He heard the explosion before he saw it, and as he turned and peered down into the valley to witness walls of flame surging skyward, he knew that he'd found what he'd come here seeking. His intuitions had been realized. So too had his fears.

Captain John Harriman crouched in the tall grass, but not so low that he lost sight of the alien city spread out below the surrounding hills. The orange-red fire stood out at the edge of the municipal sprawl, the most vibrant hue among the flat whites and grays and blacks of the steel-and-concrete construction. The heavy report of the blast rolled over Harriman, drawing out agonizingly as he watched seared debris rain down on the streets and buildings bordering the inferno. The rumble, though softened by distance, contrasted dramatically with the gentle midmorning sounds that had preceded it. The lilting mesh of birdsong here in the hills had vanished now, the occasional calls and movements of other animals stilled by the artificial thunder of destruction. Even the sough of the constant breeze sifting through these undulating grasslands had been lost, overwhelmed by the deep notes now saturating the air.

Harriman reached to the back of his hip, beneath the native crimson tunic he wore so that he would blend with the inhabitants of this world; the other members of the landing party wore similar clothing. He pulled out his communicator and flipped it open. "Harriman to Enterprise," he said, resisting the impulse to contact his first officer. The commander led the reconnaissance team currently searching the city, and Harriman wanted to know right now that the ten members of his crew composing the team had not been injured, or worse, in the explosion. But his first officer knew her job -- all of his people did -- and she or one of the others would contact him as circumstances allowed.

When no response came from the ship, Harriman checked the power level of the communicator. The indicator read well into the green. "Harriman to Enterprise," he tried again. "Come in, Enterprise." He heard urgency in his voice, but otherwise his tone remained even, belying the apprehension growing within him. He had long ago learned of the need in his position for composure; his crew looked to him for direction, and they followed the cues he provided.

Still no response.

Harriman eyed the dark billows of smoke rising into the sky, the thick plumes pushed aslant by the wind. Beneath sat the southern verge of the city, an area given over to industry. He recognized the ground-vehicle manufacturing plant as he watched that building and two adjoining warehouses burn. He could make out the shapes of people fleeing the blaze, although at this remove, several kilometers away, he could not identify any who might be Enterprise crew members. He dreaded the thought of how many casualties the Koltaari would suffer -- now, and during what would surely come in the weeks and months to follow. Harriman found himself hoping, with a desperation he resented, that the conflagration below would ultimately reveal itself to be the result of an industrial accident, and not the prelude to an invasion. But he knew better.

Harriman studied his communicator, intending to execute a diagnostic on the device, but then motion to one side caught his attention. He glanced in that direction to see Lieutenant Tenger racing back toward him. The security chief's short, well-muscled legs were hidden by the flows of tall grass, his broad torso visible above, as though sailing across the sea of green stalks. The color of his flesh nearly matched that of the lea through which he moved. His speed seemed effortless, his brawny arms barely pumping as he ran.

After the recon team had earlier detected an anomalous energy reading emanating from the hills, Tenger had accompanied Harriman out of the city in search of the reading's source. The sensor spike had lasted only seconds and might well have been a scanning ghost or reflection, or even the product of a power surge in the tricorder itself. Considering the current circumstances, though, Harriman had been unwilling to risk ignoring anything even remotely suspicious. Now the security chief settled on his haunches beside Harriman. "Captain," he said, his voice resonant despite being not much louder than a whisper. "There's some sort of interference. I can't take any readings of the city." He worked his tricorder, doubtless attempting to configure it in some manner that would allow him to scan successfully.

"I can't raise the ship either," Harriman said, holding up his communicator.

"I can't be certain," Tenger said, "but there appears to be a dampening field in operation."

"A dampening field," Harriman echoed, looking away from Tenger and back down into the valley. His gaze followed the skyline of the city, from buildings that reached up several dozen stories at its center, out to those rising just one and two stories on its outskirts. The fire had spread to another structure, he saw, and dark masses of smoke continued to coagulate above the urban wound. The roar of the explosion had faded now, replaced by the plaintive screams of sirens. The shrill wails sounded to Harriman like the keen of the city's population, in mourning for the mutilated and dead suddenly delivered into their midst by an unseen enemy. "It's them," he avowed, referring to that enemy, convinced of the conclusions he had drawn from the clues he and his crew had encountered during the past days -- conclusions that had led him to bring Enterprise to this world.

