Log In
Or create an account ->
Imperial Library
Home
About
News
Upload
Forum
Help
Login/SignUp
Index
“Where are the Romulans?” Riker asked.The group was standing beneath a gigantic silver sculpture fashioned in the shape of a hawklike avian that loomed over the curved tiers of desks and chairs where the late Romulan Senate had done its deliberations for centuries. Surrounded by blue pillars and abstract, rust-colored wall hangings, the room’s expansive stone floor was dominated by a circular mosaic of smooth marble, half blue and half green, and inlaid with lines and circlets of gold. A wavy ribbon of turquoise bisected the mosaic, at once separating and joining the two halves together. Golden icons faced one another across the length of the divide, arrayed like chess pieces.On the green side, far off-center and larger than every other element on the mosaic, was the stylized image of a star and two nearby planets.To Troi, the symbolism was both obvious and shocking…. and perhaps indicative of a disturbing cultural mindset. Here, at the very heart of their power, was the Romulan worldv
Historian’s NoteMost of this story unfolds during the final days of the year 2379 (Old Calendar), shortly after the events of Star Trek Nemesis and the novel Death in Winter.
Chapter OneROMULUS, STARDATE 56828.8“T his must be your first visit to Ki Baratan,” said the woman who stood behind the operative.So much for hiding in plain sight, the operative thought, quietly abandoning his hope that she would pay him as little heed as had the throngs of civilians and military officers he’d already passed along the city’s central eyhon. He turned and regarded her, averting his gaze momentarily from the graceful, blood-green dome of the Romulan Senate building. The ancient structure gleamed behind him in the morning sun, reflecting an aquamarine glint from the placid Apnex Sea that lay just beyond it.“As a matter of fact, this is my first visit,” the operative said. He smiled broadly, confident that the woman wouldn’t sense how awkward this particular mannerism felt to him. “Before today, I had seen the greatness of Dartha only in my grandfather’s holos.”As she studied him, he noted that she was old and gray. Her clothing was drab and shapeless, her lined countenanc
Chapter One
Chapter TwoU.S.S. TITAN, STARDATE 56941.1A mong stars his kind had not yet traveled, Will Riker soared.Scarcely feeling the observation platform of Titan’s stellar cartography lab beneath his feet, Riker let go, surrendering to the illusion of gliding swiftly “upstream” along the galaxy’s Orion Arm. Buoyed on the strains of Louis Armstrong’s 1928 recording of “West End Blues,” Riker seemed to move far faster than even his ship’s great engines could propel him. The familiar stars of home had long since fallen away. What lay ahead and all around him was an unknown expanse whose mysteries he, his crew, and their young vessel were meant to discover.So much to explore, he thought, at once humbled and exhilarated by the realization. Who’s out here? What will we find waiting for us? And what’ll we learn along the way? These were the same questions that had led him to join Starfleet years ago. Now, as then, he could think of only one certain way to unveil the answers.Soon, he told himself. Soo
Chapter Two
Chapter ThreeU.S.S. TITAN I t had been four years since Lieutenant Melora Pazlar had left her brief assignment aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-E and until two months ago she hadn’t been back aboard a Federation starship. Her chief reason for staying so long in her native world’s microgravity environment was personal. But now she realized that she’d had another legitimate rationale for having steered clear of Starfleet vessels for so long: physical discomfort. Even in the specially designed uniform she wore, adapting to the “normal” shipboard gravity could be a chore.The uniform’s exoframe servomotors let out a low, almost inaudible whine as Pazlar’s willowy form progressed down the corridor. She moved forward deliberately, her garlanic wood walking stick assisting the exoframe’s step-by-step redistribution of her weight. She saw a Vulcan and a Bolian approaching her, and politely nodded and smiled to them as they neared. She hoped she was concealing the constant pain and pressure Titan’s
Chapter Three
