She felt no pain, and feared her neck or spine had snapped. A moment later she was sorry that wasn't the case. Pulling herself slowly back into the command chair was an adventure in agony. Every muscle was tight with strain, and her head pounded as she tried to sort out the cacophony of sound that was her ship struggling for life.

"S-status." She sputtered the order and felt the command seat under her, but it gave her physical, not mental support. Should she be here? She was a science officer, not command grade.

Medric, the ship's fourth officer, answered from one of the engineering stations. "All main systems are offline. We've sustained a great deal of internal damage in the engineering decks. Sensors are offline, but a last burst of data reported a chain reaction within the orbiting vessels and every power plant on the planet. Explosions from overloads seem to be ma.s.sive, and expanding."

Focusing on what she thought Commander Fernery would have ordered, Folan turned toward Medric and croaked out commands. "Try to raise the planet and contact the commander. Contact anyone. We have to know for sure what's going on, and stop it if we can."

"How did this happen?" Medric asked, his tone sharp with accusation.

"I-" Folan began an answer, but caught herself. She didn't have to answer to him. He was command and she was science, but he was still a subordinate, and as the rest of the bridge crew looked between them to see what her answer would be, she knew there could be none. "I gave you an order," Folan said. "Follow it."

Medric glared, perhaps measuring the situation, perhaps measuring Folan's will to command. She could turn control of the vessel to him. There was a provision for that in the regulations. It was an easy matter. It was much more difficult for him to wrest that command from her. Difficult, but not impossible.

After what seemed like too long a moment, Medric nodded his acceptance and silently went about his task.

Around her, for the first time Folan felt how the bridge must have to J'emery when he was in command. Yes, the ship was in disarray. But it was hers. She was in command, and while her career might be over as soon as they returned home, for now she was in charge and in control of her own destiny.

Medric's question crackled in her mind's ear. How did this happen? To that, Folan added another question as she looked toward the science station, her usual console. Where is T'sart?

Without sensors there would be little data that would be of use to Folan. But T'sart's absence was a tangible mystery she could solve. And he, perhaps, might know how to stop the chain reaction that was destroying the power plants on the planet.

"Computer, where is Commander T'sart?"

The computer replied: "Commander T'sart is in corridor three-three."

There must have been some mistake, Folan thought. She'd misheard. Why would he be in She shook the thought from her head. It didn't matter. Perhaps under his bl.u.s.ter and brilliance and arrogance T'sart was, at heart, a coward. She needed him and, whatever his state of mind, she needed his experience and knowledge. He had looked over her program protocols for the power plant distribution net. He might know what could now be causing a cascading overload.

Folan lurched toward the turbolift, then stalled before the opening door. A moment of indecision: should she leave the bridge in the command of another as she found T'sart?

Medric asked the question as well. "Is the SubCommander relinquishing the bridge?"

She pivoted toward him on the heel of her boot. "Negative. Your sub-commander is leaving the bridge for a moment. But am in command. You will signal me if there is any change in status."p> am in command. You will signal me if there is any change in status."p> "Yes, SubCommander."

She stared at Medric a moment, then escaped into the lift.

A layer of smoke and mist laced the corridor. Folan did not see T'sart, and when she called up the computer again to check his location, only static responded.

She thought about searching the few rooms on this end of the hall, but before she could take action, she felt the pressure of a weapon in her back, and heard the rasp of his voice.

"Don't move."

At his command, Folan turned slowly. A million possibilities flooding her mind, shocking her. A mistake, she thought. She always blamed herself first. She'd somehow stumbled into a Tal Shiar plot, or... No. Nothing made sense.

"I suppose I miscalculated," T'sart said as he motioned her toward a doorway. A transporter room. "I was certain you'd be either panicking or in the midst of turmoil about your experiment."

"I-" She began to say something, she wasn't even sure what, but he shook his head and whispered for her to move. He punctuated the command with a jerking motion of his disrupter.

It was an odd sight to Folan. She thought many things of T'sart, but a thug was not one of them. And he was acting like a thug.

"I don't understand," she said as she entered the room. She was a bit embarra.s.sed. Her voice sounded young, almost childish, even to herself. T'sart must have thought worse: he laughed.

He gestured toward the empty center of the room. "Stand there." She followed the request-the order, the threat, really-and felt her upper lip sweating. Had T'sart lost his mind? Was there a coup? Was he leading a coup? Was he running from one?

"I'd kill you personally," he said as he fussed with the transporter console, "but if I really thought you a threat, you'd already be dead."

