“Thank Erebus for small mercies.” He sighed, obviously resigned to the identity of the only other likely culprit. “The Tal Shiar, then.”

Donatra nodded. “I suspect the bureau’s young new director might be arrogant enough not to care overmuch about subtlety. He probably even saw to it personally that you became aware of the murder as quickly as you did.”

Suran nodded. “If that’s so, then Rehaek would appear to be a rank amateur. Under his leadership, the Tal Shiar may give us significantly less trouble than it did under Koval.”

Or Rehaek may merely be maneuvering us into underestimating him.“Perhaps. But the main question now is, will the other members of Pardek’s faction overreact to the former senator’s murder?”

“There is little they can do to advance their plans. Not without the support of the military.” With a predatory smile Donatra rarely saw outside of all-out combat situations, Suran added, “Fortunately, we have a good deal to say about that, thanks to our hidden fleet.”

“He who rules the military rules the Empire,”she thought, silently quoting Amarcan’s Axioms,a text she had all but memorized during her Imperial War College studies.

Answering Suran’s battlefield grin with one of her own, she said, “I take it you no longer question the wisdom of using the Great Bloom to conceal the bulk of our forces.”

His head dipped in an abbreviated parody of a courtly bow. “I withdraw most of my earlier objections. Though we still may need to move the fleet quickly, I will concede that the necessity of keeping our strength secret has grown ever more urgent. I only wish we could afford to position our fleet closer to Romulus. We may have to mobilize it very soon, and I remain certain we will receive very little prior warning when that occurs.”

She considered trying to reassure Suran yet again that their “ghost fleet” could indeed be deployed in time to do whatever might be required of it, and that Romulus itself wasn’t completely undefended, even without the extra forces. Instead, she merely regarded him in silence. Though she felt relieved that they finally seemed to be in fairly close accord—a rare thing, despite their mutual loyalty to the late Braeg, and their shared hatred of the pretender Tal’Aura—Donatra also found herself wishing she could derive more satisfaction from it. Perhaps,she thought, that requires more trust than either of us is capable of giving.

Centurion Liravek’s voice suddenly issued from the comm terminal on Donatra’s desk. “Bridge to Commander Donatra.”

Donatra touched a control on her comm panel. “Go ahead, Centurion.”

“You instructed me to alert you shortly before the time of our scheduled departure for Romulus,”the centurion said, his manner crisp and professional. “ If we go to maximum warp during the next fivesiure, we will just arrive at Ki Baratan by the designated time.”

“Very good, Centurion. Leave the fleet here, in concealment. But take the Valdoreto Romulus now. Best speed.”

“At once, Commander.”

Donatra rose from her chair, signaling that it was time to get back to work. Suran did likewise.

“Don’t worry, Suran. The Valdore—and the entire fleet—stands ready to take back the Romulan Empire. Together they will restore all the honor that Shinzon and Tal’Aura have squandered.”

Suran approached the door, which obligingly hissed open. “Provided the Senate factions, Tal’Aura, and the ravening hordes of Remus do not tear the Empire to pieces in the meantime—thus rendering all honor irrelevant.”

With that, he departed from the ready room. The door closed again, leaving her alone with apprehensions that were growing increasingly difficult to tame.

Though the Remans remained relatively calm for the moment, an all-out clash between them and what remained of the Romulan Empire’s traditional power structure might well prove inevitable. Perhaps the die had already been cast by the dead hand of Shinzon. And could she truly rely on her recently acquired Federation allies not to take advantage of the coming chaos? Surely the Klingons, wartime alliance or no, would move to seize the Empire’s resource-rich border worlds should Romulus descend into civil war.

Whatever comes, we must be ready. Or the Empire will surely be lost.

Another of Amarcan’s Axiomssprang from her memory then, providing at least some small measure of comfort: “Fear only fear.”

Chapter Fourteen

U.S.S. TITAN

“Thank you, Commander Ledrah.”

“All part of the service, Captain,”said the chief engineer, her voice filtered through the combadge. “But be careful, sir. This admiral is a sneaky bastard, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Idon’t mind a bit, Nidani. But you’re lucky he hasn’t got here yet. Now, try to stay out of trouble, all right?”

“Always, sir. Ledrah out.”

The ready room fell silent. Riker stared out the observation window at the distant stars. But he felt none of the joy and exhilaration he had experienced barely two weeks ago when he had immersed himself in the holographic projections of the stellar cartography lab. Instead of reveling in the unrestrained freedom of deep space, its dark beauty illuminated by countless distant fires, he found himself searching for naked-eye stellar distortions.

It was a poor trade-off.

His sharp gaze sought out disturbances that were as likely to be the products of drifting debris as cloaked vessels. As he watched, one of the trio of Miranda-class Starfleet aid ships, Der Sonnenaufgang,moved gracefully past the outer port-side edge of Titan’s hull, headed toward the brilliant azure limb of Romulus, about which the convoy had entered orbit less than thirty minutes previously. According to Vale, the other two vessels, the Phoebusand the T’rin’saz,were already well into the process of beaming down food, medical supplies, and heavy-duty industrial replicator equipment, along with a cadre of Starfleet medical, engineering, and security personnel to render aid and oversee distribution of the convoy’s provisions to Romulan civilians dispossessed by the recent social unrest. Der Sonnenaufgangwas concentrating on using her cargo transporters to send particularly heavy matériel, such as construction equipment, down to the planet’s surface.

Despite apprehensions to the contrary from their respective crews, the Federation-Klingon convoy had crossed Romulan space completely unmolested. Even so, there were a large number of small Romulan cruisers and scout ships in the immediate vicinity of Romulus and its four moons, though not nearly as many warbirds as Riker would have expected. Either the Romulans were playing host to their visitors with utmost sincerity, or they were keeping the bulk of their fleet carefully concealed, at least for the moment. He wondered idly if they were lying in the weeds, watching and waiting for the right moment to pounce either on Titan,General Khegh’s vessels, or the Starfleet aid ships.

But that possibility seemed far-fetched given the reception the aid convoy had received so far—and what Romulus stood to lose if the Romulan military were to attack, considering the obvious evidence of the unreliability of the Empire’s internal lines of supply. Senator Pardek and his followers may want to move against the Federation,he thought, but Praetor Tal’Aura seems to be keeping things calm, no matter how unstable her power base might be.