"Yes," Tenger agreed.

Harriman knew that this land would offer its conquerors valuable resources -- dilithium, pergium, cormaline, bilitrium -- and the civilization here -- technological, but prewarp -- would provide the slave labor to mine and process those minerals and compounds. He also understood that those resources would be used against the Federation in the coming war. And there would be war, Harriman realized resignedly. If a world such as this could be taken -- a world in disputed space, offering strategic value, with a planetbound population of two billion that posed no threat -- then the delicate and increasingly tense political relations among the major spacefaring powers could collapse at any time.

Harriman thought of Amina, stationed on what would be the front lines, and then pushed away the emotions that followed. He turned back to his security chief. "What's your assessment?" he asked.

"It's a message," Tenger said at once. Though hardly laconic, he tended to offer his words sparingly, saying only what needed to be said. As with many of the security officers Harriman had known during his Starfleet career, Tenger tended toward a measured and serious demeanor. "They know we're here," he went on. "They've seen Enterprise in orbit, and they've surely scanned the planet's surface for our personnel."

Harriman regarded the lieutenant. Tenger's eyes, normally dark, distant pits, now mimicked those of the Koltaari, with large golden irises, and vertical almond shapes for pupils. His hair had also been altered, his normally short black locks now longer and lighter. Dr. Morell and her staff had similarly modified the appearance of each member of the landing party, taking the additional step of disguising their flesh; Koltaari skin color -- like that of Tenger, an Orion -- was pigmented a lustrous green. But all of those changes -- synthetic lenses inserted into the eyes, a hairpiece set atop the head, a dye for the skin -- were cosmetic, not substantive, and sensor scans would readily reveal the presence of the Enterprise crewmembers on the planet.

"It's not just a message," Harriman noted.

"No, sir," Tenger said, slowly shaking his head from side to side. "It's a challenge."

"Yes," Harriman said. "It's also a warning. And a threat." But could they beat back that threat? It remained unclear whether or not the Klingon Empire would fight beside the Federation if war erupted. Despite nearly eighteen years of peace between the two powers -- Or maybe because of it, Harriman thought -- the allegiance of the Klingons could only be characterized as uncertain. If forced to stand alone, the Federation would face a daunting future, where even eventual victory, if it came, would cost incomprehensible losses.

Harriman stood to his full height, and Tenger followed suit beside him. Although almost a head shorter, the burly security chief probably outweighed him by twenty kilos. "Let's go meet that threat," Harriman said with a confidence he did not completely feel, but that he felt it important to project. He placed his communicator back beneath his tunic, and Tenger stowed his tricorder in a leather satchel he carried on a shoulder strap. Harriman led the way through the tall grass to a travel-worn dirt path, and the two men began down the hill.

They had reached the paved road that would lead them into the Koltaari capital when the second explosion rocked the city.

Demora Sulu ran. Panic flowed around her like a river, the inhabitants of the city streaming past, the collective din of footfalls, screams, and sirens bounding along the building façades like water rushing along stony banks. And like the impending menace of a waterfall around a bend up ahead, the fire -- the second fire -- roared without pause somewhere in the distance.

She struggled through the tide of Koltaari, racing in the opposite direction of the fleeing throng. Shoulders, arms, legs, and feet struck her as people dashed by. She changed direction for a moment and fought her way across the living current to the side of the street. Then, using the buildings to protect her on one side, she hurried on.

No lights shined within the broad windows of the store-fronts she passed, and she guessed that the second bombing had damaged or destroyed the city's power plant. She and Lieutenant Trent had left that site not an hour ago -- and just last night, members of the landing party had visited the manufacturing part of the city, where she believed the first explosion had occurred. Sulu might have considered the timing fortuitous had she not immediately dismissed the notion that events had been coincidental. No, she and Trent and the others hadn't been lucky; they'd been permitted to leave those sites before the attacks. Although she hadn't been able to contact anybody using her communicator, she felt sure that the rest of the landing party had escaped injury in the blasts. As heinous as killing innocent and essentially defenseless Koltaari was, the act did not carry with it the political implications of an assault on Starfleet personnel or Federation citizens.