Chapter FourU.S.S. TITAN, STARDATE 56941.4“I officially pronounce her fit and ready to fly, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Nidani Ledrah said as she replaced the access panel to the Armstrong’s port engine nacelle. She rose from a crouch and strode alongside the spotless new type-11 shuttlecraft, and beamed with professional pride.Riker returned Ledrah’s smile, delighted by her enthusiasm.“I’m curious about something, Captain,” Ledrah said, her voice echoing across the high, vaulted spaces of Titan’s primary hangar deck. Nearby was parked the runabout Irrawaddy, which had brought Admirals Ross and Akaar aboard. Shuttlecrafts Ellington, Gillespie, Holiday, Handy, Beiderbecke, Marsalis, and Mance were all arrayed neatly beyond, positioned farther away than both the Armstrong and the Irrawaddy from the forcefield barrier that prevented Titan’s atmosphere from rushing out into the airless void. Beyond the hangar’s yawning aperture, Mars presented its ancient, sanguine, crater-pocked face.“Ask
Chapter Four
Chapter FiveU.S.S. TITAN, STARDATE 56944.2“L ook out!” yelled astrobiologist Kenneth Norellis as the tool kit slipped from his grasp. Reacting instinctively, he grabbed vainly for the falling implements—and simultaneously lost his grip on the ladder. The artificial gravity took him, and he plunged nearly two meters straight down through the vertical shaft of the Jefferies tube.He landed in a heap at the bottom, a moment after his tool kit sprayed its cargo of spanners and stem bolts in every direction. The impact forced a surprised yelp out of him, in addition to abruptly pushing most of the air from his lungs.“You okay?” said Melora Pazlar, poking her head into the Jefferies tube’s shaft from a horizontal access tunnel.“Dammit!” Norellis said, massaging his right knee, through which pain was now flaring with near-nova intensity. “I can’t believe I just did that,” he hissed through clenched teeth. And for what? A diagnostic analysis of a tertiary backup holographic imaging relay. I mig
Chapter Five
Chapter SixU.S.S. TITAN, STARDATE 56979.5A fter the first week passed, Troi noticed that she was feeling increasingly restive, so much so that she booked a couple of sessions with Counselor Huilan, one of her two subordinates in Titan’s Mental Health Services department. She was glad for the presence of the hardworking male S’ti’ach. The nearly meter-high sentient, who resembled a fat, blue-furred, bipedal bear with extra arms and dorsal spines, smiled with his saberlike white incisors bared as he regarded her with his huge, fathomless black eyes, all the while patiently listening to her problems and offering occasional encouragements. Despite his small size, Huilan easily did the work of any two humanoid counselors, which was a real asset on a ship whose widely varied crew carried so much potential for interpersonal friction. After Starfleet had halved Troi’s original request for a four-person counseling staff—Starfleet Command, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that a total of thre
Chapter Six
Chapter SevenU.S.S. TITAN T he sides of the cramped turbolift seemed to close in on the group as the doors whisked closed and the lift raced toward the bridge. Vale suppressed a slight wave of claustrophobia. She was the shortest one on the lift, between Troi and Commander Jaza, with Captain Riker, Commander Keru, and especially Admiral Akaar towering above all of them. Of the others from the briefing not on the lift, Ledrah and Ra-Havreii were on their way to engineering, Dr. Ree was heading to sickbay, and Vale didn’t know, or particularly care, where the trio of Vulcan aides had gone.“Care to explain how the Klingons are a ‘humanitarian task force,’ Admiral?” Riker asked, his eyes steely as he looked across to Akaar. He didn’t need to point out that there was no love lost between Qo’noS and Romulus, wartime alliances notwithstanding.“We have recently been advised that the Remans have requested assistance from the Klingon Empire,” Akaar said evenly. “These three ships are therefore t
Chapter Seven
Chapter EightU.S.S. TITAN “W e’re being hailed again, Captain,” said Cadet Zurin Dakal, who was currently backing Keru at tactical by manning communications.It had been less than twenty minutes since Commander Donatra and her squadron had appeared to escort the convoy toward Romulus—and since then Donatra’s warbird had reactivated its cloak, vanishing from sight, though perhaps not from the general vicinity of the convoy.Riker turned his chair in the direction of the youthful Cardassian trainee. “Who’s calling us this time, Cadet?”“Romulus sir.” Dakal glanced down at his readouts, and the young Cardassian’s eyes suddenly became enormous. “The signal is coming directly from the Romulan Hall of State. It’s Praetor Tal’Aura.”Riker felt his own eyes widen involuntarily as well. Then he noticed that both Deanna and Vale, seated in the chairs that flanked his own, had turned their expectant gazes upon him.“Should I call Admiral Akaar back to the bridge?” Vale asked.Riker shook his head, thou
