“He’s here,” Harriman confirmed, his eyes focusing on Linojj. “That’s the flagship down there.” He pointed a finger toward the image of the planet on the viewer.

She shook her head slowly from side to side, reaching up and running a thumb and forefinger along the smooth, raised ridges of her brow. A wisp of her long purple hair fell across her face, and she brushed it aside, irritated. She had hoped that the appearance of the Romulans here—and even that their attack on the city—might have been only a warning to the Federation, a cautionary signal that would not include the actual taking of this world and its people by the Empire. But Vokar’s presence put the lie to such a hope; the Romulans would not have sent a fleet admiral merely to deliver a message. No, Vokar had come here to lead an occupying force.

To the captain, Linojj said, “After the dampening field went down, we scanned the city. There were no residual readings characteristic of energy weapons, so we believe that explosive charges were actually set on the surface. The Romulans may have intended them to detonate simultaneously.”

Harriman seemed to consider this for a moment, and then said, “No, I don’t think so.” He walked slowly around the navigation station and paced toward the viewscreen, then looked back toward her. “I think they set off the first charge so that the Koltaari would commit most of their emergency-response resources to that area, and then set off the second to maximize the bedlam and horror in the city.” He peered at her with a knowing and pained expression. “It’s an old Romulan ploy: demoralize your enemies before they even know who’s attacking.”

“And then appear and show themselves to be the source of the destruction,” Linojj concluded.

“Yes,” the captain agreed.

She looked at the Romulan vessel on the viewscreen, her stomach churning in anger. “When the ships decloaked, we had a few tense moments,” she said, continuing her report. “But the Romulans made no moves against the Enterprise.When the dampening field went down, the members of the landing party began calling in. You and Lieutenant Tenger were the last two on the planet. We tried to contact you, but when you didn’t respond, we scanned your location and found the Romulan landing party there as well. We were about to beam you up when the lieutenant contacted the ship.”

Harriman nodded, then asked, “Where is Commander Sulu?”

“In sickbay,” Linojj said, “being treated for smoke inhalation. Dr. Morell says she’ll be fine.”

“And the rest of the landing party?”

“Unharmed,” she told him. “Although the doctor’s insisting on examining each of them. And she’s already contacted me to demand that you and Lieutenant Tenger report to sickbay as soon as possible.”

“Of course she did,” Harriman said, offering a wan smile. The doctor possessed a shipwide renown for overprotecting the crew, a trait for which she was continually teased. Looking past Linojj, Harriman said, “Lieutenant Tenger, secure from general quarters.”

“Aye, sir,” came the crisp response from the security chief. Linojj looked around and watched him operate his console. An instant later, the red alert indicators blinked off, replaced by the standard lighting of alpha shift.

Harriman stepped forward and rested a hand along the front edge of the navigation console. “Ensign Tolek,” he said, “plot a course for Starbase Iridani.”

“Aye, Captain,” the navigator replied, sending his long, dexterous fingers dancing across his console.

“Sir, we’re leaving?” Linojj asked, dismayed, speaking out even before she’d had a chance to consider her words. But unlike the other commanding officers under whom she’d served, Captain Harriman invited questions on the bridge. His command style mixed strength and decisiveness with patience and informality; he made decisions quickly, but allowed any of the crew to ask about those decisions. When she had first come aboard, she had found Harriman’s approach confused and even dangerous, but she had soon come to discover its merits. The crew appreciated their access to the captain, and felt valued by his willingness to listen to them; they trusted him because he trusted them. Linojj often wondered how much of that had been a reaction to Harriman’s experiences with his father, now an admiral in Starfleet Command, a man noted as a hard and unforgiving leader; she and Demora had often speculated with each other about it.

“Course laid in, Captain,” Tolek said.

“The helm answers ready, sir,” Ensign Verant added.

“One moment,” Harriman told Tolek and Verant. He circled back around the navigation console and eased into the command chair. “You have concerns, Xintal?” he asked.

“I don’t think we should abandon the Koltaari,” she said honestly.

“We’re not abandoning them,” Harriman said evenly.

“The Koltaari don’t even know that we exist.”

“Begging the captain’s pardon,” Linojj said, “but after what the Romulans have done, aiding the Koltaari could hardly be considered a violation of the Prime Directive, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” She looked over at the main viewscreen, training her eyes on the Romulan warship suspended above the planet. She recognized the design of the vessel—with its bulbous command section at the end of along, narrow neck, and its wide nacelle mounts below its angular main body—as from an older class manufactured into the 2290s, but not beyond that time. All three Romulan ships in orbit hailed from that older class, and while all must have been refitted over the years, none could approach the capabilities of Enterprise,itself fully refitted just four years ago, right before she had joined the crew. In her head, she ran numbers and attack strategies, attempting to estimate Enterprise’s chances of dispatching the three older vessels before having to face the much more powerful Romulan flagship.

“No, this isn’t a Prime Directive matter,” Harriman allowed. “But even if we could somehow defeat all four of the Romulan vessels, what then? A direct attack on Romulan personnel would be considered an act of war.”

“Isn’t this attack on the Koltaari an act of war?” she said.

“Against the Koltaari, yes,” Harriman said, “but not against the Federation. Aggressive, yes. Dangerous, yes. But not something that automatically instigates war.”

“So we’re just going to allow the Romulans to take this world, to enslave these people?” she persisted, her emotions rising. “Because that’s what they’ll do. They’ve enslaved the Remans for centuries.”

“Xintal,” Harriman said gently, “the Romulans have already taken the first steps to occupy this world. If we fight now, it will cost Koltaari lives.”

“It’s already cost that,” she argued. “Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, in the two explosions.”

“Yes,” Harriman said, and he cast his gaze downward for a moment, clearly saddened himself at the circumstances that had unfolded here. “But the Romulans are pushing us. They either believe that war is inevitable, and that they should therefore gain as much advantage as possible, or they believe that they’ve already gained some advantage that will assure them victory. Either way, they’re pushing us, inviting us to commit. And we’re not ready.”

“Captain,” Linojj said, almost pleading, she realized, for people she had never even met. “To allow this to happen to the Koltaari, even to avoid war…”

Harriman looked at her, the stare of his blue-gray eyes intense. “We’re not going to avoid war,” he said. “Not by leaving the Koltaari to the Romulans, and not by confronting the Romulans right here, right now. We’ll delay it by stepping back at this point—we needto delay it—but…” The captain let his voice trail off to silence, just as she had, and Linojj saw something like conflict in his expression.

No, not conflict,she thought. Struggle.As though he had already begun to search for the solution that would deny the inexorableness of war with the Romulans. She tried to see what he saw, that their inaction here now was necessary, that in the long run, and perhaps in the short run, even the Koltaari would be better off if the crew of Enterprisedid not fight today. To Harriman, she simply said, “Yes, sir,” signaling an end to her opposition. “I understand.” She bowed her head once, a Boslic sign of respect, then turned and tapped Ensign Verant on her shoulder. The ensign quickly operated a control to freeze the helm, then stood and retreated to a secondary station at the periphery of the bridge. Linojj sat, quickly scanned the readouts to familiarize herself with the ship’s current status, then reached up and reactivated the console. “Helm still answers ready, Captain,” she said.