TASTE THE SWEET SCENT OF VICTORY

PART 2

By D. Maxwell

...And in the middle of the vast meadow he lay there, staring up at the bright, blue, cloudless sky, the only sounds surrounding him were of the birds chirping in the green trees and the wind quietly blowing through the tall grass. For him, this was a state of complete tranquillity, a place where nature showed its upmost beauty, a place where everything was joyful, happy, and unspoilt by the hand of man. He thought about this as he slowly closed his eyes to the shield them from the brightness, preferring instead to savour this joyous moment through the sounds produced by nature itself.

But then in the centre of this bliss, he heard a voice, a loud protruding tone of fear and panic. It called out louder and louder, progressively destroying the peace of the meadow with every shout. He tryed to close his ears to this intrusion, but the words pesistantly hammered him. He finally relented, and allowed his mind to take in the intruding vocal disturbance, The shouting got louder, becoming more incomprehensible through the increasing volume. The words...what are the words it is calling?...

"Mr. Director! Mr. Director, wake up sir, this is an emergency!" the voice cried out.

Abruptly, the Director's eyes snapped open. His first vision, after being shaken from his dream, was of his personal aide, Christopher Ford, who stood above him shaking him lightly but sternly, the lights in the room were already illuminated.

The Director's immediate reaction was to turn in the bed to see his wife, she too was also awake, sitting up staring in disbelief at the intrusion, all the while holding the bed sheet up to her chest to offer some kind of feeble protection in face of this uncertainty. Being The Director's wife, she was always prepared, mentally at least, for the inevitable calls they received in the dead of night, or for the occasional visitors who often had a knack of arriving at the most ungodly hour, but this was different, never before had The Director's most trusted aide actually barged into their private bedroom and physically shook The Director awake. Her shock clouded her sense of reason, as her mental stability was unable to think rationally. She knew Ford rather well as he was often over The Director's home on business, but no time had she ever seen him act like this. She could hear it in his voice too, the sound of terror, this man was so scared he didn't even consider the ramifications of breaking into The Director of Starfleet Command's own bedroom at three o'clock in the morning.

The Director shook himself out of the last of his sleep and attempted to focus on the trembling man in front of him. "My god Christopher, what the hell's this all about?" he roared.

It was obvious that Ford was having a hard time composing himself, as soon as The Director had asked the question, it all came blurting out uncontrollably "It's the Romulans sir, they've just de-cloaked 18 ships just outside the atmosphere and their leader is requesting a complete surrender of the entire United Federation of Planets!"

The Director sat up at once, unable to believe his ears, was this the ramblings of a mad man? "What do you mean de-cloaked?!" his sense of disbelief made him marginally lower his voice. "Why weren't they detected? What about our planetary defence systems?..." he suddenly grabbed the collar of the trembling Ford "Where are our starships? What the bloody hell's going on?!" He shouted.

Christopher Ford stood there trembling even more so now, he appeared to be on the edge of completely falling apart and was totally unable to answer any of The Director's questions, even his wife had begun to cower up, not only at the sight of her husband in fury but also at the sudden thought of the Romulan's holding them to ransom.

The Director abruptly released Ford and turned to his personal bedside communication terminal, he punched his special code which allowed him to interupt any Federation transmission within the solar system no matter what band frequency. His first call was to Jerry Convall his head of Starfleet Intelligence at his office, he only had to wait a second before the flustered face of his most senior Starfleet official appeared on the screen haphazardly dressed "Jerry, talk to me, what's going on?"

"Mr. Director," he started, clearly having difficulty attempting to get his faculties together after having been rudely woken from a deep sleep himself a ten minutes before and rushing like mad to get to his office "about eighteen minutes ago they just appeared, we are still trying to put together initial reports here, so far all we know is that they have appeared to have somehow jammed all communications and transporters leading off Earth and have just sent a message addressed to yourself and The President."

"What do you mean jammed communications! Is that possible?" The Director asked in disbelief.

"It would seem so sir, we apparently can't even talk to the Moon. I really don't know have they've done it, but we are completely isolated, they fixed us up the moment they arrived, we weren't even able to send a distress signal. Apparently the only communication terminals not effected are yours and The President's, that's why we couldn't call you, we could not link up with your system until you had first established a contact with us."

"What about transporters?"

"They're out too."

"I don't believe this." The Director said to no one in particular.

"Mr. Director, I suggest you come to your office right away, the leader of the Romulan Force has just made contact with us and he has requested your presence. The President has also contacted us and is currently flying over from Paris."

"Why my office?"

"Probably because your terminal link up is the only one that uses a plasma phase circuit, they can talk to us and still keep the rest of the planet silent." The Director sat in silence for a moment, pondering what he had been told. "In any case," Convall continued "a transport is now waiting outside your home."

The Director looked at the screen "I'm on my way." he said quietly. He turned to look at his wife and Mr. Ford as the screen went blank. Ford who had regained some of his composure felt he had overstayed his welcome and bid his leave "If you will excuse me sir." as he headed for the door. The Director turned back to his wife, her fear of the situation was clearly evident, just the concept alone of surrendering to the Romulans was unnerving.

"What do you think will happen to us?" She asked quietly. For her, all her worst nightmares had come true, being awoken in the middle of the night by a panicking messenger, told of an invading force, threats of surrender and the possilbe loss of her husband and way of life, this was the moment she always feared could happen.

Unlike most people on the Earth, and because of her husband's unique position in the Federation, she knew all too well of just how things were going out in the deep reaches of space. Most people on Earth believed that everything happening in the cosmos, within the Federation and without, was peaceful and content, that all worlds interacted together in a just sense of peace and harmony. But that really wasn't the case at all. Wars and battles were fought, starships were destroyed and crews were killed, but all of this devastation and death was kept from the populace of Earth. Being the leader, and often conceived as being a 'model', planet, it was important that the people living on it had a sense of complete security, feeling perfectly at ease and protected from any possible cosmic nasties that may be roaming around. Keeping the planet misinformed like this was the prime responsibility of Starfleet Intelligence, whose job it was to insure the feelings of the people of Earth remained safe and content, even at the expense of the truth.

"Don't worry," The Director said holding her hands, "there is no way we shall ever give up without a fight." And with that, he got up and proceeded to get dressed. Soon after he left, his wife too got out of bed and began to make preparations in case the worst should happen.

The Director, who would have normally beamed over to his office from his personal transporter in his home, was this time flown. In some ways he didn't mind, it gave him some thinking time which he desperately needed. A lot of questions were going to be asked, and a lot of decisions were going to have to be made, and it would be up to him to provide the answers for a most of them. Although he was answerable to The President of the Federation, a lot of people looked at Starfleet Command as being The Federation, with the actual President being just a figurehead politician whose job it was to look after the interests of the citizens of the UFP. No doubt the Romulans looked at the Federation in this way, and if such being the case, the authority of The Director's position would start to take weight, and he would soon feel the strain, as they focused their main attention on him.

The shuttle landed on the front lawn of Starfleet Command Headquarters, normally off limits to any kind of traffic, The Director quickly debarked the shuttle and was greeted by Jerry Convall, who had been waiting for him to descend.

No greetings were exchanged as the two men immediately headed toward The Director's office,"OK Jerry spill it out." The Director said as he quietly thanked the lost time in the journey, as it had allowed both of them to calm down enough to look at the problem with a lot more maturity and sensibility.

The head of Starfleet Intelligence began a recap of the events while they walked to The Director's office "At exactly 02:56 EST, a fleet of 18 Romulan warbirds de-cloaked at scattered points around the Earth, within an instant they had put a blanket jam on all our communication and transporter networks. Our planetary scanners picked them up the moment they materialised, but we were unable to send a distress call."

"How did they get here without anyone noticing them?" he asked, a touch of irritability evident in his voice.

"We are not one hundred percent sure, we're pretty blind to any clues at the moment. No doubt our orbiting stations can tell us more but we can't receive any signals from them, in fact we don't even know if they are all right, for all we know, the Romulans could have disabled them too, or destroyed them outright."

"So you're saying that we have absolutely no idea whether anyone is alerted to their presence. Terrific. What about their leader, who is he?"

"We have not seen him yet, the message we received initially was a vocal one, so we are not clear whether this is an official Romulan offensive or some renegade group."

"Well I suppose we shall find out soon enough." They turned the corner to the Director's office and ran into Admiral Hanson who had just returned from the Starfleet Central Command.

"Mr Director." He announced.

"Bob," he replied without slowing, Hanson immediately fell into step with The Director as the approached the doorway.

"It's no good sir, we've tried every channel on every frequency we have and we still cannot get through on any of them." All three men entered the office, A large communication screen was being hastily set up by a couple of technicians so the official Federation party could view the Romulans together, wires and connection tubes snaked all over the floor, as the techs worked as fast as they could to finish the job, whilst at the same time deliberately ignoring everything going on around them.

The Director saw the large screen obtrusivly taking up room in his office and stopped "Whose idea was this?" He asked indicating the screen whilst ignoring the two workers.

"Mine Sir." Convall said without faltering, his mind was too absorbed going through important details without worrying about The Director's reaction to the overly large link-up screen, he continued on without a second thought "The President will be here in about another ten minutes, Sir. If you wish, we have the contact co-ordinates to alert the lead Romulan vessel of your arrival."

The Director thought about the proposal while heading straight for his coffee counter ignoring the screen "Why not," he turned to Convall "get 'em on the line."

Convall went to the computer terminal as the two techs picked up their tools and hastily dissappeared through the door, Convall being the only one who noticed their departure.

Admiral Hanson sat in his usual spot on the couch and attempted to put some kind of report together. He too had been caught out in this emergency, being fast asleep like all good people were at this time of the night, the hastiness of his dress showed that, like Jerry, he had also rushed to get to the office in the shortest possible time. However, some time had since passed and Convall was looking the far more refreshed of the two it's not surprising really, after all, this is the kind of thing that these Secret Service people really get off on Hanson thought stealing a look at the busy Convall, with just the slightest look of disdain in his expression.

