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Ych’a quickly relinquished the transmitter rather than submit to being touched; Trip could see immediately that the device was still in good working order.

“Operational or not, the transmitter hardly seems to matter now,” Tevik said. “If the shuttle cannot receive its signals, then we would appear to have run out of viable escape options.”

Handing the wrist unit back to Ych’a, Trip looked up at the observation windows again. The two hulking ships in the hangar beckoned to him.

“Maybe,” Trip said. “But then, maybe not....”

FIFTY-SEVEN

Enterprise

A LOUD BRONX CHEER erupted over Hoshi Sato’s shoulder, drowning out the words of the earnest-looking woman on the communications console’s viewscreen.

“Shhh!” Sato said as she turned her chair away from the console, frowning slightly at Elrene Leydon, who appeared to be loitering about before the start of her duty shift. “Let’s save the commentary for after she’s finished speaking her piece.”

The young pilot suppressed a grin. “Sorry, Hoshi. Keisha Naquase isn’t exactly on my short list of favorite newscasters.”

“No kidding.”

“I didn’t realize you were a fan.”

“Who said I was a fan?” Sato said. “I just like to hear every side of an argument.”

“Naquase is definitely on my short list,” said Donna O’Neill, who was seated in Captain Archer’s chair during his absence.

“That surprises me, Lieutenant,” said Leydon. “I never figured you for a pacifist.”

“I’m not. The title of my short list is ‘Journalists I Would Keel-Haul If I Ruled the World.’”

Focusing past the chatter, Sato turned back toward her console and tried to pick up the thread of Ms. Naquase’s latest Newstime editorial comment.

“... one thing that has always been true, at least until very recently. The ideal behind humanity’s every advance outward into space has always been the promotion of the cause of peace, at least nominally.”

“The meek might inherit the Earth,” O’Neill muttered. “But only very small plots, about one meter by two meters by two meters.”

“... when man first landed on the Moon, we left behind a placard that read ‘We came in peace for all mankind.’ And this was in spite of the fact that humanity’s only planet was still divided into hundreds of adversarial nation-states, the largest and richest of which had thousands of nuclear weapons ready to wipe out one another in what amounted to a dispute over economic systems, if you can believe that.

“But humanity still strove for peace, regardless. So what’s happened to that striving of late? Have we allowed the Romulans to kill that spirit, that fundamental desire for and belief in peace? If so, then our mysterious adversaries may have taken from us something far more valuable than mere military victory.

“Good night. And good luck.” The image on the screen vanished, replaced by a neutral Starfleet logo.

“Right now,” D.O. said, “I’d settle for the military victory.”

“Preach it, Sister O’Neill,” Leydon said as she took her position behind the helm console.

A great sadness welled up within Hoshi Sato’s soul. She wished with all her heart that the universe really could work the way Naquase seemed to think it did. Perhaps someday it would. But mankind’s first order of business now had to be survival, all other lofty considerations aside.

Because the fight for Berengaria, along with who only knew what else, still lay ahead.

FIFTY-EIGHT

Aeihk’aeleir Shipyard

THE CORPSES HAD BEEN dumped unceremoniously in an alcove near an untended hatchway that led directly into the main hangar.

Both of the dead men were uniformed Romulan soldiers. From the severity of the burns to their chests and abdomens, Trip judged they’d been slain by point-blank disruptor fire. And the fact that the nearby hatchway was both unguarded and open was apparently related to the fact that the dead men had been the ones in charge of guarding it.

Trip was also bothered by the fact that he had never seen either of the men before. “None of us did this,” he said, glancing up at Tevik