“I am Commander Donatra,” Donatra said, stepping toward her two guests a moment after they had finished materializing. “You are aboard the Imperial Warbird Valdore.”

The taller of the pair of Klingon figures who now stood on the transporter stage was a fierce-looking male whose thick, rough-textured forehead bore an angry wound that oozed a viscous lavender fluid. His heavily mailed though distressed leather uniform bore the rank insignia of a ship’s captain in the Klingon Defense Force. Beside him stood an equally imposing if slightly smaller female, who appeared relatively uninjured and whose uniform markings identified her as a lieutenant. Their sharp, snaggly teeth reminded Donatra of the summer during her childhood she had spent tending thraiinon her uncle’s waithfarm. What she recalled most about that experience was that thraiinwere vicious, smelly, and thoroughly repugnant creatures, however succulent their flesh might taste.

Animals,Donatra thought as she eyed the Klingons, feeling the profound, visceral revulsion she always experienced when in the presence of these people. Unlike thraiin,Klingons lacked even the single redeeming characteristic of being edible—or so she had been told. How could we have allowed the likes ofthese to establish a beachhead in Romulan space?

The male Klingon puffed up his chest in an apparent effort to compensate for the shabby condition of his uniform. “I am Captain Tchev, master of the I.K.S. Dugh,”he said, gesturing toward the female beside him. “My second officer, Lieutenant Dekri.” Coldly eyeing the armed guards who now flanked him and his third in command, Tchev added, “And we would appear to be your prisoners.”

Donatra smiled mirthlessly. “I thought our respective empires were allies now, Captain. You are our guests.”

“That was during the war,” Tchev sniffed. “How many of the rest of my crew now number among your ‘guests’?”

“Besides yourself and your second officer,” Donatra said with studied calmness, “we have identified thirty-four other surviving personnel on your vessel, which we have taken in tow.” At considerable cost,she added silently, regretting the huge drain the salvage operation was placing on the Valdore’s power resources. “We are in the process of bringing your people aboard this vessel, for their own safety.”

“And what, exactly, do you intend to do with them?”

“All of your personnel will be well accommodated,” Donatra said, nodding. It had been relatively easy to convert one of the Valdore’s empty cargo bays into an impromptu detention area nearly as secure as the ship’s brig.

“And I will ensure that they will receive whatever medical care they need,” Dr. Venora told the Klingon captain, prompting Donatra to raise an eyebrow slightly in the physician’s direction. Venora, who had been practicing medicine aboard Imperial military vessels for nearly a century, frequently did not see fit to seek her considerably younger commander’s leave before speaking her mind. It was a trait that Donatra found both invaluable and annoying.

Dekri hawked and spat a noxious, yellowish mass onto the transporter stage. “None of our crew will ever allow a Romulan bachHa’to lay hands upon them. They would take their own lives before accepting such a soiling.”

“Good,” Suran said, staring with evident disgust at the spittle-dabbed transporter. “That would greatly simplify matters for us. Would they prefer to commit suicide here, or back aboard your wreck of a ship?”

Venora scowled at him. “Is that any way to talk to our wartime allies, Commander?”

“A great deal has happened since the Dominion War, Doctor, just as our esteemed Captain Tchev has suggested,” Suran said, evidently disgusted by the good doctor’s naïveté.

“Why did you follow us to the energy cloud?” Donatra asked Tchev, cutting off the exchange between her colleagues.

“We will tell you nothing, Romulan taHqeq,”Tchev growled, displaying his brown, uneven teeth.

“Perhaps not willingly,” Suran said. “However, we could always acquaint you with our mind probes.”

“I have been trained to withstand the highest settings on a Klingon mind-sifter,” Tchev replied, raising his chin contemptuously. “Your interrogations hold no fear for me.”

Glaring at Suran, Dekri bared a phalanx of sharp, crooked teeth that looked every bit as unattractive as Tchev’s. “I doubt you would dare to try it. Not with a Reman-Klingon alliance poised in the skies above your Empire’s capital city.”

Suran appeared unruffled by Dekri’s threat. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed yet, but we’re a long way from Romulus at the moment.”

Donatra was growing impatient with Suran’s sparring with the Klingons. “It doesn’t matter, Suran. It’s perfectly obvious why the Klingons are here. Governor Khegh must have observed the Valdoreflying from the vicinity of Romulus to the Great Bloom, with Titanat her side. He would have been remiss not to have dispatched a cloaked vessel in an attempt to discover the reason behind this joint voyage.”

Donatra met Tchev’s stare, which gave away little other than a Klingon’s characteristic belligerence. But that, in itself, told her that the Klingons were very likely still completely in the dark about why the Valdoreand Titanhad quietly left the vicinity of Romulus together. Were it otherwise, would Tchev not boast of his knowledge?Donatra seriously doubted that neither Tchev nor Dekri were aware of the Romulan fleet that the Great Bloom had unexpectedly swallowed the previous day.

“Regardless,” Donatra continued, “we will now commence rescuing the personnel aboard your escape pods.”

Tchev tipped his head, frowning. “What are you talking about, Romulan petaQ?”

“Excuse me?” Donatra said, carefully blanking her face so as not to register surprise.

“We launched no escape pods,” Dekri said, her bulbous head lofted haughtily. Donatra decided she didn’t much care for the lieutenant’s stare, which she now noticed was drifting away from her face and moving down her torso in an appraising, almost lascivious manner.

Revolted, Donatra turned to face the decurion who was in charge of operating the transporter console. “Have you obtained a transporter lock on the personnel contained in those escape pods?”

“Yes, Commander.”

Donatra turned back to Tchev. She fixed him with a hard stare as she continued addressing the decurion. “Scan the life-forms within. Are they Klingon?”

“No, Commander,” the junior officer said, surprise evident in his tone.

“Do you recognize the species?”

“Not all of them, Commander. One pod contains several biosignatures that I’ve never seen before. But all the rest of the life signs…” He trailed off momentarily as he tapped commands into his console, as if double-checking a result that couldn’t possibly be correct.

“Well?” Suran demanded, scowling. “Do you recognize any of the rest?”

The decurion looked up from his instruments, his pale features presenting a study in incredulity. “They’re human,Commander.”

Frane grasped the bracelet nearly hard enough to crush some of its more ancient stones. To avoid doing just that, he carefully wrapped the bracelet around his left wrist, the way his father had worn it.

Quaking in fear as she pressed up against him, Nozomi established a similarly viselike grip on Frane’s other hand, while her tail wrapped around his waist almost tightly enough to cut off his air. The Oghen pairbond, g’Ishea and Fasaryl, as well as the sensory portions of Lofi, the multipartite Sturr, crowded behind him in an effort to see what he was seeing. The five of them were all that remained of the Seekers After Penance.

Gazing through the small, round window of the evacuation capsule, Frane watched with mounting horror as the graceful, predatory-looking ship made its slow, menacing approach. Though the vessel had taken a fair amount of exterior damage, its appearance was unmistakable.