Valdore turned away from Vrax so that he could meet the First Consul’s sharp gaze directly. “His dishonor can be no worse than my own. Iwas responsible for losing the prototype drone warships to the Earthers and their allies. Vrax merely supported my own misguided efforts.”

The First Consul leaned forward and regarded Valdore again in silence. Then she smiled. “You are no less noble for your lengthy ordeal in our dungeons, Valdore. And no less brave.”

Valdore returned her smile coolly. “I have very little left to lose, First Consul. And therefore very little left to fear.”

He paused to look back toward the broken man, pausing for a dark instant to rejoice that confinement had not treated him nearly so brutally as it had Vrax. The sight of his old friend brought unbidden wistful memories that spanned many decades. “Vrax and I served together in the Senate long ago, First Consul. Until I was expelled…for posing an imprudent question.”

T’Leikha nodded. “I am aware of your record, Valdore. You and Vrax were friends–at least until you questioned the wisdom of the Romulan Star Empire’s doctrine of unlimited expansion.”

“And I doubtless would have been executed for it, had Vrax not intervened directly on my behalf. He persuaded First Consul Aratenik to help him convince the Praetor to spare my life.”

“So?” T’Leikha asked. Her eyes narrowed, as though they functioned as a gauge showing precisely how much patience remained behind them.

“So the Senate would no doubt listen to yourrecommendation for clemency as well,” Valdore said, looking T’Leikha squarely in the eye. “As would the Praetor himself.”

Her brow had begun to furrow in incompletely restrained fury. “You forget your place, Valdore. Your family is not so powerful as you seem to think.”

Valdore met the continued onslaught of her gaze without flinching. “If members of my family were influential enough to free me from imprisonment, they certainly would have done so long before now. Therefore I must assume that youhave brought me here, First Consul–and that you did so because you needme. Otherwise you would not have seen fit to changemy ‘place.”’ He gestured toward Vrax without breaking eye contact with T’Leikha. “So, given my evident importance to you, I respectfullyrequest that you spare this man’s life. The Romulan Star Empire may one day have need of him again, just as has proved to be the case with me.”

T’Leikha paused to digest this, then nodded toward Vrax’s guards, who swiftly began conducting the slope‑shouldered prisoner away. For a fleeting moment before the former senator exited the chamber, Vrax’s gaze locked with Valdore’s.

Valdore glimpsed both anger and despair in his old friend’s once roc‑sharp eyes. He realized then that if his request for clemency was to succeed, he had very likely done his old friend no favors. Sometimes you either end up in charge,Valdore thought, or else you end up executed. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground.

But he couldn’t concern himself with that now. His stomach rumbled hollowly, and noisily enough to make him wonder whether his Reman guards might be startled by the sound.

Again turning his attention fully upon First Consul T’Leikha, Valdore said, “I require a meal, a bath, a clean uniform, and communications with my family. And then I want a briefing about everythingthat has happened while I have been…away.”

T’Leikha nodded. “All of that has been prepared. You will have until tomorrow morning to prepare a coherent strategic plan for presentation to the Empire’s Military Tribunes, and to the Praetor himself.” She grinned like a predator anticipating a kill. “Welcome back, Admiral Valdore.”

After taking a swift meal and an equally swift shower, and then properly attiring himself in a uniform tunic that now felt disconcertingly loose across his chest, Valdore took a seat at a triangular table in a small conference room located deep in the bowels of the Hall of State. Here he endured a briefing that was anything but brief. The uniformed centurion who was conducting it–a young man named Terix–was copiously thorough, so much so that Valdore could not help but feel overwhelmed by all that had occurred since his confinement had begun.

But he knew he hadn’t the time to dwell on that, for there was far too much to do. Nor did he wish to consider overmuch the mortal danger he was in, since the Praetor’s own intelligence service was no doubt watching him closely for any sign of disloyalty, now that he once again had access to so much highly sensitive imperial military data.

He concentrated instead on the renewed sense of overarching purpose that once again consumed him.

The Empire’s adversaries had moved forward considerably in their plans during Valdore’s detention. Earth and its allies were now close to formalizing a mutual defense pact that might be better described as a permanent confederation. Five highly advanced, starfaring worlds capable of interposing themselves between the Romulan Star Empire and its necessity‑driven ambitions for expansion could soon present a unified military front to the outworlds of the Empire’s ever‑broadening–and ever more diffuse–frontier. And that hostile front might even succeed in beating back the Empire’s massed forces, given the reliable new intelligence reports indicating that Coridan Prime now apparently possessed avaihh lli vastam–warp‑seven‑capable vessels–at least in prototype form.

They could very well strangle us within our own territory,Valdore thought with increasing agitation as he listened to Terix and reviewed the many classified text files, flat and holographic pictures, and graphs that the centurion had provided. If the Coridanites should share this technology with the rest of the worlds in this so‑called Coalition of Planets before our Empire can bring its own countermeasures online…

Valdore did not want to pursue the thought to its conclusion, though he couldn’t stop himself from visualizing the national banners of Earth or Vulcan or Coridan fluttering in the Apnex Sea’s cool breezes over all of the ancient domes and arches of Dartha’s venerable Government Quarter, including the stately vastness of the Romulan Senate itself. Even without the Coridanites’ warp‑seven‑capable technology, the Coridan system’s abundant dilithium reserves would not only greatly strengthen Earth and its Coalition of Planets, but they might also benefit the uncouth creatures of the Klingon Empire, longtime adversaries whose own expansionist tendencies rivaled those of Romulus itself.

Putting aside his apocalyptic speculations for the moment, Valdore leaned toward Terix and interrupted him. “Centurion, what is the current status of our own high‑warp research projects?”

Still standing between Valdore’s table and the wall screen that currently carried a map of the Coalition of Planets’ projected boundaries along the Romulan frontier, the young briefer scowled down at his boots for a moment. He was clearly about to convey some bad news, and was just as clearly worried about being held personally responsible for it.

After being prompted with a curt monosyllable, Terix said, “The first full‑up test of the new stardrive was undertaken earlier today, Admiral, on Unroth III.”

“And?”Valdore asked in a low growl, making an intentional display of impatience; he hated verbal tiptoeing of this sort.

“We received official word about the results about four dierhaago. The prototype failed, explosively. The resulting energy discharge completely destroyed the prototype and the research complex, and blew off a good portion of Unroth III’s atmosphere.”

Unroth III. Valdore recognized the designation as belonging to a remote frontier world, far from the Empire’s better‑traveled military and commercial corridors.