Folan said nothing. She simply stared in silence as he set the disruptor down on the panel so that he could use both hands to configure what was presumably his escape.

Escape, yes but why? He had little to lose, because her experiment was a failure. Hers was the career that was ruined.

"This makes no sense," she said finally.

"To you? I'm sure it doesn't. You've always been one of my slower-witted students."

She felt her brow knit, then her face flushed with anger.

He looked up, obviously noticed, and so qualified his remark. "Oh, certainly you know your quantum physics and subs.p.a.ce theory. You're studied in scientific concepts that make the average techno-drone worker a lower primate in comparison to you, if knowledge is the standard. But you have always, sadly, lacked sophistication about anything else. Science in the empire is more than knowing how the universe works. All that is meaningless if you don't know how politics works. How people work. And how you can put them to work for you."

T'sart tapped a few more codes into the controls, then retrieved his weapon. "Much like I've put you to work for me." He walked around her, keeping the disrupter trained on her midsection nonchalantly, as if she was a small threat, but only that.

He stepped onto the transporter dais. "You'll find the controls locked in a very special way. If you try to stop me as I'm de materializing you'll likely burn your fingers from the forced overload and then a second later find yourself electrocuted." He holstered the weapon and leaned down, his eyes gleaming. "That's the theme today, isn't it? Forced overload."

The hum began low, then rose in pitch as light sparkled around him ... and he was gone.

She'd done nothing to stop him.

Folan vaulted from the turbolift and to the bridge's science station. A few finger flicks on the console and she was running rapidly through her experiment-monitoring programs. Data scrolled past her view. She absorbed large chunks of it, but ignored those things that didn't interest her. She was looking for something specific and telltale. Something of T'sart's.

It scrolled past, and she had to roll the screens back. She pounded at the controls until the line of code came into view. When it did, and she could study the commands with his code signature, she could quickly follow the pattern to then-logical conclusions.

He wouldn't have beamed to a planet. He would have beamed to a ship. A waiting ship.

"Medric, I want sensors repaired now. Before his ship's ion trail is gone!"

From his engineering station, Medric turned. "Whose?"

"T'sart! He's sabotaged my experiment, destroyed the other ships, wrecked havoc on the planet below. He must be stopped!"

What she was saying seemed insane, even to herself. How could she know what had happened outside the ship? And wasn't she merely blaming someone else for her grave errors?

And then it hit her-why would he leave her alive? Why would he destroy all those ships but hers?

Of course-he needed to escape. But now he'd done that. He'd have no more use for the Makluan now.

His theme, she thought. "Medric, check the engines. Are they on a buildup to overload?"

He shook his head. "I would be alerted-"

"Ignore your panel. It may have been tampered with. Scan the ship with a tricorder! Do it now!"

Medric opened the storage compartment and took out a tricorder. He scanned, moving it around him. Unnecessarily, Folan thought. She waited for his answer, her tight chest barely letting her breathe.

He looked up suddenly, surprised. "We have less than five minutes before the core implodes."

"Get down there," Folan ordered. "Now!"

Medric collapsed into the chair at his bridge station. When he and Engineering finally were able to reverse the engine overload, thirty-three seconds remained before implosion.

Everyone felt relieved save Folan. She looked back to her library computer. It was all T'sart. He'd made it look like it was her own experiment, but it was him.

She knew there was nothing to be done except find him, catch him, and make him pay. "We need to get underway."

Medric looked at her incredulously. "Folan," he said, "you may have rank for technical command, but we have a crippled ship and our first duty is to that, and to our commander on the planet. We will find Commander J'emery and-"

"Commander J'emery is dead," Folan growled, frustrated. Didn't he understand? Didn't he see how many T'sart had killed? "He's murdered anyone who could stop him. He's insane."

Or you are. Of course no one said that, but it was etched into every expression. Especially Medric's.

It didn't matter. She was in charge. She was in command.

"Do as I say, Medric. We must get underway! Now!"

Silence dominated and Medric held still.

The other bridge officers waited. Waited to see who would do what, and which side would triumph so that they might choose the winner.

Finally, Medric spoke. "No."

Chapter Eleven.

U.S.S. Enterprise. NCC-1701E Romulan s.p.a.ce Sector 94 "twenty-two minutes now, sir." Will Riker sighed, shook his head, and tried to dissipate a lead-dense tension. "If it's a trap, they're late for it." "Or we're early," Picard said wryly. "But I doubt both." Enterprise had been waiting at the appointed rendezvous coordinates. And waiting, and waiting. Every moment in Romulan s.p.a.ce was risking a confrontation. And if that led to war, it would be one that couldn't be easily won, thanks to a hard-fought victory against the Dominion and an almost complete lack of subs.p.a.ce communications. Another eight minutes, the captain thought as he leaned back in the command chair. Thirty minutes of leeway was all Starfleet's orders had called for, unless Picard thought something was to be gained by extending the time. Of course, he'd have to justify the extension to his superiors.

