"Thrusters are gone," Sanderson said as he got up and joined the last engineer on the transporter pad. "I've slowed descent, but it'll pick up again fast now."

As the pair dematerialized, Riker's voice said, "Reactor plant is out of the atmosphere and pushed out of orbit, Captain. We're experiencing power drains. Interference from those dead zones. Better hurry."

Picard hesitated a brief moment. He was leaving this vessel, an extension of his starship, to crash in the wilderness of a barren planet. He touched the chair's headrest a moment more, then nodded to Data. "Forty seconds before she crashes."

"Aye, sir." Data set the controls as the captain stepped onto the left pad, then he got onto the right pad himself. "Energize."

A feeling of desperation washed over Picard as he looked out into the runabout and waited for the transporter to work. He was on a crashing ship, and doing nothing to stop it from happening. There was nothing to do, and he knew that, but... his instincts told him to try, not merely to stand and wait for rescue.

"Captain, we're... prob... can't... to..." Riker's voice deteriorated into comm static. Picard had the urge to step forward, off the transporter pad. He kept himself from doing so. Enterprise would still be trying to beam them off, even if they were having communications trouble.

"Sir," the captain heard Data say, "if they cannot beam us-"

But that was all Data had a chance to say. The universe crunched darkness and pain around Picard, and silence blanketed all.

Chapter Seven.

"WE'VE LOST THE TRANSPORTER SIGNAL!"

Riker stomped toward the ops console. "I don't want to hear that. Get it back!"

"No use, Commander. It's gone."

He jabbed at his comm badge. "Transporter room, report!"

"Never got a clear lock, sir!"

Tapping at the console, Riker ordered the ops officer: "Plot trajectory from last known course and position. I want them found now!"

"Wait, I'm picking up a beacon from the surface of the planet. Coming from a debris field."

"Get a d.a.m.ned lock."

"Aye, sir. Trying."

Sound came first, undefined and wavering, like a soft rustling of paper or linen. Light danced in his head, and as he pulled himself from a bleak dream of nothingness, Picard heard Data telling him not to move.

The android's voice sounded quiet in the thin Martian atmosphere. Picard wondered just how great his pain would have been with one Earth G crushing down on him instead of the lighter gravity of Mars. With that wandering thought of pain came the flood of agony, first in sharp needle-p.r.i.c.ks, then in hammers, and he gasped as Data removed a piece of wreckage that had sliced into the captain's leg.

"I am sorry, sir. That was necessary to free you."

"Quite..." Picard grunted as he tried to get up, and failed. "... all right, Mr. Data. I seem to have broken a leg, and perhaps my arm."

Data ran a medical tricorder scanner over his captain. "Yes, sir. And you are bleeding in three places."

"Mm-hmm." Picard tried to brace himself with his good arm on the wall of the transporter alcove. He couldn't do that either. He wasn't even sure where he would have gone if he could.

The runabout was mostly intact, except for some very large cracks. The cold wind poured through those, and actually felt rather good. It wouldn't in a few minutes, when Picard's body was out of shock from the crash, but for now ... "I suggest you not move, sir. I have a medikit. Let me stop the bleeding."

Picard nodded. "Are you injured?"

"I am not damaged, and we appear to be either out of, or at least on the edge of, the dead zone, some two hundredand-seventy kilometers outside Vanes Marineris."

"How do you know we're out of the dead zone?"

"I am feeling much better, sir."

"Glad to hear it." His right arm too painful to move, Picard tapped his comm badge awkwardly with his left. "Heard to-"

The captain stopped, turning his neck painfully toward the din of a transporter beam materialization. Riker, Dr. Crusher, and two people from security appeared a few feet to Picard's left.

Almost before she'd fully beamed, Crusher was already plunging toward the captain. She ran her tricorder quickly over his body. "Hairline fractures in your right leg, multiple lacerations, abrasions, contusions and a clean break in your arm. No wonder you hate these meetings with the admiralty."

Picard nodded. "Indeed. And it's going to get worse. Do what you have to do to get me mobile again, Doctor. I need to speak to the lot of them immediately."

"Captain, th-that's a closed door meeting," the young yeoman stammered. Obviously he didn't like having to yell at a starship captain.

"I'm opening it." Still a bit stiff, Picard limped quickly through the doorway as the entryway parted before him.

Seven admirals looked toward him simultaneously. He continued across the room until he was at their conference table. Hovering in the middle of the table was a MAXIMUM WARP: BOOK ONE.

holographic representation of the Alpha Quadrant. White blotches dotted the three-dimensional graph. What they represented, Picard could guess.

"Dead zones," he said.

