Free Star Trek: Vanguard: Storming Heaven by David Mack Page B

the cloak on my mark.”
    Curt acknowledgments came back to her in quick succession, and Akhisar nodded once to indicate he was ready. H’kaan watched the tactical display in front of him and felt his pulse quicken with anticipation as the Valkaya closed to attack position on the Sagittarius . When they reached optimal firing range for torpedoes, he said simply, “Now.”
    Akhisar dropped the bird-of-prey’s cloak, and the weapons officer unleashed a burst of charged plasma that slammed into the small Starfleet scout ship and knocked it out of warp.
    “Helm,” Dimetris called out, “come about and drop to impulse. Sublieutenant Pelor, charge disruptors and ready another plasma charge. Centurion, raise shields.”
    Pelor replied, “Weapons locked!”
    Dimetris crowed, “Fire!”
    In the scant moments between the order and the action, H’kaan glimpsed the sparking, smoldering mass of the Sagittarius on the bridge’s main viewscreen. Looks like we scored a direct hit with the first shot, he observed with pride. All those battle drills finally paid off.
    Then a pair of disruptor beams lanced through the smoldering husk of the Sagittarius, and the ship erupted in a massive fireballthat quickly dissipated, vanishing into the insatiable vacuum of deep space. When the afterglow faded, all that remained was glowing debris.
    “Secure from general quarters,” H’kaan said. “Well done, all of you.” Much as he tried to remain detached and professional, H’kaan could not resist the urge to gloat over his victory. “Kiris! Send to Admiral Inaros, ‘Starfleet vessel Sagittarius destroyed. Continuing patrol.’ And make sure to notify our friends at the Klingon High Command. I want them to know we’ve just scored the victory that’s eluded them for years.”
    Akhisar sidled up to the commander and asked confidentially, “Are you sure you wish to rub their noses in our triumph so boldly?”
    “Absolutely. I just wish I could be there to see the looks on their faces.”
    A dull and distant buzzing, like a million bees at the bottom of the sea. That was all Nogura heard, all he could latch on to. He felt like a synesthete, seeing the steady, angry sound as if it were an anchor line sunk into the depths to serve as his guidepost, a filament of focus to lead him up out of the oceanic fathoms of sleep, back into the twilight of semiconsciousness.
    Slumber’s murky curtain parted, and the waking world flooded into Nogura’s mind, smothering him with its overwhelming, concrete reality. He blinked as he turned his head toward the companel on the end table beside his bed. Despite still being so groggy that he felt as if he were bobbing on a storm swell, he swatted open the comm channel. “Nogura.”
    “Admiral, this is Lieutenant Commander Dohan.”
    Nogura visualized Yael Dohan as he honed in on her voice. He imagined the swarthy, athletically toned Israeli woman with her short-cropped coal-black hair standing over the Hub, the octagonal situation table on the supervisors’ deck inside the operations center. “Go ahead.”
    “The Romulans took the bait, sir. At approximately 0356station time, a bird-of-prey uncloaked and opened fire, destroying our Sagittarius decoy drone.”
    Pinching the sleep from the inner corners of his eyes, he asked, “Are we sure they didn’t know it was a decoy?”
    “As sure as we can be, sir. The drone’s sensors picked up a fair amount of encrypted signal traffic before the attack, and our long-range sensors picked up major chatter on the secure Klingon and Romulan frequencies just afterward.”
    The admiral covered his mouth as he yawned and hoped the sound didn’t carry over the open channel. “All right,” he said. “What time is it now, Commander?”
    “Just after 0438, sir.”
    “Hrm. Cut new orders to the Endeavour . Have them divert and proceed to the drone’s last known coordinates at maximum warp.”
    “Acknowledged. Dohan out.” There was a soft click as the channel