Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [115]
“Damage procedures, all decks!” she shouted into the ship-wide comm channel, then settled heavily back into her scorched command chair. There had been neither the time nor the opportunity to repair the Valdore properly after the severe punishment the warbird had received from the Scimitar, Shinzon’s flagship. Though Colonel Xiomek’s weapons were far less potent than Shinzon’s, they might very well have reopened some of Valdore’s recent war wounds.
Donatra watched the gently curved main viewer, which showed a crescent-shaped Romulus falling rapidly away into the infinite night. No pursuit was in evidence.
Donatra was both relieved and heartsick. Does this mean that Xiomek is too preoccupied with carrying out his threat to destroy Romulus to go after me?
She forced such thoughts from her mind. There was very important work to be done, and she needed to focus all her attention on it.
“Resume trying to raise our reinforcements,” Donatra ordered, after dispatching the remaining three ships of her attack wing to a high polar orbit over Romulus. The Valdore was now on a different course, heading un-escorted back toward the Great Bloom, the last known position of the reinforcement fleet that Donatra had left in Suran’s care.
“Immediately, Commander,” said the decurion at the communications post.
Once again, the Valdore received no response. Everyone on the bridge listened intently to the static-laced silence, which seemed to last for at least half a verak.
Then, abruptly: “Commander!” The tactical officer began pointing animatedly at the central viewer, where another vessel was decloaking.
“Alert status!” Donatra said, rising. The old burns on her leg and torso rudely reminded her of their presence yet again.
A split second later, she recognized Suran’s flagship as it became visible in the empty space before the Valdore.
“Helm, match our velocities. Hail them.”
Relief warred with apprehension within Donatra’s breast. Her old wounds were now itching so fiercely they almost seemed to burn. Where is the rest of the fleet?
Suran’s face appeared on the main viewer. He looked haunted, his sunken eyes resembling frightened animals engaged in a desperate search for some means of escape.
“Suran. What is the status of our reinforcements?”
He stared at her in silence, his face contorting into an angry, accusatory expression. “You should have listened to me, Donatra, when I warned you not to entrust our fleet to the Great Bloom.”
Donatra felt her patience with her emotionally volatile colleague beginning to wane. When she spoke, her voice sounded brittle in her own ears. “Suran. Where. Are. Our. Ships?”
“They’re gone , Donatra. As though they had never been.”
She sank backward into her chair as though she had just been slapped. Her heart turned to ice.
Akhh! I have signed my people’s death warrant!
Chapter Twenty-one
U.S.S. TITAN
Riker was both grateful and annoyed that the new command seats came equipped with automatic safety harnesses. Triggered into operation by Titan’s momentarily overloaded inertial damping system, the automatic restraints had deployed quickly enough to prevent the violent impact of the first attacker’s barrage from throwing him to the deck. But he was not in the habit of allowing himself to be pinned down, especially in the middle of a combat situation.
“Report!” he shouted as he reached for the manual release control, located on the left arm of his chair.
“Shields holding at seventy percent,” Keru said from his post at the aft end of the bridge. “Phasers are armed and ready.”
Riker knew that under normal circumstances, returning fire would be one of his prime options. But this situation was anything but normal. Old and new Romulan ships—vessels crewed by opposing Remans and Romulans—were moving