“The Federation and the Empire have long had a tacit understanding that this world is off-limits,” Harriman went on.

“An understanding?” Vokar said. “Perhaps. But an agreement? I am sure that is not correct.” His words contained the arrogance of victory already achieved. “No matter the interpretation of past exchanges, this planet now lies within the sovereign domain of the Romulan Star Empire.”

“Vokar,” Harriman said, taking a step toward him. Subcommander Linavil quickly moved forward, interposing herself between the two men. She brandished her knife, and Harriman raised his hands, prepared to fend off any attack. Tenger also started forward.

“Stop,” Vokar said quietly, the single word more powerful for not having been shouted. The subcommander froze, then lowered the knife and backed away.

Tenger stopped, and Harriman let his hands fall back to his sides. He heard two short tones—somebody trying to contact him on his communicator—and ignored them. “Don’t do this,” he told the admiral. “Allow your negotiators and ours to continue their work.” For many months, Federation, Romulan, and Klingon representatives had been attempting, without success, to find their ways through the ever-deepening and dangerous morass existing among the three powers. “Don’t undermine the peace process,” Harriman said. “Don’t do this.”He motioned toward the starship menacing the Koltaari city.

Vokar raised his chin before speaking. “It is already done, CaptainHarriman.” The minor emphasis on rank seemed intended as derision. “And I see that you still are a captain after all this time. Is Starfleet unwilling to entrust you with greater responsibilities, or are you simply afraid to assume them?”

Harriman smiled again, but this time, he actually felt like laughing. It amused him that Vokar had so completely misread his vulnerabilities, but more than that, the admiral’s words might well have revealed a vulnerability of his own. “Still a captain,” Harriman agreed, the smile not leaving his face. “And I see that you’re an admiral…again.”

This time, Vokar himself lifted his hand to strike, moving with remarkable speed for a man of his years. Still, Harriman saw the attack coming and had time to defend himself. Instead, he chose to do nothing. Vokar’s blow landed, driving into Harriman’s face. His head snapped back, and he allowed his knees to give way. He fell onto his back, the hard road unforgiving beneath him. Anticipating the next attack, he looked up, but the admiral simply peered down at him.

“Contact your ship and get out of here,” Vokar hissed.

Harriman pushed himself up onto his hands. “Mr. Tenger,” he said. As he climbed back onto his feet, he heard the chirp of a communicator being activated, and then the security chief called up to Enterprise.

“This is Linojj,”came the response from the ship’s second officer. Harriman detected the concern in her tone even before she continued. “Are you and the captain all right?”

“We are,” Tenger said. “Can you locate the rest of the landing party?”

“We’ve already beamed them aboard,”Linojj reported. “You and the captain are the only ones left on the surface.”

“Lock on to us and prepare to transport,” Tenger told her, then said, “Captain?”

Harriman tasted blood again, and he coughed to clear his throat, then turned and spat onto the road. He looked at Vokar. “Get us out of here, Lieutenant,” he said.

“Energize,” he heard Tenger say. A moment later, the world of the Koltaari faded from view.

Silence and the eerie scarlet glow of alert lighting suffused the bridge of Enterprise.Lieutenant Commander Xintal Linojj had ordered the klaxons off and the flashing of the lights stopped, but the pandemonium of the initial call to battle stations now seemed preferable to this grave atmosphere. She peered around at the crew—DeYoung and Kanchumurthi at the freestanding tactical-and-communications console, Fenn at sciences, Tolek at navigation, and Verant in Linojj’s stead at the helm—and saw her own troubled feelings reflected in their faces.

Except it’s worse for me, isn’t it?she thought. It’s more personal.She looked ahead from the command chair at the main viewer and felt wounded by what she saw there. The emerald-and-white Koltaari planet—so similar in appearance to Cort, the Boslic homeworld—arced across the lower left corner of the screen, a Romulan warship hanging threateningly in orbit above it. The sight recalled too well for her the fractured years of her childhood when her own people had confronted an alien invasion. It had taken almost a decade for the Boslic to completely repel the attackers, and though the final battles had been fought more than a quarter of a century ago, she found that the difficult memories of those days had lost little of their emotional force for her.

Off to her right, the starboard doors whispered open, and she glanced in that direction, grateful for the distraction. Captain Harriman and Lieutenant Tenger entered the bridge from the turbolift, the captain barely recognizable in native Koltaari garb and with his skin dyed green; several dark patches, like birthmarks, also decorated his features around his nose and mouth. The flaxen, shoulder-length hairpiece he had worn down to the planet now dangled from one hand, though, and she thought that his own short brown hair, swept back and dusted silver along the sides, at least helped his long, narrow face seem more familiar.

Linojj stood from the command chair as Harriman stepped down from the outer, raised circle of the bridge. Behind him, Tenger moved aft to the tactical position and relieved Ensign DeYoung. Unlike the captain, the security chief had not yet removed his wig, but neither the long blond tresses nor the colorful Koltaari clothing could disguise Tenger’s stern countenance.

“Report,” Harriman said, acknowledging Linojj with a nod and then looking to the main viewer. Standing beside the captain, she saw that his lower lip had been split open, and she realized that the dark patches she had noticed on his face were actually smears of blood.

“There are four Romulan ships in all, Captain,” she said. “At least, there are four that we know of.” Romulan cloaking technology generally advanced in parallel with Federation detection equipment, the two alternately outdistancing each other. The Romulans currently held the advantage, their cloaked vessels effectively invisible to Starfleet sensors. “They appeared all at once,” Linojj went on, “three D’Vorix-class ships in orbit, and the Ivarix-class ship perched above the Koltaari capital.” Since the captain had transported down to the city with the landing party, she assumed that he already knew about—indeed, must have seen—that fourth ship.

“You got no indications of their drives before they decloaked?” Harriman asked. The Romulans operated artificial quantum singularities to power their warp engines, and it was most often those microscopic black holes that permitted Federation technology to detect the cloaked ships.

“No, sir,” she informed him.

Harriman seemed to consider this, still looking at the viewscreen. “Did they fire on the city?” he finally asked.

“It’s hard to tell,” she said. “Ship’s sensors were impeded by a dampening field that blanketed the capital during and for several minutes after the explosions. We’re not sure why.”

Harriman turned toward Linojj, but he seemed not to see her, instead looking into the middle distance. “Because Admiral Vokar didn’t want me to transport off the planet,” he said, apparently coming to a realization. “He wanted to explain the Romulans’ intentions to a captive audience.”

“Vokar’s here?” Linojj asked, surprised. As secretive as the Romulans could be, the name of Aventeer Vokar had been known within Starfleet for years. Now fleet admiral after a long career, Vokar had been involved in several encounters between the Empire and the Federation during his ascent to power. Starfleet Command, she knew, considered him both hostile and dangerous.