Romulan Harrier Nodokata
Seven and Ellory materialized inside the still-cloaked harrier, each holding one arm of the unconscious, manacled Kohgish. Together they dragged him aft to a stasis pod and shoved him inside. Ellory slammed its door closed, and Seven activated its suspended-animation protocol.
Clapping her hands clean, Ellory said, “Let’s finish this.”
Seven walked to the cockpit and took the pilot’s seat. Outside the forward viewport, a small Talarian transport vessel and an enormous Talarian battleship loomed large beside the frigate Eris. Ellory dropped into the copilot’s seat, took silent note of the newly arrived vessels, and flipped on the comms-interception system.
An angry man’s voice issued from the overhead speakers: “… please respond! Repeat, General Kohgish, this is Qulla. Are you receiving this? Why aren’t you answering?”
Ellory muted the channel. “He sounds pissed.”
“Not as much as he’s about to be.” Seven checked the status of the signals she had programmed Eris’s ops console to send on timed delays. All three had gone off as scheduled, one after the other, in the last sixty seconds. “If Mister Tazgül remains as punctual as I remember him being, he should be arriving right about… now.”
On cue, the tactical cruiser Bolvangar dropped out of warp and cruised smoothly into orbit, directly behind the Talarian ships.
Seven nodded at Ellory, who fiddled with the controls on the comms intercept. The next voice they heard was Tazgül’s. “Qulla! What kind of double cross are you trying to pull?”
Qulla sounded perplexed. “Mardani? What are you talking about? Where’s Kohgish?”
“I was about to ask you the same question, Qulla! What did you do to him?”
“Are you insane? We’ve been trying to raise him on comms. We haven’t reached him.”
“Then why did he send me a distress signal saying you ambushed him?”
“That’s absurd! What kind of scam are you two trying to—”
The argument between the Talarian broker and the rogue spymaster came to an abrupt halt as the U.S.S. Dauntless dropped out of quantum slipstream in a burst of light, directly above Mardani’s ship, Bolvangar. Almost instantly, Dauntless disabled Bolvangar’s engines with two precision phaser blasts, and then snared the cruiser in a tractor beam.
“Attention, Erol Tazgül. This is Lieutenant Commander Tysess of the Federation Starship Dauntless. Surrender your vessel and prepare to be boarded.”
Ellory smirked at Tazgül’s predicament. “Wow. That was fast.”
Seven permitted herself a satisfied smile. “It’s almost as if someone told Dauntless exactly where to find Tazgül and his ship.”
An alert chirped on the harrier’s main console. Ellory muted it and checked the readouts. “Looks like the Talarians are making a run for it.”
“Naturally.” Seven stole another look at the chrono. “Three. Two. One.”
Bam. More than two dozen flashes of light appeared in front of the Talarian ships—and from those brilliant flares emerged a squadron of prowlers, backed up by three heavy corsairs, in a battle formation poised to encircle the Talarian battleship.
Courtesy of the comms intercept, the deep and melodious voice of Ranger Lucan Sagasta spilled from the harrier’s speakers: “Attention, Talarian vessels and mercenary frigate Eris. Surrender and prepare to be boarded, by order of the Fenris Rangers.”
A different man answered. “Fenris Rangers, this is Dauntless. No offense intended, but you’re a bit outside your jurisdiction.”
“No offense, Starfleet, but so are you. But, hey—we won’t tell if you won’t.”
A momentary silence. Then Tysess replied, “Your terms are acceptable.”
The next voice over the comm was Admiral Janeway’s, on a general hailing frequency. “Seven, we know you’re out there somewhere. Please show yourself.”
The two Rangers shared a knowing look: The party’s over.
“Ell? Please detach the general’s stasis pod and stand by for transport.”
“You got it.” Ellory headed aft.
Seven opened a response channel. “Dauntless, this is Fenris Ranger Seven of Nine aboard the harrier Nodokata. Decloaking in three. Two. One.” She disengaged the ship’s cloaking device. The view outside flickered momentarily, and the harrier’s internal lighting switched back to its normal hue. She switched her comm to a Ranger frequency. “Nodokata to corsair Laniakea. Please stand by for transport, three persons, one in stasis, plus one body and one very large crate of latinum.”
