by David Mack p.56 During his second year aboard the Enterprise, he'd participated briefly in the Klingon-Federation Officer Exchange Program. He had served as Captain Kurgan’s executive officer on the K'Vort-class I.K.S. Pagh, an experience that taught him as much about the Klingons' thinking as it did about their cuisine. One lesson he had vowed never to forget was that although gagh is eaten live, it is not swallowed live. The point is to swallow the feisty worms between one's teeth and savor their salty blood as a delicacy. p.66 yItaghpu' = (noun) an insult p.68 petaQpu = plural of petaQ p.70-71 "And when they secure the military installations...?" “They’ll link them to us within a matter of hours. A few days from now, we’ll be at war with the Klingon Empire.” Zife snorted. “I suppose you have a wargame scenario for that, as well.” “Yes, sir.” He paused and wondered whether Zife really wanted to hear it. Then he decided that the president had to hear it. “The Federation suffers more than ninety billion civilian casualties. The Klingon Empire limits its civilian casualties to just under forty billion. The imperial armada defeats Starfleet in just under a year, but its own losses are near-total. The Federation fragments into unaligned systems. The Tholians conquer the Klingon Empire within four years, while the Romulan Star Empire annexes up to seventy-eight percent of former Federation worlds within a decade.” “Bolarus?” Zife said, his thoughts clearly turning homeward. “More than likely it’s destroyed by the Klingons. If it survives, the Tholians move to Block the Romulans from seizing it… They fail.” Zife seemed to retreat into himself, sinking into his worst nightmare of a galactic doomsday scenario. Azernal snapped him back to the present. “Mr. President, we can’t let the Klingons land on Tezwa.” p.72-73 “We’ve put together a fairly detailed picture of what hit us,” La Forge said. He tapped a few commands into the system and called up a schematic of an enormous spherical shell, inside of which was a massive energy cannon. “It’s a rapid-frequency nadion-pulse cannon, twice as powerful as anything I’ve ever seen.” La Forge pointed to the bottom of the diagram. “Here’s the power-transfer node.” The chief engineer nodded to Data, who changed the image on the display to a topographical map of Tezwa. Webs of incandescent red lines radiated across the surface from six points, each sixty degrees’ latitude apart. “The guns are powered by six remote generators,” Data said. He magnified a scan of a node that joined six separate power lines. “Based on detailed scans I made during our low-altitude flyover, I have concluded that the power-generating facilities also serve as fire-control centers.” Picard frowned. “Even against that much power, our shields should have lasted longer.” “I have a theory about that,” La Forge said. He handed his padd to Picard, who skimmed it as the engineer spoke. “Based on feedback patterns we recorded as the shields collapsed, I’d say the cannons are using a rotating pulse frequency. Each shot is actually millions of separate pulses, each at a slightly different nutation.” Picard shot a quizzical look at both officers. “Which has what effect?” “The rapid cycling of the pulse frequency,” Data said, “coupled with the high power level, turns the shield into a resonant harmonic field. The resulting feedback overloads the shield emitters.” p.85-86 He set down the cold ceramic mug on his desktop and recalled the words of Earth’s nineteenth-century Greenland explorer Fridtjof Nansen: “The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer.” As Picard grappled with the enormity of the task that lay ahead of him, however, he wasn’t certain he had enough time even to attempt the difficult, never mind the impossible. Which, naturally, he took as an indication that he’d best get started. p.94 “If we’re going to sabotage Tezwa’s defenses, where do we hit them? What’s the system’s most vulnerable point?” “Thought you’d never ask,” La Forge said. He picked up his padd, punched in a short string of commands, and aimed it at the wall monitor. The schematic of the Tezwan artillery system enlarged to fill the entire screen. “The guns were made for power, and they’ve got it in spaces.” He highlighted an isolated component of the guns. “What they don’t have are good backups for their prefire-chamber capacitors.” Crusher half-raised her hand. “Could we pretend for a moment that I have no idea what you just said?” p.94-95 “The prefire chamber is a key component in a directed-energy weapon,” she said. “Before the weapon fires, it builds up a specific amount of charge in the prefire chamber. When it has enough power stored, it collapses a restraining field and releases the energy in a single, massive burst to the emitter array, which focuses the pulse and modulates its frequency.” Crusher nodded. “And what happens if this prefire chamber doesn’t have a good backup?” “The weapon has no ability to compensate for the overload,” Vale said. “If enough energy floods the chamber too quickly--“ “Boom,” La Forge said, mimicking an explosion by spreading apart his hands and fingers. p.97 “Tezwans also have a fleet of their own. Even without the support of the planet’s guns, they’ll still try to engage the Klingons.” “Well, we’ve already tried taking control of the firebases,” La Forge said. “We could use the Tezwans’ own artillery to stop their fleet--before we destroy the guns.” The idea of a slaughter on such a scale appalled Picard. “You’re not suggesting we destroy twenty-four starships?” “No. We’ll just disable them.” “He’s right,” Vale said. “We can reduce the guns’ power settings, and tweak their frequencies to cripple the Tezwan ships. Worst-case scenario, they’d still have the emergency batteries for life support.” Crusher looked unconvinced. “What if they don’t?” she said. “They’re in orbit above their homeworld. “They can use their escape pods and go home.” p.117 Christine Vale felt a cold shiver travel down her spine as Riker began the tactical briefing. It wasn’t that his presentation was so inspiring; it was that the Tezwans’ sneak attack had damaged the Enterprise’s environmental systems, and in order to maintain full life support in critical areas, compartments such as shuttle hangars and cargo bays had to do with reduced ventilation and minimal thermal support. p.120 T’Eama raised her hand politely. “How far will we have to climb to reach the summit?” “Roughly two hundred