Sleep was just beginning to tease the edges of her consciousness when the all-too-familiar tone of the intraship communications system echoed across her quarters from the computer terminal perched atop her desk.
“ Commander Sarith, your presence is requested on the bridge.”
Duty calls,she admitted with amused resignation, tossing the bedclothes aside as she began the hunt for her own uniform.
“Report.”
Everyone on the Bloodied Talon’s bridge stiffened to attention as Sarith made her entrance, all save Ineti, of course. Like the mentoring taskmaster he was, her trusted second-in-command was pacing the perimeter of the small room, keeping a careful eye on the activities of the centurions on duty. He nodded in respectful greeting to Sarith.
“Our long-range sensors have detected three vessels,” Ineti said, “two Tholian and one Klingon, exchanging weapons fire.” Looking to her, he added, “The cloak is cluttering our sensor returns, however, and I was about to order a course correction to bring us closer.”
Listening to the irregular chorus of status indicators and humming machinery packed into and behind the bulkheads forming the ship’s control center, Sarith nodded at Ineti’s report. “Can we do so without risking detection?”
Ineti nodded. “Yes, Commander, if we reduce our power output as we draw closer, we should be able to remain concealed.”
“Make the course change,” Sarith ordered as she crossed the deck to a computer terminal. Like the other workstations on the bridge, the monitor and interface were built directly into a console molded into the angled bulkhead. As she activated the display, she called over her shoulder, “Do we know where either side’s ships came from?”
Still pacing around the central hub of control stations, stopping only to correct the settings on one centurion’s console, Ineti replied, “It appears the Tholians ambushed the Klingon ship, which we initially detected traveling from the direction of a nearby system. According to the star charts our agents were able to intercept from Klingon data transmissions, their military refers to it as the Palgrenax system. Four planets, only one inhabited by a preindustrial culture. From the subspace communications we’ve already decoded, the Klingons have laid claim to the system.”
“No doubt it offers something of value to them,” Sarith said as she called up to the computer display one of the pilfered Federation star charts. Stellar cartographers had already translated the Klingon chart’s various notations into native Rihannsutext, and she was pleased to note that someone had also taken the initiative to remove much of the vibrant—and distracting—color schemes that seemed to saturate the original versions.
According to the chart, the Palgrenax system was well away from the travel and patrol routes that had already been established by Starfleet vessels traversing the Taurus Reach, at least if Sarith was to believe the intelligence reports provided to her prior to the Talon’s departure from Romulan space. It was, however, clearly within the area that seemed to have been dominated by Klingon ships since their incursion into the region some weeks ago. It was possible that—in addition to whatever natural assets it might offer to the resource-deprived Klingon Empire—the system’s lone inhabited planet might also be providing a base of operations for Klingon vessels working in this sector.
Worth investigating,Sarith decided.
“Commander,” said N’tovek from where he stood before his station at the central hub, “we approach the enemy vessels.”
Turning from the computer terminal, Sarith moved across the bridge until she could see into the viewfinder at the centurion’s station. As she leaned closer to better see the sensor displays, she made a conscious effort not to look at N’tovek. To his credit, he stepped aside to allow his commander unfettered access to the station, as always conducting himself like the acceptable, if not outstanding, officer he was and offering no clue to anyone who might be watching that he was anything more than a subordinate sworn to live and die by her command.
Why, then, do I get the feeling that neither he nor I are fooling anyone with this pretense?
Forcing away the errant thought, Sarith focused her attention on the viewfinder. Inside the miniaturized display, which provided N’tovek with images translated from the abundance of information being received by the suite of sensor arrays positioned all around the exterior of the Talon’s hull, she could see the sensors’ depiction of the skirmish taking place far ahead of them. Reduced to cold, lifeless bits of computer-generated icons and commentary text, it was easy to forget that the digital caricatures represented lives thrown into the chaos; violence surely gripped the participants of the conflict she observed.
Or, in the case of the Klingons, the exhilaration of heading once more into battle.
One line of sensor data caught her eye, and she noted the distance separating the Talonfrom the pitched battle. “Maintain this position,” she ordered as she stepped away from the viewfinder. “Transfer the sensor feed to the main display.”
She felt the change in pitch as the Talon’s engines cycled down, sensed the slight pull as the inertial dampening systems lagged ever-so-slightly behind the ship’s abrupt deceleration. For a moment she wondered if their arrival and the sudden bleeding off of power, despite the still active cloaking device, might attract the attention of the Tholians or the Klingons. The earlier close call with the lone Tholian vessel was still fresh in her memory, and she was not yet ready to dismiss that occurrence as a stroke of random good fortune on the part of the Tholians’ sensors.
Moving to stand before the large display screen built into the bridge’s forward-facing bulkhead, Sarith folded her arms across her chest as the image on the monitor coalesced into a view of black, barren space. Otherwise serene darkness was peppered by the dim illumination of distant stars as well as the frenetic movements of two Tholian ships darting above, below, and around a single Klingon battle cruiser.
Though the small, arrowhead-shaped Tholian ships were of a design Sarith had never seen firsthand, the Klingon warship was of the same basic configuration as had been employed by the empire for more than a century, its distinctive orblike primary hull at the forefront of a long, narrow boom extending from the vessel’s angular main drive section. Warp nacelles mounted to the underside of the hull gave the cruiser an illusion of menace, power, and speed even now as it struggled against a more maneuverable and decidedly tenacious enemy.
While other militaries—including her own—often attempted to create something new and improved in the hopes of enhancing the abilities and efficiency of their ships and technology, Sarith knew from experience that the Klingons approached such matters from a much different mind-set. Though upgraded and enhanced over time, the well-worn design had in its basic form served the empire with distinction for longer than she had been alive. She suspected it would continue on in some fashion well after she had left this plane of existence.
On the viewscreen, arcs of energy flared into existence as particle-beam weapons impacted on the Klingon ship’s deflector shields, its movements to evade and engage its harassing enemy seeming sluggish and ineffective against the pair of smaller and faster vessels.
“The Klingon cruiser’s shields are almost depleted, Commander,” reported Centurion Darjil, standing just to Sarith’s left and not looking up from his own control console. “One Tholian ship has lost all shields and has sustained damage to its main engines.”