The dry taste of ash filled Sulu's mouth as she raced in the direction of the fire. The air grew warmer as she ran, the autumnal cool of the morning bleeding away, as though the calendar were somehow slipping ahead to the high heat of a summer afternoon. The crowd thinned as she continued forward, and she hoped that she would not arrive too late to help bring others to safety.

The ambient light wavered, shadows fluttering across the scene. She peered up past the buildings lining the street to see inky trails of smoke intermittently obscuring the Koltaari sun. Flakes of soot floated down from the sky like blackened snow. Even without being able to see the fire itself, Sulu was beset by a sense of disaster.

How could they do this? she asked herself in frustration. The Koltaari had not done anything -- lacked the capability of doing anything -- to warrant these attacks. Their society had matured to the point of uniting beneath a single government, but they had taken only the smallest steps out into their solar system, and they knew nothing of life beyond their own world. Their planet, though long valued by the various powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants for its abundant and untapped natural resources, had benefited from its position beyond established political boundaries. Its strategic location had actually protected the Koltaari, for any incursion onto their world by one power could easily be interpreted by the others as an act of aggression. For decades, that threat of interstellar conflict had kept the Koltaari safe.

Until now, Sulu thought bitterly.

She pressed on, the flood of Koltaari running past her now reduced to a trickle. She reached an intersection and turned onto the road leading directly to the power plant, expecting to see the structure in flames just a few hundred meters away. Instead, the fire only peeked out here and there from beyond a veil of dense gray smoke. But even hidden, the blaze roared, its gusty voice punctuated by hissing and cracking and the sporadic clamor of ruin: what sounded like a ceiling timber crashing down, a wall toppling, the metal of machinery moaning as the fierce heat robbed it of its strength.

A Koltaari man suddenly lurched out of the chaos, teetering as he limped forward. He coughed violently, and Sulu saw that his green flesh had discolored around his nose and mouth, the black smudges there obviously noxious trails the smoke had left. His eyes were tightly shut, his arms held out before him like those of a blind man navigating an unfamiliar environment.

Sulu sprinted forward, ducked down, and threw a shoulder beneath the man's arm. "I'll help you out of here," she said, and only after the words had left her mouth did she realize that she had yelled them. Along with the noise of the fire, the sirens had grown louder now, and she could visualize the Koltaari firefighters heading for the blaze, the chain of bright blue, ovoid hovercraft impeded by the people clogging the streets.

For a moment, Sulu feared that the man had not heard her above the tumult, but then he leaned heavily on her, allowing her to guide him. She walked him quickly away, back the way she had come. Once around the corner, she settled the man against the brick wall of a building. He slumped, his eyes still closed. She reached up and took his face between her hands, experiencing an odd instant of disconnection at the sight of her own skin colored green.

The man's eyes opened, but he didn't seem to see her. His pupils had contracted into narrow slits, and Sulu wondered if shock would prevent him from being able to get himself away from here. "You have to keep moving," she shouted. The man blinked twice, and then his gaze found her. He nodded his head in apparent understanding. "I have to go back," she told him, dropping her hands from his face. "You need to keep moving." The man nodded again, then pushed off of the wall and started away. She watched him for only a few seconds before turning and heading back toward the inferno.

Around the corner, the smoke had surged forward, the length of the street left visible shorter now. "Hello!" Sulu called, cupping her hands around her mouth. She strained to listen for any voices, then called out twice more. When she heard nothing, she started forward, reaching an arm out to the side of the nearest building, intending to use it as a guide once she entered the dark clouds. With her other hand, she stripped off the belt that cinched her traditional Koltaari tunic at the waist, then pulled the hem of the yellow garment up to cover her nose and mouth. Drafts of heated air pushed past her exposed midriff.

She plunged into the maelstrom of smoke and ash, and at once visibility dropped to almost nothing, as though a light had been extinguished in a windowless room. She moved along the building quickly but cautiously, alert for any Koltaari she might encounter. "Hello!" she called out again, briefly taking the makeshift filter from her mouth. "Can anyone hear me?" The only reply was the ravenous cry of the fire's fury.

