The Operative (A Star Trek novel)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"Incoming!" shouts the helmsman, simultaneously sending Excelsior into a hard bank to port and a steep Z ascent. Even so, the photon torpedo grazes the edge of their shields. It skitters off without detonating.

Sulu breathes again. That was the second close call in the last hour. Mostly the "battle" has consisted of jockeying for position, with the Romulan and Klingon vessels standing between Indomitable and the planet to prevent a landing, but not engaging the Federation ships. Instead, they leave the harrying to the intrasystem fighters. None of the ships-of-the-line have actually fired on one another.

That is just a matter of time, Sulu knows.

Several of Indomitable's fighters have been destroyed. Failsafe emergency transporters managed to get all but two of the pilots beamed out into space to be picked up by their comrades. Enterprise took another hit only a half-hour ago and is still assessing damage. The enemy fighter was vaporized by Enterprise's phasers, but that was cold comfort. The torpedo got through.

Sulu sees in the viewer what he has been fearing for some time. The Romulan ship gracefully pirouettes and breaks orbit. Within two kilometers, its outlines waver, like he is viewing it through water into which a stone had been tossed. It vanishes.

"Now, Scotty!" Sulu shouts, but Scott has already reacted. Torpedo after torpedo leap from Enterprise's primary hull toward the Klingon bird-of-prey, interspersed with phaser fire. "Now, Mr. Kao." Excelsior's phasers lance out as well.

"Keep a sharp lookout, Mr. Kao," he tells his navigator/fire control officer. "That warbird has to decloak to fire, and I want all the warning time I can get. Mr. Scott, keep that bird-of-prey pinned down."

"This beastie's nae goin' anywhere, Cap'n," Scott says with satisfaction. In the viewer, the Klingon vessel is pitching slightly, and a ragged hole has opened in one side near the engines. The combined phaser fire overloaded one of its shields momentarily. "At least not cloaked."

"Well done, Commander," Sulu replies. He motions for Kao to cease fire. "One invisible bogey is enough to worry about. I'll personally apologize to the Klingon High Command later if necessary."

A klaxon sounds, simultaneously with a warning from Kao. "Warbird decloaking, 0 by 290 degrees!"

"I see her. Stand by...on my mark..."

"Disrupters powering up, captain!"

"Execute!"

Excelsior hangs in orbit, sleek and beautiful, with the menacing grey-green shape of the Romulan vessel swimming into existence beneath in it. The next instant, its space is occupied by a small canister. The ship has warped out.

Too late, the Romulan commander realizes what has been done to him, but before he can rescind his order, the ship's disrupters fire on the spot where Excelsior had been, detonating the mine. Matter and antimatter mix and a sphere of hell comes into being. But that is just the primer, the fuse that uses the disruptor's own field to rip a ephemeral hole in space-time, a gash that tunnels back up the disruptor's beam toward the Romulan ship's shields.

A few seconds later, Excelsior returns and is offering assistance to a severely-damaged warbird. Shield generators had not so much overloaded as detonated, breaching the warbird's hull in numerous places. The energy fed back through the power systems, causing an overload in the main reactor. Only quick thinking on the part of their engineering crew prevented the entire ship from blowing up. As it was, they had to eject their warp core, luckily away from the planet, where it exploded in an echo of the earlier blast.

"Indomitable," Sulu says, "prepare the landing parties. We can swat the rest of the intrasystem craft if they get in the way."

"Roger that, Excelsior," Smythe says in his clipped accent. "And might I say, brilliantly executed."

"Thank you, Indomitable."

"Enterprise to Excelsior."

"Yes, Uhura?"

"Commander Scott sends his compliments and asks that I tell you that we are beaming up the scientists now."

"Very good."

"Wait, Captain, here's Scotty now."

"Sulu, we got about half of them, but that's all. None of the Enterprise crew beamed up, though we've been in contact with the cap'n. They sabotaged a shield generator, but Ocht's crew must've fixed it doubletime." There is grudging admiration in the engineer's voice.

"Thanks, Scotty." For one brief moment, he thought that perhaps a miracle had been handed to him, that he wouldn't have to order ground action, action that will undoubtedly leave many good men and women, Federation and Athenian alike, dead.

He sighs. No miracles today. "Captain Smythe, proceed with the landing."

"Aye, Captain Sulu."

Without warning, the bridge lights wink out. Slowly, they are replaced by the eerie green strangeness of the bioluminescent emergency lights.

"What the hell was that?" Sulu shouts.

"Unknown, Captain." The science officer, a delicate Andoran named Kdeelan, peers into the hood of his computer station. "Damage reports coming in. The only damage is to our shield generators. We've been hit by something like a phaser from the planet's surface."

"Us, too, Sulu," Scott's voice says. "Blew through our shields like they were na' there, pinpointed our shield generators. The overloads took the mains off-line."

"Indomitable?"

"We were likewise hit, Captain. What the bloody hell is going on?"

"A warning shot," Sulu says.

"Aye, Captain," Scott says, "that it was. Those were Javelin phasers, though I didna think they were ready to go just yet. If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead. I'm just glad they didna unlimber them when we engaged their satellite."

"What now?" Smythe asks.

"I don't know," replies Sulu, rubbing his temples. "If we can pinpoint where those shots came from..."

"Captains, Scotty," Uhura breaks in, "I've just received a message from the planetary governor to all ships.

"It's...

"It's an invitation to dinner."