Dulroy, Picard noticed, was nowhere to be seen. In this room were the heads of Starfleet, those who were really in charge. Admiral Tucker motioned Picard to a chair. "Have a seat, Picard."

Tucker was the most senior member of the fleet and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Federation president. Venerable, un pliable a bit of a jacka.s.s to people he didn't like and didn't like him. But those were a misguided few. Picard didn't know him much better than knowing all of that, but he liked the admiral nevertheless.

"We have a very big problem," Tucker said.

"I know." Picard's tone was grave and a bit rough, in part because his bones were only freshly healed and his muscles still quite sore.

The admiral shook his gray head. "You don't know everything. Three hours ago we received information that, two days previous, a shipment of antimatter had been lost, presumed destroyed. This shipment had been transferred from a Federation government freighter to a Romulan one. It was a replacement for materials leased from the Romulans in the Dominion War."

"Lost?" Picard asked. "How?"

Shaking his head and indulging in a sigh, Tucker leaned forward against the table. "We don't know. We a.s.sume it's these dead zones, but we're not sure. And what's more, the Romulans aren't sure. Since their freighter never returned, they're beginning to a.s.sume the worst. As are the Klingons. They've lost twelve ships, that they know of."

"The Klingons know about the dead zones," Picard said.

"Yes, but every government is suspecting that every other government is causing them." Tucker looked tired. Worried. "What's worse, we can't even discuss it with them. Subs.p.a.ce communications are all but totally useless now," He tapped on the computer padd on the table and the holograph before them twisted into a network of communication lines that disappeared into the white blotches previously shown. "Everywhere a signal falls into a dead zone, it's lost. But knowing that's the reason is little comfort. What's the first thing an enemy does before invasion?"

"Jams or destroys communications, of course. But why now? I doubt-"

"So do I. I don't think the Romulans, the Klingons, the Breen, whoever are launching an invasion. The major Alpha Quadrant powers are too weak right now... but others? Those who might take advantage of our collective weakness, perhaps? I don't know."

"I came here because I know what a threat these dead zones are. I respectfully request permission that the Enterprise be a.s.signed."

Tucker waved off the request. "I appreciate that, Captain, but no, I need Enterprise in the Romulan Neutral Zone. Covertly."

"Covertly?" Picard's brow furrowed. "Things have broken down between the Federation and the Romulans that quickly." It wasn't a question.

"With all the ships being lost, only Amba.s.sador Worf and Chancellor Martok are keeping the Klingons with us right now. We've managed to get through to Worf on T al, and we've got envoys en route to all the other major governments. But without subs.p.a.ce radio, a message only travels as fast as the ship that carries it."

It all sounded very ominous, Picard thought. "Why do you need Enterprise in the Neutral Zone?"

"It's not a why," Tucker said as he keyed into his padd again. This time the holograph became a person, not a star map "It's a who."

Picard's muscles tensed and his own breath felt heavy. "Spock."

Chapter 11.

Planetary Defense Station Merterbis Colony Romulan Empire Five days ago "You told me an hour ago you'd have that circuit replaced, didn't you? Is my faith in you misplaced?" Folan was snapping at her a.s.sistant, and she wished she could take the edge from her tone, but she couldn't. She tried to remind herself it wasn't as if her mere demand could change the speed at which physics insisted a task be finished. Her people were good, and she knew better. Then again, so did her team. They probably knew the tension in Folan's voice was only a fraction of that which stiffened her shoulders and neck. The most important moment of her life, and T'sart would be on hand to see it. Who was she kidding? He was not here just to watch, but to critique her every move. Once a teacher, always a teacher. And she, always the student.

At least T'sart had some level of admiration for her abilities. Her commander, J'emery, did not. He'd taken the accolades for saving his ship from a power desert when so many others had been lost. As if it was his accomplishment and not hers. She'd saved the lives of the crew, a crew from which only she had risked her life and career to stop their idiot commander from killing them all. Only Picard had seemed to sense that Folan had made some special effort, and reading an alien was difficult, so her notion could be quite wrong. For all she knew, he merely had eaten a lunch that disagreed with him that day.

She needed to focus, she reminded herself. It was not good to let her mind spin about on such things she could not change. If only she didn't feel so rushed ... T'sart himself had moved up the timeline for her tests, claiming that if this worked they might have at least some defense against any attack force. Attack forces were all the Senate was talking about, with the subs.p.a.ce communication problems and the lost vessels. Her people were suspicious by nature, but Folan was usually not. The tense times, however... She chastised herself for thinking the worst. She was a scientist. She was not supposed to fear that which she didn't understand. She was supposed to do what she must to understand it.

A brown slice of hair fell from behind her ear and, frustrated, she pushed it back in place. T'sart was looking at her, she could tell. Those cool eyes on her from behind the monitoring station he'd wandered to. It was Folan he monitored, not the experiment.

