Her father was shouting, "C'mon, honey, MOVE!" She felt his hand tighten on hers and sensed the fear in his voice.
"Papa, why do we have to go? And why didn't we bring my toys?"
"No time to explain, little one, we have to hurry," he said, breathlessly leading her through the crowded streets towards a tall building Nei'rrh new was a shuttle launch station. She'd watched them before, their green lights twinkling until they melded together in the sky and became just another bright, distant light, twinkling as they climbed ever higher in the inky black.
"Are going on a ship?!" she asked. She'd always dreamed of going up to the stars. She had fantasized that they were each an honored soul, and that they watched over her and her father from the halls of Erebus above.
He ignored her question and turned the corner to the courtyard for the shuttle station, only to be confronted by a massive crowd, clamoring to be let inside and given passage offworld. He uttered a curse he would normally have suppressed for her sake, and she saw his shoulders sag in defeat. "We'll never make it now," he said, "there's not enough ships for everyone." Looking at Nei'rrh, he forced a smile for her. "Listen, little one. You must be brave. Do not disappoint me."
Perish the thought! "Of course not, papa! I AM brave," she said, smiling up at him.
"Good. Come on." He took her hand again and led her into and through the crowd until they were nearly at the gates. She could only see knees and belts and shoes through the crowd, but she heard her father. "PLEASE! Take my little one! Save my child!" What a funny thing to say, she thought, he will of course be coming on the ship, too, right?
No sooner had the thought and possibility formed in her mind, she felt strong hands lift her up. At first she thought her papa was putting her on his shoulders, but as she was lifted, she saw his face, wrenched with grief, tears streaming from his eyes, disappearing on the wrong side of the gate.
She screamed.
She screamed as they took her aboard the ship, placed her in a seat and buckled her in.
She screamed as the ship rose into the sky, until her home disappeared into the lush green landscape of the planet.
She screamed as the ship escaped orbit.
She screamed as the energy wave from the explosion of the nearby star tore her planet apart, then slipped into the distance as the ship entered warp.
She screamed until she could not scream anymore, until her consciousness slipped away and she remembered no more.
**** 22 years later ****She opened her eyes and sighed, "It'll work," she repeated for the twelfth time since they'd undocked half an hour before. Whether to calm her troops or herself, she wasn't quite sure. This was her plan, after all, and if all went well she would be in command of one of the finest warships ever constructed by Romulan hands by day's end. Vice Admiral Nei'rrh Ktiria of the Romulan Republic gripped her disruptor pistol tightly in her gloved hands.
The shuttlecraft slid ever closer to the planet, and ever closer to the orbit where she knew a Scimitar-class warbird awaited, cloaked just as her shuttle was. The difference, however, was that her shuttle was very small, and thus required very little power to maintain the cloak. She could therefore use the transporter while cloaked, which in this case gave her a colossal advantage.
Republic command had learned just twenty-four hours earlier that this warbird had been sighted decloaking and recloaking in orbit, as though having maintenance issues. If so, her crew would be preoccupied with repairs and unprepared to repel boarders. The tricky part, of course, was finding her and then discerning the correct coordinates for transport. Cloaked craft, however stealthy at range, were easily discovered if you knew what to look for up close.
"Admiral, we may have something," whispered the pilot, obviously excited by the cloak & dagger aura of the mission.
"Show me." She looked at the screen and as she watched, first a faint ountline appeared, and then more details. They'd found her. She patted the pilot on the shoulder. "Remind me to have a word with Dr. Loruus when we return. This cloak-detection scanner is worth its weight in latinum."
"Aye-aye, Admiral," he chuckled.
"Remember... once we transport, you're to immediately distance yourself from the warbird and listen on the frequency I programmed into the subspace transceiver. Jam any attempts you hear to call for help." She didn't have to add that they would of course hear one way or another if the boarding attempt were a success. The pilot nodded and shook her hand.
What a different people we have become, she thought with an inward chuckle,
when a mere pilot can banter with an Admiral."Alright, people, you know the mission and you know what we're up against. Power up. Into the transporter bay, by fours. Mr. D'vex?" She directed her attention to the transporter chief for her little mission. He would transport over in the last wave, while the copilot operated the transporter. She stepped into the transporter bay, raised her disruptor and was joined by three troops. "Let's do it."
The shuttle faded in a haze of green particles and was replaced by the dark, sinister interior of the
Plaaere, one of the the Tal Shiar's massive
Scimitar-class warbirds. More of an enourmous weapon than a cruiser capable of exploration or domestic missions, this vessel didn't have an expansive interior or crew compliment of hundreds. The Tal Shiar preferred smaller crews and more automation, the better to hold weaponry and limit the chances of mutiny or infiltration. All the better for Nei'rrh and her boarding squads. The catch was that the Tal Shiar ships were wired like massive booby traps, for policing their own crews.
