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“We must work together to neutralize their warp-seven project,” she said, nodding. “As quickly and as completely as possible, given the months of preparation that may be required. Whatever the cost.”

Even if that cost turns out to be another Calder outpost or three in the meantime, he thought, grimly aware that a warp-seven-capable Romulan fleet could open up new beachheads all across Coalition space exponentially faster than before.

“Maybe now would be a good time to talk details,” Trip said.

“Such as?”

“Such as exactly how you and I are going to take down an entire Romulan shipyard without a Vulcan flotilla at our backs,” Trip said, already finding the scope of the mission ahead more than a little daunting.

“The plan is relatively simple,” she said, as deadpan as ever. “You will sneak inside and blow it up—with some help from the enemy.”

And with that she reached into her jacket and withdrew a small padd, which she placed in Trip’s hand as he stood mute, trying to process her words, slack-jawed in spite of himself. Then she exited, leaving him alone with the padd.

Trip activated the device with his thumb and began reading its contents. He very quickly became so engrossed in the detailed intelligence report on Achernar and vicinity that he could almost forget the close resemblance his current surroundings bore to a jail cell.

Almost.

It felt to Ch’uivh like an eternity since he had placed the tiny listening device against the inside of the locked door to his quarters.

It had been a fortunate circumstance, though not a surprising one, that the freighter’s security crew hadn’t bothered to scan his boot heels for the hidden compartments in which he’d stowed a few critical pieces of electronic and chemical gear; this was, after all, a working merchant ship rather than a military vessel.

But it is strange, Ch’uivh thought as he listened for signs of movement out in the corridor, that Ych’a didn’t do a thorough search herself.

Just as he was beginning to wonder if the V’Shar spy was slipping, he heard the telltale sounds of booted footfalls on deck plating that signaled the departure of the guard who had been watching the secured hatchway to his quarters and the arrival of her replacement.

Right after the shift change is always the best time to take a security guard by surprise, he thought as he waited for the locking device to succumb at last to the silent ministrations of the molecular solvent that he had slathered onto the hatch. The solvent, which was a mixture of chemical components he had carried in separately inside his hollow heels, would have made short work of any flesh it encountered. Therefore Ch’uivh took the thin mattress off the room’s narrow cot and braced it against the door before shoving it open.

A moment later he was standing out in the corridor amid the chemically seared hatch and mattress, facing one extremely surprised-looking Vulcan male whose sidearm holster and uniform patch revealed him to be a member of the Vulcan Kiri-kin-tha’s small cadre of security personnel.

And not particularly well-trained security personnel at that, Ch’uivh thought a few scant heartbeats after that, as he gingerly lowered the young guard’s still twitching corpse to the deck plating. The slain man’s neck was bent at an awkward angle, his mouth frozen into an oval of terminal surprise. Ch’uivh dragged the body into his otherwise empty quarters, then knelt beside it long enough to recover the fallen guard’s sidearm.

As he made his quiet way down the empty corridor he thought, Perhaps I should have asked for directions to the nearest shuttlebay before I did that.

“Captain, security reports that Crewman Sitok has been found dead.”

Seated in the chair located in the precise center of the Kiri-kin-tha’s bridge, Captain T’Vran found the almost shrill timbre of the bridge communications officer’s voice very nearly as surprising as the content of his words. She spared a moment to observe the reaction