Donatra spun her chair toward the stoic young female decurion who was operating the communications console. “Have our reinforcements responded yet?”

The decurion shook her head gravely. “The Remans must be jamming us locally, Commander. I can’t even tell if our initial message got through to offworld elements of the fleet. Local units seem to be rallying, however.”

Donatra silently prayed that this would suffice to drive the Remans off, or at least dissuade them from trying to transform Ki Baratan into a charred crater.

Just before the Valdore’s recent communications difficulties began, Donatra had managed to intercept a fascinating subspace exchange between Xiomek and Captain Riker. She knew of the outrageous demand Xiomek had just made, as well as his threat to immolate the Romulan capital, as well as other cities, within four verakushould the Empire fail to accede. She had heard his threat to attack immediately should his own forces be assailed. She wondered if she could afford to take the colonel at his word.

It shouldn’t have made any difference either way. She was a Romulan military officer, and her world was in peril. Though she was badly outnumbered, she knew she should engage the enemy now. She wanted nothing more than to put a decisive end to the Reman threat, even if that meant risking everyone under her command, and courting the abrupt destruction of most of Ki Baratan.

But if there is to be any chance of our reinforcements arriving in time to overwhelm thesewortu ,Donatra thought, then I may have no choice but to find another way.

“Withdraw!” she shouted, despising herself. “Get our attack wing clear of jamming range as quickly as possible. We have to raise the reinforcement fleet immediately.”

The Valdoreshuddered in protest for several moments after the flight controller executed her commands. Donatra breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the Gate-keeper of Erebus when the singularity drive finally engaged. The ozone-tainted air gradually cleared, though the atmospheric recirculators whined in protest.

“Damage procedures, all decks!” she shouted into the ship-wide comm channel, then settled heavily back into her scorched command chair. There had been neither the time nor the opportunity to repair the Valdoreproperly after the severe punishment the warbird had received from the Scimitar,Shinzon’s flagship. Though Colonel Xiomek’s weapons were far less potent than Shinzon’s, they might very well have reopened some of Valdore’s recent war wounds.

Donatra watched the gently curved main viewer, which showed a crescent-shaped Romulus falling rapidly away into the infinite night. No pursuit was in evidence.

Donatra was both relieved and heartsick. Does this mean that Xiomek is too preoccupied with carrying out his threat to destroy Romulus to go after me?

She forced such thoughts from her mind. There was very important work to be done, and she needed to focus all her attention on it.

“Resume trying to raise our reinforcements,” Donatra ordered, after dispatching the remaining three ships of her attack wing to a high polar orbit over Romulus. The Valdorewas now on a different course, heading un-escorted back toward the Great Bloom, the last known position of the reinforcement fleet that Donatra had left in Suran’s care.

“Immediately, Commander,” said the decurion at the communications post.

Once again, the Valdorereceived no response. Everyone on the bridge listened intently to the static-laced silence, which seemed to last for at least half a verak.

Then, abruptly: “Commander!” The tactical officer began pointing animatedly at the central viewer, where another vessel was decloaking.

“Alert status!” Donatra said, rising. The old burns on her leg and torso rudely reminded her of their presence yet again.

A split second later, she recognized Suran’s flagship as it became visible in the empty space before the Valdore.

“Helm, match our velocities. Hail them.”

Relief warred with apprehension within Donatra’s breast. Her old wounds were now itching so fiercely they almost seemed to burn. Where is the rest of the fleet?

Suran’s face appeared on the main viewer. He looked haunted, his sunken eyes resembling frightened animals engaged in a desperate search for some means of escape.

“Suran. What is the status of our reinforcements?”

He stared at her in silence, his face contorting into an angry, accusatory expression. “You should have listened to me, Donatra, when I warned you not to entrust our fleet to the Great Bloom.”

Donatra felt her patience with her emotionally volatile colleague beginning to wane. When she spoke, her voice sounded brittle in her own ears. “Suran. Where. Are. Our. Ships?”

“They’regone , Donatra. As though they had never been.”

She sank backward into her chair as though she had just been slapped. Her heart turned to ice.

Akhh! I have signed my people’s death warrant!

Chapter Twenty-one

U.S.S. TITAN

Riker was both grateful and annoyed that the new command seats came equipped with automatic safety harnesses. Triggered into operation by Titan’s momentarily overloaded inertial damping system, the automatic restraints had deployed quickly enough to prevent the violent impact of the first attacker’s barrage from throwing him to the deck. But he was not in the habit of allowing himself to be pinned down, especially in the middle of a combat situation.

“Report!” he shouted as he reached for the manual release control, located on the left arm of his chair.

“Shields holding at seventy percent,” Keru said from his post at the aft end of the bridge. “Phasers are armed and ready.”

Riker knew that under normal circumstances, returning fire would be one of his prime options. But this situation was anything but normal. Old and new Romulan ships—vessels crewed by opposing Remans and Romulans—were moving quickly to engage one another in the night skies over Romulus. It was difficult to tell the two sides apart, let alone determine with certainty which side had attacked Titan.

“Any idea who hit us?” he asked.

“It’s not immediately clear,” Jaza said, his hands playing over his console. “Both the Romulan and Reman ships are firing at each other. I’m not certain that salvo was even meant for us.”

Riker looked to the forward viewscreen, where he saw what must have been several dozen ships engaged in aggression. Angry red disruptor beams ionized the night sky, briefly seeming to entangle one vessel with another in a lethal cat’s cradle. “Give us some distance,” he said. “Maybe we took fire because we’re too close.”

As Lieutenant Rager and Ensign Lavena entered course corrections into their respective conn and ops consoles, Riker turned to Vale, who was seated at his right. “Tell the Phoebus, T’rin’saz,and the Der Sonnenaufgangto withdraw from disruptor range.”

“Yes, sir,” Vale said, tapping commands into her armrest console. The Starfleet aid ships had already moved to a one-thousand-kilometer orbit over Romulus, but that still wouldn’t necessarily keep them entirely out of harm’s way if the gunners on either side of the Romulan-Reman conflict decided to target the convoy deliberately.

Riker started to turn toward Tuvok, Spock, and Akaar, intending to ask the admiral to escort both Vulcans down to sickbay, when another blast rocked the ship. A spray of sparks arced out of a conduit above the upper corner of the main viewscreen, which blacked out a moment later. Riker stumbled to one side, thrown against a railing as Titan’s inertial dampers kicked in, righting the deck.