Other than having to say goodbye to Borona, Sulu actually looked forward to reaching Starbase 77, because the ship’s next mission would launch from there. Enterprisewould head out into uncharted space, toward the Röntgen Wall, an unexplained cosmological anomaly. Unlike so many of the ship’s assignments for so long now, this would be a mission purely of exploration. The anticipation among the crew in the past few days had become palpable; the notion of doing something other than patrolling the Neutral Zone or conducting defense drills or delivering weapons to military outposts had everybody excited.

I just hope it hasn’t been canceled,she thought suddenly, recalling the eyes-only transmission that Captain Harriman had earlier received from Starfleet Command. Politically and militarily, though, the last three months—since the destruction of Foxtrot Sector—had been relatively calm. The last month in particular—since the treaty had been signed and ratified—had been extremely peaceful. Although the accord contained little goodwill within it, it had already begun to serve its purpose. The Koltaari had been freed and were now receiving aid from the Federation, and the Romulans had retreated into their empire and closed their borders. Nobody knew how long the latter development would last, but with the strong relationship between the Federation and the Klingons, the consensus was that the Romulans would stay away, at least for some time. Sulu certainly hoped that would be the case.

To her right, the starboard turbolift doors opened, and Ensigns DeYoung and Verant entered the bridge. Sulu glanced down at the display in the arm of the command chair and saw just three minutes left before the end of the shift. She stood up and greeted both officers, then quickly reviewed ship and crew status with DeYoung, who relieved her.

“Ship’s lounge,” she said as she entered the turbolift. She would miss Borona, but she had been looking forward to this gathering tonight. She wanted very much to spend some downtime with these people whom she considered her second family.

“Harriman to Sulu,”came the captain’s voice over the comm system.

“This is Sulu,” she said. “Go ahead, Captain.”

“Commander,”he said, “would you please meet me in my quarters?”

She considered asking if whatever issue the captain wanted to discuss could wait until tomorrow, but then decided against it. “I’ll be right there,” she said, and after the captain had signed off, she restated her destination for the turbolift. She wondered why the captain wanted to see her so late in the day.

As the lift descended, Sulu thought about the captain. She had been concerned about him since he’d returned to Enterprise.She had hoped that after the success of his mission aboard Tomed,and after he had mourned his father, that he would rebound from the incredible pressures he had obviously been feeling in the months leading up to recent events. Instead, he had continued to be less talkative, less social, than usual, and more reticent, more solitary. She had thought that perhaps he needed to talk about all that he had been through, and he had talked a little bit about it with her, but not much—not enough. And there were very few people with whom he could discuss all that had happened; as far as she knew, only six people had knowledge of every step of the mission: Harriman and Sulu, Starfleet Commander in Chief Admiral Sinclair-Alexander, Admiral Mentir, Commander Gravenor, and Lieutenant Vaughn. The small team that had “created” hyperwarp drive and mounted it in an existing prototype starship, and the skeleton crew aboard Agamemnonwho’d installed the life-signs generators at the abandoned outposts, had been aware only of their own roles, but nothing beyond that.

As the turbolift slowed its descent, and then accelerated horizontally, Sulu wondered if the captain felt guilty. He had likely saved billions by his actions, averting a war that virtually everybody had considered inevitable. But he had also done some things in the furtherance of that goal that might be disturbing him. For one thing, he had helped hide the deaths of Starfleet officers during the year or so prior to the mission, so that real people with real histories could be included among the rolls of those who’d supposedly perished aboard Universe,the Foxtrot outposts, and Agamemnon.And for another thing, Harriman and his team had been responsible for the deaths of six Romulans aboard Tomed.Had Vokar and the others not remained aboard, then none of them would have died, and only Vokar would have paid a price; for if he had evacuated Tomedbefore the ship had decimated the outposts, then he still would have been believed responsible for the attacks, and the Klingons would still have sided with the Federation against the Romulans.

And on top of all that, the captain had lost his father. Sulu knew that the two had been estranged for almost twenty years, but she also believed that the captain had nevertheless loved his father. It probably hurt him a great deal to know that any hope of ever reconciling had now been taken away for good.

The turbolift eased to a stop, and Sulu exited into the corridor, heading for the captain’s cabin. She thought about what she had told him his father’s last words to her had been. She wondered now if that had been the right thing to do—perhaps it had simply made the situation harder for the captain, causing him to miss his father more, or to take himself to task for not having attempted to reconcile with the elder Harriman. But she had made that choice, and she could do nothing now to change that. Given the opportunity to do things differently, though, she felt that she would do just what she had done.

She arrived at the captain’s cabin and touched the door chime. A moment later, the door withdrew into the bulkhead. Captain Harriman stood in the middle of the room, and he invited her inside.

“How are you tonight, Captain?” she asked as she entered.

“I’m doing very well,” he said, motioning her toward a chair. “How are you?”

Sulu smiled, pleased to see him in such good spirits. “I’m doing very well too,” she said, taking a seat on the sofa. Harriman sat down in a chair across from her. “I was just on my way to a small farewell gathering for Ensign Fenn.” She paused, and then added, “I’d hoped that you might join us.”

“Actually,” he said, “I already stopped by the lounge, but I had to come back here to speak with Starfleet Command.”

“I hope that our mission to investigate the Röntgen Wall hasn’t been canceled,” she said.

“No, it hasn’t,” the captain said, “but there has been a slight change of plan.”

“Oh,” Sulu said, feeling immediately disappointed.

“A change made at my request,” Harriman added. He stood back up and paced across the room, as though with nervous energy. He seemed to be in a strange frame of mind.

“Demora,” he said, “I miss my father.”

“Oh,” she said again, surprised at the apparent non sequitor. “That’s understandable.”

“Maybe,” he said. “You know that we weren’t close…that we didn’t even talk beyond professional communications. But he was my father, and even if we were apart, I always knew that he was out there somewhere. Now…well, it’s hard.”

“I’m sorry,” Sulu said, feeling bad for her friend.

Harriman walked back across the room. “I’ve really enjoyed my time aboard Enterprise,”he said, seeming to change the direction of the conversation again. “As a boy, growing up on Starfleet vessels, that was the only world I knew. And it’s obviously still the one I know best.”

“I think that shows in your command,” Sulu told him. “You’re an exceptional captain, John.”

“Thank you,” he said. “A lot of credit has to go to the crew. And to the best first officer in the fleet.” Sulu inclined her head and closed her eyes, acknowledging the compliment. “As you know, I missed my father by hours,” Harriman said, appearing to change the subject once more. “He died just a few hours before we returned to KR-3. I missed him.”