Beads of sweat slid down Sulu’s brow and into her eyes. Her Koltaari garments had soaked through and clung tightly to her body. Her breathing came in gasps now, and she wondered how many more steps she would be able to take. She stumbled once, almost overbalancing, but somehow retained her feet. She continued stubbornly forward, but worried that she might have lost her direction when she had fallen, that she now headed deeper into the smoke rather than out of it.

And then she passed back into daylight. The clouds of smoke had advanced nearly to the intersection now. She rounded the corner, then lowered her charge to the street. It was a young Koltaari woman, she saw, unconscious, perhaps twenty years of age. As with the man Sulu had helped to safety, the woman had dark patches around her mouth and nose, clearly the effects of respiring the smoke.

Sulu rested a moment, gathering her strength. Sunlight dappled the street, obviously the effect of the smoke rising haphazardly into the sky. The sirens had grown much louder now, implying that the emergency vehicles would be here soon. Still, she wanted to get farther from the fire and the encroaching smoke, and she would try to carry this young woman at least another couple of blocks.

As she set herself to lift the woman again, Sulu spotted a figure in her peripheral vision. She peered over at the intersection and saw a Koltaari man standing there. He turned quickly away, but then reversed direction and headed toward her. He was lean and fit, and stood not much taller than she did. He had a narrow face and angular features, appearing to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He carried a small satchel over one shoulder.

Only when the man had neared to within a few meters did Sulu recognize Grayson Trent, Enterprise’s chief computer scientist and a member of the landing party. Thank goodness,she thought. Trent had gone to another part of the city—his mission, beyond simple reconnaissance, had been to scan Koltaari computers for any hints that they had been infiltrated or compromised—but he had obviously come back here to the power plant to help the victims of the fire, just as she had.

Trent marched up to Sulu and raised a hand to her neck. She could not hear any hiss above the cacophony, but she recognized the pressure of a hypospray. Trent leaned in, bringing his mouth close to her ear, though he still had to speak loudly for her to hear him. “Tri-ox,” he told her, identifying the medication with which he had injected her. She nodded her acknowledgment, pleased that he had somehow managed to secure a medkit, and then she pointed to the Koltaari that she had carried here. Trent reset the hypo, then ministered to the young woman.

When the lieutenant rose, Sulu leaned in close to him and asked, “Have you contacted the rest of the landing party, or the ship? Does anybody know what’s happened?”

“No,” he told her. “There’s a dampening field in the city blocking communications and sensors.” That explained Sulu’s inability to raise anybody on her communicator. It also supported the captain’s suspicions, since the Koltaari didn’t possess the technology required to project such a field.

Beside them, the young woman stirred, the tri-ox compound evidently taking effect. She looked up with an expression of confusion and fear. Sulu squatted down beside her. “There’s been an explosion and a fire,” she said, yelling the words so that she could be heard; the sirens seemed extremely close now. “You have to get out of here. Can you walk?”

Sulu saw the woman say, “Yes,” but the word did not carry above the sounds of the fire and the wails of the sirens. Sulu reached out and helped the woman up. Once on her feet, the young Koltaari swayed once, but then seemed to steady herself.

Just a couple of blocks down, a connected series of four egg-shaped vehicles, bright blue, turned around a corner, hovering just above the street and heading in this direction. Several Koltaari, clad in protective gear—also blue—hung from the sides of the fire-control machines. The string of vehicles slowed as it neared, its sirens piercingly high as it passed. It turned at the intersection onto the road that led to the power plant. The sirens suddenly shut off, and Sulu guessed that the firefighters had stopped to make their stand.

“Let’s get out of here,” she called out, placing a hand on the young woman’s back and gently urging her forward. Along with Trent, they started down the street.

As they walked, the sounds of the fire diminished behind them, and Sulu hoped that was more than a function of distance. She intentionally lagged behind the Koltaari woman so that she and Trent could speak without being overheard. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” Trent told her. “A little singed around the edges, but I’m okay.” Sulu studied him for a moment and was pleased to see that he at least showed no visible signs of injury. “What about you?” he asked.

“I’m all right,” she said, knowing that Dr. Morell would ignore such a statement in favor of a thorough examination. “I inhaled some smoke,” she said, the throaty tone of her voice underscoring her words, “but I’ll be okay.” She rubbed at the side of her mouth and felt a grainy texture there. When she looked at her fingers, she saw that the tips had come away stained an ashy gray. She shook her head absently, ignoring thoughts of her own condition and turning to more important matters. “Let’s try to contact the others again,” she told Trent. “If we can’t, if the dampening field is still in effect, then we’ll head for the beam-down point,” she said, citing standard procedure for circumstances such as these.

She pulled out her communicator, opened it, and used both hands to hide it as she raised it to her mouth. “Sulu to Captain Harriman, Sulu to Captain Harriman.” She waited a few seconds, eventually tried reaching other members of the landing party, and then finally the ship. No responses came.

As she replaced the communicator at the back of her hip, beneath her tunic, a gloom settled suddenly along the street. Unlike the inconstant murk thrown by the smoke, this darkness did not waver. Ahead, the young Koltaari woman turned and peered up, then took a quick step back, recoiling in obvious terror. Sulu turned her own gaze skyward. Dark clouds continued to rise from the fire, she saw, but it was not smoke that blotted out the sun. Hanging above the buildings, a massive expanse of gray-green metal filled Sulu’s view. She could see dark lines and edges and other shapes on its surface, and she distinguished hatches, a shield grid, weapons turrets. Alien characters marched along one section, the identity of the language no surprise to her.

“Come on,” Sulu said, already starting to move. “We’ve got to find Captain Harriman.” Trent fell into step beside her, and the two headed down the street, rushing along beneath the shadow of the Romulan warship.

Harriman stopped in the road and stared. Lieutenant Tenger stood at his side. The two had almost reached the city when the air above it had begun to shimmer and shift, like a body of water flash-freezing in sudden and intense cold. And then the effect diminished, the previously empty sky solidifying into the form of a massive starship. Its main body, curving laterally from the tip of its bow back to its linear stern, stretched nearly as long and wide as all of Enterprise.A flat, thick neck reached forward to a smaller, aquiline structure, and two warp nacelles sat atop broad, winglike supports that arched outward and upward from the main section. The design evoked a distinctly avian feel, as of a hawk swooping down on its prey—an image chillingly appropriate in this case, Harriman thought. He recognized the vessel at once as a Romulan ship of the line.

“Imperial Fleet, Ivarixclass,” Tenger said, putting voice to Harriman’s thoughts. “Armed with disruptors, photon torpedoes, and plasma-energy weapons,” he added soberly, obviously focusing on the enormous threat to the Koltaari. The security chief did not offer speculation on the particular identity of the vessel, but Harriman’s instinct told him that it was the flagship. Although it was unusual for a starship to descend so low into the atmosphere of a planet, Harriman immediately understood the reason for the maneuver: the Romulans wanted to instill awe and fear in the Koltarri.