Danny Amor's Online Library/Danny Amor's Online Library - Volume 1.iso/html/startrek/old-incomplete/epic.p1-1b

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From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: ST: EPIC, PROLOGUE
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 11 Aug 92 11:58:22 MST
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Wyoming - Laramie, WY
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                  EPIC: Part I: Inferno

            PROLOGUE

     Commander Torun strode into the Tactical Room of his ship, the command
Warbird of Talon III. Talon III, a rather new fleet which consisted of four
warbirds was awaiting a new mission. They had just returned from their last
mission on the spinward border and Torun was glad that his fleet would be
returning to the coreward borders, where battles with the Klingons would gain
glory for both himself and the Romulan Star Empire. Let other commanders worry
about the war on the spinward frontier....he would deal with their old
adversaries.
     He was interrupted in his thoughts by the soft swoosh of the door opening.
He hand momentarily went to his "ceremonial" dagger, but he relaxed when he saw
that the intruder was Subcommander Tollus.
     "Yes Tollus, what can I do for you?" Torun inquired. Tollus was an
impressive man, not because of his stature. He has almost too short to be in
the military, but he made up for his lack of strength by having an agile body
and a mond of a strategic genius. His uniform glittered as light from the
nearby planet that rotated in the room's bay windows sparkled off of his
uniform.
     "Sir," Tollus replied. "Our fleet is ready. The Praetor has given you the
option to choose our target."
     Torun knew that the Praetor's "gift" was laced with death. If he picked a
target that was deemed too docile, his career would be ended. If he picked a
target that was too strong, there would not be enough of him left to be brought
back to bury. He had little fear of finding a target that could stand up to
four of the mighty new Warbird class ships.
     Torun glided silently to the wall on the right side of the room. While the
other wall featured a picture of the planet Romulus, the wall facing it was
totally blank. It was this wall that both of the Romulans stood before now.
     "Computer," Torun said, "display tactical map."
     The wall lit up with a grid display. Icons appeared.....small diamonds
indicating ships flashed in an amber color, small Romulan emblems marked the
positions of planets.
     Torun lightly touched the left side of the map and it scrolled westward.
A blue bulge appeared in the upper left corner.....the Federation. Where the
Federation and the Romulan borders met, there was a bright yellow line which
marked the Neutral Zone. Several yellow diamonds flashed along this line,
these were defense posts.....dug into asteroids that had been towed to their
present sites.....Torun paused the screen here for a moment and let a soft
Hmmmmmmmmm escape his lips.
     "The Federation, commander?" Tollus asked.
     "Hmmmmmmmmm. It is tempting, Tollus, especially after the Empire's last
engagement with them. I remember the fleet reports on that mission....it was
extremely successful........but....."
     Torun took a pointer from the dispensor under the map and tapped it in the
blue area that comprised territory belonging to the United Federation of
Planets. "There is a problem, my friend, with attacking the Federation just
now."
     "What problem, commander?"
     "Take a look at the map again, Tollus."
     The subcommander did so. Past the yellow line of the neutral zone, the
blue area of the Federation floated....a few UFP symbols marking notable
planets......
     "I don't see sir....."
     "No ships."
     "Sir?"
     "Our forces are so busy on other frontiers that we do not have accurate
data on their ship dispositions. After that successful attack on the
Federation, we still do not have a real picture about what ships they have in
the area, but I can tell you that they probably have a lot of them along the
border. There's a chance that some of those ships could be of the Ambassador
class. They could very quickly outnumber us." Torun thought again not having
enough of his ashes left to bury.
     He scrolled the map futher westward.....the blue area of the Federation
bulged out a little more, then turned and glided westward where it met the
bright red line that marked the border of the Klingon Empire. The two borders
ran northwest for a little bit until they came to a circular entity....the
Orion colonies. Coreward of the Orion colonies, the Klingon-Federation border
continued to run northwest, this time overlayed by another bright yellow
line.....the Organian Treaty zone. The Romulan border slowly turned south after
leaving the Neutral Zone and it travelled southward until it came to within one
parsec of the southeast border of the Klingon Empire. The area within the
triangle that the borders of the three great nations formed was called aptly
enough "the Triangle" and this held some interesting possibilities.
     "There!" Torun said as he tapped his pointed on the map at the area of the
Klingon-Federation border south of the Orion colonies. "The federation
shouldn't have too many ships in this area, and I believe the Klingons have a
few military bases there that we can attack."
     "Computer," Tollus ordered, "enlarge section H-12."
     The map exploded as the grid lines grew larger. Planets were now displayed
by their nationality icons and their names. There was still no icons denoting
ships. The two Romulans looked at the map for a second....then Torun smiled.
     "Think of it." He said. "An attack by the Romulan Empire on a Klingon
military post, in an area near both the Orion colonies and the Federation.
Think of the chaos that will cause!'
     Tollus nodded.
     "Computer, map off." The faded back to its original gray color. Torun
turned to Tollus. "Subcommander," he said. "Set course for one of the Klingon
posts in section H-12. I don't care which one. Send the orders to the fleet and
send a communique to the Senate informing them of our intentions. Include with
that communique a copy of the Praetor's orders." With that, the subcommander
saluted and left the room, leaving the commander to the view of the planet
which spun below.

