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Thanks to the images collected by the long-range subspace scanners, the screen now displayed orange petals of fire blossoming across the Weytahn’s hull—and the sleek shape of Challenger as she dropped out of warp apparently only a few hundred meters away from the beleaguered Andorian warship. Challenger’s phase cannons blazed to life at the same instant, immediately crippling one of the Andorian fighters even as two others began concentrating their fire on their newest target, leaving the remainder to maintain their single-minded focus on the Weytahn. Yellow-orange impacts flared against the NX-class starship’s polarized hull plating, which already looked scorched in places.

“Just hang in there for a few more minutes, Dunsel,” Shosetsu muttered, his voice nearly drowned out by the whine of the warp engines.

Challenger

The ship rumbled with the relentless impact of the hijacked Andorian guns, briefly prompting Captain Roy Dunsel to wonder if his teeth were coming loose.

“The Romulan carrier is accelerating downsystem,” said Ensign Hendricks. “She could make it all the way to Andoria if these fighters delay us here any further.”

“I’ve managed to cripple two of them so far, Captain,” said Lieutenant Rubin at tactical. With a doubtful shake of his prematurely gray head, he added, “But it takes a lot more luck and effort to shoot a gun out of a bad guy’s hand than it does to squeeze off a lethal gut-shot.”

“They’re allies,” Dunsel said. “We can’t just destroy allied ships, Lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Commander Estelle Granger, Challenger’s first officer, approached Dunsel’s chair and spoke in a tone deliberately pitched to be all but inaudible to anyone but the captain. “Even if that turns out to be the only way to save an entire planet?”

For the first time in his career, Dunsel felt completely stymied, utterly helpless, and absolutely useless.

And if there was any one thing he truly hated more than anything else, it was to feel useless.

I.G.S. Weytahn

“Must I remind you that there are still pilots aboard those last four fighters?” Nras said, his tone bristling with anger, his antennae jabbing forward antagonistically. A console smoldered behind him, its flames having just been smothered by the fire-suppression system, leaving the command deck redolent of ozone and fear.

“No,” Shran said with affected calm, though he was well aware that one of the Yravas pilots out there was Nras’s only son, Skav. “And I trust I need not remind you that all of Andoria will be in peril if we allow those craft to destroy us or cripple us—or even delay us any further. Forgive me, my old friend. I am only doing what I must.”

He turned away from Nras, trusting his exec to maintain proper command-deck decorum in spite of the terrible sacrifice that circumstance had thrust upon him.

Turning toward ch’Narv at tactical, Shran said, “Destroy them all.”

Can Jhamel forgive me as well? he thought. He wondered if he could ever again face his peace-loving Aenar shelthreth mates or the child Jhamel would soon bear them all.

He cursed the soulless Romulans who had engineered this situation.

Challenger

Dunsel stared in disbelief as the last of the explosions faded from the viewer. All four of the remaining Andorian fighter craft were gone, destroyed by General Shran’s own weaponry.

The combat-generated debris field suddenly vanished, replaced by the haunted, glowering visage of Shran himself.

“Captain, I have just been advised that our warp drive has sustained damage,” the general said, his eyes deep blue pools of pain. “We cannot pursue the hostile vessel effectively at impulse speeds. Can you intercept it before she reaches Andoria?”

Dunsel nodded, excusing himself just long enough to order Ensign Kaye at the helm to do precisely that. Turning back toward the screen, he said. “Can the Imperial Guard supply some support ships?”

Shran shook his head. “We are the support ships, it would seem, Captain. The