A woman’s voice replied, “Acknowledged, Nodokata. Standing by.”
Seven switched back to the main hailing frequency. “Admiral, I trust you had no difficulty tracking the sekenium traces?”
“That information was most helpful, Seven. Thank you for that.”
“My pleasure.”
An encoded message from the lead Ranger corsair appeared on the harrier’s console: TALARIAN BROKER, TALARIAN PIRATES, AND CREW OF ERIS IN CUSTODY. READY TO TRANSPORT.
Seven shifted her focus back to her conversation with Janeway. “Ranger Kayd and I are ready to abandon this vessel. We remand it to your custody, with our apologies, and our thanks.”
Janeway’s reply had a contemplative tone. “I can’t exactly say ‘You’re welcome.’… but I will say thank you. Not just for returning the harrier, but for showing us that maybe Starfleet and the Fenris Rangers can do more good in the Qiris sector as partners than as adversaries.”
“My thoughts exactly, Admiral.”
There was so much more that Seven needed to say to Janeway, but there was no time for that now. She switched back to the Ranger frequency. “Laniakea, this is Ranger Seven on the harrier Nodokata. Ready for transport in five seconds.”
“Acknowledged, Nodokata. T-minus five seconds.”
She strode aft to the transporter pad, where Ellory waited with Kohgish, asleep in his stasis pod, and Harper, enshrouded at their feet. Seven took her place beside Ellory. In the moment before the transporter beam took hold, Ellory’s and Seven’s fingers entwined.
Time to go home.
U.S.S. Dauntless NCC-80816
A palpable sense of relief settled over the Dauntless bridge crew as the crises around them came to swift and orderly conclusions. In the center of the action, and most thankful of all, Admiral Janeway relaxed in her command chair as one report after another reached her.
The communications officer looked up from his post. “Security Chief Gresh confirms Erol Tazgül is in solitary confinement in our brig, and the rest of his crew are in custody.”
“Excellent. Tell Mister Gresh ‘Well done.’ ”
As her compliment was relayed belowdecks, second officer Lieutenant Shawna Benson arrived at her side. “Admiral? Sensors confirm the Ranger corsair Laniakea has beamed all personnel off the Romulan harrier. The vessel is officially abandoned.”
“Splendid. Lieutenant Dokar, get a tractor beam on the harrier and tow it into our shuttlebay, on the double.”
“Tractor beam to shuttlebay,” the tactical officer replied. “Aye, sir.”
Lieutenant Commander Tysess approached Janeway’s chair. “The Rangers have arrested starship broker Qulla Hain, as well as his skeleton crew from the Talarian battleship. They’re all in custody aboard the corsairs Amarok and Okami.”
“And what about the Talarians’ ships?”
“About that—the captain of the Amarok would like a word with you.”
“On-screen.”
Tysess relayed her command with a nod at the comms officer. A moment later, a Catullan man’s smiling face appeared on the bridge’s main viewscreen. His receding hairline drew her attention to his high forehead as well as his dark-violet hair and matching, enormously shaggy eyebrows and handlebar mustache. He wore a synthetic leather jacket emblazoned with a Fenris Rangers patch over a casual ensemble of civilian clothing. “Admiral! Well met. I’m Ranger Captain Sorno Kel, commanding the corsair Amarok.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain. What can we do for you?”
“We’d like you to take something off our hands.”
“And what, precisely, would that be?”
“This gigantic Talarian battleship. We don’t want it floating around out here and falling into the wrong hands. But at the same time, to be honest, we wouldn’t know what to do with it. So if it wouldn’t be too much trouble… would you mind?”
“Sure. We’re already towing one ship. Why not two?”
“Thanks, Admiral. I’m glad we reach. Safe travels. Amarok out.”
The transmission ended, and the main viewscreen switched to an image of the Talarian battleship, adrift in orbit of the rogue star.