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From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: ST: EPIC  Pt. 1
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 11 Aug 92 12:38:31 MST
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Wyoming - Laramie, WY
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        EPIC: Part 1: Inferno                  Chapter 1

     Captain's Personal Log: Stardate 12577.2

     The USS Enterprise has been ordered to the Klingon border zone for a
standard two-week patrol. I am not looking forward to this patrol; the border
has been almost literally dead for years. I have asked some of the historians
aboard the ship about this and they've told me that it is not unusual for a
nation to become extremely insular while rebuilding from a near collapse of the
state, such as what happened around the time of the Khitomer Conference. I wish
I could be a little more confident of the situation, but I keep thinking back
into history and I keep wondering if the Klingon Empire will come out of this
period of isolation looking like the old Soviet Union or the old United States.
No one has those answers yet.
     Still, I guess I'd rather have two weeks of boredom here than two weeks of
sheer bliss on the Romulan border.
     On a more light-hearted note, Commander Morgan humorously suggested to the
morning-shift bridge crew that perhaps we should run our patrol on THEIR side
of the border. He said that perhaps the Klingons were asleep, or dead, or
something, and that they wouldn't notice us. Somehow, I doubt that plan woud
work, and no one has volunteered for that mission.

     Captain Rachel Garrett finished dictation her log entry just as the chime
to her ready room sounded. "I hope it's business. Garrett thought as she passed
through the glass divider that seperated her Ready Room from her quarters. She
put the log recorder back into its slot next to the bed. Pressing a small
button on the side of the recorder, she activated its download process and it
hummed to itself as it sent her latest log entry to the memory core of the
ship's starboard-side computer.
     "Come in," Garrett said as the chime sounded again.
     The doors swooshed open and Commander Daniel Morgan, the ship's first
officer stood framed in the doorway.
     "Hello Dan," Garret said. "What can I do for you?"
     "I was sent to make sure you were ready for your date." Morgan smiled as
he replied.
     "My.....date." Garrett said. She knew where this was going.
     "Yeah, Dr. Wilkins told me to come up here and make sure you didn't miss
this special evening with him." Morgan had entered the room and was standing
next to the captain by this time. He leaned over and playfully whispered, "He's
taking you to the theatre tonight."
     "Well," Garrett said kindly, looking at Morgan's face, the sandy brown
hair which was almost plopped haphazardly on his head, his deep blue eyes.....
"You can tell Dr. Wilkins that I won't be able to make it."
     "Are you sure?" Morgan asked hopefully. "He has twenty-four roses waiting
for you. He said he was working on a patient but that he would be down at the
theatre to give them to you personally."
     "Well, perhaps he could give them to YOU, Mr. Morgan." Garrett grinned as
she said this, knowing that Morgan was prejudiced when it came to homosexual
behavior.
     "No thanks, captain."
     "Ship's status, please," Garret said, switching from the informal to the
formal like she had just walked through the glass partition of her quarters.
     "The ship is cruising at Warp 4. We are three days out from Federation
Outpost F297, a day and a half out from the colony on Myjeris IV, and five days
away from the nearest Klingon outpost at Norendra III. There is one ship in the
area, the USS Intrepid, which is heading for a port call at the Orion colonies
and will be back down this way in about 6 days." He paused, then: "All's quiet
on the western front."
    "Good," Garrett replied. "Go up to the bridge and make sure it stays that
way."
     "But captain," Morgan protested. "I had planned to catch the theatre.
They're putting on a performance of 'Julius Caesar'"
     "Well, you can put it through on the bridge screen. It will give you
matchmakers something to do up there. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a little
work to do....."
     She almost couldn't help but laugh after Morgan had left the room.