associate with Romulus if there was agreement. Systems with other native sentient life would have the Romulans evacuated. The Remans were considered a different native species for this purpose.
Considerable Federation assistance was given to Remus to help them build a society independent of Romulans. They were offered membership in the United Federation, which they later accepted.
On Romulus there was less opposition than expected. The Romulans society is very hierarchical, meaning that they will tend to follow established authority. They also tend to be reactive, to study a situation to see advantages and risks, rather than charging in before that understanding.