Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages (95 page)

“There is more to the lieutenant commander’s message, Captain,” Spock said. “She warns of an imminent clandestine attack of a major and devastating nature on Federation space.”

“Mr. Chekov, raise shields.” But Jim’s attention was distracted by an alarm indicator that suddenly began to flash at Sulu’s position at the helm console. Sulu, busy with taking
Enterprise
away from
Mascrar
and the rest of the Federation task force without immediately exposing her to the Romulans on the other side of the habitat, glanced at it and said, “Intruder alert, Captain!”

The intercom whistled.
“Bridge,”
Scotty’s voice said,
“we’ve got someone beaming aboard from one of the other ships. The transport signature’s Romulan!”

“Shields!”

“Up now, Captain.”

Too late,
Jim thought. “Scotty, where’s the intruder beaming to?”

“Transporter room two.”

“Seal that deck off. Get a security detail down there on the double.” He gripped the arms of the center seat, resisting the urge to jump up and see what the hell was going on. “Mr. Sulu, are we secure now?”

“Yes, Captain. Heading for the ingress point. Two ships coming in, decelerating from warp, down to about point two
c
now.”

On screen, with magnification, you could just see them, two sparks coasting inward in RV Trianguli’s hot blue light. “Uhura,” Jim said, “send to both ships.
Ortisei, Bloodwing,
break away, you are about to come under attack!”

“Enterprise,” came another voice. It was the city manager from
Mascrar,
sounding rather alarmed.
“You are not scheduled to leave formation at this time, and your movements and signals may be misconstrued—”

“Captain, I am picking up impulse engine activity out there,” Chekov said, working over his console. “But all ships in the system are in position and accounted for, none of them can be producing it!”

“The new waveform I detected earlier is associated with the impulse engine readings,” Spock said suddenly. “I believe your conjecture was correct, Captain. The source of the readings is accelerating toward
Ortisei
and
Bloodwing.
But there is still a peculiarity.” Spock stared down his scanner, manipulating it. “I cannot tell whether it is one impulse engine or two. It is ghosting, phasing in and out.”

“Mr. Chekov, lock weapons on that impulse engine reading and prepare to fire. Try to refine the scan, though! Mr. Sulu—”

“
Enterprise,
I warn you, if you open fire, we will act to enforce the neutrality of the space around us!”

“
Mascrar,
scan ahead of us, it’s not
our
fire you need to be worrying about! What about that impulse engine, attached to a ship that we can’t see? Sulu, position!”

“Four light-seconds out at bearing one one five mark six, Captain. Closing on
Ortisei
and
Bloodwing.”

“Oh, my God,” McCoy said softly. “This is it.”

“Security to Captain Kirk,”
a voice said.
“Lieutenant Harmon here.”

“Report!” Jim said.

“Three Romulans have beamed aboard, Captain,”
said Harmon.
“All male. All three are wounded, two severely. Those two are unconscious. The conscious one is asking specifically for Dr. McCoy.”

“Get them straight down to sickbay,” McCoy said. “I’ll meet you there. Uhura, page Dr. M’Benga and have him report there immediately. Sickbay, Burke!”

“Burke here, Doctor.”

“Incoming wounded. Romulan. Break out the Vulcaniform trauma packs. You’re going to have a security team in there in about three minutes, and I’ll be there in about five. Triage the wounded, stabilize them, and activate scrub fields as necessary.” And he was gone.

Jim turned his attention back to the screen. There was nothing to be seen out in the starry darkness but
Bloodwing
and
Ortisei,
coasting in. “The other Federation vessels are going to alert status,” Chekov said. “Shields going up. Romulan vessels are doing the same. Their weapons systems are heating up—”

And when the host on both parties saw that sword drawn…
But if the sword was
not
drawn, lives were going to be lost. He knew it.
“Ortisei!”
Jim said. “Afterburner, can you see the impulse reading approaching you? Fire at it, it’s going to attack!”

“
Bloodwing
is breaking away,” Sulu said. “The vessel running on impulse is changing course to intercept.”

“Both
Ortisei
and
Bloodwing
have raised shields,” Chekov said. “Weapons systems aboard
Bloodwing
coming on line—”

“
Enterprise,
I have orders not to fire unless fired upon,
” Gutierrez’s voice came back.
“You have the same orders, Jim. I can see a faint impulse track, all right, but there’s no sign of any cloaking device in use—”

“I am a fool,” Spock said.

The statement was so bald and so flat that even in these circumstances, Jim had to glance over at Spock in astonishment. “What?”

“I have misread data which has been in front of me for many hours,” Spock said, his voice tight. “The name
Pillion,
Captain! It is not just a name. It could be taken for such, for the Romulans often name ships after the accoutrements of an armed warrior:
Gorget, Helm,
and so on. A pillion is a saddle. But it is also an extra pad fastened behind a regular saddle so that another rider can use the same conveyance. To ride pillion is to ride two on a mount.”

Jim’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God,” he said, turning back to the screen.

“The impulse signature is changing,” Sulu said. “Two signatures, Captain, not one. One heading toward
Ortisei
now!”

“
Pillion
has been carrying at least one second vessel, which remained cloaked even though the primary one was uncloaked and visible,” Spock said. “They must have achieved a major breakthrough in the design of the cloaking device to be able to produce such an effect, especially one that would withstand visual and scan inspection at such close range. That is the vessel responsible for the attack we have just seen.”

