The Operative (A Star Trek novel)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Serenely circling the planet are two alien warships.

Their masters' races have been enemies, then uneasy allies, and now are somewhat less than either. The negotiators aboard are competitors for a ripe plum of Federation technology, and this delicate situation keeps the Romulan and Klingon ships on opposite sides of the planet. Competition could so easily provoke a confrontation, and confrontation, a war. Neither of their peoples can afford a war just now, at least not with each other.

With the Federation...well, that could be another matter.

Suddenly, there are three more ships nearby, popping out of warp in tight formation, shields up. First the Romulan ship, which is closer, then the Klingon, move to intercept. It is not an unexpected development for Federation ships to show up. The other two become by tacit agreement allies of the moment.

Aboard Excelsior, Captain Hikiru Sulu gravely regards the alien ships' images in the viewer at the front of his bridge. He is a placid, slender Japanese, with an angular face and keen eyes that seem to miss nothing.

"Commander Scott, Captain Smythe," he says in his dry, precise voice, "are we ready?"

"Aye, Cap'n Sulu," Scott's voice says from the air.. "Enterprise is at your disposal. Let's go get the captain."

It is clear, even with all the other captains about, that there is only one captain.

"Right, Commander," Smythe agrees, his upper class English accent a nice counterpoint to Scott's burr. "Indomitable standing by."

The three Federation ships are deployed as a triangle pointed away from the planet. Excelsior and Enterprise are at the front, with the troop ship, more lightly armored, bringing up the rear.

Excelsior is a huge ship, sleek and elegant. It is newer and in many ways more advanced than Enterprise; the shape of things to come, or so they say. By rights, Enterprise should look old and outdated as it now flanks its younger cousin, yet somehow it manages to look both majestic and fierce, a wolf to Excelsior's silky and dangerous polar bear, even with its injured saucer.

Indomitable is shorter than Enterprise, but bulkier. It lacks the cylindrical secondary hull that the other two have supporting their warp nacelles. Instead, it has only a primary hull, deeper than either of the other two ships'. Two warp nacelles sprout directly beneath the saucer. Enormous hanger doors are spotted around both the top and bottom of the hull, and an oversized impulse drive blunts the back of the disk. Behind the doors are rows of landing craft, atmospheric aircraft, and intrasystem fighters. One set of the bottom doors opens slowly now, disgorging a dozen small darts that swarm out to take up stations around the three ships like bees around a hive.

Sulu uses the bridge's viewer to check the sides, aft, above, below. He nods to himself, satisfied at the deployment. That is about the only thing he is satisfied with.

The two ships facing him across the void are incredibly dangerous. He has fought each kind (Older versions of each kind, he reminds himself) as helmsman aboard Enterprise. But never both together that he can remember. Different armament, different tactics, radically different psychologies.

And all those other times, he was not captain. The captain then had been someone supremely competent, someone whose orders you could follow confidently, without worrying about the outcome of the battle being tipped by mistakes. Sulu was as sure of himself as any other commander in Starfleet, but all the same, he found himself wishing that Kirk were aboard rather than down on the planet's surface somewhere.

He is pleased to be able to see the Klingons and Romulans, at least. It means that they are trying to warn or frighten off the Federation ships, not necessarily immediately attack them. Otherwise, they would be cloaked.