Star Trek: Vanguard: Storming Heaven by David Mack

closed.
    Collapsing back onto his bed, Nogura hoped this convoluted deception didn’t turn out to be a waste of time, or worse. If the enemy really believed it had destroyed the Sagittarius, then the Klingon and Romulan patrols in the sectors adjoining Vanguard might let up just enough for the real Sagittarius to be safely on its way to Eremar. But if the enemy knew that they’d just destroyed a drone, then every patrol ship in the Taurus Reach would be on high alert.
    Let the lie live just a few hours longer, he prayed, that’s all I ask .
    Captain Droga considered the news his first officer had just given him and felt torn between jubilation and envy. To make sure his revels weren’t premature, he asked, “This is confirmed?”
    “Yes, sir.” Tarpek pointed at the communications officer. “Magron showed me the message from High Command. The Sagittarius was destroyed fourteen hours ago by one of our Romulan allies, roughly fifty-nine light-years from our current position.”
    Droga swiveled his chair on its elevated dais until he faced the weapons officer. “Rothgar! What’s been Starfleet’s response to the attack?”
    The portly lieutenant looked over his shoulder at the captain. “The battle cruiser Endeavour has been diverted from its regular patrol route. It’s on a direct heading for the coordinates where the Valkaya reported the Sagittarius destroyed.”
    “Glorious!” The broad-shouldered, hard-muscled captain stood and hopped down to the main deck beside his burn-and-shrapnel-scarred first officer. “Now we’re free to plunder the prey we’ve been tracking since last night.” He pointed to the slow, hulking vessel on the bridge’s main viewscreen. “Have we figured out what that is?”
    Tarpek reached over to a command console and keyed in a few commands. A string of data appeared on the screen, superimposed over the image of the ship: registry, tonnage figures, and other technical gibberish Droga didn’t feel like making time to read. That was the job of the first officer, who reported, “The Federation freighter Ephialtes . Twenty-five crew and officers, maximum speed warp six. Primary function: colony support.”
    Stroking his brown-and-gray-bearded chin, Droga could see with his own eyes that the vessel was unarmed and likely had only the most perfunctory shielding. “Is it carrying anything worth stealing?”
    “Perhaps,” Tarpek said. “Our scans suggest it’s fully loaded with unrefined minerals.”
    The captain nodded. “Probably bound for the refinery on Benecia.” He gave Tarpek’s shoulder a hard, fraternal slap. “Let’s make sure it never gets there. Are we set?”
    “Yes, sir. The target is now fully inside the blind spot created by the qul’mIn star cluster, and there’s no indication its crew has detected our presence. The cloaking device appears to be working—for now.”
    Droga understood the grievance implicit in Tarpek’s last remark. Their ship, the I.K.S. vaQjoH, was a Klingon bird-of-prey, so far the only class of ship that the Klingon Defense Force hadsucceeded in equipping with the Romulan invention known as the cloaking device. Even aboard the vaQjoH and ships like her, however, the new technology was plagued by overloads, spontaneous failures, and other potentially disastrous malfunctions. As much as Droga enjoyed being able to creep up on his prey in deep space like a hunter stalking targ in the deep forest, he hated the unreliability of the new system and had serious doubts that it would ever really earn widespread acceptance by the great mass of Klingon warriors. That’s a problem for future generations, he decided as he climbed back into his command chair. Once he settled in, he pointed at the ship on the main screen. “Commander, seize that vessel. I want its cargo.”
    “Yes, Captain.” Tarpek moved from station to station, handing out orders and back-slaps as he went. “Garthog, prepare to sweep in from their starboard side. Hold position at