Chapter 16: Freedom I
2409
“It’s done. Go.”
Aside from some garbled screams, those would be the last words ever spoken by the crew of the I.R.W. Irix.
The small shuttle’s single door slid closed behind Aurelia, and the craft lifted off. Even before it had totally cleared the massive Warbird’s hangar doors, a faintly sparkling green mist began to fill the air. And not just in the hangar bay. Every room and every corridor of every deck. Every member of the vessel’s 1,730-Romulan crew, save the two traitors and their Tal Shiar hostage on the departing shuttle, looked around in awe of the slowly descending mist.
A few among them recognized it for what it was. Some screamed and ran, with nowhere to go. Others sat down or cried or otherwise resigned themselves to their fate. On the bridge, the ship’s Second Officer, in command, frantically attempted to order self-destruct, but it was far too late.
The thalaron generators hidden throughout Irix’s ventilation system were well placed and numerous. Deck by deck the crew’s skin began to dry, then harden, then crack. Screams filled the air for just a few moments before the dusty remains fell to the ground. For a time, the low hum of the ship’s systems was the only sound aboard.
Outside, the rest of the Imperial assault fleet drifted lifelessly among the debris of the proceeding battle, their crews having succumbed to the same deadly radiation that neutralized the Irix.
As the escaping shuttle flew steadily away from the aftermath of it’s occupants’ escape, the final piece of their plan erupted behind them. All at once, fire broke through the hull of twenty-three decks of the D’Deridex warbird. The whole ship appeared to buckle as decks collapsed upon each other. The science and medical experimentation labs, the prisoner holding areas, the Borg-adapted equipment, all erased in the immolation. As the flames receded, the ship remained. Battered, burned, and empty.
The again silent fleet, freed from its Imperial masters, drifted in waiting. As the shuttle reached the edge of visual range, one of its three occupants was flushed from an airlock. The Romulan man in pristine Tal Shiar uniform, Major K’haeth, was finally allowed to die.