“Gravenor,”the commander responded.

“I’ve taken the bridge and captured two Romulans,” Harriman said. “That means there’s one more aboard, but I haven’t been able to locate them with the ship’s sensors.”

“Understood,”Gravenor said.

“What’s your status?” Harriman asked.

“I’m preparing for our departure,”Gravenor said.

“Very good,” Harriman said, understanding that the commander meant that she was working on the cloaking device. She also had not utilized the prearranged word that would have functioned as a distress signal, something she would have done if, for example, the sixth Romulan had been holding her prisoner. “Harriman out.” He reached up and reset the channel on his communicator, then said, “Harriman to Vaughn.”

Several seconds passed, and he grew concerned. He envisioned a scenario where the sixth Romulan had incapacitated—or killed—Vaughn and now utilized the lieutenant’s sensor veil to mask their own position. But then Vaughn’s voice came across the comm channel. “Vaughn here,”he said.

“Are you all right?” Harriman asked, hearing something—weariness? pain?—in the lieutenant’s tone.

“I’ve been injured,”Vaughn explained. “One of the Romulans came to the shuttlebay.”He seemed about to say more, but then paused. As the silence drew out, Harriman worried that Vaughn might have passed out, but then the lieutenant continued. “She’s dead.”

Like Gravenor, Vaughn did not employ the word that would have indicated that he spoke under duress, which meant that all six Romulans had now been neutralized, two dead and four captured. He explained that to Vaughn.

“Understood,”the lieutenant said.

“What’s your status?”

“I’m preparing a shuttle,”Vaughn said, “but I’m having some difficulty. I’ve lost the use of one hand.”

“All right, Lieutenant,” Harriman said. “I’m on my way to help. I’ve got to deal with the four remaining Romulans, and then I’ll be down to the shuttlebay.”

“Yes, sir,”Vaughn said. “Thank you, sir.”

“Harriman out.” He closed the communicator and returned it to the back of his waist. He exhaled loudly, as though he’d been holding his breath. Haven’t I been?he thought. For months, for years even, figuratively holding his breath as he waited for the start of the interstellar war everybody considered inevitable.

But now, at last, that wait would end. Whether he, Gravenor, and Vaughn would survive the end of the mission was problematic, but it had become clear now that the mission would succeed. After all this time, after all the planning and effort, they were almost home.

Vokar awoke by degrees, becoming aware of himself first, lying on his side, and then of the hard surface beneath him, and finally of the muted sounds of voices, speaking as though from a distance. He remembered the explosion on the bridge, and the events that had led up to it. Assuming now that he had been captured, he kept his eyes closed, giving no indication to anybody who might be watching that he had regained consciousness.

With little movement, Vokar tested his muscles, flexing them lightly and feeling for any limitations. He found himself encumbered only at the wrists, held together before his thighs. Finally, needing more information to act, he slit one eye, the one closest to the deck.

Ahead of him, he saw the back of another Romulan, stretched out parallel to him. The gray sash of the uniform told Vokar that it was Akeev. Beyond the science officer sat a couple of shuttles and several maintenance pods.

The shuttle compartment,Vokar thought. Butwhy the shuttle compartment?

Vokar heard a hiss behind him, like that produced by a hypospray, and a few seconds later, he heard another. “Captain,” a man called from nearby, “they’re awake.”

Realizing the futility of continuing his subterfuge, since he’d apparently been brought back to consciousness by the intruders, Vokar raised his head from the deck. He looked first at his wrists, which he saw had been placed in electromagnetic restraints, evidently appropriated from Tomed’s own armory. Then he peered past his feet, toward the source of the voice. He saw a quartet of antigrav stretchers, and a man walking past them toward the bow of a shuttle. The man had both a disruptor and a hypospray clasped in one hand, and a bandage wrapped around the other, with that arm in a silver mesh sling. He wore a Romulan engineering uniform, though he was clearly not Romulan: his round ears and feathery brown hair provided ample evidence to that effect. “Akeev,” Vokar whispered, looking forward again.

“Sir,” the science officer said. “Are you all right?”

“How long have we been unconscious?” Vokar asked, ignoring the question.

“A long time, I think,” Akeev said. “Ten hours, fifteen…maybe more.”

“Then we must be close to the Neutral Zone,” Vokar concluded.

“Yes,” Akeev agreed, “if we haven’t already crossed it into the Federation.”

But Vokar knew that they hadn’t. If they had, then why would they still be aboard the ship, and in any case, why would the intruders be in the shuttle compartment? He saw now that he had erred in assuming that they’d wanted to commandeer Tomedfor their own uses—he had erred not in that deduction, but in stoppingat that deduction. He thought that he now saw their purpose in appropriating his vessel.

Footsteps approached from the direction of the shuttle. Vokar looked up to see a Starfleet officer, a disruptor in his hand. He stopped a couple of meters short of Vokar’s feet.

“Admiral Vokar,” Harriman said.

“My serpent,” Vokar intoned, “returned to me.” He chose not to hide his hostility.

“You can think that,” Harriman told him, “but I’d suggest that the serpent lives in your own house, sits in your own chair.”

“Perhaps,” Vokar said, “but I’m not about to kill hundreds—or is it thousands—of my own people.” Harriman’s eyebrows went up, and Vokar knew that he had unmasked the human’s plan. “All to coerce the Klingons to ally with the Federation against the Empire. And what do you imagine the Klingons would do if they learned of your cowardly act?”

Harriman lifted a hand to his face and wiped it across his mouth. “Two of your officers have been killed,” Harriman said then, apparently unwilling to respond to Vokar’s accusation. “There are four of you left—”

“Also to be killed shortly,” Vokar interrupted, a comment intended only to bait Harriman. If the Starfleet captain had truly wanted to take the lives of Vokar and his other three officers, he would have done so already.

“Actually, you have a choice, Admiral,” Harriman said. “I’m aware of the prerogative of Romulan commanders to destroy their own vessels, and to kill themselves and their crews, when faced with capture, and I remember your own personal desire to go down with your ship.” Vokar used his hands to push himself up to a sitting position, and he saw T’Sil and Valin also beside him, their faces turned up to listen to the conversation. Linavil and Elvia, then, had been killed. “But in this instance, you can stay here,” Harriman finished, “or you can come with us.”

“And where would ‘we’ be going?” Vokar asked, already having a good idea of the answer, and knowing that he would neverconsent to being a prisoner of the Federation.

“You and your crew will be taken to a planet far from Romulan space,” Harriman said.

“Where we’ll be kept as prisoners,” Vokar said.

“Yes,” Harriman said. “But you won’t know it. We’ve developed an experimental technique to erase memory.”

“You’re going to experimenton us?” Akeev asked, obviously fearful of such a prospect.

“Your memories will be erased,” Harriman said, “but otherwise, you’ll be unaffected. You’ll be permitted to live out your lives in a comfortable setting.”