Jerry had personally done very well out recent events. In an incredibly short time, the entire structure of the Federation intelligence service had been totally remolded. Once Macillroy Osten was relieved of his post as Director of FISO, it suddenly became clear that there was no one within FISO ranks sufficiently qualified to step in as Assistant or Temporary Director. Even Osten's most trusted aides and assistants, were too well kept in the dark about many sensitive FISO operations to simply take over the reigns of Directorship. It was only after Osten's arrest that this blatant corruption of power for so many years became so visibly evident. Osten, intent on being throuoghly cemented as Director, insured that no one else would ever have the ablity to simply oust him from his position in a power play, as he technically had every conceivable base covered. Quite simply, he knew much more than anyone else concerning many sensitive FISO operations, and besides the obvious perk of being answerable only to The President, Osten was assured a very long and prosperous career as leader of the most powerful organisation in the Federation. Ironically no one had even considered the possibility of how to replace him should the need arise, as it did, when Jerry Convall came along.

Once The President of the Federation had heard the full details about the 'Osten Fiasco' as it was now being called amongst those in the know, and about the realisation of the kind of impenetrable fortress Osten had built up for himself in his position, The President, in a storming rage, immediately put Jerry Convall in charge of FISO until a qualified replacement could be found, if at all. Within the span of a brief moment, Convall was suddenly handed the one organisation he so desperately wanted to incorporate within his own Starfleet Intelligence. He, by default, became the third most powerful man in the entire UFP, Naturally Jerry was pleased with his new appointment, he knew that the uniting of SI and FISO into one body would take some time, but he was sure The President would be in agreement to it. The biggest advantage for Convall was that he was suddenly privvy to all of Osten's files, agents and information. But any plans Convall had to celebrate this new coup, would have to wait. Now he would have to put all this new found authority to good use, if he was to salvage anything from this new dilemma.

The Director picked up his coffee cup then turned to face the screen, both Hanson and Convall stayed still, waiting for the vision of the enemy to arrive, within a few moments a face appeared, a Romulan face. Whoever he was, it was clear he was a figure of authority, and although this systematic taking hostage of the Earth constituted an act of war between the Romulan Empire and the United Federation of Planets, he looked rather calm about it.

"Ah," the Romulan started in mock surprise "The Director of Starfleet Command himself, Sir, I hope I didn't wake you."

"Not at all," The Director replied as calm as he could "I get invaded all the time." He took a sip at his coffee, studiously studying the face in front of him, with the precious seconds he had to do so. The Director had seen what few files of famous Romulan Warbird Captains his department had, this one he did not recognise. "You appear to have me at a disadvantage Sir." he said with his best diplomatic voice.

"Oh I shall introduce myself in good time." he replied evenly.

"Then can you tell me why you are here?"

"I could, but I shan't. First I must wait until your Federation President arrives, however in the mean time, you may assemble whatever type of council you choose. Hail me when you are ready." the screen went black.

The Director looked at the void for a few seconds more, before turning to Convall and Hanson "Who else is coming here?"

"We are trying to contact all of Starfleet Command's executive officers and UFP officials, as well as the President's aides, but without any communication system, it's not easy to achieve at such short notice especially at this hour."

"Well keep at it." He took a long breath then turned to Hanson "All right Bob, how did these things get here?"

"I don't know," he said looking deep in thought "this is a large fleet, so to come this far without any of them being detected at all is too impossible to imagine." he paused for a moment to summarise his theories "Also a lot of local space traffic would have to be halted to allow room for all of them to come through without incident, and the only time that has happened was two weeks ago when we had that scare..." his voice trailed off as Convall placed his finger in the air as the most obvious answer hit him.

"That's it, they came through then."

"But how," Hanson countermanded "our whole borderline was littered with C-probes, they could never have gotten though. Even if they took an about route to get here, it still doesn't explain how no one saw any evidence of them, even if cloaked. Our starships were covering a lot of territory looking for cloaking trails, they couldn't have flown around them all, especially a fleet of 18 ships, it just isn't possible." Hanson was starting to sound slightly hysterical, after all, the compentency of his entire star fleet to detect a group of cloaked Romulan warships was being questioned here "All you would need is just one ship to be accidently discovered and the whole fleet would be exposed." He was now hooked on an explanation and was running with it "I mean the chance of that happening would be too great, the feasability of a mission like that succeeding would be so miminal, even the Romulans wouldn't be game to try it." He persisted.

Convall looked at The Director questionally as Hanson rambled on with his arguements, everything he had said made sense, therefore there was only one possible answer and The Director had also deduced it straight away "It was the cloaking device," Convall began, feeling as though he was stating the all too obvious "they built a cloaking device that could not be detected by C-probes!"

"Or any other sensing device for that matter." The Director quipped.

"Is that possible?" Hanson suddenly asked, swiftly changing his tact.

There was the briefest of pauses before The Director answered "Well they're here, arn't they?"

The three of them pondered the thought when a somewhat dishevelled President of the United Federation of Planets suddenly burst into the office and yelled. "For god's sake, what the hell's going on?"

Within twenty five minutes they were set to contact the Romulan flagship. They had each been able to make themselves more presentable, if only to show the Romulans that humans could always look professional even under the most difficult circumstances. Only six other Federation officials were able to join the group, each of them bitterly complaining about the intrusion in the night, so far no other Starfleet officers had been able to attend. The night time office secretary, who was used to far quieter and less eventful nights than this at Starfleet Headquarters, distributed coffees to everyone as a pick-me-up to make them look more alert and cohirrent, before scattering out of the office.

Admiral Hanson remained seated on the couch as he watched all the bustle going on about him, over the din of voices he could hear two of the officials complaining about the invasion.

"Why couldn't they attack at a more civilised hour." moaned one.

"Tell me about it, I'm supposed to go on leave tomorrow." grumbled the other.

Bureaucrats Hanson thought, he looked at the two men with distaste, always thinking of themselves and never anyone else, a typical politician attitude.

The nine men finally got themselves sorted out, The President scanned his eyes over everyone one last time, they could not wait for anyone else to show up, as it would've take hours for everyone to get there. "Everyone ready?" he asked disquietly with a large breath, and looking as important as they could at 4 0'clock in the morning, the Government of the Earth proceeded to hail the Romulan commander.

Within a moment, his face one again filled the huge screen. "Good morning gentlemen, it's a pleasure to meet you." he said with a sort of happy feel to his voice.

"Sir would you please explain what the meaning of this is?" The President asked firmly. He had managed to remain quite calm during the past half hour while final preparations were being made. Although it had taken him some time to relax after his initial entry to the office flustered and angry, as anyone would be after being dragged out of a warm bed at 3 o'clock in the morning and having to fly half way around the world. In any case his obvious dislike at this invasion proceeding in the wee small hours did not faze the Romulan Commander at all.

"Questions, questions, always questions, and not a single welcome. Gentlemen I ask you to be calm as we have a lot to discuss, and we will not achieve anything if you get..." he paused to find the right word "...flustered. First, to show my goodwill, I shall introduce myself. I am General T'Garr of the RCP Romulan Occupational Force, and you are?" he asked The President politely.

Convall, who was out of view from the Romulan, immediately began running a check through his portable terminal, he wanted to know all he could about this General. Convall looked briefly at the screen, whoever this guy is, he thought to himself he sure is one cool customer.

The President, unaware of Convall's actions, continued to stare straight at the screen "I am Norman Samsa, President of the United Federation of Planets, and this," referring to the Director "is John Wyatt, Director of Starfleet Command."

The Director stood next to The President "I would like to present my most senior officer, Senior Admiral Robert Hanson of Starfleet Command, whose fleet has no doubt given you a few headaches over the years."

T'Garr smiled brightly at the subtle insult "indeed it has, a pleasure to meet you Admiral." Hanson nodded curtly.

The President proceeded to introduce the other official members of the group, except Convall who remained in the shadows.

Once the formalities were completed T'Garr continued "There gentlemen, that wasn't so bad was it?"

"General T'Garr," The President began, wanting to get straight to the issue at hand "It is clear that you have willingly taken the Earth, and by that, the Federation, hostage. You do realise of course that your presence here in Federation space is a blatant breach of our peace agreement and therefore constitutes an immediate act of war between our peoples. However if you withdraw now, we promise to undertake discussions in the hope a resolution can be reached whereby hostilities will be uncalled for." He tried to stand proud in the realisation that it really was a stupid statement to make, but then he had to at least give T'Garr the option to bale out, futile as it seemed.

T'Garr had obviously anticipated this question and answered it without any hesitation "Very well put Mr. President, but I'm afraid unexceptable. You see it has taken a lot of planning, time and energy to get my force here, so for us there is no turning back."

The President knew that T'Garr wouldn't come all this way just turn his ships around and leave, it could never be that simple. Still a tiny portion of his concionous had desperately hoped that is exactly what would have happened, but it was not to be. The President took a breath this is not going to be easy he thought before continuing unfazed "I see, then may I hear your conditions?"

T'Garr's eyes widened "Ah straight to the point, I like that." He quickly prepared to announce the speech he had spent hours rehearsing "Very well. You are hereby ordered by the Romulan Empire to surrender your planet to us. The United Federation of Planets is hereby discontinued, with all offices and departments to come under Romulan control. Starfleet Command is to be considered non-existent and all starships from the Galaxy Class through to XXXXX class are to be handed over to the Romulan Forces with all weapons, sensors and tactical taken off line. All crews are to disembark their vessels at the selected co-ordinates which I shall presently provide for you. All planets and systems under Federation control now become part of the Romulan Empire. These conditions are to take effect immediately."

The President who wasn't really listening to T'Garr or his terms, was busy thinking of his next tact, all he could think of was his next question, the most logical one to ask, yet even he did not want to rush the matter. "And what if we refuse?"

T'Garr was obviously ready for this one too "If you refuse we shall systematically destroy key positions of your Earth, and to show you that we are serious in our intention, we have arranged a little demonstration for you,"

At hearing of a demonstration, Jerry Convall, who had still remained out of sight from the Romulan commander quickly walked into the picture and whispered a message to the Director, the sudden entrance of the new man was not lost on T'Garr,

"And who might you be sir?" he asked pointedly.

Convall realising his mistake, knew he could not just walk off screen, so he decided to face the Romulan head on. "Jerry Convall head of Starfleet Intelligence."

"Starfleet Intelligence, no less." T'Garr said with obvious pleasure. He began to say something but paused to think a moment "I could be mistaken but I do believe that three of your agents were recently discovered on our home planet by our RCP."

Convall quietly fumed under the collar, at least he knew what the fate of his men were, they had indeed been caught, but now was not the time to make an issue of it, so he decided to ignore the statement totally "In any case, I was suggesting to The Director that you not proceed with your demonstration, as I imagine it will be quite destructive and harmful to human life, which unlike you, we care about."

