Episode Twelve

Star Trek New Order

Episode 012

“Goliath”

 

Author’s note: This episode was originally intended to be a wrap up of the Revolution in Romulus Arc, but I decided separate it to keep them on the short side.  Consequently, this episode is about half the normal length.  Although. This episode is important, as it introduces plot points that will come up later as the season progresses.

 Captain’s Log; Star Date 57823.5, Commander Tertian reporting; the captain has been gone for over a week now, our forces in the Tomed Sector are suffering heavy losses.  Captain Picard has invited me to the Enterprise to participate in a briefing with our new Romulan friend Commander S’renk; perhaps she could shed some light on this dastardly invasion.

Tertian entered the Observation lounge and took an open seat opposite S’renk.  She was busy explaining the tactical situation to Picard.

“We rebelled because we are loyal to Romulus,” S’renk explained, “Tomalak is a politician who cares more about his career than his people.”

“Than why did he attack us?” Picard asked.

“I believe he is being manipulated,” she answered, “by who I am uncertain.”

“The question becomes: who would benefit from a war between the two largest powers in the Alpha Quadrant?” Tertian interjected.

“Yes,” S’renk agreed.

Picard then looked around the table, “I think the question on everyone’s mind is what the Romulans will do next?”

“We have received scattered reports of an invasion of Vulcan,” S’renk reported.

“Then we should assemble there to defend,” Picard determined, “I shall discuss this with Admiral Ross,” he looked at S’renk who was rapping her fingers against the table top, and his intuition took over, “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

“The Fleet built two of the ships you know as Scimitar class Warbirds,” she admitted, “not just the one Shinzon stole a few years ago.”

“They have a second Thalaron weapon!” Picard exclaimed, “And you didn’t feel this was important!”

“We are taught not to volunteer information,” S’renk explained.  Picard brushed it off and continued the briefing.

“If they have one,” Tertian pointed out, “I am willing to bet they would use it on Vulcan.”

“Of course,” Picard said, “wipe out the people who made them leave two thousand years ago.”

“Then they can repopulate the planet in their own image,” Tertian concluded.

“Unfortunately, if they cloak we will not find them until it is too late,” Picard interposed.

“Every Romulan ship carries a transponder so that they can be located under cloak, it would be a simple matter of finding their frequency,” S’renk said, and then she excused herself back to her ship to search for it.

                        *                                  *                                  *

“I don’t care how comfortable this damn chair is,” Hunt complained, “My back can’t take another day sitting in this ship.”

“We aren’t far from the front lines,” Chavin replied, “It shouldn’t be much longer till we run into a federation ship that can take us home.”  Then the ships transponder sent a warning into Chavin’s head, “The transponder is going crazy.”

“I thought we turned it off.”

“It isn’t us,” she replied, “The damn thing is detecting another ship nearby, under cloak.”

“Can we pull up any information on it?”  Hunt got his answer a moment later, when the information popped into his head from the mind link.  “Oh my god,” Hunt exclaimed, “it’s a Thalaron weapon ship, and it’s heading for Vulcan!”

“Want me to do some damage,” Chavin asked.

“No,” he replied, “that won’t do any good, let’s follow it first, maybe we’ll find a weakness.”

“What about the Beliskner, shouldn’t we warn them?”

“By the time we find the ship, it may be too late.”  As they neared the cloaked Thalaron ship, its ghostly image was projected into their vision dead ahead.  Chavin continued to pace it, hoping that it wouldn’t see them.

                        *                                  *                                  *

Meanwhile, S’renk returned to the Enterprise with the Scimitar’s transponder frequency.  She was reluctant to hand it over until Picard assured her that the data would not be used against any other Romulan ships.  After conferring with Starfleet Command, Picard decided to send the Beliskner to hunt down the vessel while the remaining fleet joined the second fleet at Vulcan. 

Given the transponder, Tertian and the crew of the Beliskner set out to search for the Scimitar.

