Myriad Universes 02_ Echoes and Refractions - Keith R. A. DeCandido [88]
“If only that had remained so. The galaxy is a better place without those pointy-eared petaQpu’ in it.”
On that, Krivaq could agree. Romulans were cowardly and dishonorable-all the more so because they claimed to have honor.
“But suddenly, without warning, they attacked, unveiling those khest’n warbirds. Damn things plowed right through our defenses like nothing.”
Krivaq was always amused when J’rak started referring to “our” defenses, as if he were there when it happened, not an infant back on Qo’noS.
Suddenly, J’rak put a hand on Krivaq’s shoulder, almost causing Krivaq to jump out of his chair. He managed to suppress the shocked reactiona warrior should never be shocked, after all-but it was a near thing, for his instincts had dulled horribly in this place.
“That’s why this outpost is so important, Lieutenant,” the commander said. “They did it at Narendra III, and two years later they did it again at Khitomer. You never know when those toDSaHpu’ will try to sneak across the border again. They were behind the House of Duras’s coup, you know.”
Of course I know that. Everyone knows that. Krivaq checked his chronometer, but it was still most of an hour before he went off shift. His stomachs started rumbling in anticipation of the racht that was still so far away.
The proximity alarm blared, blowing past his warrior’s instincts and making him jump in his seat. In the five months that he’d been assigned here, that proximity alarm had only gone off when the supply ship came, and it wasn’t due for another week.
Then he checked the readout and the rumble in his stomachs shifted from hunger to nausea. The alarm was coming from the other side of the Romulan border.
“We’re picking up a ship on the Rom side-it just decloaked.”
“What?” J’rak bellowed loud enough that it actually hurt Krivaq’s ears. “Confirm!”
Krivaq re-took the sensor readings. “It’s a warbird, bearing directly on this outpost, weapons hot.”
J’rak spit on the deck. “Filthy petaQpu’. Go to battle alert! Arm disruptors and open fire!”
Touching a control, Krivaq put the outpost on battle alert. The lights changed to a dull red color, and the outpost’s shields snapped into place.
The No’var Outpost had a full array of disruptor blasters and a quantum torpedo cannon, neither of which had been fired in the five months Krivaq had served there. He feared the disruptors would fail-but no, his status board indicated that the weapons fired as they were supposed to. They struck the Romulan ship head on.
“Rom shields holding.”
“Continuous fire,” J’rak said as other officers entered the nerve center. “Load torpedo cannon!”
“Yes, sir. Warbird firing.”
Then the lights dimmed further, and Krivaq’s console went dark. After a moment, it came back online-and his eyes widened at what it told him. “Shields down! We are defenseless!”
“Keep firing!” J’rak cried. “Hit them with a torpedo spread! And get those khest’n shields back up!”
Kivik sat at the console across from Krivaq and sneezed. He was allergic to something on the outpost, but nobody’d been able to figure out what. Krivaq usually liked it when he was on duty with Kivik because his sneezing always interrupted J’rak’s storytelling.
“Shields won’t reconstitute!”
Krivaq looked at his status board after the torpedo cannon was emptied. “Rom shields down to twenty percent.” He gave the order to reload the cannon, while the disruptors continued to fire.
J’rak turned to B’Orl. “Get a distress call out! The Mevak should still be in range!”
When the torpedoes reloaded, Krivaq fired another volley, just as the Romulan disruptors struck the underside of the outpost.
Oh, this isn’t good, he thought, even though the status board told him that the third torpedo had taken down the Romulans’ shields and that the fourth and fifth destroyed the ship.