Maximum Warp.

by Dave Galanter.

Chapter One.

U.S.S. Enterprise, MCC-17O1E Romulan Neutral Zone Section 19 Three weeks ago

'transfer auxiliary power to shields. I want those sensors on-line. What's happened to main power?"

"I don't know, sir. Warp and impulse are offline. Helm is not responding."

"Thrusters to station-keeping." Captain Jean-Luc Pi card jabbed at the panel on the arm of his command chair. "Picard to Engineering. What's happening down there?"

Silence.

"Comm systems are down, Captain." Lieutenant Chamberlain's voice from tactical was tense but con trolled. "Aux power is not responding, sir. Life support is on battery backup and holding."

Picard spun toward the ensign at the engineering station. "Get down there, Bradley. Have Mr. Riker return with a report on all systems, and have Engineering put priority on sensors and shields."

Bounding from his chair and into the turbolift, Bradley only had time for a half-nod and a chopped, "Aye, sir."

The captain hoped he had put priority on the right systems. Eyes and claws-it seemed logical. But without knowing the status of Engineering... He half wanted to race down there himself. "Helm?" He edged toward the conn.

Ensign Barbara Rossi shook her head. "Still negative helm control, sir, but thrusters are maintaining station keeping Only her second month on bridge duty, Pi card thought, and she was suddenly steering an anchor, not a starship.

The captain leaned over the helm and ran his own hands over the near-dead controls. No helm, no sensors, and the last reading they did get was of a Romulan warbird de cloaking between them and the Federation cargo hauler chat had found itself stuck in the Neutral Zone.

It wasn't long before the starboard lift door opened, and Picard pivoted toward it as Commander William Riker shot onto the bridge.

"Status?" Picard demanded.

Riker dropped down to the lower deck. "Verified we've lost all main power. Sickbay is on internal batteries. So are the lifts. Every nonessential system is down." He lowered himself into the console seat at Picard's right. "Inertial dampers and SIF generators are using the artificial gravity power grid. La Forge did that first."

"Repair estimate?" "None, yet. We don't even know why it's happened."

"Not good enough," Picard said. "We need the cause. Romulan defensive weapon? Sabotage?"

"I thought we were supposed to be allies now."

The captain grunted. "Supposed to be" was the key phrase. The Dominion War was over finally, at great cost. Now some allies, in their weakness, could turn paranoid toward their war-weary partners.

Riker shook his head, and a single strand of dark hair bounced once before becoming matted to his damp forehead. "Well, whatever it is, it's the d.a.m.nedest thing I've ever seen, sir. Everything but electrical power seems dead. Even Data is having problems. He's had to switch around all his internal power settings."

Picard looked up, then rose, taking a step toward... he wasn't sure where. "Data? How bad?"

"Not sure. He said he'll 'function adequately' for now. I'm guessing that's the android equivalent of a stiff upper lip. But if whatever's keeping us from using most of our power systems is hampering him, too, that tells me it's not internal to our systems." Riker's tone was suddenly softer, more concerned. "He's working through it. He wants to deploy an optic buoy so we can see what's going on outside." He shook his head. "Blasted bay doors won't override manually. I'm not even sure they've found the old buoy. Pretty old technology."

Timing toward the blank forward viewscreen, Heard glared, wishing he could see right through the bulkhead. "Let's a.s.sume this is some dampening field the Romulans have developed as a defensive tool." That would have been a better a.s.sumption before the Dominion War. Now... would the peace fall apart so quickly? There was no way to know. A Romulan ship with a renegade commander could be mistrustful of the Enterprise appearing in the Neutral Zone. Heard might have been, if the situation were reversed, and he was no renegade. Usually.

The captain turned back to Riker. "Signal General Quarters, deck by deck. Until the internal com ms are working, we fall back on relays. Then see if hand phasers are working. Priorities: arming the crew, sensors, shields, communications. Go."

"On screen." Heard usually didn't have to wait so long for such a simple order to be followed, but in the moments that dragged on into minutes, he did just that He paced a bit, not wanting to sit down. Any moment he thought he'd hear the hum and feel the static of a Romulan transporter beam. An enemy guard could be deposited next to him, behind him... throughout his ship. He held a phaser in his hand, ready. It was useless, he'd learned just moments earlier. Fully charged phasers, not working.

The trigger was warm to the touch. Hand phasers worked on battery packs, so why didn't they work when they should have? And why did he still keep it in his hand, now that he knew it was a duns el What would he do? Throw it at a Romulan invader? The idea that the Romulans would offer resistance rather than help was probably wrong, in any case. There had been good relations with the Romulans since the end of the war. But he couldn't get the feeling out of the back of his mind that something was just... entirely wrong here.

Again, a bit too harshly, he ordered, "Visual tie in, Ensign Rossi."

"Trying, sir."

Of course-it wasn't his crew's fault. Optical buoys were low-tech and hard to calibrate. But they ran on battery power, and they didn't broadcast in subs.p.a.ce. With one deployed, Enterprise would at least have eyes outside the ship. And ears-they might be able to set up local-s.p.a.ce communications as well. He'd have preferred that shields and sensors came on-line first... but he'd take what he could get. "Ensign Shapiro?"

