Yesterday's Enterprise.

Earth had become a fortified world in the Federation-Klingon War; in the early days of the war, the Klingons had launched a vicious all-out assault on the planet, forcing Starfleet to sacrifice a large chunk of the armada to drive the Klingon warships away. If they hadn't taken that step, the Klingons could have occupied the planet, making it virtually impossible for the Federation to mount any offensive which could have lasted for 20 years.

But the damage to Earth had been immense. The Klingons, furious with the devastation of Narendra 3, had lashed out at the Federation and the Romulans. Still, the Romulan Empire had been prepared for retribution and defeated the Klingon forces, but the unprepared Federation had been taken completely by surprise.

Many cities on Earth had been devastated, and Klingon warriors had actually been beamed down they had fought the complacent and unprepared civilians who hadn't stood a chance, but fortunately, the Starfleet ships in orbit had made the ultimate sacrifices and willingly fought to the death when they realised they didn't have a choice, and the Klingons left a badly wounded and shaken Federation capital world in their wake.

When the war was declared against the Klingon Empire, all the diplomatic overtures for peace between the Federation and the Klingons had been forgotten; the Federation had spent years fighting them and all the old hatred had returned with the righteous desire to make the Klingon Empire pay for what they had done; in the meantime, Starfleet began fortifying their planets and positions.

Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, Alpha Centauri, and all the homeworlds and colony worlds of the Federation were fortified. Small space stations armed with phasers and photon torpedoes and plasma weapons were planted everywhere, and cloaked weapons were placed in and around the Sol system, lying in wait to trip up any cloaked Klingon or Romulan warship; if they came close, they would activate and explode with the force needed to rip a hole in the side of a moon.

Nowadays, feelings towards the way the Federation were in the days before the war was seen with contempt since the planet had been undefended for so long; they had been living like this for years, forced to watch armed soldiers and troops in cities, having to buy food from hydroponic gardens since so many places had been burnt beyond repair, and having to live through Klingon attacks. In the years before the war, the prospect of interstellar war had always come and gone, and thanks to the efforts of Starfleet officers and members of the Diplomatic corps, Earth had been undefended and vulnerable. Now, there were many in Starfleet who wished they had been prepared for a war with the Klingons, and they had gone to war years ago without the interference of the Organians.

In the heart of Starfleet HQ's war room was one of the most powerful men in the galaxy.

United Federation of Planet's President, Russell T. Davies opened his eyes after closing them once he had seen the latest casualty reports from the frontlines as he sat at his desk in the War Room in Starfleet Headquarters. The Klingons had been striking at the outer rim of Federation territory for months, and while the stalemate between them continued, aided in part thanks to Admiral Pressman's part in a relatively speaking illegal experiment with cloaking technology, which had allowed the Federation to continue surviving for a lot longer than it would have done without it, and thanks to the new ship designs which made starship design easier and simpler than it had been in the past, the Federation had survived longer than it would have done. But he knew the stalemate couldn't go on forever; something would have to break, and while both sides were constantly advancing their cloaking technology once the Klingons realised that the Federation were willing to break the Treaty of Algeron, although the true story was they were desperate to survive.

Davies sighed as he looked at the reports of the gains, and the attacks on the Klingons. Recently Khitomer, H'atoria, and several other worlds had been attacked by the Federation. Battleships and battlecruisers and frigates and fighters equipped with interphasic cloaking devices had devastated several colonies, shipyards, and some of the bigger key-energy production facilities. The Klingons had found several of them, although they hadn't had many alternatives since the destruction of Praxis, and as such, they had become one of the biggest targets of Starfleet.

History recorded Starfleet Admiral Cartright, a noted and revered and respected officer, who had lost a large number of people to the Klingons when he had been a Starfleet captain, saying that instead of offering the Klingons an olive branch in the form of the treaty thought up by Ambassadors Spock and Sarek, they should use Praxis's destruction as a means of bringing the Klingons to their knees to be a far better decision to dictate terms.

But Davies knew that there would have likely been a war between the Federation and the Empire, had James Kirk not revealed the truth of the conspiracy which had seen the assassination of Gorkon, but he felt Cartright and the conspirators had made some good arguments and that peace, true peace, with the Empire was impossible. So many people had lost their lives to the Klingons, and there was now a stalemate between them and the Empire.

But for every victory they gained, there was also a defeat. The Klingons had conquered so many colonies, but Starfleet regularly went out of their way to drive them away whenever they had the chance, and the Klingons regularly launched raids whenever they could against the worlds in Federation space, but the Klingons had fortunately found problems with the minefields which hung in space like vast, 3D spider webs.

Davies sighed as he read the reports, seeing them blur and merge.

"Mr President."

Davies stiffened at the sound of the voice, and he lifted his face to meet the eyes of a thin-faced, sharp-eyed man. "You're late," he said, glancing around the room. Luckily everyone in the War Room was performing their own tasks to bother noticing what was happening in his part of the room. "Did you have problems coming here?"

"No," Sloan - or at least, that was the name Davies had given him, in his line of work it would not make any sense for him to give out his real name - replied simply, stepping forward. He was dressed in a Starfleet Admiral uniform, likely to allow him to pass through and avoid others demanding answers and explanations of several things.

"Why are you here?" Davies remembered when he'd met Sloan years ago when he was elected. The other man was an operative of a secretive and shady organisation known as Section 31, and they had found a loophole in the original Starfleet charter to exist, but Davies had always found it hard to work with them long because they were an autonomous unit that didn't report to anyone, and played judge, jury, and executioner. In wartime, their existence had proven to be needed, and they had been responsible for saving many lives, and being behind many of Starfleet's ultimate victories with their secretive thefts of alien technology to help them defend Earth and other worlds, but Davies had to wonder what other plans and ideas they had in their minds.

"Operation Burn is underway," Sloan said.

No other explanation was needed. Davies stiffened, and he gazed at Sloan. "We have the ship?" He asked softly.

"We do, and we have the codes. We can launch whenever you want," Sloan said.

Davies glanced at him, studying him closely, but knew short of a Vulcan mind meld or a Betazoid scan with a strong constitution to back it up, he couldn't be sure if Sloan was even telling the truth. For all he knew, Section 31 had already taken the ship into Klingon space, and was laying down the groundwork for Operation Burn.

No chance was he going to allow it.

He had promised the people of the Federation to end the war, by any means necessary and thanks to his time as a Starfleet officer, where he had overseen many, many operations