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Soval contemplated the many difficulties that lay ahead, not least of which would be the task of persuading the Andorian and Tellarite delegations not to exacerbate the Romulan situation by pitting their spacefleets against the enemy’s new remote-hijacking weapon. He could only hope that neither world would choose to interpret the Coalition’s founding document—specifically its mutual defense provisions—as some manner of suicide pact.

Just as he could only hope that T’Pau’s “alternative strategic plan” wouldn’t inflict permanent damage to the Coalition alliance—and to whatever unrealized promise it might yet hold for the long-term prospects of galactic peace.

NINE

Gamma Hydra sector, near Tezel-Oroko

IT WAS THE THIRD TIME, by Trip’s count, that Ych’a had bluntly asked him exactly what he’d been up to during his months-long sojourn behind Romulan lines. He had ducked the question entirely the first two times in an effort to avoid dividing his concentration; the unfamiliar Vulcan control console before him had demanded his full attention from the time he and the V’Shar agent had run the little auxiliary vessel’s preflight checklist back aboard the Kiri-kin-tha.

Now that the icy comet fragment finally loomed before the Vulcan workpod as a mass of dull gray shadow made visible through the wide forward window only by the little vessel’s forward beacons, Trip felt even less inclined than before to deal with any distractions.

Apparently resigned to receiving no response to her questions, Ych’a said, “Your mission must have involved the Romulan Star Empire’s ongoing initiative to create its own warp-seven-capable stardrive.”

Still trying to operate the thruster verniers with as much delicacy as he could summon, Trip struggled to appear neither impressed nor worried by her perspicacity. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder how much Ych’a actually knew and how much she was merely speculating.

“Why do you say that?” he said, finally allowing himself to indulge his own curiosity, at least a little.

Her reply was so smooth as to seem almost practiced. “Because the Romulans are currently on a par with Earth, at least in terms of space-warp technology. That places your species in a perilous and vulnerable mutual balance of power. The sudden introduction of a high-warp engine to either side would alter that balance irrevocably—and more than likely fatally for whichever society lagged behind.”

“I’d say that’s pretty freakin’ logical,” he said as noncommittally as possible, his gaze still riveted to the contours of the rapidly approaching ice body, as revealed by the searchlights, while his hands busied themselves at the console before him. “Now it’s my turn to pry. Why are you out here in the Gamma Hydra sector? And why are you keeping the Kiri-kin-tha out here on a long snipe hunt when you and I both know that Captain T’Vran has a lot of other stops to make?”

Out of his peripheral vision he saw her gesture toward the cometary body, whose edges had already outgrown the forward window’s limits. A gently curving glint of metal on the surface, now at most a single klick away, seemed to confirm the duranium signature the freighter’s sensors had picked up.

“I am here to search for survivors,” she said. “Such a search can take a good deal of time, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Finding survivors would take a fair amount of time,” he said, nodding, “not to mention finding whatever high-tech gear my old pal Sopek’s ship might have been smuggling. Or maybe you’re really here to make sure that whatever gadgetry the V’Shar paid the Kobayashi Maru to haul to the covert Vulcan listening post on the edge of Romulan space doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

Hands like mine, he thought, already very familiar with Vulcan’s long-term efforts to “moderate” and “manage” Earth’s initiatives to spread out into the galaxy. After all, Earth’s unanticipated acquisition of Vulcan technology could not only tip the balance of power between Earth and Romulus,