The Slaver Redemption

The Slaver Redemption – A Star Trek TOS Novella

By Jim Chung

Chapter 1

The Enterprise was on full red alert as it hurtled through hyperspace at Warp 8. The bridge lighting was the subdued red of combat stations, a nostalgic touch to the early days of undersea battles and the need to preserve night vision. Kirk was hunched over in his command chair studying the tactical readout displayed on his left arm console. His expression was guarded save for the tightness of his pursed lips. They relaxed to allow the passage of his finally realized command decision.

"Mr. Sulu, time to neutral zone?"

"Sir, at present speed I make it 2 hours, 41 minutes," stated the very experienced helmsman as he briefly glanced away from his navigational controls, fingers playing his instrument with the deft and unerring touch of a concert master. Experience spoke again by preempting his Captain's next question. "And Klingon contacts are continuing to close, weapons range in just under 3 minutes."

A standard squadron of three Klingon K'vort class Bird of Prey class vessels were pursuing Enterprise with the gleeful abandon of jackals confident in their kill. The squadron commander had ordered all ships to complete weapons preheat far in advance as the torpedo tubes glowed with expectancy. The rules of engagement were clear, a Federation warship had penetrated Klingon space and would have to be captured or destroyed. Diplomacy need not rear its ugly head today. No matter how skillfully the enemy had handled his ship he had merely prolonged his demise, it was impossible to evade them entirely.

"Sulu, make for that system bearing 043 mark 217 and drop to sub light right inside its asteroid field. And don't break my ship!"

Kirk thumbed the direct link to Engineering, "Scotty, is our cargo ready to deploy?"

The Scots inflected voice that never said never to his Captain replied "Aye, she's ready when you give the word."

Sulu dropped the Enterprise back into normal space and dumped his speed in a blinding flash of light and heat energy he hoped would momentarily overload the Klingon sensors. The Enterprise careened around the far side of a large asteroid and her hanger bay doors instantly snapped open. Twenty dual seat fighter craft left the shuttle bay in extremely tight formation and once clear broke apart in all directions. These fighters were massively over armed with a high yield phaser cannon and a single photon torpedo.

As the three Klingon Bird of Prey pounced on the far side of the asteroid they were met with painful and surprising sting of the fighters, simultaneously unloading their torpedoes and pulsing their phasers with abandon. Momentarily distracted, the Klingon squadron lost focus on their quarry and were only beginning to react to the fighters when the Enterprise reappeared astern. A volley of three photo torpedoes hit the closest Klingon in rapid succession annihilating its defense shields and allowing the third torpedo to penetrate the hull and detonate amidships. The Bird of Prey vanished in an expanding cloud of debris. Simultaneously the Enterprise phasers found multiple targets on the remaining Klingon ships. The Klingons were quick to return fire but against shields powered by an undamaged and totally committed warp core they were woefully ineffectual.

Sulu's hands and fingers were a blur as they played the keys on his console and the Enterprise responded in kind, twisting and diving under impulse drive like a Norse berserker in the heat of battle. Beside him, Chekhov was steadfastly maintaining multiple phaser locks on sensitive areas of the two remaining Bird of Prey, rotating fire from multiple phaser banks as depleted ones began their recharge cycle. The bridge rocked with the impact of incoming Klingon torpedo detonations but the shields continued to hold strong as Engineer Scott ran his warp engines on emergency overload and fed their entire energy output into his specially modified deflector shield array.