T'Garr seemed to think about what he had said, before continuing "That was a very noble statement," he said mockingly "however I for one do believe that demonstrations bring home the point that we are quite serious about our mission," he averted his eyes briefly off screen, before returning "and you are quite right Mr. Convall, we do not care about human life."

Within an instant, The Director's intercom beeped wildly, Convall, mentally preparing himself for the worst, rushed over to answer it. "Convall here."

The young lady at Starfleet Central Command appeared on the viewer "Sir we are receiving erratic reports that major industrial installations are being destroyed around the planet. Witnesses are saying that unusually powerful phasor beams, not unlike Romulan disruptors, are being fired from some points in space..."

It suddenly occured to Convall that most of the world was still blissfully unaware of the Romulan invasion. He could scarcely imagine how the entire world would panic once word got out, in fact in some parts of the world they already knew. People who always thought the Earth was the safest place in the galaxy to live, were going to wake up this morning to a very, very rude shock. Convall tried to shake his mind from the thought of the evacuations, riots, lootings, and absolute pandamonium that was only a just a few short hours away, and centre his attention back on the girl as she continued her report.

"...Emergency teams are currently at work, searching for survivors and maintaining crowd control." she quickly scanned her monitors as the sketchy reports came through, her professionalism never faltering "as far as we can figure, most of the targets have been in resonably low populated areas, although..." she paused to receive new data "standby...Sir we've been informed that the Starfleet Academy has just been hit." The men in the room instinctively rushed to the window to see. In the dark distance, the fires blazed away in burning glory, already distant sirens could be heard going off as emergency crews rushed to save the Academy and all the people who lived in it. All of the men watching felt a sudden twinge of horrible nausea, as each one either had a sibling stationed there or at least knew someone who did. The thought of all the young lives lost impacted on everyone in the room. One of the Federation officials quickly left the office, presumably he had a son or daughter stationed there.

The anguish felt by the remaining men soon turned to anger as Admiral Hanson quickly stormed over in front of the view screen to face T'Garr "All right, you bastard, you have made your point, we have said that we are willing to listen to what you have to say, just please stop this slaughter and needless destruction!"

T'Garr, showing no feeling of pleasure or displeasure, motioned to someone off screen.

Hanson became visibly distraught as he faced the Romulan Commander, as the Senior Starfleet Admiral he would have had more direct contact with the cadets then anyone else in the room, especially at graduation time. "Why the Academy? There were over seven hundred innocent girls and boys living there, no one who could possibly have been a threat to you." he began to sob openly.

T'Garr remained unmoved "An unlucky shot that went astray" was his only reply, though delicately laced with malicious intent. "I do not think that I need to point out, Gentlemen, that if you refuse to meet with our conditions, we will start targeting more non industrial areas of your world, and I can not think of a better place to start than with some of your more densely populated districts and cities."

Convall lead Hanson to the couch where he could rest. Despite the sudden tension in the air, he was the only one in the room still capable enough to observe minute details about the Romulans without being clouded with the emotion felt by the loss of the Academy, there would be time for that later, like the loss of my three dead agents. While the others were either wallowing in pity or getting angry, he had already deduced that the Romulans had momentarily released the communication embargo to allow the transmissions of the incoming reports to reach Starfleet Central Command. Therefore they were obviously quite capable of regulating whatever communications they wanted, which put them in a very powerful position indeed. Convall, after having foolishly exposing himself to T'Garr, stood toward the back of the room out of view from the screen beside Hanson. In his mind he now had commisoned himself a new task, find a way to get communications off the Earth without it being jammed by the Romulans.

All was silent in the room as people moved away from the window, both The President and The Director quietly conferred about the situation, they both agreed readily that there was very little they could do at this time. They had no idea what the status of their planetary defences were or their orbiting starbases. They could not contact any of their starships, who were quite possibly still oblivious to their predicament. The only hope they had was in the possibility that the Romulans overlooked something in their plans, some minute weakness that could be exploited, however it was a well known fact that they were not renowned for making mistakes. Out of the corner of his eye, The Director noted Convall already working on the problem. After a few more moments of nodding and some brief words with the other officials, the two men finally stood up to face T'Garr.

The President, trying to keep as calm as possible looked directly at the Romulan Commander "General T'Garr," a nervous swallow gave suddenly away his fear "on behalf of The United Federation of Planets, we accept your terms of surrender, but I would just like add, that we will do everything in our power to free our planet and our people, and although we reluctantly sign ourselves over to you, we will not bow down one little bit." The President finished his statement with his head held high.

T'Garr looked at him with an increasing smile, "I'm so glad you did not disappoint me Sir."

The two of them remained locked in a fixed stare. The Director, sensing things were not going anywhere, finally cleared his throat and spoke out to break the tension "You do realise Mr. General that it will take us time to make all the necessary arrangements?"

T'Garr broke the stare to look at The Director "You may use as much time as you need. We shall commence landings in due course, in the meantime, you will send a signal to your Starship fleet advising them of your surrender, they will then make their way to the designated points mentioned. They are to follow our instructions precisely, if they do not appear," he momontarily leaned closer to the screen to emphasise a point "and we will know if they don't, or if any attack is made against us, we will wipe you out like you never existed, do I make myself clear?"

The reality of the situation was suddenly beginning to break its way into The President's frame, he no longer held the heroic facade he did only a moment ago, his voice suddenly sounded raspy, distant, as he answered T'Garr's question "Very."

"Do you have any questions?"

"No."

"Good, I shall transmit the co-ordinates directly to you, so you may relay them to your fleet." he turned to leave his chair then returned, the motion being purely for effect "I appreciate you being so co-operative, it saves a lot more deaths this way." He held the briefest of grins as the screen suddenly went blank.

The room went deathly quiet. The President sat slowly in his chair "What are we going to do now?" he said to no one in particular.

I will now play as an addition to this historical record, the Log of the Starship USS Enterprise, particularly that of Captain Jean-Luc Picard who was instrumental in our salvation from this most desperate situation...

The morbid-like silence lingered on for what seemed like an eternity. The six figures huddled around the table looked at each other with deep uncertainty, eyes scanned across to other eyes, trying desperately to read the others' thoughts. Occasionally though, someone would figget, causing everyone to stare at the sudden disturbance. In this tiny elitest world, no one trusted anyone, and all friends were enemies, this was a battle to the death. In this most absolute silence no one spoke a word, although everyone was thinking the same question, who was holding what? What was needed now was someone to break the ice and that someone did not even realise that there was ice to be broken.

"How many cards Commander?" the voice said, shattering the unnerving silence, as Data asked Riker the question they would each get. Data had long since discovered, that the actions of the others often depended on his answer alone, and he was always amazed at how this one person could control the actions of the others just by answering this simple question.

Riker looked around at the ring of deadly serious faces on the table as they all looked back at him expectantly. The sheer absurdity of the situation finally got the better of him as a smile broke out across his face, he looked at his hand of cards and carefully picked one out of his five. Holding it in the air for the briefest of moments, for everyone to clearly see, he placed it hard on the table to the astonishment of the others. "One!" He called out triumphantly as the room broke into a chorus of moans and groans. Geordie and Troi threw in their hands the instant his card went down, giving Riker the fuel to smile some more. Even before it had officially finished, he knew he'd already had victory in this game, simply with the breaking his opponents' confidence.

One by one, everyone eventually threw their hand's in, allowing Riker the joy of gathering up his well won booty. His beaming face contained the smile and expression of someone who knows they have won, just from being there.

Suddenly and without warning, the lasting joy of the moment was shattered by the explosive wail of the red alert klaxon. The room froze for what was the briefest of moments as all eyes locked on each other, as shock was replaced by surprise which was replaced by the need for action. The table scattered in a blink as everyone hurried from the room toward the turbolifts.

Captain Picard was on the bridge watching the final piece of the transmission when the crew burst into the room instantly going to their respective posts. He turned to give the 'crisis ready' Riker a complete look of bewilderment as he casually said to him. "You are not going to believe what has just happened."

The executive crew sat around the conference table as the message from the President of the United Federation of Planets announcing the surrender of the Federation to the Romulan Force was repeated. Once it had finished, no one had anything to say, this time the silence was truly morbid.

Commander Riker decided to break the silence "I know we have always suspected the Romulans to be up to something illicit, but I would never have expected them going to this extreme," looking around the quiet and forlorn table "I mean do they really think they can get away with this?"

"Apparently they do." Picard answered quietly before looking at everyone "the real question is," he said clucking his tongue "just what are we going to do about it?"

"What do you mean?" Riker asked.

The anger resulting in what he had been asked to sacrifice suddenly came to a explosive head. "Well I for one refuse to accept that after struggling for all these years to create a peaceful and harmonious galaxy, that I am just going to give it all up just like that..." snapping his fingers sharply to emphasise the point "...and I imagine that every Federation person feels exactly the same way that I do."

Picard got out of his chair and started to walk around, looking at no one in particular and speaking to no one in particular, only Troi was aware that he was really letting off steam which had been building over the past ten minutes.

He walked around a bit more before continuing, the strain in his voice plainly evident "One of the things we have always preached in our society is the non-acceptance of terrorism, in any form." He stopped to look out the window toward the brilliant stars outside "Now I know that even four hundred years ago, the government of the United States of America never, ever, gave into terrorism no matter what was at stake." he paused for another breath, "They always stood up for what they knew was right, and they refused to let anyone simply take it away from them by holding innocent hostages. Now I admit the scale of that philosophy may be increased enormously here, but if I know the way the human mind thinks, I know that no one is just simply going to put down their arms and walk away."

He stood behind his chair and turned to face the group directly, his words hitting hard at each one of them like jagged edged spears as they sat in total silence for fear of interupting his tirade, this was a Captain who was really angry "I am telling each of you now that I will not do it." He stared at his officers with fire in his eyes, making each one of them feel very uncomfortable "I will fight," he continued "alone if I must, to get back what I know is ours. Our Federation is to precious for someone to just simply take from us, we have each worked too damn hard making it what it is today. I am proud to wear this uniform in the service of Starfleet, and I am proud to be a part of the Federation, so I tell you now, no Romulan is ever going to dictate to me how I should live my life." He quietly sat down and stared pointedly at his officers, the sudden silence making some of them twitch with apprehension. However after a heartbeat, Picard continued, rage still evident in his voice "So I ask the question again, what are we going to do about it?"

