Enemies at the Gate

Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Doctor McCoy was excited. Today was the day they would reach Excalbia. They would reach the planet in .3 hours, and then they would perform the necessary scans and hopefully find them. Scott had all the environmental suits ready after giving them a thorough going over. Suddenly the ship went into red alert. He grabbed his shirt and ran out of his quarters while putting it on. He slid into the lift and jabbed the button for the bridge. He walked out onto the bridge as on the screen came the view of a Romulan destroyer and a Klingon warbird. Oh shit. He walked over and stood next to Scotty as it was not even halfway through his shift. "Report," he snapped.

"We have two vessels approaching at low speed; no weapons are showing as armed. They do have their shields up." Sulu continued working at his console as he gave his report.

"Uhura, try to hail them. I wanna kno' wha' they want."

"Yes, sir," she said and turned around to send out the hail. "Sir, we are being hailed by both ships."

"On screen,"

The image of two men lite up the screen. Their scowling visage aimed at both each other and at the bridge crew.

"Ha'DIbaH 'ejyo', HoD Sogh divork jIvang." the sharp tones of the Klingon coming through.

"And I am acting Riov Centurion Lovok; we are heading to planet Excalbia. Why are you in here, Enterprise?" Lovok snapped.

"I am Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, acting Capt'n for the USS Enterprise. We ha' business on the planet."

"We have business there as well."

"So do we," Divork growled out.

"So, I take it ya are missing your Commanding officers as well," Scotty said to them.

"What makes you say this, Lieutenant Commander Scott," asked Lovok.

"Ye said, acting in front of ya titles. We, too, are heading there to retrieve wha' was stolen."

"Perhaps we can come to an accord, Lieutenant Commander."

"I'ma listenin'."

"We agree for the duration of the landing, and once back aboard ship, we go our separate ways peacefully, and in future, we can continue as enemies," he proposed.

"Agreed," Scotty said.

"We agree as well," Divork added.

"So from now until we are done and gone from the planet, we will work together," Lovok added.

"Aye, we should all be there in less than .3 hours."

"Very well, until then." And with that, they canceled the call.

"You do realize that we are going to have to tell Admiral Pike and the Ambassador's party."

"Aye," he answered morosely.

**********

Twenty minutes later, everyone was assembled in the Captain's ready room. "What is going in Lieutenant Commander Scott?" Pike asked.

"We ran inta two ships, Romulan and Klingon. Apparently, our Captain and First Officer weren't the only ones that were absconded," he told them.

"Indeed, you can to this conclusion how? I do not believe this is information that they would give willingly," Selek said.

"They said they ha' business on tha planet and they intraduced themselves as acting Captains," he told them. "The acting Captain, Centurion Lovok, proposed that we work tagether and go back ta being enemies next time we meet."