Observe and Honor

THE T'LAK'TINAR SECTOR NEAR THE ROMULAN BORDER

OFFICIALLY UNCLAIMED SPACE

ROMULAN BIRD-OF-PREY KHERASSA

EARTH CALENDAR DATE:  JANUARY 1, 2157

         Commander Nal's dark brown eyes peered into the slot of the holographic viewer, drawing in the mathematical data scrolling before them, the soft, bluish-green glow of the readout beaming onto his eyes and the bridge of his nose. The scans of this sector were revealing no indication of Earth or Coalition vessels anywhere in the vicinity, a fact that both pleased and concerned Nal as he allowed himself a faint smile before glancing up at his second-in-command, the imposing and grimly stoic Centurion Xenius.

         "Scan cycle complete. No sign of Earth or Coalition ships. The Empire is more secure today than it was yesterday. The Praetor will be most pleased with the state of affairs along our border." Nal stood erect and reached with his gloved left hand to adjust the red mottled command sash draped over his right shoulder. "Continue with scan cycles as usual, Centurion. Alert me the moment anything of interest is detected."

         Nal had been the commanding officer of the Kherassa for more than a decade and served both his Praetor and the Star Empire well. His fanatical dedication to maintaining and strengthening the security of his people had made him a legend within certain military circles on Romulus. He was the Hero of Melara, the man who all but single-handedly defeated a squadron of Klingon Raptor-class vessels that attempted a raid on that lush and beautiful colony world located near the heavily-disputed border area between the two empires. His execution of every last surviving Klingon - dozens of them - was greeted with unease in the grand Senate chamber back on Romulus but applauded by his own men and most of the military brass who for years had been pressing the government in power for a harder and more brutal stand against the Klingon Empire. The corpses of the dead littered Nal's rise from a little-known commander on the frontier to one of the most famous and dreaded names in the Romulan military.

         Xenius was his loyal first officer and the man whose fingers had pressed the trigger that killed most of those wounded and defiant Klingons. In the aftermath of the battle, he personally took responsibility for the execution of any and all enemies of the Empire found alive in escape pods or trapped within smoldering orbital wreckage. One by one and under Nal's direct orders he killed every Klingon that still held breath, even claiming some of their house crests and ceremonial blades for his own collection of war trophies. In his more than ten years aboard the Kherassa he had seen a dozen battles large and small and watched comrades and shipmates die, but had never lost faith in the mission of the Star Empire to expand and dominate all it could reach and lay hold upon. Nal shared that faith, a zeal that few other officers he'd served alongside seemed to share. He was born for battle and conquest, the archetypical Romulan warrior who would gladly risk and sacrifice himself to plant the flag of the Star Empire into the soil of all worlds who opposed it.

        "If the Earthmen and their allies do enter the sector, Commander, we will destroy them. Just as we've destroyed all the other vessels that our enemies have sent to fight against us."

         Nal sat down in his large, padded commander's chair on the bridge and grasped the arms with his hands, squeezing the cold lavender metal as he glanced up to meet the gaze of Xenius. "No doubt, but....beware the Earthmen, Xenius. They are not like the Klingons nor any other adversary we've encountered. They are more clever and cunning than many of us dare give them credit for."

         Xenius smiled with derision at his commander's advice. "Clever? They've lost many ships in this region. Most are lightly-armed cargo vessels that are easier to pick off than a swarm of Chula flies in summer heat. The few combat ships they've sent to face us are either overpowered with ease or their commanders are too cowardly to stay and fight for very long. The Earthmen are not as cunning or intelligent as you believe."

         "And yet here we are. Months into a war that should have already ended with our glorious victory and an audience before the Praetor himself. The Earthmen have allies helping them. Our distant brothers, for one."

    

          Every Romulan growing up on the homeworld was taught and knew of their race's history with their cousins and forebears, the Vulcans. Very few Romulans alive today had ever met a Vulcan face-to-face and the handful of Rihannsu who had did not expose their presence to the wider Vulcan population. With few exceptions Vulcans and Romulans were - at least from an outside observer's perspective - indistinguishable from one another and were one race to adopt the clothing and mannerisms of the other they would easily blend into the other's society and disappear almost seamlessly into the background noise of that world.

         For almost two millennia the races had evolved separately from one another, the Vulcans embracing the Great Awakening of logic and meditation ushered in by Surak and "those who chose to follow the wings of the raptor" fleeing Vulcan and founding their new civilization on a beautiful Minshara-class world with a sister planet rich in mineral deposits and exploitable natural resources in close proximity. They named their new home Romulus and its sibling planet Remus and set about to not only build a powerful and honorable new society that thrived on the strongest and most noble emotions so recently rejected by their Vulcan brothers but one that would rise to become one of the great powers of the quadrant and spread its glory and unrivaled civilization to both surrounding as well as far-flung star systems across the expanse of known space.

         The two sides hadn't lived in complete isolation from one another. A hundred-year war that had begun under very mysterious and unexplained circumstances (even the greatest and most respected historians employed by the Imperial Senate and the Praetor himself were at a loss to explain how and why the war started) pitted Romulan against Vulcan at the very dawn of their histories as great interstellar powers and resulted in horrific carnage on both sides. Following the conclusion of that terrible conflict both Vulcan and Romulus gradually distanced themselves from one another and as the generations passed fewer and fewer members of each race could remember meeting or claim to have physically encountered a member of the other.