Chapter Eight
Chapter NineVIKR’L PRISON, KI BARATAN, ROMULUST hroughout the past week, Tuvok had been completely unable to focus his attention, as his fever rose ever higher. As closely as he could tell, he had been imprisoned for fifty days, though in the dark, windowless dampness, it was difficult to reckon time accurately. He couldn’t even keep track of the cycles by counting mealtimes, since food arrived irregularly, with entire days sometimes elapsing between meals.But neither the interrogators, the guards, nor the other prisoners had found out that he was not Rukath, the lowly farmer from Leinarrh, in the Rarathik District. The minor surgical alterations he had undergone before making land-fall on Romulus had held up. Only the most detailed scan, to which he had apparently not yet been subjected, could have revealed that he was actually Vulcan rather than Romulan.Between his Starfleet intelligence training, his Vulcan disciplines, and the tricks he had learned while on deep cover assignment wi
Chapter Nine
Chapter TenU.S.S. TITAN “T his isn’t exactly what I signed up for,” Kent Norellis said, watching the streams of green bubbles that rose like inverted meteor showers inside his glass.Cadet Zurin Dakal looked up from his tray of sushi—an obsession he had acquired during his freshman year at Starfleet Academy—and was relieved to see that Norellis, seated at right angles to Dakal on the left, had apparently addressed the comment to no one at the table in particular. Dakal had feared that he personally would be expected to respond to the ensign’s newest complaint, and that was one challenge he was not yet ready to undertake.All things considered, Dakal knew he should have felt honored to be here. Not only did he have the distinction of being the first Cardassian in Starfleet, not only was his Academy class the first to begin in the aftermath of the Dominion War, not only was he one of only four fourth-year Starfleet cadets privileged to fulfill his required field studies on a new starship a
Chapter Ten
Chapter ElevenTHE HALL OF STATE, KI BARATAN, ROMULUST he massive ruatinite-inlaid doors swung quickly inward, as though propelled by some implacable, irresistible force. The great doors crashed jarringly against the polished volcanic stone walls, casting a harsh echo throughout the praetor’s audience chamber.You will learn respect one day, Rehaek, Praetor Tal’Aura thought as two black-clad figures entered the wide doorway and resolutely approached her, their hnoiyika-leather boots clacking loudly on the gleaming black floor.Tomalak moved forward from Tal’Aura’s side to intercept the two interlopers.“Jolan’tru, Director Rehaek,” the proconsul said in even tones. “I do wish you had called ahead. We would have prepared some appropriate…hospitality for you.”Rehaek came to a stop less than a single dhat’drih from Tomalak, and perhaps only four times that distance from the praetor’s chair. The man who had entered beside Rehaek stopped obediently alongside his master, glowering at Tomalak wit
Chapter Eleven
Chapter TwelveU.S.S. TITAN C hristine Vale arrived on the bridge for her shift early, as was her habit. The extra time gave her a chance to be fully briefed by the gamma shift bridge commander, who, in this case, was Lieutenant Commander Fo Hachesa, a Kobliad with an infectiously pleasant personality—as well as a sometimes offputting propensity either to drop suffixes from gerunds and adverbs, or to add superfluous ones.“Not much to report, Commander,” Hachesa said. “Perhaps their heavy drink has render them unable to bother us.”Vale gave him a slight smile, remembering the meal aboard the Vaj. She saw some of the other bridge crew members grinning at his statement as well, indicating that scuttlebutt about Khegh and his crew must already have traveled far and wide throughout the ship.“We have also receiving a request from Commander Donatra that the captain contacting her at 0900,” Hachesa said. “It wasn’t appearing urgent, merely a query into the details of our delivering of aid suppl
Chapter Twelve
Chapter ThirteenSOMEWHERE DEEP IN ROMULAN SPACES pace itself twisted into gigantic shimmering whorls and glowing iridescent loops before Commander Donatra’s fascinated eyes. What she saw was a thing of both beauty and power. A monument to the heroism of many.And to the overweening ambition of one.The Great Bloom. Here is where the thalaron explosion finally rid us of Shinzon, she thought , along with his plans to spread still more death and destruction across the galaxy.Surveying the bridge of the warbird Valdore, she watched her crew as they busied themselves scanning and monitoring the phenomenon displayed on the viewer. Turning back toward the Great Bloom’s spectacular image, she reflected that this region of space had nearly become a cemetery for her own ship and crew, as well as for Shinzon. How many noble Romulan soldiers, as well as subordinates of Captain Picard, had died in the battle to stop the upstart praetor’s dishonorable rampage?Now, many weeks after a truly dreadful wea