There was another uncomfortable pause, as they each tried to deal with this new flood of information that their senses were having difficulty trying to accept. It was several seconds before someone spoke, and it was no real surpise to anyone that Worf should speak up first, it was also no surprise what his answer would be "I say we fight." he said simply.

Picard slowly turned to look straight into the eyes of the Klingon who stared straight back. They stayed dead locked like that for what seemed like an eternity, until Picard said the one word that brought home the true seriousness of the situation and his attitude toward it. "How?"

Picard walked on to the silent bridge from the conference room and assumed his captain's chair with Riker and Troi by his side, he could feel all eyes watching him, wondering what the his next move would be. In the ensueing silence, the fear generated by the bridge crew was self evident, it was fear of uncertainty, of what was to become of them, and how the Captain could salvage the situation, if at all. Their way of life, their very existance was now on borrowed time, and they were scared. Picard forced himself to ignore their feelings of dread and issued his first command "Place a call to every starship available and advise them that we are heading for the Indiras Sector at co-ordinates Beta Alpha 006 point 3 on the Klingon border at maximum warp, tell them this is a crisis of the highest priority and we shall rendezvous with whoever can make it there. Under no circumstances is anyone to relay this message to Earth or Starfleet Command."

"Transmission being sent sir."

"Good, Mr. Worf." he turned his attention to the helm, "Mr. Data, set course for the Indiras Sector, warp 9, engage." Without waiting for a response from Data, he turned his attention back to the Klingon "Lieutenant, send a call to Lord Gowron of the Klingon High Council, tell him I want to speak with him urgently, tell him I said..." he suddenly paused as if he had just changed his mind, but he was now resigned to his descision and the wheels had already been set in motion, he looked at Worf, trying to find some inner strength to prepare him for what was yet to come "tell him I said...garragh-chor!" without waiting for a reply, Picard rapidly moved away "I will be in my Ready Room, call me when you have him on the line." At that, Picard left the bridge.

"Yes Sir," Worf answered to no one as the ready room door closed behind the Captain so it has finally come to this.

With a new mission in hand, and a purpose for being there, the crew now had something to occupy their time. For the time being, the thought of surrendering their parent organisation was pushed aside as they instantly resumed the role of professional Starfleet officers.

Within twenty minutes the call came from Worf "Sir, Lord Gowron of the Klingon High Council has requested to see you."

Picard looked up suddenly from his computer terminal twenty minutes? It's amazing how one word can open doors so quickly, "I'll take it in here thanks Lieutenant." Picard sat up straight and tried to not look worried, the most important part of the mission was about to unfold, and everything now hinged on his ability to get Gowron to co-operate with him, if he did not, then the Federation's chance of survival would look very bleak. There was the briefest of pauses then the face of the most powerful man in the Klingon Empire came on the screen. Gowron, who never seemed pleased to see Picard, seemed just as unpleased to see him again, even with the knowledge of garragh-chor. "Lord Gowron, it is a pleasure to see you again, I must thank you for your prompt response, I had no idea a single word could chew through Klingon Beaurocracy so efficiently." Picard said warmly with a touch of humour.

Gowron was unmoved "Spare me your human niceties Picard, you may consider yourself fortunate that I am willing to speak with you at all." He growled "Do not feel that I am willing to see you at every beck and call," suddenly turning less arogant "yet when even when I hear the word invasion, especially from a...Federation Captain," the title came out tainted with contempt "I too am compelled to investigate it personally. So, now that I am here, what do you want?"

Picard quickly realised that the only reason Gowron called him was out of simple yet insatiable curiostity. His pleasant face suddenly turned deadly serious as it was the time to play his hand "A fleet of Romulan Warbirds have de-cloaked around our home planet and are holding it hostage. They are ordering the total surrender of the Federation." He did not pause long enough to let Gowron think too much about it, lest he be pleased to hear it "I have already been given orders to proceed to the Birot Sector where I and my crew are to abandon our ship to the Romulan outpost there." He took a breath to allow Gowron a moment to absorbe all this. "We have been given strict instructions not to attack or in any way provoke the invasion fleet, otherwise they shall start targeting Earth cities."

If Gowron was surprised or pleased to hear any of this news, he did not show it.

Picard looked at him for a brief moment, he could already tell that Gowron was waiting for Picard to ask for his assistance, in these desperate circumstances, pride nor ego did not have the first priority. "We have come up with an idea to save the situation, but I need your help to make it work." If it sounded like a plea, it was.

The Klingon replied quietly "We had heard of this invasion," for a brief moment he seemed to sympathise with Picard's situation, but as always, Klingon interests came first "But why should I help you?" he snorted.

Knowing the response would be laced with blatant ignorance, Picard could not help but smile lightly as he began to outline the next logical scenario "Because Lord, If our Federation surrenders to the Romulans, our entire Starfleet complement will be handed over to them on a silver platter, as we humans like to say, these ships will then be crewed by their personnel." His face brightened as another thought entered his mind "In fact, not only do they get our ships, but in the bargain they also get our technology, our weapon developments, propulsion enhancing techniques, prototype starships so advanced that even I don't know about them, all wrapped in a big bow. So then I ask you, Lord Gowron, what do you think they will do next, hmm?"

Gowron's mind was clearly visualising the possiblities but did he not answer, even though both men knew what the answer was, it just needed someone to voice it, and Picard saw no reason to hold back. By this time all his facade of pleasentness was gone, he was now a desperate man, stating the cold hard facts dripping with contempt for this foolish man. "Do you think it possible that they will then unleash a full scale military offensive against your people? Can you give me one reason why they shouldn't attack? I mean they would have a starship force so immense that even your chances of survival could be considered..." he looked at his condition of his fingernails to allow that brief pause to bring home his point "...minimal."

Gowron was still unmoved by the emotional ourburst from this human "I, for one, do not believe they would be so foolish."

The response was not lost on Picard whose anger against this ignorant man suddenly came to a head "Why not? They hate you as much as they do us. If we were not allies and you conquered Romulas, you wouldn't hesitate to then turn against us..." That got a reaction, for the first time Gowron seemed to fully take in what Picard was saying, as he had just spoken the truth. He briefly looked away from the screen in thought, as the Captain ploughed on relentlessly, playing his final card in this poor hand "...now if you don't want to help me, fine. But I can imagine Klingah not been a very pictouresc site as it smoulders in dust with the Romulan banner flying proudly atop your office!" he slammed the communication shut as he sat back in disgust to let himself cool off. Damn. He was angry at himself for getting upset in this delicate time. It was not like him and it definitely was not very diplomatic. He had to consider himself lucky that Gowron was an ally at all, it was just that sometimes dealing with Klingon stubbornness, that combined with their feeling that they were invincible, really got on his goat.

Picard sat quietly with his head in his hands and thought, well if the Klingons were not going to help him now. He would have very little options left. It didn't help the matter to know that he, and a large portion of the star fleet, were currently enroute to the Klingon border. He had hoped to enlist Gowron's aid whilst in transit, if only to save valuable time, now that did not seem likely. He had not considered the thought of surrender, but the feeling of his home world being casually blown apart piece by piece by Romulan disruptors that cared not for what they destroyed, would easily get the better of him, and he knew it. It was in that brief span of depressed silence, seemingly lasting forever, that Worf called him over the communicator.

"Sir, Lord Gowron would like to speak with you again."

Picard looked up from his growing despair as Worf's words sunk in, Gowron calling back, probably to say sorry but he can't help us. "Sorry," that's a word I'd like to hear a Klingon say slowly, feeling defeated, he switched on his terminal to see the Klingon leader's face as before, calm and peaceful almost as if he dealt with problems like this every day, well, maybe he did. "What do you propose?" he said simply.

The moment the view screen went blank, Picard sat back in his chair and pondered what had just transpired. He had just enlisted the aid of the Klingons. For the first time the intense weight of the task now ahead hit home. In all his years in Starfleet, he never thought it would ever come down to the wire like this. He could feel himself shake, ever so slightly, more from apprehension than fear as soon he would go against all his starfleet ideals, all the laws he had learned to respect. Was it possible that even he could turn into the kind of monster that now circled his home planet, with all weapons trained on the surface far below? He looked over to his fish, Livingston, swimming in its happy carefree enviornment. Not for the first time Picard thought how easy life would be as a fish, and how all these troubles could be efficiently handed over to someone else, but this was not to be. Fate had delegated this crisis to him, and now it was up to him to do something about it, whether he was justified in his descisions to do so or not.

Picard snapped himself out of his reverie, the time for pondering the rights and wrongs of his actions would be later, but now, he had to act, and act quickly. After taking a deep breath, he got up and headed for the bridge.

"Mr. Worf, contact the Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone, I want to speak with their commanding officer." Picard ordered as he took his rightful place in the centre seat, Troi and Riker were still there, and judging by their stifled reactions to his sudden appearance from the Ready Room, it looked like they too had been engaged in discussions of their own.

Deanna Troi turned to face her Captain and to examine the worried lines on his face, her own expression betraying her concern. Feeling her empathy, he looked at her intently but said nothing. She knew the pressure he was currently under and she also knew that the Captain would always be judgmental toward himself about whether he had done right thing or not, or whether there had perhaps been some other way to defeat this situation, one which would not have called for such drastic action.

"Captain," Worf called from behind, making them break their vigil of worry "I have Captain Simms on the line, he is currently responsible for the Neutral Zone starbases."

Picard nodding lightly, stood up to face the Captain, he had heard of Simms, The Starfleet officer who had recently taken up the appointment as commander of the space stations, whose job it was to keep an eye on the Neutral Zone and the Romulan side of it, but they had not personally met.

"On screen Mr. Worf."

There was the briefest of pauses when a young face appeared on the screen, Picard instantly thought he was too young for the rank. "Captain Picard, Captain Mark Simms - Commander of the Federation outposts in Victor Sector - what can I do for you?"

Picard decided to bypass any nominal chit chat "Captain, I know this news may come as a shock, but a fleet of Romulan Warbirds recently de-cloaked around the Earth and are holding the entire Federation hostage. We have already been ordered to surrender our ship, an order we completely intend to ignore."

"I'm pleased to hear that sir." he said with obvious pride "We had heard rumours of the attack, but we are so far out from Earth, we weren't sure if it was true or not, all of our civilian traffic here is talking about it, but we can't seem to reach Starfleet Command, someone said a surrender transmission was sent, but we must have missed it." Simms put in.

Picard realised that man desperately wanted details of what had happened, but there was no time to explain. "Captain, I need your help. We have a plan that could save the Earth and the Federation but we need your assistance."