                        *                                  *                                  *

Hunt and Chavin had been shadowing the ship for several hours, and it seemed that they had yet to be detected.  Chavin was getting antsy and began scanning the surrounding area with her sensor enhanced vision.  “I have a contact dropping out of warp,” She announced, “Galaxy class, the Scimitar is turning to pursue.”

“That’s probably Beliskner now,” Hunt said, “How’d he find it?”

“I don’t know but she’s turning to attack.”

“Join in.”

“By all means,” Chavin said as she fell back and disengaged the cloak.

                        *                                  *                                  *

“I have a Romulan fighter decloaking off starboard sir,” Dace reported, “They appear to be turning toward the target.”

“It’s the Captain!” Tertian shouted, “They made it.”  Then the ship shook from an impact.

“We are being fired upon from a point near the transponder,” Dergos said, “it worked.”

“Open fire,” Tertian ordered.  Dergos released a spread of quantum torpedoes at the target.

“Direct hit on their shields, minimal damage,” Dergos reported.  Then the ship rocked again.

“Ready a tachyon pulse to take out their shields.”

                        *                                  *                                  *

“The Beliskner just fired a tachyon pulse,” Chavin reported, “their shields are down, the cloak is failing.”  Chavin opened fire with a phalanx of missiles, stitching their hull with explosions.  The Beliskner followed suit with another volley of quantum torpedoes.  The scimitar was rocked by the explosions.  Chavin began to pilot the fighter towards the Beliskner, but the Romulans had other plans.  A disruptor beam shot out at the small fighter.

The fighter was completely disabled by the blast.  Chavin and Hunt felt the fighter’s damage in the form of extreme pain as feedback from the mind link.  Hunt felt like a million needles were stabbing him.  Hunt fought through the pain enough to think one last Thought-command as the craft fell apart around them, Energize. 

The two of them were immediately dematerialized and beamed away, but instead of the relative safety of the Beliskner, they found themselves on the transporter pad of the Romulan ship.  As soon as Hunt got his bearings, he whipped out his Colt pistol toward the startled Romulans manning the controls of the transporter.

One of the Romulans drew a disruptor.  Hunt squeezed the trigger on his weapon.  The only response was an unsatisfying click as the next round jammed in the chamber.  Knowing that he didn’t have time to clear the jam, Hunt laid his pistol on the deck and put his hands in the air.

                        *                                  *                                  *

“The Captain’s fighter has been destroyed,” Dace reported.  The entire bridge was in shock.

Dergos finally broke the silence.  “Sir, even with their shields down, we aren’t doing much damage, and we don’t know how long their shields will stay down.”

“Do you have any ideas, Major?” Tertian asked.

 “Why, yes I might.”

“Get to it,” Tertian ordered, understanding the marine’s idea without words needed.  Dergos headed to the turbolift, and took it to the Armory. 

                        *                                  *                                  *

Hunt and Chavin found themselves in the Romulan’s brig.  Chavin’s head still throbbed from the “pain” of the fighter.  Hunt pondered their escape while he watched the guard absent-mindedly playing with his Colt.  Trying to antagonize the guard, Hunt suggested not so kindly that the guard use the weapon on himself, the guard ignored him.  Hunt sat back down on the bench next to Chavin.

                        *                                  *                                  *

Dergos stepped into the transporter room, flanked by a squad of marines, and saw Tertian waiting for him.  As the first group stepped on the pad, Tertian wished them luck and bid them the Prophet’s blessing.

“Bridge to transporter room,” Dace said over the comm., “I am detecting two non-Romulan biosigns onboard the Warbird.”  Everyone cheered, understanding the connotations of the news.

Then Tertian voiced to Dergos the fact that was on everybody’s mind, “I know they’re over there, but your mission is to destroy that ship, the Captain is secondary; understand?”  Dergos and his marines nodded.  “Now hurry, we don’t have much time.”  The ship rocked from another hit, and Tertian lowered the shields to beam the first group over.