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter FourteenU.S.S. TITAN “T hank you, Commander Ledrah.”“All part of the service, Captain,” said the chief engineer, her voice filtered through the combadge. “But be careful, sir. This admiral is a sneaky bastard, if you don’t mind my saying so.”“I don’t mind a bit, Nidani. But you’re lucky he hasn’t got here yet. Now, try to stay out of trouble, all right?”“Always, sir. Ledrah out.” The ready room fell silent. Riker stared out the observation window at the distant stars. But he felt none of the joy and exhilaration he had experienced barely two weeks ago when he had immersed himself in the holographic projections of the stellar cartography lab. Instead of reveling in the unrestrained freedom of deep space, its dark beauty illuminated by countless distant fires, he found himself searching for naked-eye stellar distortions.It was a poor trade-off.His sharp gaze sought out disturbances that were as likely to be the products of drifting debris as cloaked vessels. As he watched, one of
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter FifteenTHE HALL OF STATE, KI BARATAN, ROMULUSD eanna Troi kept her eyes open as the familiar sparkling blaze of light intensified and engulfed her, before rapidly dimming to twilight levels. The eager Lieutenant Radowski and the worry-radiating Commander Vale, along with the rest of Titan’s compact transporter room four, were abruptly replaced by the cavernous, vaulted spaces of the Romulan Hall of State. Radial, crescent-shaped windows set high into the domed ceiling admitted the waning sunlight into the otherwise unlit room, obscuring the chamber’s periphery with curved, inky shadows.Hello, again, Troi thought, forcing down a shudder of foreboding as she looked around the spacious room. Thanks to her still-green memories of Shinzon—and his viceroy Vkruk—she couldn’t help but feel foreboding in this place that Shinzon had so recently occupied.Yet no matter how uncomfortable this chamber made her feel, she knew this was no time to allow herself to become distracted.She noticed
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter SixteenVIKR’L PRISON, KI BARATAN, ROMULUS“M nean partrai hra’ yy’a hwi hvei h’rau na gaehl!” Mekrikuk’s deep voice echoed down the corridor. Generally, the Romulan klhus ignored the yelling and screaming from the Remans, but when someone yelled that there was another dead body back in the cells—as Mekrikuk had just done—they paid slightly more attention. Whether the corpses ended up in the food or in a mass grave somewhere outside the prison was a matter of constant debate. Mekrikuk had always suspected that the Romulan corpses were treated with slightly more dignity than the Reman dead were afforded, and he hoped this would be the case now.The Romulan known by others as Rukath, but to Mekrikuk and his protected ones as Tuvok, lay motionless on the ground. Tesruk and Kachrek were guarding his body to prevent any postmortem molestation by the other prisoners, but Mekrikuk knew that it was not his protected ones that really kept the others at bay. His own menacing presence accomp
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter SeventeenU.S.S. TITAN “C aptain, I believe I’ve isolated Commander Tuvok’s life signs.”Riker turned his chair, feeling hope surge within him. “Good work, Mr. Jaza. Put what you’ve got up on the screen, please.”The image on the bridge’s central viewscreen shifted. It had been displaying Romulus in the center, along with images of the Federation relief ships and their Klingon escorts; the scene now displayed a map overlay of the planet, which swiftly zoomed in on a sparsely populated area just outside the capital city of Romulus. As the image zoomed in further, Riker saw a large circular facility in an aerial view, and recognized it as a highly secured, bunkerlike facility.“Tuvok appears to be inside Vikr’l Prison, which is located within one of the outlying districts of Ki Baratan,” Jaza said. “The readings are pretty thready, though. I’m picking up indications of kelbonite and fistrium inside the prison walls. Not a lot, but enough to cause some interference with our scans, eve