"Anything you want."

"I need to know, are all your C-probes still deployed throughout the sector?"

"Yes sir, we have had no need to recall them, besides they keep a good watchdog on the space we can't see with visuals or scanners."

Picard was pleased to hear that "Can all your C-Probes be reprogrammed to jam all Romulan transmission frequencies to and from Romulas?"

Simms thought for a moment "Hmm, considering we are so close to the Neutral Zone, we have made it a policy to keep records of all known frequencies used by the Romulans. We can send a signal to our probes to jam all the ones we at least know about, although Captain it is possible they still have a few we haven't seen yet," his eyes seemed to light up as a thought came to him "come to think of it Sir, we're quite capable of blanking out their entire spectrum. That will at least look after their more common frequencies. I guess it's lucky we didn't recall them from that scare we had a couple of weeks ago," his expression suddenly turned grim and sullen as his smile melted away "although I guess that scare really didn't turn out to be false did it?" he looked away from the screen and the watchful gaze of Picard.

"No Captain, I'm afraid it did not." Picard said bluntly.

"How did they do it?" Simms' started questioningly "We detected nothing here, nothing at all?" He thinks he's responsible for failing to detect them. Picard thought, but that was the least of their worries at the moment.

"I can't answer that," he said bringing Simms' attention round again "but I'm afraid that is the least of our worries at the moment. What we need now is the C-Probes reprogrammed. Can you do it?"

"I'll get onto it right away." he said, sounding more in control.

"Good. I'll be in contact with you soon," he began to leave but turned to face Simms again "be ready." he said cutting the line, just as Riker came up to the Captain.

"What's our next move?"

Picard took a deep breath before answering "Our next move, Will, is to wait." He leaned toward the helm "Mr. Data, how long before we reach the Indiras Sector?"

Data punched the information in the navigational computer "11 hours 38 minutes present speed."

Picard nodded in acknowlegement "Will, I want you to run the crew through battle drills for the next few hours, also be sure Doctor Crusher and sickbay is fully prepared to receive casualties, then make sure everyone has a descent rest, including you." He said pointedly, "once we get to Indiras, there will be no more time for relaxation." he looked around the bridge.

"Anything else Sir?" Riker asked.

Picard's attention centred back on his first officer "No. I'm going to my quarters, Lord knows I could use the break myself, the bridge is yours Number One." he said as he made his way toward the turbolift.

He was halfway up the ramp when Troi came up to him, "May I have a word with you Captain?"

He looked at her thoughtfully as they exited the bridge, They had been in the turbo lift facing toward the door for ten seconds before Picard decided to break the silence. "I know you have a lot of concerns Counsellor, so do I, but at this moment in time I really do not feel like discussing any of them," he turned to face her "I imagine you can understand that?"

She just looked at him with a worried expression "Yes, I can."

They fell silent again until the lift stopped and opened on Picard's level. He walked out the doors then turned back to see her still in the lift. "I know this is difficult for you to accept Deanna, but I'm afraid there is no turning back now." He looked at her for another moment then turned and left as the doors closed.

"No I suppose not." She said in an empty turbolift, as a lone tear ran down her cheek. My god we are going to war!

Captain Picard laid quietly on his bed scanning over possible scenarios and last minute details of the mission that would soon come into play. After going at it for what seemed like hours, he laid his head back and closed his eyes, just as Worf announced over the intercom that they had arrived at the co-ordinates. With a deep sigh he got up and headed for the bridge.

He barely got through the bridge doors when he froze. What he saw astounded him, on the view screen, in front of the five planets that made up the Indiras Sector, was an armada of Starships, old, new, big and small, about 52 vessels in all. "I never thought they would all get here so quick." He muttered under his breath. as he slowly made his way down the ramp, still looking at the awesome sight in front of him.

"Wolf 359 must have looked something like this." Riker commented, on seeing so many ships in one place.

"That is a bad comparison to make Number One," Picard said offhandedly "remember we got wiped out there."

Riker made no reply as Mr. Worf called out from behind them.

"Captain, we are being hailed by the Taurus."

"The Taurus?" Riker said quisically, trying to forget his stupid comment, "That's a transport ship, why would they be hailing us?"

"On screen." Picard ordered.

On the main viewer, the smiling image of Fleet Commander Delco Johanssen suddenly appeared.

"Greetings Jean-Luc," he said to the startled faces "it was nice of you to call this little meeting," he smiled brighter still "looks like we're in for a very interesting few days eh?"

Picard didn't try to hide his surprise "Commander, I didn't realise you were out here!"

"Yes, well I was enroute to Calos VI for a seminar on new starship building materials when word of the invasion came through." His smile had already begun to degenerate as he recalled his story "We picked up your transmission not long after, and considering there was not a lot we could do by ourselves, I decided to gather what ships I could and follow your request to come out here."

"Well I'm certainly glad to see you sir," he said enthusiasitcally "I have come up with a plan to possibly get us out of this, but if you have one of your own, I would really like to hear it."

The Fleet Commander let out another grin, "That's Ok Jean-Luc, I didn't think we were meeting here to look at the scenery. I've already figured out what you've got in mind and I'm all for it."

Picard sighed lightly, he had hoped that Johannsen had come up with a better way to solve this crisis, but that was not to be. However, since the Fleet Commander was now with them, this was the ideal opportunity to find out some important details about their predicament. They had the time to spare anyway, while waiting. "Commander, I don't suppose you can fill in some details about exactly how all this happened?"

Johanssen fell silent for a moment as he looked around the screen.

Picard picked up his hesitation straight away "Considering this concerns all of us, I think it best if everyone hear what happened, rather that just I alone."

Johanssen's slowly nodded his agreement, his bright face then abruptly evaporated as he began to recall how the Romulan war machine snuck through under their noses. "Well, I'd been in contact with Admiral Hanson just before the Romulan's showed up. A few weeks ago, Starfleet Intelligence received a report that the Romulans were in the process of building some kind of new Warbird, a err...'Machte' Warbird I think he said it was called. Anyway we had no idea what this Machte Warbird was, or why they were building it. As a footnote to this report, apparently our friendly Romulans were also working on some new cloaking device as well. Unfortunately we could not get any solid facts about any of this, and as you know the threat of an invasion fleet was quite a real one two weeks ago, and since nothing came out of it back then, the whole thing seemed to fall by the way side, until they turned up on Earth's doorstep today." He paused a moment to let all this sink in.

"After some discussion with my people here, we have come to the conclusion that the Romulan's have developed a new cloaking device which is completely undetectable by any of our senses or probes, where they got information on our sensors and how they worked is still an unanswered question. We are pretty certain they came into our system when we had that threat. They must have just quietly sailed on through whilst we all stood by waiting for them to appear. I bet they found that really amusing." he added sourly.

He quickly continued on so as to not linger on the thought of it "The only thing we can't figure out is why it took them so long to de-cloak once they got there, maybe they were waiting for a signal or something, we don't know." Johanssen paused for a moment for a breather, before remembering something "Oh by the way, there is one other thing we know for certain, there is some bad news coming down at FISO, Macillroy Osten was arrested and placed under house guard just before the invasion scare. Reports are pretty sketchy, but I understand he was in a really bad way, emotionally."

Picard noted instantly that this information was classed as being technically sensitive. Either Johanssen had forgotten that his crew were listening on his broadcast, or he didn't care. As it stood, Picard really couldn't see the relevance, he didn't care much for FISO's activities any more that any starfleet officer, maybe that's why the Fleet Commander was being so open about it. "What has that got to do with this?" he asked.

Johanssen's pause indicated he was deciding whether to tell this openly or call Picard to his Ready Room. thinking rationally, he decided on the latter.

Once in their respective Ready Rooms, Johanssen continued his report "Picard, the snippets I have heard suggest that Osten had been working for the Romulans, he apparently deliberately covered up this whole Machte Warbird thing and put everyone off the scent a few weeks back. There was also one other thing, but everyone is being very tight lipped about it." Johanssen's expression of delight was clearly of someone who was savouring all this cloak and dagger intrigue, he never new Osten personally, but he did know of the power he wielded throughout FISO, perhaps he enjoyed the knowledge that someone with that kind of authority had just fallen, and he desperately wanted to find out why, if only to satisfy his personal curiosity.

"Are you sure about all this?" Picard asked incredulosly.

"Well a lot of people are being very quiet about it, but information still gets through, especially if you know where to look." Johanssen said smuggly, he obviously had contacts in some very delicate places.

Picard shook his head in disbelief, when he heard someone on the view screen call for the Fleet Commander's attention over his communicator.

"Sir, a large fleet of unidentified ships are coming into this sector." he heard someone say over the screen.

Forgetting the reason why they were there, Picard spoke up quickly to stop any potential panic, "It's the Klingons, I told their leader Gowron to meet us here."

Johanssen nodded acknowledgment and informed his officer. Johanssen suddenly put aside his thoughts of Osten and got back to the matter at hand. "If it's all the same with you Captain, I'd like to beam over to the Enterprise to take part in the strategy talks."

"By all means Commander."

Johanssen was about to leave the screen when he turned back to face the viewer. "When this is over Picard, a lot of questions are going to be asked by a lot of people."

Picard nodded "Lets hope we still have a home planet to ask them on." he said signing off. No sooner had the screen gone blank when a call came in from the lead Klingon vessel. "On screen." Picard said as he exited his Ready Room back on to the bridge "I wonder who Gowron sent to lead their part in the attack?" he asked Riker.

Within an instant the leader of the Klingon taskforce appeared "We are here as planned Picard." He said simply.

"Lord Gowron," Picard said with obvious surprise "I'm pleased to see you've come in person."

"My people long for battle, as do I, if we are to achieve victory today, then I will personally lead them to it."

Picard nodded slowly, thinking no Federation leader would ever go into battle themselves, but then he is probably a lot more politically motivated than we would be. "I have the co-ordinates for our attack approach," he told the Klingon leader "I shall transmit them to your fleet, if you are ready, you may beam over to the Enterprise where we can discuss tactics. All going well, we'll launch within the hour."

"That is acceptable." the screen abruptly went blank.

Picard reacted briefly to the sudden end of transmission. Ignoring the Klingon's lack of manners, he turned to his own Klingon. "Mr. Worf, transmit the data to the Klingon fleet, prepare to meet Lord Gowron in transporter room three, and place a call to Captain Simms, I want to give him his final instructions." Picard turned to return to his chair and met Troi's eyes on the way. Her expression said it all. This is wrong!

