Still pacing, Archer turned to face both Samuels and al‑Rashid, the latter having taken a seat near the chairman’s podium at one of the curved tables. “Earth will probably get swept into it by then, too.”

Archer paused as he made his way back to the exact geographical center of the room, from which he addressed everyone present. Samuels heard not a murmur from any of the delegates nor from their aides. The captain commanded everyone’s full attention in a way that Samuels couldn’t help but envy.

“But I don’t think you need any of this explained to you by an explorer–or by the soldier I’ll be forced to become if you lose your nerve and make the wrong decision here today. All of you know there’s only one way the Romulans can succeed. Each one of our worlds has had to learn the painful lesson that united we stand, divided we fall. Let us all stand together.” Archer walked back toward the spiral stairs at the chamber’s edge.

Gral slowly rose again from his seat and began applauding, establishing a slow, steady rhythm that echoed across the chamber. The echo intensified, and it took Samuels a moment to realize that Soval and T’Pau had joined him, followed by al‑Rashid and Thoris, a few moments later. Samuels himself added to the rising wall of noise, a sense of relief flooding him as he realized that the cause might not be entirely lost after all.

Samuels banged his gavel on his lectern and declared a brief recess.

“How do you dothat, sir?” Travis asked as he prepped Shuttlepod One for launch from the landing pad on the council building’s roof.

“I was just thinking the very same thing,” said Malcolm, who had just finished strapping into one of the seats positioned slightly aft of the cockpit, near those occupied by Hoshi and Phlox. “I have to assume that the Academy offers special command‑track speech courses.”

Archer grinned over his shoulder at Malcolm from the copilot’s seat beside Travis. “What exactly are you talking about, Malcolm?”

“I’m referring to that rousing little gem of extemporaneous persuasive oratory you just delivered to the delegates, sir,” Malcolm said, returning Archer’s grin.

“You don’t need to push so hard to get that promotion, Malcolm,” Archer said in a bantering tone. “What’s important is that everybody has agreed to go ahead and sign the Coalition Compact on Wednesday, just as originally scheduled.”

Everybody except the Coridanites, that is,Archer thought sadly, though he still hoped that Coridan’s chancellor would reconsider her decision sooner or later; Kalev would have to realize at some point that the Romulan Star Empire probably wasn’t finished taking shots at her homeworld.

“I’m sure T’Pol is going to be sorry she missed your speech when we get back aboard Enterpriseand tell her all about it,” Malcolm said.

Archer snorted dismissively. “You know how much T’Pol hates listening to speeches. She’s probably thanking her lucky stars that she drew bridge duty instead. Besides, all I did was say what I’m sure Samuels and al‑Rashid were both already thinking. If I hadn’t said it then, one or the other of them probably would have eventually.”

“You needn’t be so coy, sir,” said Malcolm, his words dripping with a degree of admiration that went way past Archer’s threshold of tolerance. “You were bloody brilliant.”

Archer tried to summon a stern frown, but found that it wouldn’t quite fit over his smile. “All right, Malcolm. Belay that, or you can forget about promotions altogether. One more word of hero‑worship and I might even consider busting you down to bilge cleaner.”

“If you ask me, the delegates were way overdue to have somebody read them the riot act,” Hoshi said. “None of the Coalition worlds can afford to have them squabbling. Not with the Romulans on the move.”

Archer nodded silently in Hoshi’s direction. They know they’d better hang together. Unless they want to hang separately.

“What aboutthe Romulans, Captain?” Travis said as he brought the antigrav thrusters on line and gently raised the shuttlepod into the cloud‑scudded, late‑afternoon sky. A heavy fog appeared to be rolling in from the bay.

Archer wasn’t quite sure what to make of the question. “They’re still out there, Travis. And if we’re not extremely careful, they’ll be heresooner or later.”

“That’s exactly my point, sir. All the delegates are well aware of what the Romulans did to Coridan Prime–so why haven’t they discussed making a formal declaration of war against the Romulans?”

Archer sighed wearily. During the short recess in the proceedings just before he had returned to the shuttlepod with his officers, he had privately posed that very question directly to Prime Minister Samuels.

“They can’t,” Archer said, shaking his head in frustration. “Their hands are tied by the language of the Coalition Compact itself.”

“But I thought the Compact contained a clause that says an attack against oneCoalition member is the same as an attack against allthe Coalition members,” Malcolm said in unconcealed bemusement. “Just like the old NATO agreements from a couple of hundred years ago.”

“The Compact doessay that, Malcolm,” Archer said. “But Coridan won’t be signing the Compact on Wednesday, remember? They’ve dropped out. Therefore, the Coalition Council won’t be able to invoke that clause on their behalf.”

“There must be somethingthey can do, Captain,” Travis said, sounding as frustrated as Archer felt. “After all, we all know that the Romulans represent a clear threat.”

“Knowing something and proving it aren’t quite the same thing, Travis,” Archer said as he stared through the front windows, beyond which the cobalt sky had already given way to a deep purple, which in turn was quickly yielding to the blackness of space. “As far as we can tell, the projectile ship that wiped out half of Coridan didn’t leave a trace of itself behind. And even if it did, the Coridanites aren’t likely to let us turn what’s left of their home planet upside down searching for it. Besides, several parties other than the Romulans are claiming ‘credit’ for what happened on Coridan. And the Romulans themselves, of course, aren’t talking.”

A bright pinpoint of light hung over the Earth’s nightward terminator. Archer watched as it grew swiftly in brightness until it became recognizable as something far closer to Earth than any of the distant, fixed stars behind it. Its familiar saucer‑and‑twin‑nacelle shape continued growing steadily in the window.

Enterprise.Home.

While Travis continued making his characteristically graceful approach to the ship, Hoshi spoke in incredulous tones. “So without hard evidence that the Romulans were actually behind the Coridan Prime attack…”

Archer completed the thought for her, though he realized that everyone present had probably already done the geopolitical math. “The Coalition Council would be debating a preemptivewar declaration.”

Preemptive war, of course, was strictly forbidden by the Compact. Given the terrible consequences such wars had wrought upon Earth during the previous century–particularly during the Eugenics Wars–Archer saw this prohibition as a wise policy, at least in the abstract. He disagreed vehemently, however, with its present application to the Romulans, whose responsibility for the Coridan attack was really beyond doubt, at least so far as Archer was concerned.

On the one hand, he could certainly understand why the Coalition delegations from both Earth and Vulcan would be loath even to appearto be in violation of the charter before its ink was dry. On the other, he hoped he could count on the Andorians and the Tellarites to have the great good sense to stand on ceremony less than the rest of the Coalition would.

Like Section 31?Archer asked himself, not liking the answer in the least. But he had to face the sad truth of the matter, which was that another Coridan‑like disaster might strike anywhere within the Coalition, and at any time. Perhaps even right here on Earth, whose wounds from the horrendous Xindi attack of not quite two years earlier still had yet to fully heal.