Minutes passed.

Why?he asked himself. Why would the Federation want to destroy just one Romulan vessel? Yes, Tomedwas the flagship, but the risk that they must have taken to attempt this within Romulan space seemed too great. UnlessTomed wasn’t the only vessel attacked. Perhaps the Federation has commenced a war, perhaps—

Movement streaked across the viewscreen. Vokar saw the cylindrical evacuation pods—half a dozen, a dozen, more—as they rushed away from Tomed,taking the crew to safety. “Time,” he said.

“Fifteen minutes until containment failure,” Linavil answered from somewhere behind him.

“How did they do it?” Vokar asked as he watched more evacuation pods racing out into space. He heard the metallic toll of footfalls, which ended as Linavil stepped up next to him.

“I don’t know, Admiral,” she said, clearly understanding who he had meant by they.

“How?” he asked again. He turned toward the first officer.

“We never docked at Algeron. We stayed in orbit about it specifically to maintain ship’s security.”

“I know, sir,” she said. “The shields have been raised from the moment Enterprisecrossed the Neutral Zone into our territory until the moment it crossed back. They couldn’t have—”

The instant Linavil stopped speaking, Vokar knew that she had figured it out. “What?” he demanded.

“When Enterprisesuffered the problem with its sublight engine,” Linavil said, “we prepared to transport their crew aboard. I lowered the shields, for just a few moments, until the crisis had passed.”

Vokar resisted the urge to strike her where she stood. He saw Linavil’s fear of him in her eyes. “Decoyed,” he said. He peered past Linavil. “Akeev.”

“Sir?” the science officer said.

“How long would it take to do this in this way?” he asked.

“To sabotage the containment field and its backups, external communications and its backups?”

“I’m not sure, Admiral,” Akeev said. “I’d have to—”

“Minutes?” Vokar spoke over him. “Hours? Days?”

“Hours at least,” Akeev said. “Probably days.”

Vokar looked back at Linavil. “They’re still aboard,” he asserted. “Which means that they’re not attempting to destroy the ship; they’re attempting to seize it.”

Linavil’s eyes went wide. “Lieutenant, full internal scans,” she said. “Find the intruders.”

“Working,” Akeev said as his hands flew across his console. “The sensors show only six life signs,” he reported a moment later. “All Romulan.” But he continued operating his controls. “Broadening search for secondary indications,” he said.

Vokar waited. “Time,” he said to Linavil.

She walked over to the nearest console and glanced at its display. “Twelve minutes,” she said.

“Sir,” Akeev said, looking up from his station to face Vokar. “Sensors are picking up a statistically significant heat fluctuation that could be caused by intruders.”

“Where?” Vokar wanted to know.

“Lower engineering deck, port side,” Akeev said, then checked his console again. “In a maintenance connector.”

“They’re somehow cloaked,” Vokar said, sure that they had found the Federation saboteurs. “But they’re here.”

Linavil’s features shifted, her emotions moving from a fear of reprisal for the blunder that had allowed intruders onto Tomed,to a desire for retribution.

“Get the weapons,” Vokar said.

Minus One: Serpents

Commander Drysi Gravenor scratched at her ear, trying to eliminate an itch where the pointed Romulan tip had been attached to her flesh. She glanced up from her scanner and across the equipment junction at Lieutenant Vaughn. He leaned with his back against the bulkhead, his posture revealing his fatigue. A sheen of perspiration coated his features, even as two beads slid down the side of his face, leaving quicksilver trails behind. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt.

The time aboard Tomedhad been hard on all of them, Gravenor knew. The heat, the closeness in the equipment junctions and conduits, napping in abbreviated shifts, subsisting on condensed emergency rations—all had taken their toll. In addition, the complexity and arduousness of their tasks had pushed each of them, while the importance and pressure of successfully completing their mission had never left their minds. And right now, they’d reached one of the most critical stages of the operation.

Gravenor checked the display on her Romulan scanner. Fiber-optic lines swept from the back of the device and into a cluster of exposed circuits within the bulkhead. She’d secured a connection to the ship’s helm, and while she hadn’t yet taken control of it, she monitored its function. Tomed’s helm officer had programmed it to engage six minutes before complete containment failure, taking the ship away from the evacuated crew and leaving them behind in safety. Once that had happened, Captain Harriman would slow the degradation of the containment field—it could not be stopped—and Gravenor would head the ship toward Federation space.

The chronometer on the tricorder told Gravenor that in just four minutes, Tomedwould go to warp. By that time, the entire crew would have vacated the ship, allowing her and Vaughn and Harriman to finish their mission. With full control of the ship, they could—

The display on her scanner jumped. She’d been observing Tomed’s helm readouts, monitoring the programmed flight settings and the status of the warp drive. Now the set of Romulan characters marching across the display told her something different than they had only seconds ago. She quickly read through the new text, and saw in an instant that everything had changed.

Gravenor raised her arm and activated the Romulan communicator encircling her wrist. As she did so, she saw Vaughn straighten and push away from the bulkhead, his attention firmly on her. “We’ve got a problem,” she told him, and as though confirming that fact, she risked contacting Harriman. Until now, they’d refrained from using their communicators, which could have betrayed their presence aboard Tomed.“Aerel to Ventin,” she said, employing the names of two of the Romulan crew that they’d chosen for themselves should the need arise.

“Ventin,”Harriman responded at once.

“The ship is no longer programmed to go to warp,” she said. “Flight control has been transferred from the computer back to the helm station on the bridge.”

Silence followed, only a second or two in duration, Gravenor was sure, but the time seemed to elongate for her. She awaited Harriman’s orders, anxious to take action. “Check internal sensors,”Harriman said at last. “How many are left aboard?”

Gravenor worked her scanner. She had established a link to the ship’s internal sensors as a contingency measure, and she accessed that connection now. She executed a high-level scan, casting a shipwide net for Romulan life signs. “Six of the crew are still aboard,” she reported to Harriman. “Three on the bridge, three in engineering— wait.Some of them are now on the move.”

“Take control of the helm,”Harriman ordered. “Get us away from here.”

“Aye,” Gravenor said simply.

“I’ll do my job,”Harriman said, obviously meaning that he’d do as planned, reducing the rate of decay of the containment field. “I’ll rejoin you shortly. Out.”

Gravenor deactivated the communicator, then dropped her hand back to her scanner. She brought up the helm readouts on the display, studied them for a moment, and then went to work. In only a short time, she had taken over operation of Tomed’s flight-control systems. Utilizing the course the Romulan navigator had earlier plotted and programmed into the computer, Gravenor engaged the ship’s warp drive.