An hour later, the combined Klingon and Federation fleet went into warp.

All was quiet in The Director's office, as he looked out at the view from the window, a view he never tired of. 30 hours had slowly passed since the 18 Romulan Machte Warbirds materialised out of nowhere and held the Earth at bay with their weapons trained on the world below. Now 10am on the following morning, the sun shone brightly over San Francisco harbour, in one of the city's nicest days, often referred to as 'the lover's day', as more than the usual number of couples appeared out in the open, reaffirming that at least the weather satellites hadn't been affected by their univited guests. Although the population had.

Once people were aware of the Romulan presence the planet went into a blind panic, enforcment agencies coped as well as they could to keep everyone calm, but with no communication systems at all, and with all flights grounded as comm systems failed to operate, even the smallest courier shuttles were unable to fly safely. The result was a total uncontrolled frenzy on a planetary scale. Within a single day, crime rates skyrocketed as newly formed, and heavily armed, riot gangs and violence squads made up of scared alien races who banded together and started roaming the streets, taking their fear of the Romulans out on the general populace, bloody racial clashes were becoming increasingly common as nothing had been seen like it in over three hundred years. Suicides had risen to over 650,000 percent world wide as people were unable to cope with the thought of life under Romulan rule, especially after living all this time with the false premonition that they were perfectly safe on Earth. With the communication embargo, no one could contact anyone unless in person, the electronic postal system quickly ground to a halt as people stopped going about their daily routines, all around businesses shut their doors, as people stopped going to work, whilst huge hordes of people packed up their belongings and literally headed for the hills, feeling they could escape the reaches of the Romulans, and the violence in the cities, by isolation in the wilderness, only to be confronted with more clashes as people tried desperately to establish themselves in so called 'isolated retreats' which became more and more difficult to find as the masses took over. It had been a terrible first day of occupation for the once proud planet.

Alone in his office, The Director quietly went back to his desk and sat back in his chair with a forlorn look, even on this beautiful morning, there was no joy to be found here today. Usually a model of cleanliness, his home away from home had abruptly gone to seed. Papers littered his desk along with used food trays and countless coffee mugs from his many visitors, he had not left the office since arriving the previous morning, and after hearing the reports of what was happening on the world he was entrusted to protect, even he had lost his will to remain resiliant to the invaders. Now he just wished it was all over, with some luck, maybe the Romulans could bring peace to this chaotic planet. If such being the case, they were obviously in no hurry to do it, even after all these hours, the Romulan's still had not sent a landing party to his office, or anywhere else on Earth for that matter. They had maintained communications from their ships in orbit but done little else. Both Jerry Convall had he had already deduced the obvious reason for this, T'Garr was clearly waiting for someone else to show up. In fact The Director was thinking of Jerry when he suddenly walked through the door. He had been in and out so many times in the past 30 hours, he didn't even bother to knock any more.

"Mr. Director, I have just received some news." he said as he walked over to The Director's desk.

"News?," he repeated looking up wairily.

Convall leaned over the desk, something he would never normally do, as he explained himself. "I have been working with some of the new FISO special communication equipment which has been in development for the past year, as I only just found out. It has the ability to access new bandwidth frequencies that were previously unreachable to us, the advantage is that they do not come under the Romulan blackout spectrum." Convall's bubbling enthusiasm made The Director feel even more fatigued, although his attention was slowly being aroused "The range of this prototype tranmitter was limited so I tried to access networks based on the Moon, even though they too have been placed in a communication blanket, they have still been receiving signals from various locations, including the interception of rogue transmissions from scattered Romulan scources, and fortunately, they kept all of them stored away. After accessing their Romulan transmission recorders I have discovered that a few of the starships have not turned up to their designated off loading points."

"What does that mean? Have they been destroyed or something?" The Director asked starting to get his second wind.

"At this stage it is hard to fathom, but there was one planet that sent a message to T'Garr's forces here that was also recieved by the Moon base, it was from Birot VII, and they said the Enterprise did not show up when scheduled. My contact on the Moon said there apparantly has been no sign of her, Moon base said several other systems have also sent messages to the Romulan fleet saying the same thing."

"Why? How many ships are we talking about here?"

"I think we are possibly looking at something like 40 of them." Convall said skeptically.

That many? The Director look puzzled, how could 40 ships just simply dissappear like that, he turned to face Convall. "I really can't imagine this being a coincidence, not with that many ships, but what could it mean," he looked up to Convall "have the Captains scuttled their ships or something?"

"I don't know, but I suppose it is a possibility." He admitted. "But I don't think that's the answer though."

"It's what I would do." The Director Quipped. He suddenly exchanged glances with Convall, as he quickly realised that Convall thought there was something else going on the guy has a hunch, maybe there is more to this than what meets the eye "If there is something going on, maybe we can get T'Garr to let on what's happened."

"I get the feeling he won't tell us either way." Convall said dejectadly.

No sooner had he finished the line, when the whole office was subject to a loud wailing siren, which could be heard throughout the whole floor his office was situated on. It was being used by the Romulan's to inform whoever was in earshot that they were hailing The Director and that they should get him on the line and not keep the Romulan's waiting. However in this instance The Director was already there. On hearing the siren Jerry Convall quickly got out of visual range, as the image of the conqueror T'Garr appeared on the screen.

"Mr. Director, I'm pleased to see you are present this time." he said sourly, recalling the last time he called and had to wait ten minutes for The Director to appear after being told he was 'indisposed'.

"Yes well these days, I really don't have anything better to do but wait for you to call." he said sarcastically.

"I'm pleased to still see you have retained your inhospitable nature, I would be so disappointed to find you had lost it." T'Garr retorted.

Beaten at his own game, The Director decided to get to the point. "What do you want General?"

"In fact Mr. Director, this time it is you who can do something for me." T'Garr seemed to settle back into his command chair a bit more, obviously something was up, perhaps The Director was going to receive some information after all. "It seems a number of your Federation vessels have not shown up at their designated off loading points. At first I thought this could be due to heroic acts of self destruction, but there have been too many that are not accounted for to follow that hepothosis any longer "

"Maybe they heard you were in town and just simply ran away." The Director said with the faintest of smiles at least our ships aren't falling into your greasy hands you slippery bastard.

"I somehow find that unlikely," T'Garr said with an unusual air of seriousness which was not lost on either of the two humans "however I had anticipated this sort of response from you, so therfore I would like you to send out a general transmission to all your starships, wherever they maybe, stating that for every starship that does not appear at its designated location, a city from your Earth will be destroyed, we will give them each five hours to comply."

"What if some of our ships have been destroyed, we obviously won't be able to account for them then?" The Director stated emphatically.

"A shame," T'Garr stated bluntly "but fear not, I have sent a signal to Romulas informing them about this deliberate lack of co-operation on the part of your Starfleet, and I'm sure they will want to take the matter into their own hands, say with the obliteration of a Federation outpost or six." he paused to let that one sink in.

For the first time, the General felt it had finally become neccessary to explain to these narrow minded people the throughness of the Romulan war machine, they needed to be told in no short terms, that Romulans knew exactly what they were doing when it came to plantery takeovers, even though he hated having to explain the obvious to these humans. "You see, it has taken us a very long time to organise this invasion. The development of our cloaking device alone has taken many years, and in that time we have carefully looked into every possible scenario of resistance that we feel you might try against us, like a direct large scale assault on us for instance, or our outposts, shipping yards, mining planets, or even on Romulan territory. Needless to say, we have already considered every contingency plan, so make no mistake Mr. Director, we have thought this through with a great deal of care."

The Director could see that T'Garr was in a bit of a talkative mood, so he thought he would try his luck, glancing over to Convall to see his approving nod, The Director faced the Romulan Commander "T'Garr, may I ask you a question?"

"You may ask," he paused for a second, seeing no reaction he continued "I understand that is a human...'jike'."

"Ah the word is 'joke'," The Director said to humour him, before getting back on track, he had to be quick about this, the General was likely to clam up if they didn't get to him now. "T'Garr we have all been debating when exactly your crossed into Federation territory, since we never detected you at all, we have not been able to ascertain when it took place."

T'Garr looked at The Director quizically whilst considering his question, it was clear the human was fishing for information, and T'Garr was not one to give it away lightly. But they were obviously keen to know, and it would be nice to see the Federation finally realising the capabilities of the Romulan Empire "I assume your people have deduced when we came into Federation space, that itself was no mean feat."

"But that means you came in over two weeks ago, where have you been hiding all that time, and why?"

The trigger had been pulled, before he was aware of it, T'Garr let it all out. "When we designed our new cloak it had to be perfect, it had to be able to keep us totally hidden from all your sensor probles and tracking devices for a long period of time, a normal cloak was not sufficient enough to do this. So work on it started three and a half years ago, with a deadline of that time. We had planned our invasion date for now, so the cloak had to be ready by that date. As you can see, we were able to achieve our goal with one cost. The cloak is a perfect shield however our technicians were unable to find a way to make it stable when in speeds above warp 2. This was a major setback to our invasion schedule as we discovered at maximum safe warp, it would take us weeks to get to your Earth. However we were on a tight schedule and so we made the decision to still go ahead. Considering our all our ships crawled by your fleet and not one of them was detected is a credit to our ingenuity, don't you think."

"Yes, I admit I'm impressed." and he was, as he glanced over to Jerry who all smiles with this sudden release of information.

On the screen, T'Garr's face beamed with pride as in the background an adjutant approached him from behind, he whispered something into his ear and T'Garr's expression changed abruptly, his bright complexion evaporated in an instant. This change was not lost on either The Director or Convall.

"T'Garr might I ask you another quest..." but it was too late, T'Garr had abruptly cut the transmission without another word. The two men in the room looked at the blank screen.

"Now what was all that about." Convall asked.

"I don't know," The Director replied quietly, as he turned to face the younger man "but I want you to find out quickly."

In the midst of all the flurry and excitement, Captain Picard watched all the carnage taking place outside, "Mr. Worf, contact Captain Simms at Federation outpost Victor." He continued watching as the sky around him was laced with cris crossing beams of phasor and disruptor fire, as the three fleets fell into contact with each other. Picard looked at it with a sense of anxiety, as the image of Captain Simms appeared on the screen.

"Captain Picard."

"Captain, have the Romulans sent any transmissions to the Earth fleet yet?"