"It goes well," she told him across the console room. She knew there were other people about, but she saw only T'sart. Only he was important to her right now.

He smiled that thin smile that she'd never been quite able to read. "All things seem in order," he said. Folan made her way toward him, checking the computer monitors at other stations as she went. She despised someone looking over her shoulder as she worked, but couldn't resist doing it to others. Especially in this case.

She'd risked her reputation on this idea. Scientists were not always given high esteem in the Senate, and while they had their voice there, it was often not heard.

But the concept was elegant, she thought, and thanks to T'sart's support among his Senate allies, she'd pushed it through.

All scientists had plans and ideas, "notions and potions," as T'sart would sometimes say. Folan was no different. Yet rarely did she have an idea she considered graceful, one that seemed like some marble construction in her head, whereas other concepts were but stacks of neatly arranged but unsightly twigs in comparison.

And if it worked, if a large planetary power plant could provide energy to an orbiting ship defending the planet directly and without a prohibitive power loss ... Folan would have her start on a reputation that could rival T'sart's.

Folan was as tall as her teacher, but she'd always looked up to him, and still, when she came close to him, she felt as if she were glancing up at an angle.

"I believe we are ready to start," she said, hoping her nervousness did not reverberate through her voice. "Would you like to join me at the main sensor console?"

T'sart nodded pleasantly. "Of course. I'm a bit surprised we're not monitoring this from your vessel. Any problems won't be from the power plant sending the power, but on the vessels in orbit that are attempting to receive it."

"Well... I've not cleared that with Commander J'emery, and he's in meetings with the colony governor. He specifically asked not to be disturbed."

With a smile that could power its own starship, T'sart leaned down and whispered. "Your commander is in conference with a local prost.i.tute. He's right here, on this installation, in a room specially prepared for his indiscretion. Most of your ship's senior officers are partaking of similar indulgences. If you were truly more than a p.a.w.n in life, not only would you be aware of this, you'd make sure you had a holographic recording of it. One prospers in life by seizing control of destiny and commanding it. Opportunity will not court with the truly gifted-we must rape it."

"I-" Folan froze for a moment. Was it a joke? Was she to laugh? Had he lost his mind? Why would he say such a thing, even in a hushed tone, where people could hear or his voice could itself be recorded?

"In any case, your commander did say not to disturb him. But this is your project, and your experiment.

Surely you can make this decision on your own." T'sart continued that odd smile, friendly and yet mirthless.

"Yes," Folan said slowly, hesitant to disagree with him, if only because she wouldn't be able to guess his next reaction. "I suppose I can."

U.S.5. Enterprise, NCC 1701E Romulan Neutral Zone Section 74 Picard paced, and he didn't indulge in that often. He was on his starship, in his ready room, perhaps the only place he truly felt completely comfortable, and yet... this was not where he wanted to be.

"Captain?"

He'd not spoken to Deanna Troi much since she'd entered. She'd respected his silence until now.

"Please don't tell me what I'm feeling," he said finally, deciding to stop and peer out the window.

"You know me better than that," she said. "As an empath I dropped the "I know how you feel' line a long time ago. I'm here because you invited me in to talk. So, with all due respect, Captain, talk."

Turning toward her, the slightest of smiles tugging up his frown, he nodded and sighed quietly. "I'm frustrated. I walk in to speak with the admiralty to demand one a.s.signment, and I limp out with another."

"They're putting a lot of resources on it now, and notifying all-"

"Maybe too little, too late. There's something more to these dead zones than even Starfleet is admitting."

"To you?"

"To themselves."

"How is that?"

He paused, standing silent a moment, trying to find an apt description. "That's just it, I'm not sure. I don't normally feel like disobeying direct orders based on a gut feeling."

"You're disobeying orders-"

"I feel like it. But, no, I'm here. Treading through the Romulan Neutral Zone without permission-when by all rights we should be able to get that permission."

"I'd heard the Romulans pulled their amba.s.sadors from the Council."

Picard nodded. "Yes, and haven't been seen since. They're presumed lost by the Federation. Who knows what the Romulans are a.s.suming? Subs.p.a.ce communications are working with less and less frequency and reliability. None of the major governments can talk with any alacrity. The war's been over less than three months, and already the peace is falling apart."

Deanna sat silently a moment. "Do you really think this message Starfleet received was from Spock?"

"If it was, I agree we need to be where he requested we be. If it's not, then I suppose we need to find out what has happened to him. a.s.suming the worst, whoever used Spock's Starfleet codes would have needed to get them from Spock." Picard paused. He heard his voice soften. "If that's the case ... it's not good."