The change in direction was so abrupt that, for a moment, Paul Mayweather was convinced that he was reading the sensor display wrong. He blinked in confusion, his fingers poised over the flight console, and stared in absolute shock for an incredibly long heartbeat, unable to believe what he was seeing.

Endeavour was abandoning the fleet.

An explosion of sparks rained down upon him, causing him to jump in startlement and snapping his focus back to the situation at hand. Anger washed over him then, burning away the surprise and filling him with a rage that caused him to tremble. The fury that he had reserved for Archer suddenly found a new focus as Endeavour accelerated away from the convoy. Tucker had sworn that Endeavour would be the last human ship to leave Thor's Cradle, had assured Paul that the Starfleet vessel would be destroyed before it fled, but now...

Now, they were running.

Almost at once, the three Romulan ships took advantage of the Starfleet ship's abrupt retreat. As Endeavour moved away from the Boomer convoy, the three birds of prey swarmed toward the Boomer ships, unleashing a withering barrage of disruptor fire and torpedoes that had an immediate effect. Four ships were destroyed within seconds, a fifth and sixth mere heartbeats later.

"Endeavour is retreating!" Mick Berry shouted from the weapons console, his tone incredulous, and Paul shot him a dark look.

"Stay on target!" Mayweather snapped as he adjusted their course, triggering another burst of the maneuvering jets that sent the Horizon sliding into a flanking position behind the nearest bird of prey. It was a futile attempt and he knew it; the Romulan ships were faster and much more maneuverable than the old J-Class. Even with the modified pulsed plasma cannons that had been installed on Horizon, they would do little more than scratch the paint on the bird of prey's hull in the unlikely event they could puncture the warship's shields.

A bleak yet sadly familiar tone sounded throughout the command deck and Paul reacted without thought. Under his guidance, the Horizon suddenly slewed hard to starboard, the port jets firing in concert; it was such a sudden change in velocity and momentum that the artificial gravity flickered in compensation. A torpedo raced through the area that they had just occupied, missing the port nacelle by mere meters, and a bird of prey flashed by them seconds later, cannons spewing fire. Horizon rocked as disruptor fire stabbed into it, burning through its already weakened hull plating; sparks exploded around them and Paul winced, fervently praying that the old ship would hold together.

She did.

"Hull plating down to twelve percent!" Tony Weiss shouted from the engineering console as Berry sent another stab of weapons fire at the Romulan. The plasma bolts splattered across the energy shielding that surrounded the warship, briefly illuminating the protective field but inflicting no real damage. In an almost leisurely manner, the Romulan ship reoriented itself on the Horizon and fired a single torpedo before diving away.

For an impossibly long moment, time seemed to slow to a crawl as Paul stared at the incoming torpedo. Instinctive reflex sent Horizon into a twisting, spiraling dive but Mayweather knew it was already too late, knew that only a miracle could save them.

Salvation wore a Starfleet uniform.

Engines screaming, the Orion gunboat abruptly shot into view, weapons blazing. It was an insane maneuver, one that put the small ship between the incoming warhead and Horizon. A steady stream of disruptor bolts flashed from the gunboat, most missing but a few slicing into the torpedo housing and destroying the warhead in a fiery explosion mere seconds before impact. Wreathed in flame from the dying warhead, the gunboat rocked, and Paul released a breath that he had been holding, silently promising to buy the pilot and gunner of the captured ship as much beer as they wanted. The realization that the gunboat manned by Starfleet personnel was still in the fight gave him pause, and Mayweather quickly glanced at the sensor feed.

Endeavour was attacking.

He blinked once more in surprise as the Starfleet ship engaged another Romulan bird of prey, one that Paul hadn't even been aware of. At almost the same moment that he realized this, the three birds of prey attacking the convoy broke off their assaults, banking hard and accelerating toward the distant Starfleet ship. Engines burning bright, the three warships weaved through the fractured convoy, not even conducting opportunity fire as they raced through the void. Warp coolant leaking from its single nacelle, the gunboat darted forward, sliding easily into a pursuit course behind the Romulans. Mayweather felt the eyes of his command crew on him as he stared at his data feed and, for a long moment, shared their confusion as their guns went silent. Why would the Romulans pull back now?