Tysess regarded the colossal vessel with a skeptical eye. “Are we really going to tow that all the way to Starbase 234?”
Janeway shrugged. “You have a better idea?”
“Scuttle it into the rogue star and call it an accident?”
“Tempting. But no. Even decommissioned, it might still be of interest to Starfleet Intelligence. Take it in tow alongside the Bolvangar and keep us under warp seven.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
As her bridge crew wrangled the battleship into position behind Dauntless, Janeway watched with a secret melancholy as the squadron of Fenris Ranger ships turned in unison like a flock of birds and then leaped away to warp speed in a prismatic flash.
Be safe out there, Seven.
Fenris – Ranger Headquarters
After nineteen hours in Laniakea’s hold at high warp, General Kohgish’s stasis pod was none the worse for wear. Seven and Ellory walked on either side of the pod and guided it on its antigrav sled through the broad double doors of the Rangers’ oldest building, the Justice Hall.
Inside, their fellow Rangers had formed two long lines, leaving open between them a broad path that led straight to the booking sergeant’s desk. Everyone remained silent as Seven and Ellory escorted their prisoner toward his long-overdue reckoning. Their crisp footsteps on the marble floor echoed off the stone walls and ceiling in the cavernous old building, a relic of the Rangers’ earliest days.
They halted two meters in front of the sergeant’s elevated desk. Ellory deactivated the antigrav sled, which sank slowly to the floor. Once the sled had settled, Seven triggered the stasis pod’s rejuvenation sequence. Its transparent lid retracted into its shell, and a cloud of wispy vapor rose from its interior. The machine hummed for a second, and then the display of vital signs on its outer panel confirmed that General Kohgish was alive and conscious, with his manacled wrists at his waist.
Seven grabbed one of the Antican’s burly arms. “He’s awake. Help me stand him up.”
Ellory took hold of the general’s other arm. Together, she and Seven hoisted the hulking brute up and out of the pod and then they marched him forward to present him to the sergeant. Disoriented from his ordeal on the Eris and the aftereffects of suspended animation, Kohgish swayed; his balance clearly had been compromised. Ellory steadied him with a hand on his chest. “Stay still. Try not to puke.”
Looking down from the desk was Ranger Sergeant Caro, a stern-faced Kelpien. He squinted his small, close-set eyes at Kohgish. “And what do we have here?”
Seven didn’t need to look at the charge sheet. She had memorized it.
“This is General Kohgish of Antica. He is hereby charged with sedition and treason against the government and people of Soroya IV; acts of genocide that resulted in the deaths of at least three hundred thousand persons on Soroya IV; extortion of the government of Alta; the sabotage and subsequent destruction of Soroya IV’s weather-control network; ordering an attack that resulted in the death of Fenris Ranger Jalen Par; and contracting with bounty hunters to commission the murder of Fenris Ranger Keon Harper, and the attempted murder of myself, Fenris Ranger Seven of Nine. Plus such other charges as the prosecutors’ office deems proper.”
“The charges are so registered. Guards, take the prisoner to processing.”
A trio of Rangers approached to accept custody of the general.
Kohgish struggled against his manacles and tried to retreat from the jailers as he succumbed to panic. “Stop! You can’t do this!”
Sergeant Caro asked, “Why can’t we?”
“Because I’m an Antican! I’m a Federation citizen! I have rights!”
Seven seized Kohgish by his tunic’s collar and pulled him down to her level. “So did the people you murdered.”
He thrashed but could not free himself from her grip. “I won’t be condemned by a Borg and a bunch of vigilantes! I demand to be extradited to the Federation! I—”
Seven twisted the general’s shirt collar into a tourniquet to shut him up. “You committed your crimes here and you’ll answer for them here.” Disgusted, she released him with a push that landed him in the jailers’ arms. “Book him.”
Kohgish flailed and ranted like a madman as the jailers hauled him away.
Seven and Ellory ignored every word he said as they left the Justice Hall together, with their heads held high and their strides in perfect sync, basking in the cheers and applause of their fellow Rangers.