meters,” Riker said. “Only two hundred meters?” La Forge joked. “Want us to build you anything while we’re there?” Riker played along, apparently aware that he was asking everyone to accomplish absurdly difficult objectives with little planning, few resources, and no margin for error. “No,” he said. “Just scale a mountain, overpower a garrison ten times your size, and blow up the firebase.” “Right,” La Forge said. “Got it.” p.123 Spitale held her suit at arm’s length and eyed it suspiciously. “Will these work at ten kilometers?” Lieutenant Fillion looked at the athletic young blonde and shrugged. “You’re the engineer,” he said. “You tell me.” “Relax,” Vale said, pulling off her uniform jacket. “It’ll work. It’s a marvel of modern engineering.” “Wow, a marvel,” Fillion said, sounding unconvinced. “Imagine what we could do with two hours’ notice.” Vale had to give the man credit: He’d developed a healthy cynicism for the logistical prowess of Starfleet. p.135 “sound off” p.137-138 She monitored her squad’s relative positions. The timing of this jump would leave little room for error, and she couldn’t guarantee their safety unless they all maintained precisely the same altitude and rate of descent. This was going to be what the old-timers used to call a HALO jump--high altitude, low opening. They would wait until they had dropped low enough to evade the Tezwan’s defense scanners, open their chutes only long enough to slow their fall to just less than the maximum impact that their suits’ structural integrity fields could absorb, then release their breakaway harness and drop into the ocean at more than two hundred kilometers per hour. All in a day’s work, Vale mused. If you’re insane. p.164 Azernall’s voice was laced with cool anger. “We aren’t saving ourselves, Mr. President. We’re saving the Federation. We’re preventing a power struggle that would engulf the quadrant and squander half a trillion lives.” His voice grew louder and harsher. “So--with all due respect, sir--spare me your guilt, your moralizing, and your holier-than-thou rage. The people didn’t elect you to be their conscience, they elected you to be their leader. To make the hard choices, to give the orders, and, when necessary, to take the blame!” p.203 Vale had never been fond of underwater operations. Working underwater was a lot like working in space. All the consequences were reversed, of course--crushing pressure versus vacuum, freezing instead of instantly boiling, implosion rather than explosion, flooding as opposed to venting--but they were still just as deadly, and the environment just as unforgiving. p.205 Chimerium, Vale realized. The only place to get this stuff is Sarindar. And only the Federation has the right to export it from the Nalori Republic. Starfleet might not have put this stuff here, but we definitely built it. p.211 La Forge stared up the next hundred-plus meters of barren rock and was grateful that one of the privileges of command was keeping one’s own counsel--because he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do when they reached the top of the cliff. p.233 Despite its ingenuity and cunning, Data felt no sense of pride in the plan he had concocted. The android officer vaguely recalled what pride had felt like, but when he tried to taste the emotion again from memory, its flavor eluded him. Cold equations, the records of the positronic impulses were all there, but they didn’t add up to anything. Recollections of feelings both subtle and intense, from petty to sublime, resided in his neural storage matrix, software for a piece of hardware he no longer possessed. He remembered thinking once--months ago, before Starfleet had demanded he give up his emotion chip--that to remember such feelings but not know what they felt like would be a tragedy, a loss worthy of terrible sorrow. Perhaps I should feel sad now, he ruminated. Except that I cannot. He acknowledged the irony of it, even though he could not appreciate its bitter humor. p.237 Pushing ahead through the clinging snow and driving wind, Data knew that capturing the firebase without a single shot being fired or anyone suffering an injury--on either side--was the optimally desirable outcome. His compatriots aboard the Enterprise would call it an achievement to be proud of… but he was no closer to remembering the sensation of pride in a job well done than he had been five minutes ago. This did not seem unfair to him. I am, after all, functionally immortal, he reasoned. I will have time for pride later. p.244-245 “Peart to Scholz.” “Go ahead, sir.” “We’ve hit a little snag in the plan. The Tezwans blasted our exit.” “Should we abort?” “Negative. Finish rigging the charges.” “Sir? How do we get out after the timers are set?” “Unless we find another exit, we don’t.” T’Sona fixed Peart with a cold, reproachful stare. “Well put, sir. I am sure they found your words most inspirational.” He glared at you. “For the record, remarks like that are the reason no one likes talking to you.” p.247 trapezius? p.263 Councilor Kopek’s chambers in the Great Hall were far more lavish than those of Chancellor Martok. Unlike the chancellor, Kopek was the scion of a noble House, with generations of haughty expectations to live up to. Polished black marble floors, pillars of gleaming obsidian, and supple targhDIr furniture were all warmly illuminated by crackling, spice-scented varHuS candles housed in ornate carved-crystal sconces. p.264 Using the dermal voice patch to impersonate L’Vek, Worf had summoned Kopek back to his chambers on “an urgent matter.” After settling the security-jamming device, there was naught else to do but wait for the prey to walk into the trap. Waiting, unfortunately, was the one thing Worf least wanted to do right now. With each passing moment the Klingon invasion fleet raced closer to Tezwa, and his son was among those who were about to be sacrificed on the twin altars of honor and futility. Also in jeopardy were Worf’s old friends aboard the Enterprise, who, he was certain, were even now risking their lives to spare the Klingon fleet from the need to make a suicide attack on a target of admittedly little long-term strategic value to the Empire. p.276 Following Minister Elazol through the door to his office, Bilok recoiled as a sapphire blue flare of energy disintegrated the top of his friend’s head. p.277 A step early, a step late, we walk blindly to our fate. --Tezwan saying
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