"They certainly have Captain. Romulas sent an general emergency distress call the moment your fleet materialised in their orbit, but don't worry sir, the message has not gotten through, they have been using standard transmission lines and they were easy to detect and stop."

Picard nodded his acknowledgment, "I'll be in contact with you shortly to arrange a release of their signal." he was about to sign off when Simms cut in.

"Oh and Captain, we've also captured a signal from the Earth fleet aimed at Romulas."

"What was it?" Picard asked.

Simms began to outline what he knew. "It has taken a bit of deciphering, but it seems the fleet commander is aware of the absence of a lot of our starships, and is advising Romulas to take action by attacking Federation colonies and outposts, he himself is currently preparing to target Earth cities in an attempt to make us bow to their wishes." He paused to take a breath "They have also requested an immediate acknowledgment of their transmission. I think they've suspected that they aren't getting through, in fact," he suddenly looked off screen toward something "wait, wait," Simms quickly scanned one console then another "Yes, we've got it! Captain, our probes have just received a deluge of transmissions from the Earth fleet all on different band widths, it looks like they are attempting to contact Romulas on every channel! It wouldn't surprise me if at least a few of them get through."

"Damn," Picard said "we're not ready for the next stage of the attack yet," Things had not been going exactly to plan, they had been seriously held up by the planetary defences as well as a large convoy preparing to go to Earth." his thoughts were jarred by a call from Mr. Worf.

"Sir Lord Gowron has reported that the Klingon fleet has broken through the Romulan defences and is currently attacking Romulas."

Picard jumped up from his seat "Tell the Klingons not to destroy it! We don't want to blow the thing up, we just want get the edge on the Earth fleet!"

"I will relay the order."

"I hope they're willing to listen, Captain," Riker said "if I know the Klingons, their lust for blood will be pretty hard to stop, especially against the Romulans."

"This was the most dangerous part of the gamble, Will, if they reduce Romulas to ashes the Earth fleet will not hesitate to do the same. In the end only the Klingons will be the happy ones. Mr. Worf, hail Gowron for me, I must get him to call off the attack."

"Aye Sir. Oh and sir, a report from Captain Simms has just come in, the Romulas distress calls have turned to pleas for help."

Suddenly the image of Gowron appeared on the screen.

"Lord Gowron, I must ask you to stop the attack." Picard began.

"Are you mad, we have lost countless ships against the convoy and Romulan fleet, now finally the home world lies open for the taking, we have not come all this way just to stop the attack."

"But surely you realise, if you destroy Romulas, the Earth fleet will destroy the Earth."

The face of Gowron showed that he had indeed thought of this possibility, the question was now, what was he planning to do about it "You must realise that I initially asked for your help providing you didn't go wild and destroy everything. Surely you know to go against that agreement is not honourable, I know that you are doing what your Klingon blood calls for you to do, but even you know that to satisfy your desire will come at a cost of more lives than I think even your conscience will be able to cope with. I don't think the Klingon populace will look upon you as being an honourable leader if you cause the death and destruction of the terrorist world and the hostage world, both of which are heavily populated planets."

"I am listening Picard, what do you want?"

"I just want you to cease the attack. At least for now. You must give me this chance to solve the situation and save my own world."

"You use words that are too human for me. But we under an agreement, you will have your cease fire, but my ships will be ready to finish the Romulans off the moment the opportunity arrises. Even our patience is limited, Picard." The screen went blank.

"The Klingons are with withdrawing to a low orbit around the planet, they are holding fire" Data commented.

Picard turned to face Mr. Worf "Put a call through subspace transmissions to Federation Headquarters, bypass any interception points and send the call directly into The Director's office, I need to speak with John Wyatt urgently, and get Captain Simms on the line."

Within a few minutes Mr. Worf turned to Picard "Captain the planet is on a total transmission jam, we can't get anything to go in, and nothing can come out."

"Keep trying." he said desperately.

The Romulans finally got tired of waiting, well before the five hours was up, they began firing on planetary cities. With slow deliberate precision, the Machte Warbirds picked off large populated areas at random. Pretoria, Madrid, Oslo, Austin, Ho Chi Min City, Alice Springs, Toronto, Leningrad, were all wiped out in the first barrage.

Inside The Director's office the reports came through instantly, 18 cities in all had been obliterated, the death toll was already in the tens of millions. The Director sat with his head in his hands, after hearing what had happened. Already planetary emergency teams were working to do what they could to save the situation, but they were being hampered by the transmission blockade which made them unable to transmit on any kind of frequency on any kind of equipment.

Within the quiet of The Director's office, the siren that had become all too familiar in the past few days sounded, he looked up his head to see the image of a very unimpressed T'Garr appear on the screen in front of him.

"I hope you are pleased with what you've done?" The Director asked, not hiding his anger.

"I hope you are pleased with how we deal with insubordinates who insist on making life difficult for us." T'Garr retorted.

"What are you talking about?"

"Apparently all of our transmissions are being blocked to Romulas. We have deduced that your C-Probes along the Neutral Zone have been re-programmed to jam our messages." The Director's eyes went wide at hearing this news. Why would anyone want to do that, not that I'm complaining mind you.

"So why are you telling me this. As you are no doubt aware, it has got nothing to me."

"Oh I know, but I am going to allow you transmit a message to whoever controls your outposts there and tell them to withdraw the probes, not only that but you can ask them to start writing some obituaries while they are waiting to be relieved of their posts, I'm sure they will be interested in hearing why." T'Garr nodded to someone off screen, almost immediately someone in the background called for his attention

"Lord, we have picked up a transmission being beamed directly into the human's office, it is on a starship coded frequency.

T'Garr looked at The Director who had also heard this report "it appears some one is trying to call you, I imagine it must be important coming from starship. I am also curious to see who wants to speak directly to you." he nodded off screen.

The Director looked at the screen as the image of the new visitor started to appear. Within a moment the image of Captain Jean-Luc Picard appeared on the screen. The moment he appeared, The Director pushed a button under his desk to summon Jerry Convall in his office, this had been installed soon after the invasion in case of surprises like this.

"Mr Director. I have some news for you." Picard began hurridily.

"Jean-Luc, it is good to see you, I only wish circumstances were better, but before you say anything, I must warn you that the commander of the Romulan fleet is currently watching this transmission."

Picard took a breath before continuing on "Then I request to see the Romulan Commander." he said seemingly to no one, then suddenly The Director's screen image of Picard pulled over to the right as the image of T'Garr took up the one on the left. This split screen effect had obviously happened on Picard's screen as well, now everyone could see each other. The Director really hoped Jean-Luc had some good news to tell.

The moment T'Garr appeared, Picard took the initiative "Romulan commander, I am Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise, may I ask to whom am I addressing?"

"Ah the legendary Picard, I have heard so much about you, even on Romulas your name brings about a certain awe, I am so pleased to make your acquaintance. I am General T'Garr of the RCP Romulan Occupational Force."

"Interesting that the RCP has sent its own fleet of ships, I thought the Romulan Navy was responsible for this attack." Picard said.

"Sometimes to insure there are no slip ups, it is often best to send in the true professionals. And speaking of professionals, I am on the understanding that you and your ship did not arrive at your designated off loading point of Birot VII. In fact reports state that a large number of your vessels have not complied with our direction, I somehow have the feeling you have the answers to all my questions."

The Director watched in fascination as the conversation continued as Jerry Convall discreetly entered the room, seeing the image of Captain Picard and T'Garr on the screen he immediately stayed out of sight.

"Well you could say that things have not been going as well as planned...for you."

T'Garr suspecting something, lost some of his smugness "What do you mean?"

"I mean that our fleet is currently in orbit of the planet Romulas, along with the Klingons who I might say are hanging around like a pack of wild animals waiting for the kill." T'Garr's face showed no signs of believing what Picard was saying. Picard sensing this continued on "I know General that you have been having problems contacting your home world, well here is what they have been trying to tell you." He motioned off screen.

Within a moment the cries of help from Romulas filled The Director's office as well as the bridge of the Romulan ship orbiting the Earth. T'Garr's face went livid as The Director and Convall found it impossible to conceal a smile of satisfaction.

"How dare you defile the home world!" T'Garr floundered.

"I'm afraid it's going to get worse General, the Klingons are waiting to tear this world apart, and I don't think I'll be able to hold them back much longer. So really your choice is to decide which has the higher priority. The conquering of the Federation and the Earth or the salvation of Romulas, The choice is effectively yours, however I suggest you act soon."

The rage on T'Garr's face was clearly evident "I could destroy this world within a moment."

"So could I." Picard shot back "It's up to you to decide which is more important. I'm sure your family and friends could easily make the decision for you."

T'Garr's face lost its facade, although he had no family, he knew many of his crew did, if he was the sole reason for the destruction of the home world, they would lynch him, the time to attack the humans would come again. In all their planning, they had never considered the Federation would team up with the despicable Klingons and attack the home world head on. "I suppose as one human female spy caught on Romulas some years ago once stated under interrogation 'desperate times call for desperate measures'." The Director and Convall suddenly looked at each other, as T'Garr Muttered to himself, he had never thought it was possible, until now.

T'Garr abruptly cut Picard's transmission and centred his gaze on the face of The Director, who was feeling a lot better now than he had for days. "I imagine you want to lecture me on the dangers of taking on 'the human spirit', or the 'human will', or the human something or other, Mr Director."

"Not at all, at this moment I only feel glad that I believe this confrontation is finally coming to an end."

T'Garr paused for a moment "Yes I do believe you could be correct. But fear not Mr. Wyatt," calling The Director by his name for the first time, "'every dog has his day', I believe the saying to be, and our day is still yet to be."

The Director's face turned passive at the second 'human' quote spoken by this Romulan "You mentioned a female human spy earlier, who was she, can you tell me?"

This sudden interest in her was not lost on T'Garr "why, is there something relevant about her?"

"I-I just want to know who she was, I believe she may be the wife of...a friend of mine."

If anything T'Garr seemed to smile "You say 'was' as if she were dead?"

"But you said you interrogated her years ago."

"True, we captured her quite easily, even though she was surgically altered to look like one of us, but I never said we killed her."

"She's alive!" The Director exclaimed.

"Very much so." was the only response.

"Where is she? Can I see her? Are you ever going to let her go?" The Director started to lose control at the sudden knowledge that Osten's wife was in fact alive. "General, can you tell me what has happened to her? Please."

T'Garr almost looked compassionate as he looked at the suddenly desperate man "Do not fear, she is a lot closer than you think."

"Where?"

