Prologue

Isha ir'Chula't'Neral sat behind her desk as the two Havrannssu guards brought the prisoner in before stepping back across the marble floor. The dark-haired man met his gaze, levelly. She was impressed. He was every inch the Romulan soldier, despite the dirt on his face and his filthy brown prison knits.

"Admiral Valdore," she said. "It's good to see you again."

"Isha," he said warily, addressing the former Tal Shiar political officer attached to his fleet. "I see you now run the Tal Shiar. Was this a reward for your role in my downfall?"

Isha leaned back in her chair, a slow smile on her face. "Senator Vrax initiated that. After seeing how colossally your operation failed, however, I simply saw no reason to intervene."

Valdore glared at her. "Then why am I here?"

"Because despite your failure, you're still the best combat commander the romulan fleet has produced in a long time," Isha said. "And this next step in my operation to make good on everything my predecessor and you bungled requires the best combat commander we can get."

Valdore cocked his head. "What operation?"

Isha pressed a button on her desk, and the bookshelf behind her opened up to reveal a large, flat viewscreen, as the bright lights in the room darkened.

It was thirty minutes later when Isha finished explaining the basics of her plan. The screen showing the Romulan Empire's projected territorial gains disappearing as the lights returned to their full level. "Thoughts, Admiral?"

"It's one of your plans, Isha. Too big, too many moving parts, but excellent results if you can pull it off. If you can pull it off."

"Which is why you're here. You will get your rank back and your seniority, in exchange you will take command of the regular combat component of this mission. You'll have complete freedom to assemble your fleet in whatever way you see fit."

"And after?"

"And after, your career will continue on as though the unpleasantness with the aenar never happened."

For a long moment the two of them stared at each other. "I will agree to your terms. On two conditions. One, you keep your political officers at arms lengths. I will not have every decision second-guessed so you can use me as a scapegoat and send me back to prison or shoot me if this operation fails."

Isha had anticipated this demand. "I wouldn't dream of it. And the second one?"

"Reinstate Technologist Nijil."

That she had not anticipated. "And why should you want that? He got too close to the test subject. He played his own role in your failure?"
"He's also the best scientist in the Empire," Valdore pointed out. "This mission could very well fail, even with all our best efforts. I need every advantage I can get. Otherwise I could very well not be the only one sent back to one of your little prisons."

Isha sighed. Nijil was right. He was the best scientist in the Empire. At least of his generation. And he's right about where we will all probably end up if this fails. "Very well." She handed Valdore a minicomp. "Here is formal notice from the Praetor of your pardon and reactivation. Nijil will be delivered to your groundside headquarters by the end of the day. Jolan'tru, Admiral."

Zuko stared out the window at his world below him, transfixed at the sight of the marble of blue, green, and white. Never before had he imagined he would be so high up as to see the nation of his birth and the ice that had borne two of his closest friends at the same time. He could see a storm over his capital. White bursts of light in dark gray clouds, pregnant with rain.

He looked around him at his friends, who were also sitting around the large metal table in the captain's private dining room. Aang and Katara were sitting on either side. Ty Lee and Mychi, in full dress uniform and face paint, had joined them. He wished Sokka, Mai, and his uncle were here. He understood why they had been excluded. Ty and Mychi were the first people from his world Archer and his people had ever met. Aang was the Avatar, and he was the Firelord. Katara, despite her youth, was one of the most senior members of his delegation, had been the second most powerful person in his government, as well as the daughter of one of the Southern Water Tribe's primary field commanders. As far as they could tell, neither Archer nor Hernandez had never actually met Sokka. From their perspective, all the important ones so far were in this compartment. Sokka was just along for the ride and Mai was just his former girlfriend. Neither of them had any real role in government. They, therefore, had no real business in a meeting like this.

I understand, he thought sullenly. I may even have made the same decision in his place. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. They helped save our world. They deserve more. Much more. Especially Mai. I only wish I could have given it to her.