"This is Endeavour to all ships," a feminine voice crackled across the comm channels, "maintain course and heading. Stand by to receive revised warp threshold parameters."

Everything fell into place then, and Paul felt a hot rush of embarrassment race through him. Travis' letters had been remarkably thorough, painting such an accurate portrait of the command staff of Enterprise that Paul almost felt as though he knew them personally. He had used that inside information to good effect against Archer; in a moment of absolute clarity, he realized that, in his anger, he had focused exclusively on the commodore, pushing aside or simply repressing memories of his brother's impressions of the rest of the crew.

On more than one occasion, Travis had detailed the intrinsic heroism of his crewmates. Until this very moment, Paul had thought that his brother's sense of loyalty toward his superior officers had seemed more like hero worship than reality, and he suspected this idolization had colored his words when describing the rest of the crew as well. Now, judging from Endeavour's action and the perspective of his new insight, Mayweather would guess that the Starfleet vessel had discovered something about the seventh ship that would draw away the other Romulans, clearing the path for the Boomer fleet to escape without any further casualties. If those letters had been any indication, Tucker wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice his ship to save Boomer lives.

And neither would Paul.

"I need more speed," he ordered tersely as he reoriented Horizon on the fleeing Romulans. He imagined that he could almost feel Travis' smile as he did so.

"The reactor is already running at a hundred and five percent!" Weiss reminded him, fear thick in his voice. "Any higher and we risk a core breach!"

"Go to a hundred and ten percent," Mayweather said. He triggered the comm. "This is the Horizon to all combat capable ships. Form on me." He almost smiled. "Looks like Starfleet needs our help," he said with forced levity.

The rumble of Horizon's engines became a high-pitched whine as Paul accelerated toward the ongoing light-fight, pushing the J-Class harder than it was ever meant be pushed. From his sensor feed, he could tell that the seventh bird of prey was slightly larger than the others and, despite taking a heavy pounding from Endeavour's guns, was still in the fight. Orienting themselves on the Starfleet vessel's aft, the three smaller Romulan ships began attack runs, no doubt hoping that the NX-class did not mount aft-facing weapons.

It did.

Twin pulses of phase-cannon fire flashed through the night, splashing across one of the Romulan's shields in a brilliant display of pyrotechnics. Hot on the bird of prey's tail, the Orion gunboat spat a single torpedo at the same craft seconds later and sent a steady stream of disruptor bolts into its shields.

"Concentrate fire on that target," Paul commanded, hearing the almost instantaneous chirp of multiple acknowledgments sound across the comm channel. Pulsed lasers, disruptor beams, and plasma bolts leapt out from the seven remaining combat-capable ships, slicing into the Romulan's shields with searing heat. Under fire, the warship banked hard, twisting into a spinning dive that carried it away from Endeavour; a stream of disruptor fire lanced out from its guns, carving a lethal line across the hull of one of the Boomer ships. A second burst of fire punched through the forward viewport and onto the command deck itself. Bodies, seared beyond any hope of recognition, spilled from the shattered craft as it began a slow tumble toward the distant nebula.

"Oh God," someone whispered across the comm channel as the bird of prey straightened from its roll, cannons still spewing fire. A second of the combat ships exploded, and a third, and a fourth. The gunboat clung tightly to the Romulan's aft, no longer firing torpedoes but maintaining a steady stream of disruptor fire that lit up the warship's shields; in the distance, Endeavour continued to exchange fire with the three Romulan ships it had engaged, no longer attempting - or perhaps no longer capable of - evasive maneuvers.

Alarms began to shriek as the bird of prey locked on to Horizon with its targeting computers and, out of the corner of his eye, Mayweather saw Weiss silently cross himself. Don't let my people down, Tucker, Paul thought grimly as he sent the J-Class into a screaming dive, knowing that it was already too late.

The universe disintegrated around him.