She kept moving, slowing her pace, but continuing to call out. Despite holding the bottom of her tunic over her face, she breathed in traces of smoke, and finally she began to cough. Soon, her throat burned as though she had inhaled a mouthful of smoldering gravel. A series of deeper coughs racked her body, and she quickly dropped to her hands and knees, bending her head low in search of breathable air. Her eyes stung and watered, and she closed them against the relentless smoke. As she brought her face within centimeters of the street, though, she found a shallow band free of the foul clouds. She gulped at the clear air, and fought to bring her hacking under control. She knew that she could go no farther.

Then an image rose unexpectedly in her mind: a woman lying on an infirmary biobed, her delicate features glistening with perspiration, her long, straight black hair in knots, her body convulsing from yet another coughing jag. Sulu thought of her mother frequently enough, but not usually from those final days on Marris III and Starbase 189. She most often remembered her mother in one of her sleek, ultramodern outfits -- a woman vibrant and confident, her impossibly green eyes threatening mischief -- or in one of the traditional gowns she had occasionally worn -- still vital, still strong, but her eyes instead promising mystery. Right now, though, those cherished recollections could not chase away the specter of her mother in that infirmary, in that biobed, her body ravaged by Sakuro's disease, set afire from within.

Sulu opened her eyes, an attempted defense against the unpleasant picture in her mind. She saw the pavement stretching away from her beneath the roiling sea of smoke, the brick of the wall she had followed visible just a meter or so away. She inhaled deeply, then stood and retraced her steps along the building. Even as she pulled the hem of the tunic up over her nose and mouth once more, another bout of coughing rasped her throat, but she concentrated on keeping her legs in motion, and on reaching air that had not yet been poisoned by the fire.

Five steps. Ten. And still the smoke engulfed her. She began to feel lightheaded, and she feared that she might not make it out into the open air. She tried to maintain her focus on following the wall, on the rough-hewn texture of the brick as her fingers passed over it, on the--

She tripped.

She went down hard, her hands scraping along the street, her knees striking the unyielding pavement. Pain shot through her limbs, sharpening her attention. Instead of rising, though, she reached behind her, to whatever she had fallen over. Cloth and something beneath it gave way to her touch: a person.

Sulu climbed back to her feet, then stooped down and walked her hands along the body until she located its arms. She hauled the victim to their feet -- they seemed slight, perhaps no taller than a meter and a half, more than a dozen centimeters shorter than Sulu -- and then up onto her shoulders in a classic rescue carry. After wrapping an arm around a leg and arm, Sulu reached for the wall with her other hand. She couldn't find it, but decided to trust her bearings and started once more through the smoke.

Beads of sweat slid down Sulu's brow and into her eyes. Her Koltaari garments had soaked through and clung tightly to her body. Her breathing came in gasps now, and she wondered how many more steps she would be able to take. She stumbled once, almost overbalancing, but somehow retained her feet. She continued stubbornly forward, but worried that she might have lost her direction when she had fallen, that she now headed deeper into the smoke rather than out of it.

And then she passed back into daylight. The clouds of smoke had advanced nearly to the intersection now. She rounded the corner, then lowered her charge to the street. It was a young Koltaari woman, she saw, unconscious, perhaps twenty years of age. As with the man Sulu had helped to safety, the woman had dark patches around her mouth and nose, clearly the effects of respiring the smoke.

Sulu rested a moment, gathering her strength. Sunlight dappled the street, obviously the effect of the smoke rising haphazardly into the sky. The sirens had grown much louder now, implying that the emergency vehicles would be here soon. Still, she wanted to get farther from the fire and the encroaching smoke, and she would try to carry this young woman at least another couple of blocks.

As she set herself to lift the woman again, Sulu spotted a figure in her peripheral vision. She peered over at the intersection and saw a Koltaari man standing there. He turned quickly away, but then reversed direction and headed toward her. He was lean and fit, and stood not much taller than she did. He had a narrow face and angular features, appearing to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He carried a small satchel over one shoulder.

Only when the man had neared to within a few meters did Sulu recognize Grayson Trent, Enterprise's chief computer scientist and a member of the landing party. Thank goodness, she thought. Trent had gone to another part of the city -- his mission, beyond simple reconnaissance, had been to scan Koltaari computers for any hints that they had been infiltrated or compromised -- but he had obviously come back here to the power plant to help the victims of the fire, just as she had.