At this T'Garr let out a smile "I shall save that information for when we next meet again. Thank you for your time, Mr. Director, you have answered some very important questions, and do not fear, we will meet again." and with that the screen went blank.

"What happened?" Picard asked.

"The Romulan's have re-jammed the transmission." Worf replied.

Picard looked around nervously "what does this mean? Are they going to withdraw or attack?" Picard started walking around the bridge not really knowing how to act next.

"Captain, message coming in from Lord Gowron, he wants to know when he can attack."

Picard looked at the view screen and all the Klingon and Federation ships in space all enclosed around the planet. If he gave the order, the Klingons would have the planet reduced to cinders in a matter of minutes, they would leave not one person alive. Could Picard conceivably give the order to do something like that, could he live with it? Of course not. Picard was not a killer, despite the fact that his own Earth could possibly be a burning planet by now, there was no way his conscience would allow him to give the order to destroy another planet, one teaming with women and children and ordinary citizens, yes even the Romulan's had them, still sending distress calls to the stars. But that would not stop the Klingons, despite what he may think, they could easily wipe out the whole planet without a second thought. Picard still had them under his control, albeit somewhat shakily, if he ordered a withdrawal, would they follow, or would they stay to finish the planet off.

He had made a decision "Hail Lord Gowron." he called.

Suddenly someone called out "Sir incoming call from Starfleet headquarters!"

Picard whirled to face the viewer "On screen."

"Within an instant the image of The Director filled the screen. "It's over, Jean-Luc."

There was a collective sigh of relief from the bridge crew "What happened to the fleet?" Picard asked.

"We don't know, they just suddenly vanished. My guess is they have cloaked their ships and are heading back to Romulas, so we must be prepared for any attack of Federation facilities, that's why I've called you Jean-Luc, whatever you do, do not destroy the planet, do what you must to convince the Klingons, but I want you to withdraw, I've already sent a communique to The President and he is in the process of contacting the Romulan government, we are now dealing with a diplomatic incident here of major proportions, if Romulas is destroyed, then the whole Federation will be at war with Romulan sympathisers and allies, Jean-Luc, get your ships out of there. The time to ask questions will be later."

"I understand Sir." he cut the transmission "Get Lord Gowron and signal all ships to return home."

Within a moment the Klingon leader appeared. "It is about time Picard, we are ready to unleash our final assault."

"I'm afraid there will be no attack, Lord. I am here to ask you to withdraw."

"Ask? Withdraw?"

"Yes the Romulan fleet around Earth has left, the crisis has ended, we are preparing to warp back to Federation space. We recommend that you follow suit, the matter is now left in the hands of the diplomats to figure out who is to blame and what is to be done about it."

The Klingon leader looked completely dumbfounded as if his best laid plans for the most spectacular battle his race had seen in years had just gone kaput. "Withdraw?" he repeated.

The moment the communication embargo was over, The Director's lines completely jammed up with people trying to contact him, he delegated the non-essential calls to other departments while he dealt with the priority cases. Even after five and half hours, it still hadn't let up.

"Sorry Norman what was that?" he said to his screen, The Director's mind was quickly turning into mush as he had been trying to deal with this crisis for hours now, taking one call after another, for all accounts the planet and the Federation was in a state of total confusion and would be for days yet.

"I said the Romulan Government has been in contact with me," The President said, having to delegate a mountain of calls of his own "They are claiming ignorance about General T'Garr or his motives, they are saying he is some kind of rogue RCP leader who commandeered their new Machte Warbird fleet to attack us. As far as they are concerned, his attack was neither authorised nor endorsed by them."

"They really don't expect us to believe that do they?"

"I don't know, but when our beloved General does show up, we'll get all the hot information straight out of the government then. We'll have them bending to our demands, rogue General or not, we've got them by the short and curlies now, they'll be begging for forgiveness for years. This may have cost us a lot John, but in the end it may have been worth it."

"Yeah great." The Director mumbled half heartedly.

"Anyway John I've got the Romulan President on the other line, so I'll get back to you, when you get back in contact with Captain Picard, give him a special commendation or something, especially for getting the Klingons to bail out of blowing Romulas into another dimension." he laughed heartedly "The way it's going, it's going to take weeks to sort all this out, I'll speak to you later." his line went blank.

The Director called his secretary to hold all calls as he placed a call to Convall's office and asked him to come in. While waiting he went over to his coffee station, it had seemed like years since he enjoyed his last cup, he had just finished carrying it back to his desk when Convall entered.

"Mr. Director." he said as he entered the room.

"OK Jerry, it's been 6 hours now, what have you got?"

"We have analysed every bit of information we have concerning the fleet and General T'Garr, quite frankly all we can assume is that they are heading back to Romulas, I can't imagine them going anywhere else."

"Yes well I figured that they could still pop up here and there and attack some colony or something. I've already ordered all starships and outposts to be on maximum red alert in case that should happen, especially between here and the Neutral Zone. I've just got off the line to The President, the Romulan government is playing this one down, saying they had nothing to do with the invasion, they're crying to be heard and plead their case, I think they feel we're going to back to Romulas and finish the job."

Convall was not at all surprised with the Romulan's actions. "Well we studied T'Garr's transmissions pretty thoroughly and he mentioned Romulas a few times, but not the actual government, so he could have been contacting anyone, like the RCP for instance, which is not government controlled, so we really can't prove otherwise. If we can get hold of a Machte we'd be in business, its records would verify everything we need to know, but I don't think much of that possibility. So as it stands the Government will get off the leash with this one."

"What about the records from the outpost that was intercepting the transmissions? Anything in that?"

"I'm afraid very little, at no time was the Romulan Government in contact with the fleet and none of their distress calls were aimed specifically at them. T'Garr on the other hand only ever sent signals to the waiting occupational convoy and as you can guess they were all RCP vessels and personnel. I've had a couple of agents ask around a bit, and the story that's circulating around at the moment is that there was some kind of hold up on Romulas that caused some kind of delay before the convoy could launch. The other tale going around is that the RCP wanted to impress its government by capturing the entire Federation, then springing the surprise on the politicians, can you imagine what they're reaction would be."

A whole string of questions went through The Director's mind "Where did this information come from?"

"A lot of sources, this story is the biggest property going around the galaxy, and naturally there are always informants who seem to be in the know, none of this is confirmed, but bits can be pieced together when the right people are asked. Maybe in time some more reliable information will come to hand, but people are never really willing to talk too much."

The Director nodded his head slowly, realising that Convall, with both the SI and FISO at his disposable could end up chasing possible leads for months. Then suddenly one thought entered his mind "What about Osten's wife? What do you think of what T'Garr said."

Convall took a deep breath and betrayed he was uncomfortable with the topic "That I don't know, it seemed pretty clear that T'Garr at least new about Osten's wife, about her still being alive," he paused for a few seconds while thinking about it "I don't know."

"What about that line of "she is closer than you think" what the hell does that mean? And what do we tell Mac?"

Convall just shook his head, he clearly had no idea, but no doubt he would think of something.

The Director looked out his study window to the San Francisco skyline, the sun was starting to come up, his coffee sat cold in the cup as he attempted to complete his report, he took one last look outside and got back to the matter at hand.

"After the first few days of chaos, things finally began to settle down, The President was merciless towards the Romulan Government after the attack on the Earth and destruction of the ill fated 18 cities, he constantly re-emphasised the point that we were technically at war, a war which they had started, whether they admitted it or not. They owed the Federation a lot, since we were quite entitled to come back and blow the Romulan Empire into history, no doubt he will ensure that they never forget that. Compensation is still coming in and is likely to for many years, it has been a very long time since the Federation has received reparation payments, especially from the Romulans. Things for them will never be the same again.

"The Klingons are another matter, they are just itching to go back and give Romulas the treatment, in fact we believe the Romulans are about to ask us for protection against them, as they are not able to withstand an invasion from them, things have indeed changed a lot in two months. One thing is for sure, T'Garr is seen as anything but a hero in the home world, whether his attack was authorised or not now doesn't seem to matter, as there has been no sign whatsoever of the General or his fleet, it's as if they have just simply vanished, although we suspect that if the government did have a hand in it, they would tell the General to stay away from Romulas, his return would signify the government's hand in the invasion, so in essence, they are barred from their home world. It's a pretty high price for an invasion force that could quite easily have been successful in conquering the Earth and the Federation.

"I have various discussions with my staff, no one anywhere has seen any evidence of T'Garr's force, even if they had scuttled their ships somewhere in space, there would still be debris of some kind, some evidence as to where they are. T'Garr said with their new cloaking device it inhibited their speed, if that is true they are probably still in Federation territory, but then there is probably a lot more we don't know about their new ships.

"As for Oprina Osten, we don't know, Jerry and I are still the only one's to know about her and we really don't know what to do about it, we don't even a picture of her. As far as we can guess, T'Garr was telling the truth about her, if that is the case, god knows where she is now but we'll keep our eyes open.

"Macillroy Osten is not doing to well, the pressure of the past two months and his hand in it, unwittingly as it may have been, has been too much, I think he has lost the will to live. No one expects him to see out the month, I still see him however, but I have not told him about Oprina, I think that would kill him for sure. Although it is difficult when he talks about her.

"I suppose the only real good news is that Captain Picard received a special commendation for his actions during the crisis, and was presented his award by The President of the United Federation of Planets himself.

"This concludes the report of events before, during and after 'The Day'. Information collected in this report has been tabled from official reports and told in a chronological sequence. I only hope that nothing like this ever happens again, but General T'Garr did say that he would return, someday."

John Wyatt

Director of Starfleet Command

Stardate XXXXXXX

The Director slowly turned off his computer and got to his feet, having a big stretch, he wandered over to Rascal and gave him a scratch, and went to the window to have a brief look at the sun over San Francisco.

"Well General, wherever you are, you may decide to turn up again some day, but not today, I could do with the sleep and besides it's too nice a day for an invasion." And with that he turned around and headed for the bedroom just as Rascal was stirring.

Once in bed, sleep came easy for him, before long he was dreaming about a meadow, and a bright blue sky...

Three hours later, a lone woman walked quietly into Federation House, the home base of the United Federation of Planets, and attended an interview for a secretarial position that was currently available in the Military Department for the Development of Advanced Weapon Technology, she was no different from the other people who had attended interviews for the position, except once upon a time she went by her real name of Oprina Osten. Today though, she not only had a new name and a new identity, but she was also considered, in the right circles, to be the best agent in the RCP.