She glanced about to get her bearings, finding that she and her squad had materialized in the port-aft cargo hold, amongst hundreds of torpedoes These, she mused, the ship
could in fact hold by the hundreds. Perhaps she might turn this into an exploration vessel after all.
Shaking off her impertinent musings, she holstered her disruptor and took out a tricorder. Her squad stood still, showing the discipline expected of Romulans, she thought smugly as she scanned the area. There HAD to be some trip-sensors on some of these torpedo stacks. The Tal Shiar would have been insane NOT to put them here, with the potential for sabotage.
Satisfied there were none in the next step or two, she re-unholstered her disruptor and moved forward. They needed to reach and secure the bridge, three decks and 35 sections forward. What a trek this would be! She hoped the other squads would meet with better luck as Subcommander D'Vex spread them throughout the ship, in what they hoped would be lesser-traveled areas.
Her squad stepped in her footprints behind her, plasma rifles at the ready as they made slow, steady progress forward through the field of high-explosive plasma torpedoes.
A firefight in here could be a problem... Nei'rrh sighed to herself.
Let's hope we can get out of here without having to find out.At that moment, machinery around them began to whir to life. The loading mechanism for the warbird's aft torpedo launchers came to life as internal repulsor beams lifted and precisely loaded each torpedo into the waiting tubes at the back of the room. "Great," she rolled her eyes, "they must have spotted the
Irea."
I sure hope we're not alone in here, she added silently. Picking up the pace, they were only a few stacks away from the door leading to the central internal corridor when it opened.
Nei'rrh and her squad leapt behind the nearest torpedo stack and peered out.
Great. Looks like someone knows we're here, she thought, grinding her teeth in frustration. Four centurions with heavy disruptor beam rifles and armor were fanning out into the room, and they seemed intently looking for something, or someone.
Guess I missed a trip-sensor after all, she cursed inwardly. "Alright," she whispered across the aisle, "you take the two on the left, we'll take the two on the right. Looking at the crewman who had leapt beside her, she whispered, "I'll get the one closest to the door. You get the other one." He nodded imperceptibly and tensed, ready for her command.
She peered around the torpedo hiding her and fixed her target's position in her mind. Looking down at her disruptor, she re-verified that it was charged and ready, safety off. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and mentally counted to three. On two, she opened her eyes. On three, she rasped, in a loud whisper, "NOW!"
Whirling around the side of the torpedo, she drew a bead on the surprised centurion's center of mass and depressed the firing stud. Green light crackled to life at the tip of the pistol and lanced out and through his chest, leaving a smoldering hole and an acrid stench of burning flesh and blood. She felt the familiar "whoosh" as the plasma rifles discharged and watched eerie green flames engulf two of the other centurions as they fell like stringless marionettes.
The last centurion had taken cover behind a console near the door and was returning fire in the direction of the other two team. "Fan out and flank him!" she shouted, the need for secrecy now long past. She once again whirled around her cover and fired until the charge was depleted on her disruptor, suppressing the centurion's fire and allowing her squad to gain some ground. Taking cover once again to let her pistol's power pack recharge, she looked up at where the return fire was hitting and saw the torpedo behind where she'd been standing starting to glow. She let out a string of particularly uncivilized oaths and dove across the aisle to the other stack, barely missing being cut in two by a beam of disruptor energy.
Suddenly the shooting stopped, and she peered out from behind her new, highly explosive, cover to find her squad standing over the dead centurion and kicking the weapons away from the others. She ran forward and took cover by the door.
"Alright, guys, remember. If they're wearing yellow armbands, don't shoot," she said with a positively feral grin. Keying the door, which slid open with the usual musical sound, she spun into the corridor facing aft and scanned for threats. Beside her, another crewman did the same, and she heard the other two bolt into the corridor facing forward towards the front of the ship. Seeing no threats, she turned and tapped the lead crewman on the shoulder and they moved forward down the corridor towards the next door. As they were moving, it opened and out stepped a centurion who had obviously heard the weapons fire in the portside cargo bay.
She dropped to one knee and reflexively fired directly into his chest, watching him crumple to the deck as three others stepped out into the corridor. Quickly she took cover behind a protruding bulkhead. Turning, she saw the smoldering heap of what moments ago was one of her troops, and the other two trying to make themselves small behind another bulkhead across the corridor. They were pinned down, and unable to move.
Nei'rrh rotated forward in place and fumbled for one of the concussion grenades on her belt. Cursing vehemently, she finally unlatched one. As she was getting ready to prime it, the sounds changed in the corridor, and the incoming fire stopped. She peeked around the bulkhead and saw that all three centurions had been set ablaze with that horrific green fire.