They'll be fine, Zuko thought, staring out the window. You know that.

"It's beautiful," he said finally.

"Yes, it is," Aang remarked from next to him, just as transfixed by the view outside as he was. "I can see why they worked so hard to build ships like this."

"It's probably a bit more complicated than that, Aang," Katara said, with a mixture of exasperation and affection.

"I know," Aang said pointedly, sounding every bit as young as he actually was. "But it is beautiful."

The door slid open, and Archer and Hernandez entered the room. Ty and Mychi, good officers that they were, instinctively stood to attention. It took all of Zuko the monarch's willpower to remain seated. The junior officer he had once been insisted that he stand to attention as well. But he was the monarch, the supreme commander of all Fire Nation. It was his duty to remain seated, not to stand to attention for some "mere captain." Whatever the kind of ship he commanded.

Funny, he thought, his nostrils flaring. For three years, I wanted nothing more than to "redeem" myself in the eyes of that waste of breath that is my father. To have my title and my right to the throne restored. And now that I have that throne, I just want to travel the world with my friends again.

But there are so many other worlds out there now.

"As you were," Archer said automatically, causing the two women to slide back into their seats around the table. "I hope you're hungry. We've prepared quite a selection of dishes for you."

"I am," Ty said pointedly. "I'm tired of thin soup."

Enterprise's healers had finally pronounced her ready to return to a normal diet a couple days ago, to Ty's immense relief. For his part, he was relieved that she and her executive officer hadn't been killed along with almost a quarter million people that first terrible night. Those two have been through enough for five lifetimes. The fact that they are still willing to wear Our uniform and risk their lives in Our service is enough to make one weep.

As if on cue, the door slid open again, and a young woman roughly Zuko's age, in what he recognized as the blue jacket, trousers, and undershirt worn by Starfleet enlisted personnel.

"Avatar Aang," Archer said. "Our chef got his hand on a cookbook from the nation of Greece in eastern Eurasia back on my world. I understand your beliefs don't permit you to eat meat, so our chef prepared rice-stuffed grape leaves and broiled mushrooms with vinaigrette. We have also prepared herb-stuffed veal shoulder, and stuffed bell peppers."

"I don't know what most of those are, but it smells delicious, sir," Ty said, gray eyes wide as she took in the food on the cart.

Zuko found himself nodding along until his stomach burst out with an inappropriate growl. The young monarch studiously ignored the noises that suspiciously sounded like laughs from Aang and Katara.

"Are you still shipping people out," Katara asked, as the food was being doled out by the steward.

Hernandez nodded, a pained look briefly flashing across her face. "We should have the last of the people who need long-term, or specialist care shipped out to hospitals on Earth within the week. We're putting up field hospitals wherever we can find room, but we'll find the space and the people to treat them."

"Good." Aang said. "There's only so much we can do for them, even with waterbending healing. Thank you. On behalf of my world and myself."

Archer cocked his head. "I'm going to want to hear more about that. For now, there are a few questions that I, and my superiors, want answered. Particularly if we're going to be working together on any kind of permanent basis."

"Such as?" Zuko said, a sliver of meat suspended between two chopsticks in front of his mouth.

"Like how people as young as you have the clout you do? I understand you played some role in the ending of the late war on your world, but I'm not exactly clear what."

Zuko slid the sliver of meat into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. He had had a feeling this was coming. All in all, he couldn't blame him. Aang had upended everything when he had done what he did in the council chamber, and he still wasn't entirely clear why. Though he was fairly certain that object they had found in the Southern Air Temple had something to do with it. Maybe it granted him a vision. A vision that told him he had to do what he did. But he's the Avatar, and he's my friend. I'll trust his judgment.

