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By Root 613 0

to direct it. The Shepherds have provided us with the technology to create a cloak that is quite literally without flaw. That, Lieutenant Torres, is how our ships would have been able to fire on you without decloaking. You would never even have known what hit you until our people began boarding your vessel."

"My God," breathed Janeway. The hairs on her arms lifted. "The ability to manipulate dark matter to suit their needs. No wonder the Romulans wanted to deal with them."

"Such a skill has endless uses," Telek continued. "I'm certain your imagination is racing, Captain Janeway, as mine did when I learned of this. The Shepherds brought other skills to the table as well. That tiny wormhole through which you and I corresponded was the largest one I had been able to create on my own. Thanks to Lhiau, who tells me his people dwell inside wormholes, there is now no limit to the size of the wormholes that I can design and open."

"You know, if you ask me," said Paris, though no one had, "I wouldn't trust this Lhiau and his Good Shepherds for a single nanosecond. Sounds like they're pretty powerful beings-almost Q-like," he added, glancing around the table. "Why would they

need the aid of a simple Romulan scientist? No offense, Doc," he added hastily.

"None taken, Ensign. I have asked myself that same question. There is nothing we can give them- their technology is vastly superior to ours, and Lhiau has hinted that his present form is not his true one. There can only be one answer. When the time is right, they will demand their payment for their aid."

The Romulan leaned forward, embracing them all with his soft-spoken words. "And when that dark hour comes, I feel certain that the price will be so high, so terrible, that it will destroy us all."

CHAPTER

3

JEKRI HATED THE TINY, UTILITARIAN TALVATH.

It was dark and cramped, and filled not with tributes to battles and victory and weapons and art but peculiar tools and measuring devices. She didn't know how Telek R'Mor had spent so long a time here without going mad. Then again, perhaps he had gone insane and broken under the strain. Perhaps his loneliness was so profound that he had bonded with the humans, bonded so deeply that when he next got the chance, he abandoned his wife, daughter, and Empire to be with them.

Jekri frowned. She didn't like that scenario. It called for far too much compassion, and as far as the chairman of the Tal Shiar was concerned, compassion was a waste of energy.

She slumped in front of the console, idly reaching

out a finger and punching up information. None of it made sense to her, not even the information that hadn't been encrypted. She was not one for equations and theories. She was for action and conspiracies, for the subtle word whispered here, the knife in the back there. Jekri Kaleh had not survived being born in the alleys of the poorest province on Romulus to waste her time with mathematics and scientific babble.

"Chairman," came the voice of her second-in-command, Subcommander Verrak. Jekri straightened and composed her face before turning around.

"Yes?"

"The Empress, the Praetor, and the Proconsul will grant you an audience now."

She nodded. "Send in the ambassador."

A few moments later, Lhiau stormed into the room. His mere presence seemed to send a charge of electricity through the air. He tossed his fair hair and sneered at her.

"The time for reckoning has arrived, Jekri Kaleh. You've bungled this one brilliantly. I look forward to working with your replacement. So tell me, what do they do to failed chairmen?"

"I wouldn't know," replied Jekri tightly. "I have not failed. And as for your working with someone else, believe me. Ambassador, I would be just as happy to never look upon your arrogant face again. But we must work together if we are to achieve our common goals. This bickering between ourselves is pointless."

Jekri turned back to the console, took a deep, steadying breath, and thumbed the controls.

The three visages Jekri wished