“Okay,” she said, although in truth, she hadn’t been this scared in a long time—maybe not since she had been a child, since her mother had been stricken ill.

“Okay.” Harriman stood up and started for the door. Before he got there, Sulu called after him.

“John,” she said. When he turned back toward her, she said, “I know that the admiral…your father…I know he said he won’t see you, but…maybe you should visit him anyway.” Sulu did not know how she would have handled her mother’s death had she not been able to spend time with her in those last days—and to say goodbye to her.

“Yeah,” Harriman said, nodding slowly. “I’ve been thinking about that myself. I’ve decided that I will go see—”

“Bridge to Captain Harriman,”the voice of Lieutenant Commander Linojj interrupted him.

Harriman walked back to over to Sulu’s desk and touched a control there. “This is the captain,” he said. “Go ahead, Commander.”

“Captain,”Linojj said, “you’re receiving a priority message from Starfleet Command.”

Harriman glanced at Sulu before responding. “I’m in Commander Sulu’s quarters,” he said. “Pipe it down here.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Harriman out.” He thumbed the channel closed as Sulu reached up and spun the computer interface monitor around so that it faced him. He operated the controls, and after just a few seconds, she saw the light of the display reflected on his face. “Admiral Sinclair-Alexander,” he said. If Starfleet’s commander in chief was contacting Harriman directly, Sulu thought, then it must have to do with the Romulan-Klingon situation.

“Captain,”Sulu heard Sinclair-Alexander say. “The Federation president just received word from Romulus.”Her manner was nothing but professional. “Enterprise has been granted permission to deliver the two Federation envoys to Space Station Algeron, where you and they will meet with Romulan Ambassador Gell Kamemor.”

“We’ll leave KR-3 immediately, Admiral,” Harriman said. “At maximum warp.”

“When you reach the Neutral Zone,”Sinclair-Alexander continued, “you will rendezvous with a Romulan vessel, which will escort you while you’re in Romulan space.”Sulu knew what the admiral would say next, even before she said it. “It will be their flagship,Tomed.”

“Acknowledged,” Harriman said. Sulu saw no reaction on his face to the news that Enterprisewould be in such close proximity to Admiral Vokar’s ship.

“Good luck, John,”Sinclair-Alexander said. Harriman nodded once. “Sinclair-Alexander out.”The light from the display reflecting on Harriman’s face vanished as the communication ended. The captain worked the controls again, and then said, “Harriman to bridge.”

“Bridge,”came the immediate response. “Linojj here.”

“Commander, contact Admiral Mentir and inform him that Enterprisewill be departing KR-3 immediately,” he said.

“Then set course for Romulan space station Algeron, maximum warp.”

“Sir?”Linojj said, obviously surprised by the orders.

“Do it, Xintal,” Harriman said. “I’m on my way to the bridge now. I’ll explain when I get there.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Harriman out.” He closed the channel with a touch to a control, then stood up and looked at Sulu. “Don’t worry,” he told her, and while his manner seemed serious, he also sounded extremely confident. And as Sulu had done for a long time now, she chose to trust that strength and surety.

As Harriman headed for the door, Sulu’s mind drifted to Tomedand to its commanding officer, Admiral Vokar. She knew that Captain Harriman had endured several tense encounters with the admiral through the years, most recently on the world of the Koltaari. She also knew that the admiral had a personal animus for the captain, stemming back to their first meeting, many years ago.

Before he reached the door, Harriman stopped and looked back over his shoulder at Sulu. He looked as though he would say something, but then he continued out of her quarters, on his way to the bridge—and to the Romulan Neutral Zone, she knew, and another encounter with an old enemy.

Minus Five: History

Lieutenant John Harriman feverishly worked the helm, hurling the wounded Starfleet vessel into further evasive maneuvers. He threw his leg against the side of the astrogation console, trying to keep himself in his chair as the inertial dampers adjusted late to the ship’s rapid change in attitude. The incessant whine of the impulse engines filled the Hunleybridge as the demands on them increased. Smoke stung Harriman’s eyes, and he smelled the acrid scent of melting fiber optics and scorched metal, even as the desperate gasp of a fire-suppression canister sputtered somewhere behind him.

“Fire at will!” Captain Linneus yelled, his commanding voice cutting through the uproar.

“Unloading port torpedo bay,” Lieutenant Grinager called from the tactical station, her tone steady despite the chaos of the situation. Harriman looked to the main viewscreen, its aspect locked on the enemy vessel and following it across the sky. A sweep of bright red projectiles streaked away from Hunley,and he realized that the ship must be in trouble for the captain and security chief to be attacking like this, spending their munitions in such a scatter-shot manner. They clearly hoped for a chance hit that might just allow Hunleyto limp away to safety, even if that would mean abandoning S.S. Dakota,the freighter they’d come here to assist.

On the viewer, the Romulan ship swooped and dived, its crew obviously seeking to evade the photon torpedoes sent after them. The Ventarix-class battle cruiser—squat and long-necked, composed primarily of straight lines and edges, but with a bulbous projection at the fore end of the thin neck—belonged to a new squadron of vessels upgrading the Klingon-designed D7 heavies that the Romulans had been using for the last decade or so. Harriman looked down at his console as he brought Hunleyaround, then glanced back up to see one of the photon torpedoes land on its target. He felt momentarily elated, but the reprieve was transitory: a bright flash of blue pinpoints concentrated along the area of impact told him that the Romulan ship’s shields had protected against the full force of the detonation.

Narrowly eluding the remaining torpedoes, the Romulan vessel arced into a wide turn and rounded back toward Hunley.“Evasive!” the captain cried, but Harriman had never stopped piloting the ship. He alternately watched the viewscreen and his readouts as he hove Hunleyabout, searching for an escape. Energy signatures marched across the helm display and told him that the Romulan vessel had fired its weapons again.

Hunleyrolled to starboard at one-eighth the speed of light, too slow to avoid the disruptor salvo. Two of the bolts—two out of a spread of a dozen, Harriman saw on his panel—two of the bolts were going to find their marks. Trailing the intermittent blue fiber of its laser-assisted propulsion as though it had dripped from the Romulan ship’s weapons bank, the first bolt struck the top of the saucer section forward of the bridge. Hunleyshuddered violently, and Harriman had to fight to stay in his chair.

“Deflector grid is down,” Grinager yelled, her voice competing with the increasing drone of the impulse engines.“Firing all phase—” she started, and then the second disruptor bolt pounded into Hunley.A massive explosion rocked the bridge, followed closely by the sounds of tearing metal and wind—