This choice: Continue reading "Double Double" • Go Back...Chapter #41Double Double (16) by: Seuzz   Chapter 16
CAPTAIN'S LOG, STARDATE 4947.5
The Enterprise has cut short its shore leave at Tranquility Seven. There were only three incidents of note, none of which, Dr. McCoy assures me, will result in any crewmen being invalided out.
This is fortunate, as we have been ordered to Outpost Four, on the edge the Neutral Zone, opposite the sector in which the Romulans have been conducting war game exercises.
"It crossed into the Neutral Zone approximately one hour ago," Commander Walton said. "It cloaked during an exercise, then came over. In a very leisurely way, too."
"What about the rest of the task force?" Kirk asked.
He was leaning close to the monitor, as though drinking down not only the commander's words, but every one of the commander's fleeting gestures and expressions. Across the conference room table, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekhov listened with equal attentiveness.
"Still on their side. They are making wide sweeps of the area, using their scanners as though ... Well, as though searching for the cloaked ship."
"Any transmissions to or from the cloaked vessel?"
"Just one, immediately after it cloaked."
"So this all could just be part of their exercises."
Walton looked offended.
"Their exercises shouldn't take them into the Neutral Zone," he reminded Kirk.
"Of course, Commander. But you do have a lock on the Romulan ship making the incursion?"
"Yes. Do you want us to patch it into your own science station?"
Kirk hesitated.
"Negative, Outpost Four," he said. He glanced up at Spock. "I will have my science officer contact you shortly, to work out a system by which you can keep us updated on the intruder's position. But based on its current speed and heading, when you do expect it to penetrate Federation space?"
Walton glanced away to study another screen. "Some hours yet," he said. "They are on a course that runs almost parallel to the actual border. If they keep to this course and speed, they won't so much cross the border as slide across it."
"We'll be there in six hours," Kirk said. "But don't expect any action by us unless the Romulans do something first. Starfleet wants us to keep our powder dry."
"I understand, Enterprise, I've also been in contact with Starfleet." The commander looked as though he hadn't much enjoyed it. "Outpost Four out." The monitor went blank.
"We will be no match by ourselves," Spock said, "if the rest of the Romulan fleet joins their fellow in crossing the Neutral Zone."
"We won't be alone," Kirk said. "Starfleet has ordered the Potemkin to Deep Space One, and the Hood to the Midos system."
"Deep Space One!" Scotty protested. "Even at warp six that's twenty hours away! And Midos's even further!"
"That's where they're going, Mr. Scott, not where they'll be coming from. Their transits will bring them much closer to our position. They'll be almost opposite Outpost Four about the time that we also arrive. If something happens, they can join us very quickly."
"And in the meantime? If th'Romulans come over while—"
"If the Romulans come over, we'll have to fall back until the Potemkin and Hood can reach us."
The chief engineer continued to look skeptical.
"The outpost canna fall back," he pointed out. "And we've seen what their torpedos can do!"
"The outposts have been redesigned and fortified since the last incursion," Kirk said. "We can even buy them time with a fighting retreat if we have to."
Scotty continued to fume quietly, but Kirk swung toward his science officer.
"Mr. Spock, you heard Commander Walton, they've got a lock on the intruder. But the Romulans don't know that, and we don't want them suspecting that we do. Talk to the Outpost, work out a code they can flash us giving us the Romulans' new heading and speed anytime there's a change. Something that can be communicated in a short pulse, rather than a transmission, so it's less likely to be noticed." The Vulcan nodded curtly.
Kirk folded his hands, and the others waited.
"Gentlemen," he said, "we all remember what happened the last time a Romulan ship came across the Neutral Zone. But we've learned a lot since then, so history will not repeat. That's the good news.
"The bad news ... is that history will not repeat. The Romulans will also have learned a lot from last time, and they're not going to do what they did before. So we're going to have to be on our toes, go into this without preconceptions."
He smiled at them.
"I know and trust that as ever you will all do your best. And that in your doing your best, we will come through this."
He stood. "To your stations."
* * * * *
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