“Rafe,” Sulu said, “can you tell—”

“Captain,” Linojj interrupted, startled to find herself fighting a losing battle with the helm controls. “I can’t shut down the port reactor.” She scanned her readouts for the ship’s current velocity. “We’re at three-quarters impulse and still accelerating.”

“Rafe?” Sulu asked, her voice firm, her manner serious but composed.

“The core is pulling in more fuel than it should, keeping the reaction hot,” Buonarroti said. “Let me shut down the deuterium stream.”

“Radiation is beginning to increase significantly,” Tenger said. “The temperature in the core is spiking.”

“Eighty percent of full impulse,” Linojj said.

“It’s not working,” Buonarroti said, turning from the engineering station to face Sulu. “The deuterium-flow regulator reads fully functional, but it’s not controlling the influx of fuel into the reactor. I need to go down there.”

“Go,” Sulu said immediately.

Buonarroti jogged around the chair in front of the engineering station and raced for the starboard turbolift. “Gray,” he said, calling across to the port side of the bridge, where Lieutenant Trent sat at the library-computer console. “You’re with me.” The ship’s chief computer scientist took only a second to secure his station, then hurried around the perimeter of the bridge, past the main viewscreen, and joined Buonarroti in the turbolift. The doors glided closed after them.

Sulu stepped back down to the center section of the bridge and paced over to stand beside Linojj. “What do you think?” Sulu asked quietly. “Did they do this?” She did not have to identify whom she meant by they;Linojj had already wondered herself if the ship had been sabotaged.

“I don’t know,” Linojj said, looking up at Sulu. “But why would they? If the Enterpriseis destroyed in Romulan space, even in an accident, nobody’s going to believe that the Romulans weren’t involved. And wouldn’t that drive the Klingons to side with the Federation if hostilities break out?” As she thought through the argument she was making, Linojj found that it made sense to her. That, in turn, brought relief, to know that the first shot of the war had likely notjust been fired.

Sulu nodded, although if in agreement or in simple acknowledgment, Linojj could not tell. “Ramesh,” Sulu said, turning to face him at the tactical-and-communications station at the aft section of the bridge, “get me the Tomed.”

Ambassador Gell Kamemor waited in her cabin on Algeron, peering out into space through the viewing port in her sleeping quarters. A sliver of her pallid face reflected on the oval pane, a sheer contrast to the onyx night beyond. Kamemor studied the arc of her waxen flesh, one ear sweeping upward to a graceful point, one eye staring relentlessly back at her. She did not appear nearly as weary as she felt.

Behind her, a clock kept time, its staccato ticking permeating the surrounding silence. Kamemor still had not completely decided on what actions she would take—or fail to take—in the next few minutes. She had pledged her cooperation to Captain Harriman, a man she had known—and trusted, at least to some extent—for some time, but what he had asked of her held danger not only for her, but for her people as well. If the captain had deceived her about Vokar, about the admiral’s intentions to instigate war no matter the circumstances, then aiding Harriman at this point might itself abet the start of hostilities. Kamemor had labored a very long time for peace, had struggled against prevailing sentiment that held war to be inevitable, and yet what she did or did not do in the next several moments might decide everything.

The tick, tick, tickof the clock seemed to echo the beating of her heart. Her thoughts drifted with the sound. The ebony expanse of space outside the viewing port faded, as did her ashen likeness, replaced in her mind by the faces of Ravent, her mate, and Sorilk, her son. Kamemor had visited Ravent only three times during the past year, on foreshortened trips back to their homeworld of Glintara. She had seen Sorilk just once, when the starship on which he served had stopped briefly at Algeron. And yet Ravent and Sorilk inspired most of the passion Kamemor devoted to crafting a lasting peace with the Klingons and the Federation. She knew that even a war in which the Empire eventually triumphed would put her loved ones at risk, and she could not countenance such a threat.

And is not almost everyone somebody’s loved one?Kamemor thought. Did the Empire not mourn the loss of even a single Romulan soldier? Would it be any different for Klingon or Federation citizens? The Klingons did not look upon the prospect of death in the same way that Romulans did—Klingons might be less reluctant to die under certain circumstances—but they still did not seek the ends of their lives.

A belief Kamemor embraced held that the measure of all sentient existence rose to infinite heights. A necessary corollary of that conviction gauged a Klingon life or a Federation life—Vulcan, human, Andorian, or whatever—as no more or less valuable than a Romulan life. The citizens of the Empire wanted none of their people to be killed in battle, but what they should have wanted was for no people, of any race, to be killed in battle. That meant seeking and sustaining peace, and Kamemor had dedicated her career to establishing equitable accords to do just that.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Now, though, she had to decide, had to figure out,who had told her the truth—if anybody even had. Klingon and Federation ambassadors and aides, her own aides, the Romulan Senate, the Klingon High Council, the Federation Council…alleged truths had come to her from many sources. Kamemor understood that in the world of diplomacy, a single word, a particular shade of meaning, could be employed to twist the truth in order to achieve some end. Words and ideas often became arguments to persuade, to threaten, to dissemble, all simply to bring about some course of action.

Did Harriman tell me the truth?she wondered. Did my aides?Did she herself fully grasp the nuances of all that had transpired these past few years, of all that had been said?

Right now, it came down to this: did she really know John Harriman, and could she— shouldshe—trust him? Should she be so wary of Admiral Vokar, a man whose sometimes-ruthless service record could not hide the heroic deeds he had achieved for the greater good and glory of the Empire?

A tone beeped in the room, and then repeated, vying for her attention with the ticking of the clock. Kamemor peered away from the viewing port and across the room, at the portable sensing device that sat on the shelf built into the bulkhead above her bed. Harriman had configured the scanner for her, and the signal told her that in nearby space, the crew of Enterprisefaced disaster, and the crew of Tomedwould shortly react to that crisis. The time had come for Kamemor to choose which course of action she would take.

She peered once more out the viewing port. She could not see Enterpriseor Tomedfrom here, nor could she see the beautiful, glistening colors of the Algeron Effect. But she did not need to see the sparkling remnants of Algeron III to be reminded of what had occurred in this system. Kamemor thought of the horrible weapon that had been wielded here, thought of the terrible destruction and death wreaked upon her people by a merciless enemy, and she knew that she could not let that happen to anybody else, Romulan or otherwise. There were lines that should never be crossed—not in everyday life, not in peacetime, not in wartime. Kamemor might not be able to prevent Vokar from perpetrating the heinous act of terror Harriman had accused him of planning, but she could try.

She stopped on her way out of her bedroom to deactivate the signal calling from the portable scanner, then tucked the scanner inside the folds of the long scarlet robe she wore. She then walked to the door to her quarters and stopped as it opened before her. She realized that this would probably be a defining moment of her life. With luck, no Romulan would ever know about it.