When the group assembled on the Romulan ship, Dergos delegated tasks to the fireteams. Two of them would proceed to place explosives around the ship, and two others, lead by Dergos, would ostensibly be tasked with taking the bridge.  In reality, Dergos’ teams were going to rescue Hunt and Chavin from the brig.

After the first two fireteams left, Dergos consulted his tricorder and explained his plan to the remaining marines

                        *                                  *                                  *

Hunt and Chavin were still sitting in their cell when the sound of phaser fire began coming from the corridor.  The guard stood and retrieved a disruptor rifle from a locker, then took up a position behind his desk.  A neat round hole then melted itself into the door to the brig, and then a round object rolled through the hole.

Hunt and Chavin covered their eyes as the room was enveloped in a bright flash as the photon grenade exploded.  Fortunately, the forcefield protected them from the effect.  However, the guard was not so lucky.

A moment later, Dergos and his marines had forced the door open, and Dergos entered and deactivated the field.

“Thank God you’re here,” Hunt praised as he walked out of the cell and retrieved his Colt from the desk, and ejected the jammed round.  Dergos handed him a Phaser rifle as well.  Then the group made their way toward the Bridge.

                        *                                  *                                  *

On the bridge of the Thalaron weapon ship, the Romulan commander sat pondering about what he would do when he reached Vulcan and wiped out those who banished his people so many centuries ago.  He planned to resettle at his family’s ancestral home, with its garden overlooking Mount Seleya, which his grandfather had told him about many years ago.  Around him, the bridge was in a state of chaos, although the Federation Battle Cruiser was retreating, he was getting scattered reports of boarders, from his Reman security forces.

The high pitched whine of phaser fire was heard from the corridor outside.  The Romulan Commander instructed his Centurions to take defensive positions, and he took cover behind a Console.  One of the Access doors on the upper level exploded inwards.  As the commander watched from behind his console, a large man in black fatigues came out of the cloud of smoke and raised a massive Phaser cannon to his hip.  As the Guards opened fire, he dodged behind a console and from the cover, let loose a stream of pulses.  More troops followed the man through the entrance and took up defensive positions around him.

The Romulan Commander looked up from his cover again to see the last of his centurions fall victim to the large soldier’s cannon.  In desperation, he reached up and tapped a key on the console he was using for cover.  A klaxon sounded as the Thalaron weapon powered up to an overload.  He would be damned before he let this technology fall into enemy hands.  Amid more phaser fire, he opened a compartment on the back of the console and extracted a small device.  So much for my garden overlooking Mount Seleya, he thought as he stood and faced the enemy.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

Dergos saw the Commander stand up, holding what appeared to be a Photon Grenade.  He lined up the sights on his cannon and was about to unleash a burst when he saw the Romulan depress a small button on the top.

“Get Down!” he shouted, as he leaped on top of Hunt and Chavin to protect them.  The grenade detonated.  The explosion’s intense shockwave washed over everyone as it took a good bit of the forward half of the bridge with it.  Dergos screamed out in pain as a large piece of console smashed into his leg.  Hunt stood up to find that Dergos act had saved his life, as well as Chavin’s, unfortunately, most of his men perished in the blast.  Hunt and Chavin reached down and helped Dergos into what was left of the Commander’s Chair, and thanked him for saving their lives.  The klaxon sounded again and Hunt strode over to an intact console to check it.

“They armed the Thalaron device!” Hunt announced, “We have five minutes before every lifeform inside a million Kilometers is turned to dust.”  Chavin walked over and picked up Dergos’ Phaser cannon, but found the heavy device rendered useless by the explosion, she shrugged an apology to Dergos.  Then Hunt tapped his Commbadge and they were enveloped in the bright shimmer of transporter beams.  Minutes later, the Ship was engulfed in a massive fireball.

