After almost a half hour of sneaking in the shadows, they came into the ruins of the old capital city. The old city had been cordoned off with a six meter high stone wall with spiked wire across the top. Apparently, as time had passed, the wall had come under disrepair as had the wire at the top. There were several places in the gray rock where the wall had collapsed entirely as well as numerous smaller holes. The old city was, however, completely devoid of power and, therefore, eerily dark. Rubble and debris littered the ground.

"We'll have to use a light once we get to the other side," T'osa said.

"You don't have any night vision goggles or something?" Kirk's robotic voice asked.

T'osa looked cynical. "People start asking questions when you borrow things like that, Stephen."

Stephen shook his head. "That's a good way for us to get discovered. You can just follow me until we're safely inside the city." With that, he raised a stiff-rounded cover atop his right forearm. It revealed a dimly illuminated keyboard. He began tapping buttons with his left hand, then closed the panel. "I have night vision with this suit."

"How can you see anything?" She asked quizzically. There were no eyeholes of any kind.

"Photo receptors on the inside of the mask." He replied flatly. "Let's go." He took her hand and led her through an opening in the delapidated wall.

She decided to be a little playful. This was getting too serious for her. "That mask doesn't have x-ray vision, does it?" She asked with a smile.

Despite the fact she couldn't see his face at all, she knew he was smiling. "No comment," he replied.

The pale green moon of Romulus cast a sickly green glow to everything in the bombed out remains. The walking was slow. "What happened here?" Stephen asked.

Still holding his gloved hand, she carefully made her way through the rubble. "Oh, it was what... a little more than a hundred years ago, I guess. We had a little disagreement with a species called the G'rikh. Pictures of them reminded me of large, thin rodents without hair. They launched a surprise attack to get our attention. This is what happened."

"I've never heard of the G'rikh," Kirk remarked.

"You won't, either," countered T'osa. "We annihilated them. There are, maybe, a couple dozen left. Almost all of them are dead along with their planet." She sounded so cold as she described the genocide of an entire race.

"Wow," Stephen could only say. He was somewhat shocked at how callously she could describe that event. Romulan upbringing was certainly different from his own.

"Crossing the Empire is usually a bad idea," she remarked. Squinting in the darkness, she pointed forward and to the right. "See that large, rounded building over there?"

The visual receptors in his suit focused and zoomed in on the building. At one time, it must have been beautiful. It had a large, domed roof, now mostly collapsed. The front doors, broken and pushed aside, were of stone construction with metal hinges and engraved inlay. The southern part of the structure had completely collapsed in on itself. The arch-topped windows were blown out, causing a slight howling sound as the warm, gentle wind blew through the remains. Once they stepped into the old government building, T'osa turned on her light. There was a rancid smell of mold, dust, and animal feces throughout the building. With a few button clicks, the mask began filtering the air.

T'osa covered her mouth. "I have GOT to get one of those things." Through the remains of the main door, they could see the devastated entry room, a crumbled mass of dust and rubble with a few broken chairs strewn about. They pushed past the debris as T'osa shined the light on the signs near the doors exiting the entry room. She pointed to an open door to the right. "That's it... the transporter room." Cautiously, the two made their way to the room.

Inside, the transporter controls were covered in dust. The transporter pad was coated in dust and broken rock. Broken furniture and a partially collapsed wall on the west side adorned the floor. T'osa sat down behind the controls and withdrew a box, slightly smaller than a shoebox, from her knapsack. "Clear off the transporter pad while I hook up this power supply." She ordered. Still caught up in the moment, Kirk did as instructed and moved the stone and broken furniture away from the pad. Within a few minutes, the transporter controls hummed to life. "Excellent," she proclaimed.

"I guess we don't need to find the other transporter room," Kirk replied with his digitized voice, audibly relieved.

She started programming the transporter. "Good thing. I was kind of guessing about the second transporter room."

"Excuse me?" Stephen cocked his head.

"Well, I knew there would be a public transporter pad in the central government building. I assumed there would be one behind the old Senate council room. I wasn't looking forward to having to find it." She continued programming.

"Wait... don't you have blueprints to this building?" He was getting a little concerned now.

She shook her head. "The records went up with the city. I remembered where the capital building was from some pictures we looked at in school." Stephen was suddenly much less confident about this plan. T'osa stood up. "Okay, it's programmed in. It'll send us over to the secondary transporter room of the warbird..." she took his arm and walked him onto the transporter. "in just a few moments. In an hour, it'll beam back whatever is on that transporter pad. It better be us." As they stood on the transporter pad, it began to glow.

"An hour?" Kirk looked at her. "What's out backup plan if this doesn't work?"

Greenish gold swirls of energy began encircling them. "What backup plan?" She replied. Their images vanished from the transporter pad.