“Keru to Vale.”As Dakal complied with her order, she tapped her combadge. “Vale here. It’s good to hear your voice, Ranul, but this isn’t a good—”

“Chris, you need to know something. Our Reman guest has just given us a strange warning. He said that Captain Riker has to stop his current operation aboard that Romulan ship.”

“That sounds a bit vague,” Vale said, scowling slightly. As worried as she was, she didn’t care much for “mystical portents,” at least not outside the pages of old horror novels. “Did he offer you any specific reason?”

“Afraid not. And he’s unconscious now, so I can’t follow up. But suppose he picked up some sort of telepathic flash of something horrible happening that nobody else has noticed just yet?”

A telepathic alarm from our Red King?Vale thought, well aware that she had rarely been steered wrong by Ranul’s hunches, which he never offered lightly. And she also had to admit that Mekrikuk’s admonition completely squared with her own misgivings—and with the readings that were even now scrolling across Dakal’s and Eviku’s consoles. Not to mention whatever force had just slammed into Titan. There’s obviously something more going on here than simple senior officer jitters.

“Thanks, Ranul,” Vale said. “I’m going to check this out.”

Vale’s combadge chirped yet again, followed by the synthetic voice of Dr. Cethente. “I believe we may have a serious problem, Commander.”

“Looks that way,” Vale said. “Any ideas on explaining it?” She turned her gaze back toward an inset display on the main viewscreen’s port side, where data from the science station was scrolling upward. She glanced in Eviku’s direction and saw that the xenobiologist was looking at her expectantly, as were Frane, Akaar, Dakal, Lavena, Dr. Ra-Havreii—who had evidently stepped out of the turbolift a few moments ago—and the rest of the bridge crew.

“It appears,” said Eviku, speaking very slowly and carefully, “that space itself has begun to… bucklelocally. And the effect is accelerating.”

“Cethente?” Vale said.

“Lieutenant Eviku is correct, in my opinion.”

Vale felt her heart begin to race. Though she had never worked with Cethente prior to Titan’s maiden voyage, she was well acquainted with his reputation. His scientific analyses were only very rarely wrong, even when given off the cuff. And he doesn’t evenhave cuffs.She forced herself to breathe slowly and evenly, calming herself.

“Meaning?” Vale asked.

“Meaning that the rate at which our ‘Sleeper’is apparently rearranging space has abruptly begun to accelerate. It may increase by about an order of magnitude. Perhaps more.”

“And the cause?”

“I can’t prove it conclusively, Commander, but ithas to be related to our efforts to force the entity to relinquish its control over those Romulan ships out there. Forcing this emerging intelligence from the Romulan computer systems pushed a substantial part of it back into the very space its emergence has been affecting ever since its initial arrival here. The accelerated breakdown of space appears to be strongest in the immediate vicinity of the Romulan fleet. And the effect is spreading at many times the speed of light, propagating directly through the subspace medium.”

Swell,Vale thought. To Eviku, she said, “What’s in its immediate path?”

“Stellar cartography shows an inhabited system directly in the path of the disruptions,” Eviku said. “It’s less than two parsecs from our current position. At the rate the effect is spreading, the entire system will be devastated. By the time the effect reaches its peak—I’d give it between seven to ten standard days—it’ll be as though this whole star system never even existed.”

“That is the system of the Coreworld,” Frane said, stepping forward several paces. Akaar regarded him the way a herpetologist might study a deadly serpent. “A planet called Oghen.”

“Oghen?” Vale asked, blinking rapidly as she turned her chair so that she faced the Neyel, whose tail switched uneasily from side to side behind him.

“Oghen is home to nearly two billion sentients,” Frane said. “It’s the homeworld of the Neyel Hegemony.”

And it’s maybe a week away from being completely erased from existence,Vale thought, her heart dropping into a sudden freefall. Maybe along with every other inhabited world in Magellanic space, and perhaps even farther off than that.

And she couldn’t think of a single damned thing she could do about it. Except one.

“Dakal, get me the captain and Commander Jaza. Now.”

Chapter Thirteen

IMPERIAL WARBIRD VALDORE,STARDATE 57029.4

“We’ve recovered our fleet, Donatra, and with minimal loss of life,” Commander Suran said quietly, though an audible edge of irritation tinged his voice. His head remained bandaged, as it had been since just after the Valdore’s rather bumpy arrival in Neyel space. “The fleet is operational, fully crewed, and ready to move out.

“So why in the name of Karatek’s bones are we lingering here while space itself is disintegrating all around us?”

Donatra watched her colleague carefully, noting the vehement, almost fearful urgency in his manner. The last time the usually reserved Suran had seemed so agitated had been immediately after his discovery that the Great Bloom had swallowed their hidden fleet. And now that we’ve recovered that fleet, he wants to take no further chances.

She looked around the Valdore’s busy bridge, which had become even busier during the few siurenthat had elapsed since Donatra’s and Riker’s boarding parties had departed from the Ra’khoi.

“That’s an excellent question, Suran,” Donatra said as her eyes lit on Decurion Seketh, who stood beside one of the operations consoles. “I trust you can explain more concisely than I can, Decurion.”

The young woman looked slightly frazzled to be put on the spot in front of both of the fleet’s flag officers so soon after the mission aboard the Ra’khoi,but she quickly recovered herself. “I would advise against trying to move the fleet out of the region for at least the next half -eisae,”Seketh said.

“Why?” Suran wanted to know, scowling.

“Because of the growing spatial instabilities that have been appearing all around us during the past several dierhu,Commander.”

Suran’s scowl deepened. “So we avoid them.”

“Yes, sir. Of course. But unless we allow the computers enough time to model the phenomenon precisely, some of our ships are bound to suffer severe damage from subspace shearing effects. If we try to leave the vicinity without the ability to adjust our warp fields instantaneously to accommodate the ongoing spatial changes, we could lose singularity containment on half our ships.”

“Or maybe all of them,” Donatra said. Though she had never been one to jump at shadows, she had never fancied herself a wild-eyed optimist. Not when it came to the safety of her ships and crews.

Suran acquiesced, but still seemed impatient. “I see. Well, I don’t want us to stay here a single siurelonger than absolutely necessary.”

“I agree,” Donatra said, quietly wondering what would happen when and if she and Suran could no longer achieve a meeting of the minds with such apparent ease. We can’t exactly pull rank on each other, after all,she thought. Far easier to pull our disruptors, or our Honor Blades.