Kamemor strode through the door and down the corridor. She did not look back.

“Something is happening aboard Enterprise,”Sublieutenant Akeev said from the sciences station near the main viewscreen. Subcommander Renka Linavil peered down at the officer from the raised command chair at the rear of Tomed’s bridge. The sublieutenant’s tone had contained a recognizable note of agitation, but his words had conveyed a woeful lack of useful data. But Linavil immediately suspected treachery, perpetrated not against the Starfleet crew, but by them. She trusted the Federation not at all.

“Somethingis happening?” Linavil questioned, not even attempting to moderate the irritation she felt. Akeev had served under Admiral Vokar for years, and therefore should have known better than to offer up less than complete information. Had the admiral been on the bridge right now, rather than off-shift in his quarters, either the sublieutenant would have acted capably, or he would have found himself relieved of duty.

“Readings indicate abnormally high levels of radiation,” Akeev explained. He checked the console, and then added, “It’s coming from the impulse drive.”

“Full sensor sweep,” Linavil ordered. “Are they raising shields? Charging weapons?” She doubted the Enterprisecrew would be adopting an offensive—or even a defensive—posture in these circumstances, and Akeev should already have been monitoring the Starfleet vessel anyway. But her request for a complete sweep attended two purposes: first, to confirm Enterprise’s status, and second, to emphasize to the science officer the consequences of performing his duties less than rigorously.

“I’ve been monitoring continuously, Subcommander,” Akeev said, clearly abashed. “Enterprise’s shields remain down, and its weapons offline.” He consulted the sciences console before resuming. “The source of the radiation is the port impulse drive. The temperature in the reactor is also increasing.”

Linavil stood from the command chair and descended to the deck of the bridge. “What is happening?” she demanded. She saw the eyes of other bridge personnel turn toward her, but she continued to focus on Akeev.

“It’s difficult to know for sure,” the sublieutenant said, studying the readouts, “but it reads like a malfunction.”

“Are they in danger?” Linavil wanted to know. She peered at the main viewscreen, at the image of Enterpriseas it soared through space ahead of Tomed.

“If the temperature and radiation maintain their rises, yes,” Akeev said. “The reactor will go supercritical and explode.” The sublieutenant looked up, and Linavil saw what appeared to be satisfaction in his expression. If nothing else, it demonstrated why the officer, as bright a scientist as he was, had not attained a rank beyond the one he currently held.

“Can we prevent that from happening?” Linavil asked.

“Can we—?” Akeev started, evidently confused. “Subcommander?”

“It was a simple question, Sublieutenant,” Linavil said, marching across the bridge to the sciences station. “Can we prevent Enterprisefrom being destroyed?” She found Akeev’s shortsightedness disturbing, but it seemed obvious to her that the destruction of a Starfleet vessel in Romulan space—however it happened—would be viewed by both the Federation and the Klingons as an act of hostility. And even if the Romulan Star Empire did not need the Klingon Empire fighting by its side, it did not need the Klingons fighting alongside the Federation either. But she did not feel the need to explain this to Akeev. Instead, she said, “The Enterprisecrew must have detected the danger, and they clearly cannot shut their impulse drives down, otherwise they already would have done so. So is there something we can do to assist?”

“I…I don’t know,” Akeev stammered. “I’m not, uh, familiar with—”

“Shields down,” Linavil said, cutting off the sublieutenant both with her words and by turning her back to him as she looked toward the tactical station. “Be prepared to transport their crew into the cargo holds.”

“Yes, Subcommander,” responded the tactical officer.

Linavil turned toward the communications station. “Contact Enterprise,”she said.

“Subcommander,” the comm officer said, looking up from her console, “Enterpriseis hailing us.”

“Put them through,” Linavil said, and she peered toward the main viewscreen, prepared to face the enemy—and if necessary, help them.

Kamemor arrived at her destination, hastily consulted the scanner she had carried here, then quickly slipped inside. As the door slid shut behind her, the lighting in the room increased automatically from a low, standby level to station normal. She inspected the small room at once, her gaze darting from a lone, freestanding console on one side to an alcove on the other. As the scanner had told her, the room was empty.

Again keenly aware of her heart beating, Kamemor raced over to the console. I’m a diplomat,she thought, not an intelligence agent, not a saboteur.And yet here she stood, in an area of the Algeron station that, before now, she had only ever passed through.

She set down the scanner atop the console and studied the array of controls there. Captain Harriman had carefully described the layout to her, and she saw now that his instruction had been accurate. Kamemor did not question how a Starfleet officer had known such information, vaguely assuming the ephemeral nature of technological secrets.

She studied the panel closely, and at first she rushed too much, the complexity of the console nearly overwhelming her. Kamemor thought that she would not be able to do this, and in that moment of doubt, she dreaded the consequences of her failure more than the consequences of being labeled a traitor. She hadn’t fully realized it, but on her way here, and entering this room, and even standing here peering down at this console, she had not been completely committed to this course of action.

Now she was. For the good of the Empire, she had to do this.

Kamemor concentrated on the console. She did as Harriman had suggested, and isolated only those controls that she would need. She found the targeting sensors first, and then the activation sequencer. One by one, she located all the necessary controls. When she had finished, she raised her arms and positioned her hands above the panel, then reviewed the progression of actions the captain had detailed for her. Finally, knowing that her window of opportunity was rapidly closing, and wanting to finish here and flee this room, Kamemor acted.

Her fingers moved carefully across the console. She hesitated briefly before operating each control, revisiting and reconfirming her memory of what Harriman had told her to do. If she did not do this correctly, then none of her actions and none of her decisions would have any meaning.

Everything she did seemed to work. Readings and confirmation indicators appeared on the readout as she’d been told they would, until she came to the final step. Once more, she paused, not from any reservations about completing this undertaking, but because once she had, there would be no way to reverse it. And if she had done something wrong along the way, then she might just as easily kill Captain Harriman as help his cause.

Kamemor operated the last control.

A surge of emotional energy coursed through her body, and a thought— What have I done?—bloomed in her mind. But she knew that she would not learn the answer to that question right away.

Using the same care that she had already shown, and continuing to follow Harriman’s directions, she sent her fingers back across the console, hiding the evidence of her handiwork. When she had finished, she retrieved the scanner and verified that the corridor outside the room was clear. Then, returning the scanner to its hiding place amid the material of her robe, Kamemor exited the transporter room, walking into a future that she had just tried to cast, but not knowing yet what that future would actually hold.