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Sure, Trip thought, coming to a grim understanding of what had to be coming next. We know way too much now. There’s no way we’re getting off this tub alive.

“Please escort these... gentlemen off my ship,” said Sopek/Ch’uivh. A moment later Trip was walking toward the turbolift, alongside Tevik.

Only belatedly did he realize that Ych’a had remained on the bridge, standing beside the vessel’s slippery commander.

As the soldiers herded Trip and Tevik into the turbolift—which was no doubt bound for the nearest airlock—Trip realized that Sopek hadn’t just double-crossed him, Ych’a, and Tevik.

Sopek and Ych’a appeared to have just double-crossed everybody.

SIXTY-ONE

The Hall of State, Dartha, Romulus

“I’M AFRAID there is no easy way to tell you this, Admiral,” Chief Technologist Nijil said, fidgeting as he stood before Valdore’s sherawood desk. His eyes kept shifting to Valdore’s Honor Blade, which was back in its usual position of pride on the office’s rear wall.

“Why don’t you simply come out and say it, Doctor?” Valdore said. He reflected that much about his life was anything but easy at the moment. How difficult could it really be to assimilate one additional morsel of misery?

Nijil nodded. “The Atlai’fehill Stelai shipbuilding complex is gone.”

“Gone?”

“Destroyed. In an apparent Coalition sneak attack.”

A pit of apprehension opened up deep within Valdore’s guts. “And the avaihh lli vastam prototype?”

“Destroyed along with it,” Nijil said, his face rapidly turning a livid green. “A year or more of work has been scattered to the winds. I am sorry, Admiral. I do not understand how this could have happened.”

Valdore struggled to keep his roiling emotions in check. The horrible fact was that he understood precisely how such a thing could have happened.

He had let it happen, because he had permitted Praetor D’deridex to compel him to allocate his forces imprudently.

“Relax, Nijil,” he said in the gentlest tones he could manage under the circumstances. “Security is not within the purview of the Empire’s scientists. It is the responsibility of the military. It is my responsibility.”

Nijil looked like a condemned prisoner whose executioner had fortuitously dropped dead moments before the sentence was to be carried out. “Thank you, Admiral.”

“See if anything can be salvaged from the wreckage, and keep me informed of your findings. You are dismissed.”

Nijil wasted no time exiting Valdore’s office, leaving the admiral alone to contemplate what he needed to do next. He feared he already knew what D’deridex would do, once he learned what had happened at the Atlai’fehill Stelai facility.

Darule, Vela, and Vool were all as good as dead unless he made his move now.

With disciplined, measured movements, Valdore activated the private, scrambled comm channel on his desktop. A moment later, First Consul T’Leikha’s emotionless face appeared on the viewer.

“We can delay no longer,” he said.

Day Forty-Three, Month of K’ri’lior

Monday, March 15, 2156

The Hall of State, Dartha, Romulus

Though the skimmer accident was an enormously unlikely occurrence, Doctor Nijil had pronounced it well within the bounds of possibility. According to the official record, there had been a rash of defects in several recent lots of antigrav motivator parts. Since such carelessness could not be tolerated, Valdore wasted no time ordering the first round of ad hoc military investigations and summary executions.

After the deed had been done, Valdore felt stunned to the very depths of his soul. The admiral had been uncertain of his ability to do this thing. To be sure, he felt a strong sense of relief at the departure from the world of a madman who had done untold damage to the Empire and its military, and doubtless would have done far worse had he gone on living.

Nevertheless, he also felt devastated in a manner that went far beyond even his reaction to learning