“Incoming transmission from the Juno,” reported Centurion Vorien, his eyes fixed on the scopes as the armada lumbered forward, the armada of an Empire that never fell.
“Ignore it,” Colonel Nethak replied firmly. “This is not our fight.” No longer was there any reason to entertain the words of a man who would soon be dead. The Imperial Navy would carve up the Juno and take it for scraps, and then he would take his rightful place in the halls of power of an Empire that never fell.
“Colonel, must I remind you…” Sub-Commander Satrin began to object, figuring she might as well give it one last attempt. They had tried, through sabotage, to stop this, but somehow, the colonel had slithered out of it.
“No, you may not,” Colonel Nethak interrupted, his eyes narrowing on her. He could see it on her face, the inner debate she must’ve been having within herself about whether to go along with him or to do… to do what? This was his ship now. She couldn’t stop him. She could only serve, or perish alongside those she sympathized with. “Does this present a problem for you, Sub-Commander?”
“No… sir,” Sub-Commander Satrin replied flatly.
“Very good,” Colonel Nethak smiled, reveling in the sense of her discomfort. “Then sit back and enjoy the show.” He’d still let the major kill her later. Satrin t’Kara was too much of a liability to leave alive. Still, he needed the loyalty of the crew, and for now, that meant she lived at least until tomorrow.
Sub-Commander Satrin stepped back, glancing around the room at the familiar faces. Irulan had been in on the sabotage, but her hands were too soft to take a life. Vorien, his hands were calloused from his years in the camps, but his heart was too kind. And Saedek, he was cool as ice and fitted to the task, but he was too young to know where his loyalties truly lay. That meant, if a move was to be made, it would be on her and Ranor to make it.
Major Dravik interrupted her thoughts. “They have engaged the enemy,” he reported, and that he had omitted which enemy he was referring to was not lost on her.
As the crew of the Decius looked forward, the first shots were fired, the lead D’deridex opening first, and the Juno responding in kind. But the Starfleet ship didn’t meet the Romulans head on. Instead, she danced, darting in and out of the nebular clouds, bright orange beams lancing out, interspersed with the glint of quantum torpedoes as they tore from their launchers, all before disappearing again beneath the deep magenta gases. They would not go easy into the night.
At first, it looked like the USS Juno had the upper hand, the D’deridex unable to keep up with her elusive movements. One moment, she was dead ahead, and the next, she was at port, bearing down on the old girl with her big guns, the Type XIVs making quick work of the generation’s old emitters of the D’deridex, a shield grid that hadn’t been updated due to supply strain from the long war they’d fought in this reality.
“Captain Knight appears unwilling to go down without a fight,” Major Dravik noted, a hint of respect in his tone. He had almost expected Starfleet to just surrender like the cowards he knew them to be.
“He cannot win against the inevitability of scale,” Colonel Nethak suggested. While that first D’deridex had tied up the USS Juno, the rest of the battle group had swung around, encircling them from all sides. While the USS Juno could dart in and out of the clouds, the battle group was cutting them from choice, and all they would have to do is push inward and suffocate her. As he watched, they did just that. “It is only a matter of time now.”
“We could help them,” Centurion Vorien offered, realizing how insane this all was. They were on secondment to Polaris Squadron, and Starfleet ship was their ally. But more than that, he had seen the hearts of men like those aboard the USS Juno while living in the camps after the fall of Romulus. They had not abandoned him so how was it right to abandon them now?
“Could we do what, centurion?” Colonel Nethak snarled as he spun, advancing towards the station and drawing so close he could have reached out and touched the young man. “Are you really such a fool?” He locked eyes with the kid. “Or no… you are just too young to know better.”
“But sir…”
“My responsibility is to this ship and this crew, just like Captain Knight’s is to his,” Colonel Nethak interrupted the kid before he could finish. “But unlike Captain Knight, I know which battles are worth fighting.” Of course, he had also helped precipitate this one, but that, he would not admit. Not until it was over. He glanced back at the viewscreen, the Juno now taking some heavy hits. “What, really, do you think we could do against all that? We would die, and for what?”