"Still nothing, sir." The ops officer shook his head. He struggled with the old-fashioned, seldom-used comm protocols, not something heavily taught at the Academy. "Coming through now, Captain."

Static-scratched and jumpy, a picture formed on the main viewscreen. s.p.a.ce looked odd, black. A digital picture, not one created by sensors. Digital. Video. Antique.

But even with the electronic equivalent of naked eyes, a Romulan warbird's stalking presence was unmistakable in the distance. Picard moved toward the viewer, standing between Rossi at the conn and Shapiro at ops. "Try to raise them, and the cargo ship as well."

"Aye, sir."

Shapiro toiled again with his mostly lifeless console.

"Cargo ship doesn't respond, Captain. They may not be able to read a frequency this low. Visual data only ... they appear to be drifting. No external lights or beacons." A nod, and Picard paced a step away. He thumbed his chin thoughtfully. "And the Romulans?"

"No response yet. But they should be able to hear us if they're monitoring these bandwidths."

"If they're smart, they're monitoring all bandwidths," Picard murmured.

Suddenly, Shapiro looked up, slightly surprised. "Captain, they're returning the hail."

"Hold a moment." He turned toward the rear of the bridge and holstered his phaser. "Voices low. Let's not show all our cards. As far as this ship is concerned, we're doing as well as we can sell them." He turned back to Shapiro. "Now, patch them through."

"Patch" was right. Picard had time to pace between the helm and the command chair three times before he settled into his seat. Finally, the warbird commander appeared on the viewer.

No need for introductions. They knew who commanded the Enterprise. And Picard knew the Romulan by appearance as well.

"Commander... J'emery, is it?"

The Romulan's features were marked with distaste, dark angles cutting in on themselves. His up swept brows were creased with tension. "Testing some new weapon, Picard? I'd accuse you of treachery, but perhaps foolhardiness is the word, treaty violations were the only matter at hand. But acts of war..."

Ofttimes Picard had found the will to play this game, but not today. Not sitting in the middle of the Neutral Zone, dead in s.p.a.ce. It was interesting that J'emery hadn't mentioned why it had taken them a bit to hail the Romulans. Interesting indeed. Picard looked intently at J'emery, and wished he could glance around the Romulan bridge as well. "You know, Commander, I think we'll just bypa.s.s the chess match this time. You know why we're here, and you know that the treaty allows us a certain leeway for rescue missions. You're supposed to offer a.s.sistance."

Seeming to gather more of his composure, perhaps strengthened by the game Picard didn't wish to play, J'emery straightened, grew c.o.c.ky. "I don't like this new treaty, Picard. I suppose you'd allow me to rescue a stray battle group that wandered off course and found itself in Earth's...o...b..t?"

Picard pressed his lips into a thin line. "We can work with each other, or against each other, Commander. Which do you think will end this situation satisfactorily for us both?"

J'emery faltered a moment, looking at someone offscreen. "I'll-" For a moment, the Romulan seemed to rise from his chair oddly, almost as if levitating. "We'll consider that," the Romulan said hastily, and the screen went blank.

Twisting her head toward her captain, Rossi's brows knitted in a quizzical look. "They cut the feed."

"Was he..." Picard hesitated. "Did they just lose gravity?"

"What in the Praetor's name is going on?" Commander J'emery meant to be as severe as possible, SubCommander Folan was sure of it. Tyranny was just a difficult personality trait to convey while floating in midair.

Folan anch.o.r.ed herself to her science station by curling her fingers under the lip of one scanner console. "Gravity systems have lost battery power, sir. Engineering is trying to route power from secondary batteries, but the relays are offline."

"If this is Picard's weapon, why is he not gloating?" J'emery spat the question, rather literally, and a small bubble of saliva became a globe of liquid that floated before his nose until he angrily batted it out of his line of sight. "This is maddening!"

"Yes, sir," Folan said. "It is possible the Enterprise is going through similar malfunctions. Their communications signal was not on a subs.p.a.ce frequency. Perhaps because they knew our subs.p.a.ce communications were down, or perhaps because they've lost that capability as well." Her hair had come undone from its arrangement and was floating wildly above and in front of her. Suddenly she wished she'd chosen a shorter style last time she was cutting her hair. "I don't believe the Federation would break the peace. It is not their-"

"Spare me your theories, Folan! If gravity control cannot be restored in a timely fashion, men issue the bridge magnetic boots. One or the other, now!"

"Yes, sir." Folan issued a command into a small communicator she wore on her uniform tunic. When she turned back, her commander had righted himself and was using his tight fists to moor himself to the command chair.

He didn't like her, and she knew it. To a degree, she even understood it. The mission on which his ship was about to embark was for her experiments and tests. She had supplanted his usual science officer, and his orders were to help her study. He would have rather been on patrol.

"How much life support have we left?" he barked.

Folan checked a flickering screen on her console. "Forty-three minutes, seventeen seconds."