He was snapped out of his reverie. Katara, being Katara, was forging ahead. "Long ago," her bright voice began, ringing over the table. "The Four Nations lived together in harmony. But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked…"

Archer sat back in his chair; his attention focused on his guests as they spun their tale. Of how the Avatar was the only being in their world who could use all four of the kinetic powers he had seen in the course of his mission in this system. Of the Long War that had ravaged their world, and how Zuko, Ty Lee, and one of their other friends had been on the wrong side of it when they'd met. How Zuko had been an angry boy, determined to recover the love and respect of the father who had gaslighted him into thinking that he had betrayed him, when in fact the opposite was true. He had heard that part of the story before, but hearing it in context with everything else…

Someone has a lot to answer for, Archer thought angrily. A couple of someone's.

He looked at Ty Lee, who was bringing a clump of rice to her mouth with her chopsticks. What happened to her in those nightmarish few weeks? Zuko's sister either gave the orders to inflict that atrocity or failed to prevent it or punish those responsible. Either one of them has been a war crime since 1945. I'm a Starfleet officer, and these people are as human as I am. It's my job to see to it that those responsible are punished.

I'm still not sure I believe in the reincarnation thing, though. Though given what I've seen out here, I can't really discount it, now can I?

"So, we have a thorny problem, don't we," Hernandez remarked, bringing him back to the dining room, her fork in her right bobbing up and down as she spoke. "These 'Lightning Swords. Bad enough they presided over a massacre of prisoners of war. And now they're being used by these aliens. Provided with our weapons."

"The rape andmassacre of prisoners of war, sir," Major Lee remarked, with an undercurrent of raw hatred in her otherwise professional voice. "Sir, if you think they can be convinced to see reason, to make them realize that they're being used, don't bother. Medora's a bloodthirsty bitch but never underestimate her intelligence." Her fist tightened around the wooden chopsticks, similar to the ones used on her own world, he had provided them. "She must know that whoever's behind all this has an agenda of their own, but she doesn't care. As far as she is concerned, she has the tools she needs to bring down Zuko and replace him with his sister. Everything else is a problem for later. In her own head, she probably justifies this on the need to unite our world to stand the best chance of defeating the inevitable invasion." Ty Lee grimaced, the notion of agreeing with anything the person who murdered her people clearly turning her stomach. "Unfortunately," she said after a moment, "she…isn't wrong. But she still believes that we from the Fire Nation are a superior race. Anything else is just compromising with the backwards peoples who 'forced' us to launch the war to save them from themselves. And any shallow, simplistic notions of our supposed superiority I may have possessed," she growled, her fist continuing to tighten, "died that day on the Rock." The chopsticks in her hand abruptly snapped in a half.

Ty's gray eyes widened in embarrassment. "I'm sorry," she mumbled, face reddening. Archer wanted to reach out sympathetically, but remembering being seventeen himself, it would probably embarrass her more. And she is only seventeen. Not even sixteen, if one goes by the longer solar year of the world below them.

Regardless, she is of military age. From what I've seen of her, she's conscientious, loyal, skilled in the style of warfare she's trained in. Her officers and soldiers are devoted to her. So, what I said in my log still stands. I cannot spare this woman, however much the human being in me wants to. She fights.

"You have nothing to apologize for, Major," Zuko said, softly. "What happened to those Kyoshi Warriors, to you, was an atrocity. The remaining people who let it happen, who carried it out, will be held responsible, one way or another."

"Damn straight," Archer said vehemently. "But I'm sorry to say, that's getting ahead of ourselves. We have to find them first. Preferably before they power up our equipment and start killing people again."

"I have my own intelligence people looking into that," Zuko said, "but either my people are unbelievably inept, the enemy is just that good, or the very people responsible for running down the Lightning Swords are actually reporting to them. But if the latter was true, the three of us would be dead and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Archer nodded, seeing Zuko's point. "It seems to me," he said after a moment. "We need one or two people you unreservedly trust. Preferably two so they can watch each other's back. At least one of whom is actually from the Fire Nation. They can act as our eyes and ears. That way we and Starfleet Intelligence can go after the right people without having to tear your country apart to look for them."
Zuko nodded in agreement. "I think I know just the people. We've just been talking about them, as a matter of fact."