Trent marched up to Sulu and raised a hand to her neck. She could not hear any hiss above the cacophony, but she recognized the pressure of a hypospray. Trent leaned in, bringing his mouth close to her ear, though he still had to speak loudly for her to hear him. "Tri-ox," he told her, identifying the medication with which he had injected her. She nodded her acknowledgment, pleased that he had somehow managed to secure a medkit, and then she pointed to the Koltaari that she had carried here. Trent reset the hypo, then ministered to the young woman.

When the lieutenant rose, Sulu leaned in close to him and asked, "Have you contacted the rest of the landing party, or the ship? Does anybody know what's happened?"

"No," he told her. "There's a dampening field in the city blocking communications and sensors." That explained Sulu's inability to raise anybody on her communicator. It also supported the captain's suspicions, since the Koltaari didn't possess the technology required to project such a field.

Beside them, the young woman stirred, the tri-ox compound evidently taking effect. She looked up with an expression of confusion and fear. Sulu squatted down beside her. "There's been an explosion and a fire," she said, yelling the words so that she could be heard; the sirens seemed extremely close now. "You have to get out of here. Can you walk?"

Sulu saw the woman say, "Yes," but the word did not carry above the sounds of the fire and the wails of the sirens. Sulu reached out and helped the woman up. Once on her feet, the young Koltaari swayed once, but then seemed to steady herself.

Just a couple of blocks down, a connected series of four egg-shaped vehicles, bright blue, turned around a corner, hovering just above the street and heading in this direction. Several Koltaari, clad in protective gear -- also blue -- hung from the sides of the fire-control machines. The string of vehicles slowed as it neared, its sirens piercingly high as it passed. It turned at the intersection onto the road that led to the power plant. The sirens suddenly shut off, and Sulu guessed that the firefighters had stopped to make their stand.

"Let's get out of here," she called out, placing a hand on the young woman's back and gently urging her forward. Along with Trent, they started down the street.

As they walked, the sounds of the fire diminished behind them, and Sulu hoped that was more than a function of distance. She intentionally lagged behind the Koltaari woman so that she and Trent could speak without being overheard. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Yes," Trent told her. "A little singed around the edges, but I'm okay." Sulu studied him for a moment and was pleased to see that he at least showed no visible signs of injury. "What about you?" he asked.

"I'm all right," she said, knowing that Dr. Morell would ignore such a statement in favor of a thorough examination. "I inhaled some smoke," she said, the throaty tone of her voice underscoring her words, "but I'll be okay." She rubbed at the side of her mouth and felt a grainy texture there. When she looked at her fingers, she saw that the tips had come away stained an ashy gray. She shook her head absently, ignoring thoughts of her own condition and turning to more important matters. "Let's try to contact the others again," she told Trent. "If we can't, if the dampening field is still in effect, then we'll head for the beam-down point," she said, citing standard procedure for circumstances such as these.

She pulled out her communicator, opened it, and used both hands to hide it as she raised it to her mouth. "Sulu to Captain Harriman, Sulu to Captain Harriman." She waited a few seconds, eventually tried reaching other members of the landing party, and then finally the ship. No responses came.

As she replaced the communicator at the back of her hip, beneath her tunic, a gloom settled suddenly along the street. Unlike the inconstant murk thrown by the smoke, this darkness did not waver. Ahead, the young Koltaari woman turned and peered up, then took a quick step back, recoiling in obvious terror. Sulu turned her own gaze skyward. Dark clouds continued to rise from the fire, she saw, but it was not smoke that blotted out the sun. Hanging above the buildings, a massive expanse of gray-green metal filled Sulu's view. She could see dark lines and edges and other shapes on its surface, and she distinguished hatches, a shield grid, weapons turrets. Alien characters marched along one section, the identity of the language no surprise to her.

"Come on," Sulu said, already starting to move. "We've got to find Captain Harriman." Trent fell into step beside her, and the two headed down the street, rushing along beneath the shadow of the Romulan warship.

Copyright © 2003 by Paramount Pictures