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He raised his hand in a shrug. “You know, I once served with a captain who shouted herself hoarse every time she went into combat. And another whose insides churned so badly with nerves every time he raised shields that I had to prescribe antacids to settle his stomach.” He smiled. “If the worse you’re doing is fidgeting a bit while sitting in the big chair, Laren, I think you’re already ahead of the game.”

Ro nodded, reluctantly. “Maybe. Or maybe that’s just the sort of homey wisdom you’d share with a commanding officer who was letting her nerves get the best of her, to calm her down?”

Quaice shook his head. “Oh, no, I’d be much more effusive in my praise, if that were the case.” He flashed a wicked grin. “But tell me, Laren, are you doing something different with your hair? And that earring looks lovely.”

Her witty rejoinder was silenced when Ensign Thomas piped up from the tactical station. “Commander, we’ve got a ping to starboard.” He studied the displays, breathless. “The antiproton beam has painted the Haakona.”

“Keep tracking her, Thomas,” Ro said. She leaned forward, her jaw set.

A cloaked ship couldn’t employ its shields or fire its weapons, with all available power drained by the cloak. It could continue to broadcast its subspace interference, though, and if there’d been more than one starship nearby, Ro could have likely triangulated its position from that alone. Come to that, if she’d had time, she could have deployed a couple of shuttlecraft and done the same. But fielding shuttles with a cloaked warbird in the area was an invitation to disaster, and she had no desire to put any of the crew unnecessarily at risk, not when she had an antiproton beam up her sleeve. She’d gambled that the Romulans hadn’t learned about that particular Federation tactic yet, and the fact that they’d not compensated for it seemed proof that they hadn’t.

So now she knew where the warbird was. The question remained, what to do about it?

“Thomas, prepare a spread of quantum torpedoes, maximum yield, targeted on that location, and fire on my mark.”

“Sir.”

“Lavelle,” Ro said. “Once the torpedoes are away I want you to bring us about and initiate a strafing run as soon as the warbird drops cloak. Thomas, as soon as the warbird’s in range lock phasers and fire.”

“Aye, sir,” Lavelle and Thomas acknowledged.

“Still got the Haakona painted, Ensign?”

Thomas confirmed. “Aye, sir.”

“Fire torpedoes.”

On the forward viewscreen, the starfield rippled and distorted as the quantum torpedoes found their marks, bright bursts that limned the darkness in the shape of a D’deridex-class warbird.

“She’s dropping cloak,” Thomas reported.

“Beginning strafing run,” Lavelle called over his shoulder.

There would be a split second while the cloak was disengaging before the shields could come online. If luck was with them, a few well-placed phaser hits along with the torpedoes would inflict some damage on the warbird.

Phasers lanced from the prow of the Enterprise as Lavelle brought them soaring over the warbird’s position, the first shots splashing across the green hull of the Haakona, the later ones absorbed by her rippling shields.

“She’s taken hits,” Thomas said, eyes on the tactical controls. “She’s got her shields up, but they’re not at full strength.”

As if in response, disruptor fire crackled from the “head” of the warbird, lancing into the stern of the Enterprise.

“Shields at eighty percent, Commander,” Thomas said.

“Bring us about, Lieutenant,” Ro ordered Lavelle. “Ensign, concentrate your fire on her forward port quarter.” There were precious few weak spots in the shield geometries of a D’deridex-class warbird, Ro knew, but she didn’t need a very large hole to get the job done.

“She’s launching torpedoes,” Thomas reported.

The Enterprise rocked as the inertial dampers tried to compensate for the impact. Even with most of the energy of the torpedoes bleeding off through the Enterprise’s shields, enough kinetic