Another minute crawled by, and the captain wasn't sure he'd want to extend the time. He tried to keep his personal feelings out of the equation. He couldn't let Enterprise slip into Romulan hands for any reason, and he couldn't start an all-out war.

"Long-range scan," Picard ordered.

"Still picking up indications of subs.p.a.ce radiation from Section 72, sir." Data paused and checked his readout again. "No vessels within range of scanners."

That told Picard little. Subs.p.a.ce radiation could mean anything-a fleet of freighters, a fleet of starships, or any ma.s.s of vessels in between. "Try to pinpoint the source to a star system."

"Aye, sir." Data hovered over his sensors a bit, then ran his hands so quickly over the console that his fingers were almost a blur. "Could be the Ch'chiknas system, or the Merterbis system."

The captain leaned forward. "Information on both systems?"

Wavering for a moment as the screen changed, the forward viewer's starscape shifted to a data readout.

"Ch'chiknas is uninhabited except for a few mining colonies. Four planets, a large asteroid belt. Merterbis has a thriving colony with both civilian and military population. Seven planets, one Cla.s.s M."

"Distance from Merterbis?"

"Seven point three pa.r.s.ecs."

"Okay," Riker said. "We know where, but we don't know what."

Picard pulled in a deep breath. The comment reminded him of the problems with the dead zones. He knew where they were happening, but not what they were. And that's what he wanted to be thinking about more than all the Romulan machinations. Then again... Spock... he wanted to solve that, too.

"Keep up the pa.s.sive scans," he ordered finally. "I'd like to know more, but we can't give our position away with an active beam."

Data nodded, and as the main viewer's picture returned to the starscape outside, Picard wondered just how much longer he would wait once the thirty-minute limit pa.s.sed.

Romulan Warbird Makluan In Orbit, Merterbis Colony Romulan s.p.a.ce "No." A simple word. A small word in most languages. It is often the first word learned by children, and the first forgotten by them as well. Medric's mutiny snapped like lightning and ricocheted across the bridge. In the silence that followed the moment, Folan searched her subordinate's eyes. Was he truly going to challenge his superior and take her command? Or was it simply a test? From the set of his jaw and the angle in his brow, she knew it was both.

She wanted to glance around the bridge, meet the eyes of the others under her new command. She would be able to gain strength from their expressions if they were as outraged as she. But she would lose her own strength if she looked and their expressions were as frightened as her own.

Without moving her eyes from Medric's gaze, Folan roughly thumbed a b.u.t.ton on the console next to her. "Security, stand by."

"Security here. Standing by, SubCommander."

Folan nodded, but still her glare was unmoved. "You have choices, I have choices."

Stone-faced but certainly sweating under his uniform, Medric lost when he began to argue. "You are not command-"

"I am in command. And I will stay in command until the Empire sees fit to replace me. But you are not the Empire, Medric. You are not the Praetor, and you are not the commander. You are Centurion Medric, engineering officer, and you are quickly on your way to being less than that."

From the corner of her eye, Folan was sure she saw a few bridge officers nod. Medric's mistake was in trying to discuss his point. As Folan was only now learning, respect in the Empire was not gained through debate and reason, but by strength, and courage.

"How soon can sensors and propulsion be repaired enough to get underway?"

"Twenty minutes," Medric answered.

She nodded. "See to it."

Finally, after a long moment, he turned to act on his orders. But Medric was not weak. Yes, he'd shown the weakness of his position, but as he turned away in acceptance of it, Folan sensed he, too, had learned something today. Not, Folan thought, a relaxing thought.

U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC 1701E Romulan s.p.a.ce Sector 34 "Captain, we're picking up a vessel. One fifteen mark twelve."

Tensing, Picard leaned forward in the command chair. "Engage active scan." Switching from pa.s.sive would make the Enterprise more noticeable to any Romulan sensor nets, but they'd be able to get a high degree of detail from the approaching ship.

"Switching," Data said. "Romulan shuttle, sir. Warp capable. Private craft, not military. Two life forms ... both Romulan."

"Who?" Picard asked himself. "And who else?"

Riker shrugged. "Could be a decoy."