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“That’s a good point, Captain,” Shran said, nodding.

“I recommend that the Weytahn and her support ships stay clear of the carrier vessel and concentrate on the sublight fighters instead. Protect your homeworld. Yorktown and Challenger will engage the mother ship together.”

It occurred to Mayweather that while Shran might not be comfortable staking everything on the Cochrane Institute’s high-tech brain trust, Captain Shosetsu seemed to carry no such compunctions. He seemed perfectly willing to make a life-or-death gamble that the Cochrane team’s analysis of Earth’s relative vulnerability to an insidious Romulan weapon was correct. But however risky that assumption might turn out to be, it still seemed the way the smart money should bet—provided Challenger didn’t turn out to be the Achilles’ heel of today’s Andorian-human flotilla.

“Very well, Captain,” Shran said at length, though his expression remained stiff and guarded. “But the Weytahn will return to assist you just as soon as I make certain that the sublight threat to Andoria has been neutralized. Shran out.”

As an infinite gulf of star-bejeweled blackness replaced the general’s face, Shosetsu said, “Let’s hope we can take that mother down before Shran gets back here. The last thing we need is a fight with the Romulans and a hijacked Imperial Guard warship.”

“Amen to that,” Mendez said.

“We’re just close enough for visual contact now,” Giannini said.

“On-screen,” said Shosetsu, retaking his chair. “Maximum magnification.”

The starfield shimmered and reoriented as dim foreground objects—the lumps of frozen volatiles and dirt common to many Kuiper belts—grew from the apparent size of dust motes to boulders.

A menacing, hawklike shape now hung near the viewer’s center.

“Ensign Krawczak,” Shosetsu said. “Raise Challenger. Let’s go get ’em.”

Bird-of-Prey Dhivael

Commander T’Voras shifted uncomfortably in the high, thronelike chair that dominated his vessel’s bustling control center. “The squadron should have finished its work by now,” he said, simultaneously addressing everyone and no one.

I should have flown with them as I did back at D’caernu’mneani. Sometimes a commander had to guide a delicate operation with his own hands in order to ensure its success, which in this case could only come once a clear flight path, unobstructed by the presence of any functional warp-field detection apparatus, lay between the Dhivael and the homeworld of the steki’ehrhe blueskins, the Andorsu.

“The squadron has just reported engagement with enemy forces, deep inside the system,” Decurion Morek reported from the com station.

“Identify enemy ships,” T’Voras snapped.

“Assorted Andorsu vessels, ranging from large warships down to medium-sized patrol craft. Precise number indeterminate. The hostiles appear to be trying to jam the squadron’s comm traffic, and are using portions of the system’s defense grid to obscure our sensors. From the fragments of comm traffic that are getting through, it appears that the ship-to-ship battle is not going well. I am sorry, Commander.”

T’Voras muttered a curse. The system’s defenders had made their appearance somewhat earlier than he had anticipated. It appeared highly unlikely that any of the Dhivael’s complement of Nei’hrr-class attack raptors would reach Andoria now, given the current circumstances; though the raptors had the advantage of maneuverability in subwarp combat, they were still no match for Andoria’s military spacefleet, either in armaments or in sheer speed. The raptors’ principal advantage was their capacity for stealth, but that advantage had just become a red-feathered hlai’hwy that had escaped from its cage, taken wing, and flown far, far away.

Of course, had Admiral Valdore granted him all the raptors he had requisitioned for this mission—a number sufficient to have cleared the way more quickly for the Dhivael’s undetected warp-speed approach of Andoria—then the tide of battle