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As the Tactical Alert klaxon sounded, Fletcher stepped between the captain and the helm, which Akagi manipulated with the skill of a concert pianist. “Captain, if the Romulans have somehow managed to game Altair’s defenses, they might be deliberately trying to draw Columbia as far away from Altair VI as possible in order to launch a ground strike in our absence.”

“I know, Veronica,” Hernandez said. “But if they’ve been feeding fake ‘all clear’ data into the network to cover a stealth approach from outside the system, I want to catch ’em before they get any closer to Altair VI than they already are.”

Evidently satisfied, Fletcher backed away from the helm. “Course laid in and ready, Captain,” said the young helmswoman.

“Engage, Reiko,” Hernandez said.

The stars on the main viewer turned to streaks of light near the edges, and brightened into sapphire hues near the center as Columbia leaped into warp, compressing the light waves between the starship and infinity’s verge.

“We’re making sensor contact with... something,” said el-Rashad. He turned from the main science console toward the bridge’s center, surprise and concern etched across his olive features. “Spacecraft of some sort, near one of the detection grid’s failed primary nodes.”

“Sixteen vessels by my count,” Thayer said. “And we’re closing on them fast. Their speed is difficult to estimate while we’re at warp.”

“Configuration?” Hernandez said, peering forward into a warp-distorted starfield that so far revealed precious little about the peril toward which Columbia now raced.

“Definitely Romulan,” said el-Rashad.

Sometimes I really hate being right, Hernandez thought. Aloud, she said, “Reiko, bring us out of warp close enough to give ’em a good scare. I want to see right up their noses.”

“Captain, there are at least sixteen Romulan ships out there,” Fletcher said, her voice brittle with alarm.

“To which we can do one hell of a lot of damage if we hit them hard and fast,” Hernandez said, buttressing her words with a hint of admonition. “Stand ready, Reiko.”

With a tense nod, Akagi pulled back on the throttle-lever and the velocity-streaked stars on the main bridge viewer immediately settled down to their usual shapes.

Framed squarely in the viewer’s center, a flock of predatory birds approached rapidly from the heart of that darkness, opening and closing their formation as needed to avoid the large bodies of ancient ice and rock that tumbled about here on the ragged edges of Altair’s gravitational influence. Now clearly visible in the harsh glare of the system’s distant but nevertheless quite bright A-type star—Altair’s luminosity exceeded that of Earth’s star, Sol, by about an order of magnitude— the raptors moved as one, winglike engine nacelles extended like auguries of menace as they rolled effortlessly in a coordinated display of maneuverability.

All the while each vessel called attention to the aggressive, blood-red plumage that adorned its nearly flat underbelly.

“Have they noticed us yet?” Hernandez asked.

“I don’t think so, Captain,” Thayer said. “We may be close enough to one of the system’s larger Kuiper bodies right now to confuse their sensors.”

Which are probably in passive mode right now anyway, to preserve the element of surprise, Hernandez thought.

“Try and keep it that way, Reiko,” she said. “And, Kiona, please cut off that damned alarm.”

“Aye, Captain,” the young pilot said as she refined Columbia’s trajectory. Simultaneously, Lieutenant Thayer entered the command that rendered the battle klaxon mercifully silent.

Watching the lethal parade on the viewscreen with as much fascination as fear, Hernandez said, “The hostiles’ profiles look almost identical to the Romulan bird-of-prey images in our intel briefings.” Although she and her crew had tangled with the Romulans before, the enemy had yet to engage Columbia directly, without recourse to proxies like the Vulcan vessels they had hijacked near Alpha Centauri