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter EighteenROMULUST he Remans moved swiftly through the darkened tunnels, relying mostly, no doubt, on their finely honed nocturnal senses. Tuvok was glad that two of them were carrying him between them. Had they forced him to run alongside them, he no doubt would have tripped repeatedly, smashing into the rocky ground and likely breaking his malnourished and probably brittle bones.Because the passageways were nearly pitch black, Tuvok found the sense of rapid forward movement disconcerting. The loud, rhythmic susurration the Remans made as they breathed and ran in the darkness might have frightened most sentient beings, but Tuvok had conquered his fear of the dark when he was a mere child of nine. He had run away from his home after the death of his pet sehlat, which had precipitated a disagreement with his parents over whether or not pets possessed a katra. Embarking on the tal’oth survival ritual—the four-month version of the more modest, seven-day rite of passage called the ka
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter NineteenU.S.S. TITAN T he shimmering curtain of light released him, and Tuvok found himself standing beside a moderately surprised-looking Spock on a much wider Federation transporter stage than the one the shuttlecraft had carried. He presumed that they were now aboard the very starship from which the shuttlecraft had originated.“Lieutenant Radowski to bridge,” said the young male human Starfleet officer who stood behind the transporter room’s sleek control console.“Go ahead, Lieutenant,” replied the resonant, businesslike voice that issued from the junior officer’s combadge.“They’re both on board, Captain.”“Good work. I’m on my way.” The next moment, the doors whisked open to admit a pair of armed personnel who were obviously security guards. Seeing their hard stares, Tuvok remained where he was on the transporter stage. He was mildly surprised to see Spock step off the stage and onto the deck.“Please remain where you are, sir,” one of the guards said.Spock obediently stopped
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter TwentyU.S.S. TITAN M aybe Spock was right after all, Riker thought as he left his ready room just ahead of Deanna, Akaar, Spock, and Tuvok; he bounded through the doors and toward the center of Titan’s bridge as the others hastened to follow.Christine Vale—her short hair still somewhat disheveled after the raid on Vikr’l Prison—was already relinquishing the central command chair, moving toward the seat located on its immediate right. But she remained standing, her small frame fairly vibrating with tension.“Red alert! Shields up!” Riker shouted as he seated himself in the command chair while Deanna took the seat at his immediate left. “Hail the lead ship, Mr. Keru.”“Shields up. Hailing again, Captain,” said the tactical officer. Unlike Vale, he still wore one of the black stealth suits the away team had been issued for the prison rescue operation. His suit was torn, bloodied, and caked with dust: he had obviously spent as little time as was permissible getting patched up in sick
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-oneU.S.S. TITAN R iker was both grateful and annoyed that the new command seats came equipped with automatic safety harnesses. Triggered into operation by Titan’s momentarily overloaded inertial damping system, the automatic restraints had deployed quickly enough to prevent the violent impact of the first attacker’s barrage from throwing him to the deck. But he was not in the habit of allowing himself to be pinned down, especially in the middle of a combat situation.“Report!” he shouted as he reached for the manual release control, located on the left arm of his chair.“Shields holding at seventy percent,” Keru said from his post at the aft end of the bridge. “Phasers are armed and ready.”Riker knew that under normal circumstances, returning fire would be one of his prime options. But this situation was anything but normal. Old and new Romulan ships—vessels crewed by opposing Remans and Romulans—were moving quickly to engage one another in the night skies over Romulus. It