Jim swallowed. This information alone qualified as one of the triggers that would activate his sealed orders, but he had little time to spare for that issue now.
Ortisei
and
Bloodwing
were getting closer. “The impulse sources continue to accelerate,” Chekov said. “One is now within conventional phaser range of
Ortisei.
Captain, shall I fire?”

He stared at the screen. It had never occurred to him that the sword to be drawn would be in
his
hand. He opened his mouth to tell Chekov to fire.

In the space between
Ortisei
and
Bloodwing,
the stars suddenly began to shimmer.

And
Bloodwing,
as she curved away, fired her phasers, nearly pointblank, right at
Ortisei.

Between the two of them, where space had been shimmering, only one spread of torpedoes had time to come blasting out from the little half-decloaked ship before it blossomed into a tremendous explosion.
Bloodwing
twisted and arced away from the explosion and the remaining torpedoes, and on the other side,
Ortisei,
having just begun an evasive maneuver, shuddered and sideslipped as the force of the explosion hit her shields.

And everything started to happen at once. All the Romulan ships but
Gorget
left their positions on the far side of
Mascrar
and started to move with increasing speed toward
Bloodwing. Bloodwing,
recovering from her evasive maneuvers, threw herself straight at the Romulan vessels, firing.

“Captain!” Chekov said. “The torpedoes that the cloaked vessel launched—
they’re coming back!
”

“Evasive,” Jim said.

“They appear to be tracking
Bloodwing,
” Spock said. “Difficult to determine whether they are targeting the ship’s ID, or just her engine type.”

Bloodwing
streaked past
Ortisei,
which was drifting now, a terrible flickering running up and down her starboard nacelle. The torpedoes followed, and the Romulan vessels, seeing her coming, scattered…

…but not fast enough. One torpedo, its tracking computers possibly confused by all the other Romulan engines in the area or deranged by the explosion of the originating vessel when it first fired, slammed into
Thraiset,
whose shields flared into a globe of fire and then collapsed. A second torpedo coming right behind the first one hit
Thraiset
amidships, and the ship instantly bloomed into a white fury of fire as its antimatter catastrophically annihilated.

“Brace for impact!”
Jim yelled. Even with shields up,
Enterprise
rocked and plunged as the shock wave from the matter-antimatter annihilation hit her. The lights wavered and the artificial gravity flickered once or twice, but not severely enough to throw people around. “Damage report!”

Spock was reading his console. “Reports coming in from decks six, eight, nine, forward,” he said. “Some injuries, no major structural damage. Shields down to sixty percent, they will take some time to recharge—”

Jim’s heart was pounding. It was a captain’s worst nightmare, everything happening at once, no way and no time to limit the damage.
Ortisei
was still drifting, the discharge-flicker around her nacelle gone now.
“Ortisei
is evacuating her crew to
Mascrar,
” Uhura said. “Matter-antimatter containment is holding, but they’re not taking any chances.”

That at least was some consolation. “Mr. Sulu, go after those torpedoes,” Jim said, “before this whole part of space turns into a free-fire zone! Mr. Chekov, phasers!”

“Ready, Captain,” Chekov said. But past
Ortisei,
Jim could see
Saheh’lill
and
Greave
curving around again past
Mascrar,
firing at
Bloodwing
as she passed…

…and
Saheh’lill
’s phasers hit
Speedwell. Speedwell
’s shields took the fire and held. She flung herself away from the Romulan vessel, forbearing to fire even though orders would have permitted it.
Saheh’lill
curved back toward
Mascrar,
low over the city’s surface, very low, still firing, trying to reach
Bloodwing
while she was at close range.

A terrible lance of fire suddenly blasted out from
Mascrar
and struck
Saheh’lill
full on. The Romulan ship simply vanished in it, together with its explosion, its only remnant a long lingering streak of excited ions in the space through which the beam had struck.

Sulu threw
Enterprise
past
Mascrar
in
Bloodwing
’s wake, and the view on the main screen gyred and pinwheeled wildly as Sulu rolled the ship hard on her longitudinal axis, and then up and over in a variant of the ancient Immelmann. Chekov pounced on his console, and then did it again, and two of the torpedoes following
Bloodwing
blew up, small bright clouds of expanding fire in the night. But another one, corkscrewing in pursuit as she did, missed
Bloodwing
as she suddenly straightened and ran straight at
Greave,
firing.
Hheirant,
now plunging away from
Mascrar
and toward
Enterprise,
took the torpedo on her shields. They flickered, went down; she started losing acceleration, limped away.

“How many of those things left?” Jim said.

“Two, Captain. Still tracking
Bloodwing.
She’s coming around tight to try to deal with them.”

Close by,
Sempach
was closing with the damaged
Hheirant. “Hheirant,”
Jim heard the comms officer aboard
Sempach
hailing them, “do you have casualties, can we assist—”

Hheirant
fired on
Sempach.

The flagship took the fire on her shields. A long moment’s pause…

Pillion
dived in from the other side and began to fire on
Sempach
as well, while
Hheirant
continued firing.

Sempach
yawed hard forward, quickly as a coin being flipped, and her phasers lanced out repeatedly at
Pillion
en passant.
Pillion
’s shields went down under the onslaught, and after a moment she broke off attack and fled out of range.
Hheirant,
though, could not do the same, and as the phasers raked her, she blew.

Once again
Enterprise
and the other ships shuddered and wallowed in the shockwave of the detonation. It passed, and people let go of whatever they had been using to brace themselves and stared at the screen.

Gorget
was fleeing, plunging away from RV Trianguli out into the darkness; she cloaked herself and vanished.
Pillion
streaked off in her wake and a second later was also gone.