“Yes, sir,” Vaughn said. He took a position off of the main corridor, where he could look around the corner to follow Harriman’s progress.

Phaser in hand, Harriman moved swiftly, staying low to the deck and close to the bulkhead. He stopped twice before intersections, traversing them guardedly, and then a third time at an equipment recess, where he ducked out of sight. Across from him, in a small bay, stood the ladder leading to the next deck, and just a few meters to his right, a corridor reached away in both directions from where this one ended.

Leaning out of the recess and peering around, Harriman waited several seconds, listening for the sounds of anybody approaching. Hearing nothing, he reached his empty hand out and gestured toward Vaughn, waving him forward. The lieutenant rounded the corner immediately and began down the corridor. After he had navigated the first intersection, and then the second, Harriman held up his hand, palm out. Vaughn stopped, allowing them both to look around and listen once more for any Romulans who might be heading this way.

Finally, Harriman signaled to Vaughn by pointing across the corridor. The lieutenant’s gaze seemed to take in the ladder, and then he lifted his own hand and pointed toward the end of the corridor, obviously asking about Harriman’s own plans. Harriman nodded and stepped out of the recess. He offered the lieutenant a final look, feeling a solidarity of purpose with him. Then he turned and continued on toward his objective, knowing that Vaughn would do the same.

Harriman sped through a half-dozen more corridors, pausing only before intersections. Doors eventually replaced the equipment and hatches and access panels, reminders of the crew who had recently stridden these decks. Still under power, the beat of its engines still permeating the hull, the ship seemed eerie for its emptiness. Despite knowing what had taken place here, Harriman recalled the centuries-old Earth tale of Mary Celeste,a sailing vessel found abandoned in midvoyage. This somehow felt like that—mysterious, and even haunting. Except that whatever presence leaped out at him here would be far more dangerous than some imaginary specter.

When he neared his objective, he began reading the rectangular plates set into the bulkheads beside the doors. The rounded-block forms of the Romulan characters identified an auxiliary-computer control site, a life-support monitoring station, a conference room, and finally, his destination.

Clutching his weapon before him, Harriman darted toward the doors. As they parted and he traversed the threshold, he tucked and rolled. Across the small room, he come up onto one knee, his phaser held up in one hand and steadied by the other. His eyes rapidly scanned his surroundings, right to left, from a circular platform, to a freestanding console, to a bulkhead faced with displays, controls, and access panels. Like most of the rest of the ship, the room was empty.

Harriman rose and moved to the console, a long, arcing station supported by a narrow column reaching up to its center. He examined the Romulan markings there, familiarizing himself with a layout slightly different from the one he had seen in intelligence briefings. When he had distinguished all of the controls that he would need, he set his phaser down atop the panel and activated the sensor matrix. He scanned the ship for life signs—doubtless giving up his position once more—and located the six Romulans still aboard Tomed.Two roamed near the maintenance junction that Gravenor and Vaughn had left not long ago, while a third moved inside the junction itself. A fourth rode in a descending turbolift, and Harriman guessed that they were headed either for main engineering or for the shuttlebay. The final pair of life signs emanated from the bridge; he targeted those two first, assuming that one of them would be Admiral Vokar, who surely would have been the last to vacate the flagship.

Moving his fingers deliberately across the transporter console, Harriman locked on to the two Romulans. He specified the remainder of the settings, verified them, and then engaged the activation sequencer. A series of lights running laterally across the panel illuminated one after another as a deep buzz rose in the room. After he had beamed the first two Romulans into—

Nothing happened.

The whirr of the transporter faded to silence as the chain of lights, all of them glowing, winked off. Without delay, Harriman ran through the preparations a second time, confirming the operation of the console and the two sensor locks. He reviewed the rest of the settings, then initiated the activation sequencer once more. Again, the row of lights began to brighten one at a time, and the drone of the transporter grew out of the silence. But he already knew what would happen: nothing.

Vokar,Harriman thought, certain that it had been the admiral who had thwarted his plan. A long time ago, Harriman had utilized a transporter to defeat Vokar. Clearly the leader of the Romulan Imperial Fleet would not allow such an occurrence to happen a second time.

Harriman grabbed his tricorder and scanned the sections of the deck surrounding the transporter room. He read one life sign, Romulan, moving away from the maintenance junction and seemingly headed in this direction. They were still far enough away, though, that Harriman would have time enough to escape.

Snatching his phaser from the console, he rushed for the doors. At the last instant, as they failed to open, he rolled his shoulder forward, absorbing the impact with his upper arm. He stepped back and looked to either side of the doors, spying a small control panel in the bulkhead to the right. He hastily pulled it open, searching for a manual override. A lever promised freedom, but failed to work. Obviously, the transporter room had been completely locked down from another location, probably the bridge.

Harriman checked the tricorder again. The Romulan would be here shortly. He peered around the room, but saw no place to conceal himself. He could take a position behind the transporter console, but standing on its slender base, it would provide him little protection.

With no other choices, he retreated across the room. He stood opposite the doors, with his back against the bulkhead. Then, keeping his eyes focused on the tricorder display, Harriman raised his phaser and waited for the impending confrontation.

Sublieutenant Alira T’Sil stood outside maintenance connector forty-seven, uncomfortable with the feel of a disruptor in her hand. Although she served as an officer in the Romulan Imperial Fleet, she considered herself an engineer and not a soldier. In her nearly seven years of duty, she had never fired a weapon outside of compulsory drills. She found herself far more anxious now than when she’d been aiding in the attempted repair of the singularity containment field only moments before it had been expected to collapse.

Ahead of her in the corridor, Lieutenant Elvia operated a scanner, searching for indications of the intruders on the other side of the closed maintenance hatch. T’Sil watched the rangy engineer take sensor readings, the lieutenant’s fingers moving across the controls of the scanner with such fleet precision that they almost seemed choreographed. Beside T’Sil, Sublieutenant Valin also watched, a disruptor drawn awkwardly in his hand.

“I’m not picking up any life signs,” Lieutenant Elvia said, studying the display on her scanner.

“Admiral Vokar said that the intruders couldn’t be directly detected using sensors,” T’Sil offered.

“I know what the admiral said,” Elvia snapped. T’Sil knew Tomed’s lead engineer well enough to understand the target of her discontented tone. The lieutenant aimed her frustrations not at T’Sil for her comment, but at Admiral Vokar for having ordered engineers to take on the mantle of security.