                        *                                  *                                  *

“We are gathered here today, to pay our respects to our honored dead,” Hunt said somberly as a bosun’s pipe blew, “It is our sworn duty as Starfleet Officers to assure that their deaths were not in vein.”  Captain Hunt stood at a podium in the Beliskner’s expansive main shuttle bay in front of him, were much of the ships company, those who could not attend, put down their duties and watched on holomonitors.  Behind the captain, taking up most of the aft section of the bay, were lines of flag draped torpedo-caskets.  

“Everyone present today knows at least one of those people back there, but as captain, I had the pleasure to know them all.  Too many names to list, to many young men and women lost their lives in defense of those of us who are still here.  We can never forget them,” Hunt paused for a moment to wipe the tears from his cheeks and catch his breath, “For they made the ultimate sacrifice, they all understood that the good of the many is more important than the good of the few, or the one.  But not all heroes of this battle had to die to help us,” he paused again and looked out on the crowd as the Bosun let out another shrill whistle, “Will the following crew please stand and make their way to the front: Lieutenant Norman Dace, Commander Tertian Versos, Lieutenant Commander Dranzian Chavin, Major Renbe Dergos, Lieutenant Commander Taurik, and Doctor Teymen Sorel.” 

As the named people filed to the stage, Hunt continued, “You have each performed well above and beyond the call of duty in the past few days.”  He stepped in front of Dace, “Lieutenant Dace, for extreme gallantry and intuition, I am hereby promoting you to Lieutenant Commander.”  Tertian was next, “Commander Tertian, you have displayed immense command potential, while I would hate to lose such an capable officer, Starfleet Command has awarded you command of the USS Kitty Hawk, as well as the accompanying rank of Captain, good luck.” He skipped down to Dergos next, who was standing on a pair of crutches, and a new cybernetic leg, “Major, for great self sacrifice and courage in the line of duty, I award you with the Purple Hart, as well as the Federation Medal of Honor.” He saluted Dergos before moving down to Taurik and Sorel, whom he awarded commendations for performing their duties to the best of their abilities.

Finally he retrieved a pair of small cases from the podium and returned to Chavin.  “Lieutenant Commander Dranzian Chavin, I hereby award you with the rank of full Commander, with all the responsibilities therein,” he removed a Rank pip from the first case, and pinned it to the collar of her Dress uniform, replacing the Black one already present.  “And one more thing,” he said as he held out the second case, “For extreme devotion to a superior officer and friend,” He opened the case, revealing a ring with a large stone, and dropped to one knee, “Will you marry me?” he asked to make it official.

“Yes Jon.”

Hunt Stood back up and kissed her, in front of the entire crew.  After he released, the Bosun’s pipe blew again, a call to attention, and Hunt continued the ceremony.  On his command, the honor guard began lifting Caskets onto the gravity catapults.

                        *                                  *                                  *

Captain Hunt stepped into his ready room, which he hadn’t used since leaving on the mission to Galorndon, and found it a complete mess.  The battles had taken their toll on his furnishings.  Walking around his desk, he began to clean up.  He righted his chair which had fallen over, and then he retrieved his LCARS terminal off the floor, noting that the screen was shattered.  A model of an old Earth aircraft lay on its side, its landing gear snapped.  He sat down in his chair just as the door chimed, indicating a visitor.  Hunt invited them in and was greeted by Chavin, now in a red collared uniform, with the ring on her right hand.  Chavin entered and sat down on the couch across from Hunt, the only undamaged piece of furniture. 

“Why me, Jon?” she asked, “You know that you can’t show favoritism on a starship.”

“It wasn’t my choice,” He explained, “Starfleet wants the space wing to have a more active voice in command decisions.”

“Incase you haven’t noticed,” she quipped, “we don’t have much of a space wing right now.”

“I know,” he replied as he stood and walked over to the couch, “we have been ordered to return to Earth to pick up a new one.”  He sat down and embraced her, thinking about their future.