Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages
Read Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages Online
Authors: Diane Duane & Peter Morwood
| Series: | Rihannsu, Books 1-4 |
| Published: | December 19, 2006 |
SUMMARY:
The Historic Saga Begins
Born in the twilight years of Vulcan’s violent and passionate past, those who declared themselves
Rihannsu
chose to reign free in the unknown reaches of space rather than to serve under the new tyranny of logic. Having severed themselves from their homeworld, they survived the perilous voyage across the stars to wash ashore on a distant planet, there to begin the civilization that would one day flower into the Romulan Star Empire.
Now, after millennia of wars and conquests, that empire is decaying from within, surrendering its noble heritage to reckless ambition, abandoning honor for kidnapping and murder. The corruption is so great that the Rihannsu’s finest military officer—Commander Ael t’Rllaillieu of the warbird
Bloodwing
—believes she can save her people only by joining forces with her greatest enemy: Captain James T. Kirk of the
Starship Enterprise
.
Meanwhile, on the Romulan homeworld, a Federation deep-cover agent has been posing as a household servant named Arrhae i-Khellian—but her operation takes a strange turn when a captured Starfleet officer is brought to her home…
The lives of Ael, Arrhae, and the crew of the
Enterprise
come together in these astonishing adventures—originally published in four volumes:
My Enemy, My Ally
;
The Romulan Way
;
Swordhunt
; and
Honor Blade
—that will challenge everything you thought you knew about the Romulans.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
My Enemy, My Ally
copyright © 1984 by CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The Romulan Way
copyright © 1987 by CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Swordhunt
copyright © 2000 by CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Honor Blade
copyright © 2000 by CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Sometimes people can be of incredible assistance to you without saying a word. This is the place to acknowledge one such contributor, whose simple existence made writing this book easier: the stately, sharp-minded, wonderful Dorothy Fontana (or “D.C.” Fontana, as some of you may know her). Dorothy has in the past done me many amazing and undeserved kindnesses—but the one most in my mind at this writing is one she did for you too (if you love
Star Trek
) during her stint as the series’ story editor, and as writer of some of its best stories.
Dorothy knows Vulcans and Romulans better than anyone else, having been intimately involved with their creation. Much of her vision of those enigmatic and delightful species—as creatures as complex as any other hominid, not mere logic-boxes or disposable hostiles to be shot up and forgotten about—informs this work, and I delight to add that influence to the list of my glad debts to her. When we think of the power that Leonard Nimoy and Mark Lenard have brought to the Vulcans and Romulans they’ve played, let’s not leave D.C. out of the reckoning. Without her, Spock and Sarek and both the original Romulan Commanders would have been very different people. My own feeling (and even Vulcans these days seem to admit that feelings have value) is that the Vulcans and the Romulans are as marvelous as they are partly because they take after Dorothy. So—to the Lady Who
Knows
—great thanks and love.
Also:
Inside the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia (to the right of the statue of the Great God Franklin, and three flights up) is the Fels Planetarium. Hidden away in the Planetarium is a door with a very odd doorbell attached to it. And working behind that door are Don Cooke, the Director of the planetarium, and his staff—a group of people very sanely devoted to that study of the Earth’s backyard that we call “astronomy.”
These people share with the author the conviction that “Thataway” is not an appropriate set of course determination coordinates for the flagship of the Terran branch of Starfleet. The Fels group’s eager (though sometimes bemused) assistance with some thorny astronomical questions (“George!
B minus V?
” “Yes, what about it?…”) made it possible to plot not only the positions of major stars for several thousand light-years from Sol, but also the real positions and shapes of the Galactic Arms, in enough detail so that the structure of the Galaxy itself made it obvious where the Romulans and Klingons lived. To Don and all his happy people, and to their doorbell (a never-ending source of merriment), affectionate thanks, still air, and good seeing.
To Ael’s godmother—
“—cara mihi ante alias;
neque enim novus iste Dianae
venit amor, subitaque
animum dulcedine movit—”
—arma eraeque canõ!
…Then none was for a party;
Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor
And the poor man loved the great;
Then lands were fairly portioned;
Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.
Now Roman is to Roman
More hateful than a foe,
And the Tribunes beard the high,
And the Fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction,
In battle we wax cold;
Wherefore men fight not as they fought
In the brave days of old….
—Macaulay
Daisemi’in rhhaensuriuu
meillunsiateve
rh’e Mnhei’sahe yie ahr’en:
Mnahe afw’ein qiuu;
rh’e hweithnaef
mrht Heis’he ehl’ein qiuu.
