Reaching into the small hip pocket on her uniform, she extracted a tiny gleaming metal bracelet and raised it nearly to eye level. The dressing room’s bright lights immediately brought out its finely etched inscription:

Elizabeth T’Les Tucker.

Her dead infant daughter, and Trip’s, named for Trip’s dead sister and T’Pol’s dead mother. Created with test tubes and incubators by a craven Terran criminal, the child’s remains now lay buried on Vulcan, though she wasn’t born there, nor anywhere else, strictly speaking. T’Les was buried under those very same sands as well.

Whatever else she could have been or might have become, little Elizabeth now represented the vanishingly small chance that T’Pol and Trip might have had for a future together.

Silently, T’Pol put the bracelet away.

Then she allowed herself to weep once again, this time for everything that might have been.

Archer found the air in the open‑dome stadium damned cold, despite the relative thickness of his dress‑uniform jacket. Standing under an overcast sky, his heart was lodged firmly in his throat as he stood at the podium, facing countless thousands of people hailing from no less than nineteen planets, including Earth. Addressing them, as well as the cameras that would carry his words to billions more, was a daunting prospect, to say the least.

And a lot of these people consider me a hero, dammit!he thought, cursing himself for his continued nervousness. He looked up from the lectern that concealed his padd, imagining all the faces that he couldn’t see clearly in the enormous, faceless crowd, while focusing his gaze on the nearest rows. These were filled with luminaries of numerous species, and many of them would affix their signatures to the historic Coalition Compact later today.

He felt buffeted by the intense pressure of their eyes and their expectations: Admirals Black and Gardner from Starfleet Command; Captain Erika Hernandez, Archer’s one‑time lover and current counterpart aboard the Starship ColumbiaNX‑02; Prime Minister Nathan Samuels and Interior Minister Haroun al‑Rashid of Earth; Ambassadors Soval, Solkar, and L’Nel, and Minister T’Pau of Vulcan; Ambassadors Thoris and sh’Rothress of Andoria, as well as Shran and his new bondmates, Shenar, Vishri, and Jhamel; Ambassador Gral of Tellar; and various members of the press, most of whom were equipped with head‑mounted imaging equipment.

All of it trained squarely upon him,like some mass‑media firing squad.

Archer scowled involuntarily when he noticed Travis’s old flame, the covert Starfleet Intelligence operative Gannet Brooks, sitting among the ranks of the journalists. The press–including the estimable Ms. Brooks–had picked up and run with certain unauthorized remarks made off the record by someone in Nathan Samuels’ office concerning Archer’s Monday conversation with the prime minister about the Coalition delegates’ reluctance to take military action against the Romulans, despite their having attacked Coridan Prime. Although both Archer and Samuels had been ducking interview requests ever since the story had broken–Archer had offered only a neutral but calculatedly surly “no comment” in response to every question the press had hurled his way in public–many among the press seemed convinced that Archer intended to bang the drums of war from the lectern today.

He remained just as convinced as ever that the Romulan threat simply wasn’t going to go away, at least not without a great deal of military “encouragement.” But a declaration of war was the last thing he wanted this day to be about.

Though he couldn’t see any members of his crew, Archer tried to draw strength from the knowledge that Malcolm, Travis, Hoshi, and Phlox were here somewhere pulling for him, probably along with anyone else from Enterprisefor whom Lieutenant O’Neill had authorized shore leave.

Of course, his crew would expect eloquence from him, too. It’s too damned bad Starfleet Academy doesn’treally offer elocution classes for captains,he thought, recalling the observation Malcolm had made a couple of days earlier.

His gaze swept over the nearby Vulcan contingent, settling quickly on Soval, who was watching him with his usual reserved expression, though Archer thought he spied a fair amount of curiosity on the diplomat’s face as well. How could he flounder on the dais right in front of Soval? For years, the Vulcan ambassador had considered Archer an unworthy failure, until he’d finally won Soval over following the Terra Prime crisis.

Archer closed his eyes and took a deep breath, reaching more deeply into his inner resources than he could ever remember having done before. He recalled having briefly carried the disembodied katraof the long‑dead Vulcan philosopher Surak around in his head when he had helped T’Pau gain control of Vulcan’s government last year. Some of Surak’s knowledge seemed to have stayed with him for a short while afterward, such as the ability to use the paralyzing Vulcan nerve‑pinch that T’Pol had never succeeded in teaching him.

Surak, old friend, if there’s any trace of you still left in my brain, I hope you’ll let me use it to calm myself the hell down.

Archer opened his eyes, offered the crowd a gentle smile, and began to speak.

Fifty‑One

Day Eight, Month of Havreen

Dartha City, Romulus

CENTURION TERIX, once again charged with conducting Admiral Valdore’s briefing, finally appeared to be winding down his presentation. “Coridan Prime has suffered what can only be described as a mortal wound, Admiral.”

Ah, to be so young and optimistic,Valdore thought. He allowed the barest trace of a smile to cross his broad lips as he recalled his own stint as a callow young centurion.

Valdore sat behind the heavy sherawood desk in his office in the Romulan Hall of State, scowling up at the semitransparent holographic image that hovered in the air between himself and Terix.

“There are wounds,” Valdore said, “and there are wounds.I myself have recovered from many injuries that others had declared mortal. In a century or so, the Coridanites could well experience just such a healing themselves.”

The centurion seemed taken aback by Valdore’s reaction. “They lost more than half a billion people in the initial attack alone, Admiral. Along with fully half of their planetary dilithium reserves.”

“Which leaves them with a remaining population of upwards of two billion. As well as around half of their planetary dilithium reserves.”

“May I point out, Admiral, that Coridan Prime has withdrawn from the Earth alliance?” Terix said. “The so‑called Coalition of Planets has been more than correspondingly weakened, not only by Coridan’s departure, but also by the sudden and precipitous diminishment of locally available dilithium.”

Valdore nodded. “Indeed. But our incomplete destruction of Coridan seems to have made the worlds that have opted to remainwithin that alliance more steadfast about maintaining it.”

The centurion’s face was flushing a florid, coppery green. “Permission to speak freely, sir?” he said.

“I fear no man’s perception of the truth, Centurion. Speak.”

“Forgive me, Admiral, but if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were determined to wrest defeat from the bhathof victory.”

Valdore chuckled at that. “I am merely attempting to see the likely consequences of the Coridan attack through the same lens through which First Consul T’Leikha is likely to view them. And likewise, the Praetor. You may do well to think of such exercises as a survival skill.” As he made this last comment, he bared his even, white teeth in a manner that could never be confused with a smile. And while his teeth bore scant resemblance to the curved, serrated bhathof the mountain‑dwelling, fiercely predatory hnoiyikarto which the centurion had referred, Valdore could see that the younger man had taken his meaning instantly.