Michael A. Martin - The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptors Wing

THE ROMULAN WAR

B ENEATH THE R APTORS W ING

OTHER STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE BOOKS

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by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels

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by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin

Kobayashi Maru

by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels

STAR TREK
ENTERPRISE

THE ROMULAN WAR
B ENEATH THE R APTORS W ING

M ICHAEL A . M ARTIN

Based upon Star Trek
created by Gene Roddenberry
and Star Trek: Enterprise
created by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Manufactured in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-4391-0798-0
ISBN 978-1-4391-2347-8 (ebook)
For Majel Barrett Roddenberry (19322008), a grand lady who left us far too soon.
For Tim Dechristopher, an auction hero whose singular act of courage confounded the (thankfully defunct) Bush Administrations unconscionable eleventh-hour attempt to despoil vast tracts of Utah public land.
And for Sergeant Matthis Chiroux, a warrior of conscience who drew from the terrors of war the determination and grace to work for the ideals of peace.
Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
Turning the widows tears, the orphans cries,
The dead mens blood, the pining maidens groans,
For husbands, fathers, and betrothd lovers,
That shall be swallowed in this controversy.

Henry V
William Shakespeare

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

Friedrich Nietzsche

HISTORIANS NOTE

The bulk of this story is set in the second half of the year 2155 and into the first half of 2156 (ACE). The destruction of the civilian freighter the Kobayashi Maru (Star Trek: EnterpriseKobayashi Maru ) set off a series of events that will forever shape the history of Starfleet, United Earth and her allies ( Star Trek: Enterprise ).

TOMORROW
2156

PROLOGUE

Thursday, July 22, 2156
Late in the month of Soojen , the Year of Kahless 782
Qam-Chee, the First City, QonoS
FLANKED BY A PAIR of scowling guards, Jonathan Archer led the way into the center of the dimly illuminated, vaulted chamber. An oddly heterogenous mlange of smellsthe ghosts of old sweat mingled with leather, incense, and the coppery tinge of blood, along with vague notes of freshly turned earth and lilacassaulted his nostrils as he came to a square-shouldered stop before the ranks of empty High Council benches that bracketed the Chancellors equally empty seat.
He fought down a surge of worry that the urgent errand on which Starfleet, UESPA, and the United Earth government had dispatched him as a special envoy might already have ended in failure. Did we get here late? Or early ? He prayed silently for the latter as he took in another lungful of the slightly moist, too-warm alien air.
Making a slow half turn to his right, he regarded the stoic woman who stood at his side, dressed, as he was, in a standard blue Starfleet duty jumpsuit. Her characteristically dignified bearing betrayed no trace of worry or any other emotionincluding the olfactory distress Archer knew she must have been experiencing. It had taken at least two years of living aboard Enterprise before Commander TPols sensitive Vulcan nose had become accustomed to some of the much milder odors to which shed had to adapt in order to live aboard Enterprise.
Hed sometimes ribbed her good-naturedly when her nose would wrinkle in the presence of his beagle. Today, however, he felt no such urge. I hoped to hell the last time I had to come here really was the last time Id have to come here. The captain paused to take a mental count of each of his previous visits to this ancient, forbidding hall, and came to a stop at three. Lets hope that the fourth times the charm , he thought, drawing in a long, deep breath through his mouth.
But the way the chamber smelled was far less germane to his aversion to this place than were the bruises and scars hed acquired here, courtesy of an extremely disgruntled Klingon general. Besides, after the ugly turns Earths efforts to stop the advancing Romulan fleet had taken lately, Archer would embrace any potential allies, even if they drank methane and farted sulfur.
A reassuring staccato tattoo of hard footfalls began echoing from the far end of the room, approaching from beyond the High Council benches and the Chancellors thronelike central chair. Within moments, a dozen or so members of the High Council had taken their places on the benches from which they deliberated the Klingon Empires gravest matters of politics and war. The room filled with the low murmur of conversation between the various representatives of the Klingon Empires great Houses.
Chancellor MRek, his beard seeming longer and grayer than Archer remembered, took his seat a moment later, the dour-visaged Fleet Admiral Krell standing at his side. Archer noticed immediately how closely the scowl Krell favored him with resembled the expressions hed already seen on the faces of his and TPols escorts. Like the dour Klingon guards, Krells forehead was as smooth as Archers, completely bereft of the intricate topography of cranial ridges that MRek and all the members of the Council displayed so proudly.
Just as clearly, Krell had neither forgotten nor forgiven the role that Archer and his chief medical officer had played in that unhappy circumstance, irrespective of the incalculable number of Klingon lives those actions might have saved across the Empire.
Krells probably also still cranky about having to let Phlox stitch his arm back on after that last little tiff he and I had , Archer thought as a transitory phantom twinge shot across a long-healed broken rib in accompaniment to the memory. Lets hope this meeting stays civil.
The Chancellor, wearing a warriors full armor and a ceremonial cloak of office, raised one mailed fist above his head. The members of the Council responded immediately by falling silent.