Flashback - Diane Carey [75]
Tuvok didn't take his gaze from the screen. He who had so firmly argued against coming into Klingon space at all would be the one to deal the final blow, and he seemed glad to be doing so. His shoulders were tensed and he was leaning forward, both hands on the controls, his eyes hungry for the action to come.
The Enterprise's glowing orange photon torpedo increased speed to maximum, and its tight maneuverability made it deadly, even to a hidden ship. No ship could bank out of the way fast enough to avoid that thing.
Janeway felt her face flush in the light of the strike. An empty square of space buckled and spat debris and illuminants, flashing the shape of a Klingon bird of prey as the ship fell out of cloak.
She drew in a quick breath-she'd never seen one of those in person. Arched wings and a broad cyclopean head growled out of the darkness.
What a stealthy, mean-looking ship! Of course, the Klingons designed it that way.
How very different it was from the battle-forward brightness of the Enterprise.
Behind her, Captain Sulu barked, "Aim for the center of that explosion and fire!"
Tuvok did the quick targeting, then moved his hand to the firing controls. At the last instant he looked up. "Captain, you do it."
Janeway blinked, realized what he'd said, then reached out and pounded the fire control. Certainly felt real. . .
Two torpedoes launched from Excelsior at her touch, and she felt as if the power were surging down her arm and through her fingers to the enemy ship.
The Enterprise fired again, too, two bolts also, but the Excelsior's bolts reached the bird of prey first, just as the Klingon ship was trying to fade to invisibility again. A plume of sparks blew from the spine of the foam-green ship, as if Janeway had shot an arrow and struck a flying vulture.
The second bolt hit a wing and caused the ship to bobble downward to port as if wagging in space to signal someone.
The Enterprise's bolts cut into the Klingon ship's back and neck and severed it, but the pieces had no chance to drift apart before Excelsior fired again and hit the other wing.
At last the Enterprise dealt the death blow to the Klingon ship's main section. The bird of prey's engines imploded and critical mass defined itself in a shock of expanding gas and light and a puff of chemical cloud.
Drenched in its own gushing atmosphere, the
bird's head snapped upward as if sledgehammered in the neck, but before it could fold back on itself, the skull blew into a sparkling sphere with a nearly audible pop.
Debris shot through space in every direction, chased by the fireworks of uncontained energy.
Janeway stared at the screen with undisguised amazement. She was shocked at the power-packed nature of that vessel. It must have been nothing but engines and weapons, with maybe a little air to breathe. Maybe.
"The bird of prey is destroyed, Captain," Lojur said with great satisfaction. "The way to Khitomer is cleared."
"Follow the Enterprise," Captain Sulu said. "Let them arrive there first."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
Janeway knelt beside Tuvok at the helm and let the flicker of destructive power play across her face. She placed one warm hand on Tuvok's arm and relished the personal contact.
"Tuvok," she uttered, "thank you! But it's only a memory, you know."
He looked up at her, quite warmly this time. "To you and me, Captain," he said, "it will be history."
'Only a fool fights in a burning house." Kang Star Trek Day of the Dove
CHAPTER 21
"MR. PRESIDENT!"
A shout throbbed through the reception hall, shaking every dignitary to the bone.
Kathryn Janeway, though she had expected what was about to happen, flinched against her own tension. Her hands were drained and cold. She felt as if she were the only person in the theater who knew John Wilkes Booth was about to fire.
In today's case, the assassin was disguised as a Klingon, and hiding high in a loft instead of a balcony. But the president did have a beard.
She beamed in beside Tuvok not far from Captain Sulu. Before she even had