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-twoU.S.S. TITAN T he fighting had stopped, at least for the moment.Troi sensed both incredulity and admiration radiating from the otherwise inscrutable Tuvok. If he doesn’t report to sickbay soon, he’s liable to fall down. But the skies over Romulus still teemed with hostile, Reman-crewed warships, and Tuvok’s assistance during their attack had proved indispensable. The outbreak of hostilities had kept the intelligence operative too busy to submit to a thorough examination in sickbay, though he had found the time to exchange his torn and bloodied Romulan traveling cassock for a standard-issue Starfleet duty uniform.Tuvok, who was working at Lieutenant Commander Keru’s tactical station, looked toward the center of the bridge, where Troi and Vale sat. “Whatever Captain Riker did, it appears to be working,” Tuvok said. “Although more than half of their vessels remain fully operational—and able to continue fighting—the Remans are withdrawing.”“Confirmed,” Jaza said, his eyes
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-threeU.S.S. TITAN, STARDATE 57020.5I n spite of himself, Riker felt he was the least of the three people present in his ready room, now that the crisis had been averted. Akaar and Spock sat on the other side of the desk from him, discussing the resolution of the immediate Romulan-Reman conflict, and what was to come next. They all knew that what they had done today was merely a stopgap measure. But now the way was clear for the Federation to send in specialists from the Diplomatic Corps to help work out the fine details of the Klingon administration of a Reman protectorate. Riker was well aware that the deal he and Spock had brokered between the Klingons and the Remans might have unpredictable consequences down the road.For the moment, the result was peace, however fragile it might be. And that was infinitely preferable to the alternative.“Admiral, do you think you could see your way clear to allow Ambassador Spock to return to his work with the Unification movement and
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-fourU.S.S. TITAN, STARDATE 57023.3T he meeting with Tal’Aura, Tomalak, Durjik, Donatra, and Xiomek had gone far more smoothly than Riker had expected. But it was the end of yet another extraordinarily long day, and the weary captain could tell that Deanna was as exhausted as he was even before they had finished materializing in transporter room four.But Deanna also evidently shared his upbeat mood. “I think we’re really beginning to get through to them,” she said, walking arm-in-arm with him along the corridor that led to their quarters. “Tomalak is going to be a tough sell, and Donatra seems to hate him almost as much as she despises Tal’Aura. On the other hand, I’m sensing that Tal’Aura is beginning to trust us. As is Xiomek.”“Meaning that they trust us more than they trust each other,” Riker said as they reached the door to their quarters. “Which isn’t all that much.”“True enough. But it’s as good a place to start as any other,” Deanna said, placing her palm on the co
Chapter Twenty-four
About the AuthorsMICHAEL A. MARTIN’s solo short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He has also coauthored (with Andy Mangels) several Star Trek comics for Marvel and Wildstorm and numerous Star Trek novels and e-books, including this volume and Titan: Book Two—The Red King (forthcoming); Star Trek: Worlds of Deep Space 9 Book Two: Trill—Unjoined; Star Trek: The Lost Era 2298—The Sundered; Star Trek: Deep Space 9 Mission: Gamma Book Three—Cathedral; Star Trek: The Next Generation: Section 31—Rogue; Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers #30 and #31 (“Ishtar Rising” Books 1 and 2); stories in the Prophecy and Change and Tales of the Dominion War anthologies, as well as in the soon-to-be-released Tales from the Captain’s Table anthology; and three novels based on the Roswell television series. His work has also been published by Atlas Editions (in their Star Trek Universe subscription card series), Star Trek Monthly, Dreamwatch, Grolier Books, Visible Ink
Starship Titan Design ContestEntry Deadline: August 15, 2005 Official RulesNo Purchase Necessary.The following Contest is intended for viewing and participation in the United States and Canada only (excluding Quebec). Do not enter this Contest if you are not located within the U.S. or Canada.Contest begins at 12:00 a.m., Eastern Standard Time on March 29, 2005, and ends at 11:59 p.m., Eastern Standard Time on August 15, 2005.PURPOSE Pocket Books is offering Star Trek fans with an aptitude for ship design the opportunity to design the U.S.S. Titan, the starship of Captain William Riker, which was established but not seen in the feature film Star Trek Nemesis.ELIGIBILITY This contest is open to Star Trek fans age 18 or older as of March 29, 2005. Open to legal residents of the United States and Canada (excluding Quebec). Void in Quebec, Puerto Rico, and wherever prohibited or restricted by law. Employees and their immediate family members (or those with whom they are domiciled) of the Sp
← Prev
Back
Next →
← Prev
Back
Next →