Romulan Attack

Name :	Romulan Attack
Universe :	Pike Future
Year :	2266

The Earth-Romulan war fought in the 2160's was a brutal affair. The technology of the time allowed no quarter to be given, no visual communication between the two sides. At the end of the war a neutral zone was established between the two which neither side was allowed to send ships into for any reason whatever. For a century, neither side violated this treaty. [1]

In 2266 the Federation began receiving distress calls from the outposts along the Neutral Zone. The USS Enterprise rushed to investigate, but by the time it was within sensor range three of the outposts had been destroyed; numbers 2, 3 and 8; and outpost 4 reported itself under attack. The outpost reported that an unknown vessel had fired a single shot of high energy plasma, inflicting heavy damage on the outpost even though it was buried under more than a mile of solid iron and had full deflector shields in place. The ship had vanished from view after the attack. The outpost relayed images to the Enterprise showing the vessel appearing from behind some form of invisibility screen, appearing and firing again, disintegrating the outpost entirely. Moments later the ship vanished again. [2]

A warp signature was detected but turned out to be the USS Farragut, captained by James T. Kirk who opens communications with the Enterprise. Spock dicovers that the attacking ship has some sort of cloaking technology, but still has a gravitational pressence, which would allow it to be tracked by micro lensing of the starts behind it. After discussion Kirk and Pike decide to follow the attacking vessel, until instructions from Starfleet can be obtained. The attacking ship's course leading in the direction of the Romulan neutral zone. While following Spock detects a signal from the mystery ship and discovers that is is a video feed from their bridge. Startlingly the crew appeared to be an offshoot of the Vulcan race! [2]

Kirk noticed that the path they were following intercepted the tail of a passing comet, which would render the cloaked ship visible enough to target. He suggested that the Enterprise and Farragut flank the Romans and destroy it in a pincer movement, before it can return to Romulus and tell them that the Federation is unable or unwilling to fight back against their attack. Unfortunately, the Romulans guessed their plan and changed course before being caught. Emerging in a different location and managed severely damaging the USS Farragut. The Enterprise started firing on the Romulan ship, managing to cause it to break off its attack on the Farragut. The Romulan ship then powered up its Plasma weapon and fired on the Enterprise. Despite being hit by thee weapon the Enterprise survived the attack, surmising thet it is the weapon must have a small range that saved them from destruction. [2]

With the Farragut's life support system failing the Enterprise beam its crew to safety. Pike in a last ditch attempt for peace offers the Romulan ship commander a two hour ceasefire in the hope of instigating peace talks. The Romulans say that this would be seen as a sign of weakness to them but agreed and both ships started repairs. Unbeknownst to Pike and the Romulan commander, the Romulan sub-commander sent a signal to the Romulan fleet. Kirk worried that such a thing could happen asked to borrow a shuttle and left. [2]

At the end of the two hour ceasefire the Romulan fleet arrived and threatened to destroy the Enterprise and wage war on the Federation. Kirk returned with a massive fleet of automated mining ships, hoping to pass them off as an armada of Federation Delta class attack ships. The Romulan Praetor contacts the USS Enterprise and tells them to surrender, calling their massed feet on the Romulan boarder an unparalleled act of aggression. Pike says it is simply training manoeuvres, but what was a massive act of aggression was a Romulan warbird using cloaking technology to attack Federation outposts. The Praetor claimed to be unaware of any such attack so Pike send a video of the events over to her. Unimpressed with being caught out, she orders the Romulan warbird destroyed. She then orders her fleet to attack Federation. The USS Enterprise manages to escape but the Romulans issue a declaration of war. [2]

Colour key

Canon source

Backstage source

Novel source

DITL speculation

References

#	Series	Season	Source	Comment
1	TOS	1	Balance of Terror
2	SNW	1	A Quality of Mercy

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Last updated : 4 Sep 2023

Series :	TOS Season 1
Episode :	Balance of Terror

Series :	SNW Season 1
Episode :	A Quality of Mercy