Star Trek Hunter

Episode 20: Survival

Scene 4: A Woman’s Intuition

20.4

A Woman’s Intuition 

“No - that’s a Star Fleet signal. I can feel it.” Sela deeply hated humans - particularly their inability to recognize the ancient wisdom and genius of the Romulan people. She hated humanity for leaving her without a mother. But she monitored everything happening on her bridge because she had one thing pure romulans did not have. An instinct - an intuition about humans - a gift from her treacherous, ungrateful human mother. 

The moment she had heard her bridge officers start talking about a signal they had received from the eastern end of the empire, near the confluence of the borders of the Romulan Star Empire with the Dead Zone and the Klingon Empire, Sela had stepped out of her office onto the bridge and demanded details. The signal had a borg technological signature, but was on a subspace channel used almost exclusively by tholians. This mish-mash of technologies confused her officers. To Sela, it screamed humanity loud and clear. It was exactly the type of trick humans would use to confuse romulans and klingons.

“It is a beacon, but it does not carry any information. No coded message,” said Commander Hundeeth.

“Confirmed,” Centurion Cireeka agreed.

“That means that beacon is for one person and all the information they need is the fact that it is a borg signature on a tholian frequency coming from romulan space. It has to be that Star Fleet swaeshaeul* that has been sneaking about in our space,” Sela groused. 

“The ghost?” asked Cireeka.

“I should get angry at you for calling it that, but that is what everyone is calling it,” Sela replied.

“They have to be using a cloak. We should declare the Federation to be in violation of the Khitomer Accords,” Cireeka said.

“That would be unwise for a large number of reasons,” Admiral Ekot observed. “The Khitomer Accords establish our border with the Klingon Empire. Declare it void and the klingons would take a number of important worlds and the federation wouldn’t stop them.”

“The klingons would upgrade their disruptors to be able to fire immediately on decloaking,” Commander Hundeeth added, “and the Federation would have functioning cloaking devices on most of their capital ships within a year…”

“And it would give the Federation an excuse to close the traffic lane between the empire and Vulcan,” Ekot continued.

“We aren’t a party to the Gagarin Treaty - they couldn’t stop us from going to Vulcan,” said Commander Cireeka. 

“No,” said Hundeeth, “But they would use it to drive a wedge between the Empire and the Senate of New Romulus on Vulcan.”

“Which is exactly what they wanted right from the start,” Ekot added. “That may be why they’re sending that ghost into our space to begin with…”

“And we have no evidence the Federation is in violation of the Khitomer Accords,” Sela concluded. “We have a few scant readings of federation warp signatures and the frequencies of the photon torpedoes that destroyed Gamorlan were consistent with federation technology - but that could be fabricated. Even if the ghost is a federation starship, they could claim it is one rogue starship - we don’t even know if it has cloaking technology. It may be using some other sort of camouflage. Humans are tricky that way. They find ways around the rules. The last thing we want to do is hand them everything in the Khitomer Accords and get nothing in return.” Sela put her hand on Centurion Cireeka’s shoulder. “But it was a question well worth asking.”

Sela turned toward Ekot. “Put us on course for that beacon as best you can determine it. Since it did not carry a message, there will probably be another signal for triangulation. Listen for it. Reach out to the Pistris, the Pardus and the Simiae. Get them headed toward it as well. Tell them to keep their sensors highly tuned - I want that ghost.”

* swaeshaeul (Romulan - baby’s shoe (literally: toe shoe))

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