"This is the Admiral, we're in the corridor!" she shouted.
"Aye, ma'am!" came the reply, and four crewmen filed out of the starboard cargo bay.
"Right. They're bound to know what happened down here. Let's get on the move."
"Yes, Admiral." The seven of them leapfrogged from bulkhead to bulkhead, moving forward to the access tubes that would take them to the upper decks. Opening the access hatches, they heard the sounds of a battle taking place somewhere on the upper decks.
"Looks like our party's started, boys. Let's move!" Nei'rrh shouted.
Three decks higher they came to the access hatch that would take them outside, but the sounds outside the hatch were violent, indeed. Nei'rrh motioned for three of the crewmen to assemble on the other side of the hatch before she keyed it open. Peering out, she saw centurions and Tal Shiar officers engaged in a pitched battle with her crew somewhere out of sight down the corridor on the other side of the hatchway. "Grenades!" she yelled above the din.
The lead crewman on the other side of the hatch pulled out a plasma grenade, and she pulled two of her concussion grenades. She made eye contact with the crewman and then nodded, depressing the arming studs on the tops of the grenades. Both spun in front of the hatchway and lobbed their grenades into the midst of the Tal Shiar forces. Nei'rrh quickly keyed the hatch shut and braced on the bulkhead.
*WHA-BLAM!*Shaking her head, she keyed the hatch open again. Most of the Tal Shiar in the corridor were dead. She stuck her arm, with her yellow armband on it, through the hatchway and waved. "We see you!" was the reply.
"Alright, everybody through," she motioned for her crewmen to go through the hatchway. As she made her way out the hatch, she was helped by D'vex. "Thank you, Subcommander. What's the situation?"
"We've cleared the port side and you just took care of the only organized resistance we've encountered so far. The bridge is that way," he said, indicating a walkway that split off the corridor, "and I think we ought to go make an appearance."
Nei'rrh regarded him with cool confidence she did not feel, "obviously."
D'vex set off with his group and Nei'rrh followed. "How many concussion grenades do we have left?" she asked the group. Four crewmen raised their hands. "Right. You four, up front. You two in the center will throw to the far side. You two on the outside will throw nearside. Try to cover the whole bridge." They nodded tersely. "We'll open the door, throw, then shut it, clear?" More nods.
She took cover on the bulkhead beside the door controls and tapped the key to open the door.
Nothing.
She tapped it again, still nothing.
"D'vex, they've sealed it. Get it open for me. The rest of you, fan out a little and keep a watch down those corridors." They all moved to obey her orders and she stood with her hands on her hips, watching D'vex. "C'moooonnn... the longer this takes, the easier for them to organize a defense."
"If the Admiral would like to concern herself with making sure I don't get shot first, perhaps this might go a little quicker," D'vex crooned, dripping with sarcasm.
"If you weren't so damned good at what you do, I'd have had you shot a long time ago," Nei'rrh said, smiling nervously.
"The Admiral's presence is a comfort to all," he said, brow furrowed in concentration. "THERE, alright, are we ready now?" The boarding crew once again resumed their positions on the door. Nei'rrh made eye contact with D'vex and nodded sharply.
"NOW!"
The door slid open with a "WHANG!" and disruptor fire poured out of it like a vented reactor. All four crewmwn got their grenades into the room, but three of them went down in smoldering heaps as a result. Pangs of guilt crept through Nei'rrh's consciousness, but she forced them down as the door clanged shut and the sounds of explosions rocked the room behind it. The door once again slid open, and now it was Nei'rrh and her crew's turn to pour fire into the enemy.
The fight was over in seconds, as the concussion grenades had done their job. There was minor damage to most of the consoles, and major damage done to the tactical station, which must've had a grenade land right on top of it.
"Well done, all. Seal the bridge." The door clanged shut once again. "Subcommander, see that door doesn't open again until we're back at the flotilla. Everyone else, man stations and prepare for departure." Several crewmen leapt to man the stations on the bridge while the rest of the team dragged dead Tal Shiar to the side and collected weapons. D'vex closed and sealed the door.
"Bridge secure, Admiral."
"Very well, decompress and vent all decks to open space." It was a horrible thing to do, but necessary. Any remaining Tal Shiar would be blown into space, along with any of her crewmen that hadn't made it to the bridge. She simply couldn't take the chance that there were Tal Shiar, who would now be saboteurs, remaining aboard.
When that evolution had been completed, she ordered the decks closed but not recompressed, and a course set for home. As they de-orbited and entered warp, she saw the wreckage of what was the
Irea, her cloaked boarding shuttle. Sighing at the number of letters she would now have to write, she eased herself into the command chair and watched as the starfield began to streak past.
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