His face flushed green with anger, probably at Pi card, but also at Folan-not to mention the universe at large. J'emery seemed to be keeping himself from ranting. Instead he merely growled his next order. "Get a weapon on-line. Any weapon at all."

Chapter Two.

Scientific Center Prime Caltiska IV Caltiskan Star System-bordering Romulan Empire-claimed s.p.a.ce "what was that? Did you feel that?" Varnell was a centurion, and though he only looked young, he often seemed unsophisticated. He asked too many questions, and while his skills and qualifications had checked out, T'sart hadn't liked him from the moment they'd met.

"Yes, I felt that," Commander T'sart said calmly as he viewed one screen, then another, finding the alien console far less complex than his first glimpse two weeks ago. "There has been a change in subs.p.a.ce resonance frequencies. Such interesting technology. We don't even have sensors that scan at this level."

His up swept brows knitted in angst, Varnell had a film of perspiration above his lip. "These frequencies are far-reaching. We could be affecting subs.p.a.ce as far away as the homeworld. And we're not in s.p.a.ce-we should not even be able to feel such a vibration on a planet."

They were indeed on a planet, if it could be called that. A ball of rock that shouldn't even exist by every law of physics T'sart knew, a few of which he'd written himself. They'd put him in this system thinking the planet uninhabited and worthless. It was neither.

He keyed another command into the console, and they both felt that vibration again, only stronger. He needed to pay more attention to what he was doing. It wouldn't be good to destroy this dry, foul little planet, at least not until he was no longer standing on it.

"Sir," Varnell said, "as I said, it is likely these vibrations are traveling outside this system and are not local. We are increasing the spatial distortions rather than decreasing them. We should not have pulled the sphere."

"I'm well aware of the situation, Varnell," T'sart sighed. "The disruptions may be far-reaching, but any disruption now will soon be controlled. If we finish these tests."

Had it not been for the centurion's credentials in so many areas of subs.p.a.ce mechanics, T'sart would not have tolerated the spineless man on his staff at all.

The sub-commander in charge of securing the city walked in, and T'sart automatically encrypted his console's controls before he turned away. It was a habit he'd learned early in his career, and never forgot.

"Report," he ordered, and hoped the news was good. Since they'd arrived more than two months ago, the native population had fought to the death to protect their science facility. Two weeks ago, when they lost it to T'sart and his forces, they'd fought even harder. It was as if they knew what they had, but their own technology was such that they surely could not Perhaps in myth and legend they knew what it did for them, but probably nothing more.

"Commander, the perimeter is secure." The man still wore his battle helm. Here was someone T'sart could give some small measure of respect: strong, somewhat intelligent, and while no doubt still a fool in many ways, he at least had the courage to join his men in battle.

"Excellent."

"The alien death toll is estimated at forty-four thousand."

"Indeed?" T'sart asked, entering calculations into a tricorder. "We're the aliens here. This is their planet."

"Sir?" the sub-commander asked.

"The term you're looking for is 'native," not alien."

Nodding slowly, the man didn't seem to truly absorb the lesson. "Yes, Commander."

"I don't want estimates. I want actual numbers." T'sart handed him the tricorder. "Use this. It will scan for a common strand of then-DNA, and then verify if the owner of that strand is alive or dead."

The man took the instrument and reviewed the settings. "This ... this is ingenious."

"Of course. Dismissed."

They exchanged nods, and the sub-commander exited the control room.

"A bit bloodthirsty, aren't you?" Varnell asked.

A mysterious moment for him to grow a backbone. "No one complained when it was my job to rid the empire of the four-hundred-and-four thousand, three-hundredandninety-two inhabitants of Qu'takt I'll," T'sart said, sure to keep his tone even, though inside he seethed. "I heard no insults of bloodl.u.s.t when it fell to me to design a genetic disease that could kill three different races in a matter of weeks, and then bio degrade into a minor illness for any Romulan who stumbled upon it. All I heard then were accolades and tributes."

"I meant no offense, Commander," Varnell murmured.

T'sart smiled warmly. "Of course not." He was bitter, yes ... but acrimony was no tool of persuasion. If anything, his new situation demanded he be more persuasive than ever. "And I took no offense." But he did. He took offense at Varnell, and at all those in the Senate who'd been so close to giving him up. And who had eventually put him in this hind end of s.p.a.ce, thinking T'sart would be forgotten. He refused.

Varnell nodded slowly in acceptance, but looked somewhat uncomfortable.

T'sart pondered attempting to soothe Varnell's ruffled feathers, but the door to the control room slid open and one of the Caltiskan survivors skittered in. He collapsed a meter from T'sart's feet.

"Does this belong to you?" In walked a tall, thin Romulan, his dark cloak impeccably crisp and clean. Obviously he'd been the one to throw the Caltiskan onto the floor.

With a flutter of his fingers, T'sart finished his encryption code and turned toward the man. "And you are..."

The intruder ignored T'sart's question and looked at Varnell. "Leave," he ordered.

Varnell nodded to the man and promptly left without giving T'sart, his commander, a second look. That bothered T'sart a bit. He found it rude and disloyal. But perhaps the centurion was frightened. The tall man was, after all, Tal Shiar.