The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [98]
How the hell did they get past the grid? he thought.
Hoping to get a quick warning out to Captain Hutchinson at Starbase 1 and Chief Scientist T’Kumbra at the Vulcan facility, Stiles pulled his communicator out of his uniform jacket. He flipped open the grid just in time to see it vanish in a hailstorm of fire and broken plasteel.
Nei’hrr-class Attack Raptor Ehrie Hwi
Less than a quarter of the way through the slow return voyage to the Bird-of-Prey Dhivael, the passive sensor alarm on T’Voras’s console was activated, the lights flashing a baleful green. He wasted no time turning on the secure intership EM channel.
“Ehrie Hwi to both squadrons,” T’Voras said into his throat mic. “Confirm presence of an incoming Starfleet vessel.”
“Khoey Hwi to Ehrie Hwi,” came the acknowledgment. “Starfleet vessel confirmed. It is entering orbit around the target.”
“Very well, T’Vak,” T’Voras said. “Maintain velocity and heading. Since we have already neutralized the target, we need not risk attracting their attention.”
“But this is not just any Starfleet vessel, Commander,” the other squadron leader said with an audible edge of impatience. “It reads as the same configuration as Enterprise.”
Although the mission had been accomplished flawlessly, Commander T’Voras did not wish to give any of his more ambitious junior officers—especially Centurion T’Vak—an excuse to try to oust him from his command in order to pursue glory and prestige for himself.
“This is Ehrie Hwi,” T’Voras said. “Bring both squadrons about, and assume attack formation mnha’lli.”
Starship Discovery NX-04
Travis Mayweather had spent his entire life in space. But in all that time he had never seen such wholesale devastation, apart from the Xindi sneak attack on Earth. The images from both the high-resolution sensors and the sensor drones Discovery had launched from orbit had offered the same revelation: Berengaria VII had been brutally and thoroughly scrubbed of all human and Vulcan life, and it had all happened within the past day or so.
“Whatever hit them came quickly,” said Captain Curtis.
“That must be why all we received was an automated distress signal,” Mayweather said, staring at the image of the blue-green world’s equator. The deep black scar in the greenery, punctuated by the still-settling ejecta plume in its center, was plainly visible on the main bridge viewer even at Discovery’s present high orbit of nearly one thousand kilometers.
“The Vulcans have been doing research on Berengaria VII for fifty years before we started building our starbase out here,” Curtis said.
“Those equatorial jungles are a gold mine, pharmacologically speaking,” Lieutenant Carpenter said from the science console. “Who knows how many disease cures have come out of all that plantkingdom biodiversity?”
“And to think the Vulcans didn’t want a Starfleet presence at first,” said Curtis. He sounded almost bitter as he added, “They gave us permission to build our starbase near them only because Starfleet agreed to protect them.”
“As I recall, the local Vulcans were pretty grudging about it,” Carpenter said. “Most of them were scientists and pacifists.”
“A fat lot of good it seemed to do them,” Curtis said. “Whatever took down the Vulcans wiped out our starbase as though it wasn’t even there.”
Maybe it serves them right for turning their back on Earth, Mayweather thought, though he instantly regretted the sentiment.
“Captain, I think we already know what hit them,” Carpenter said.
Mayweather nodded in agreement. “An asteroid strike wouldn’t have left a hard radiation signature like the one we’re reading down there.”
“All