Myk leaned forward. "Besides, with Tantalus coming up for review again, we need judiciary- "

Nan held up a hand. She had a shuttle trip to Luna this evening, so she could look over the recommendations then. "Fine, fine, I'll decide by the time I get back from the moon tonight-make sure Sivak gets 'em before the shuttle takes off. Anything else?"

Xeldara tugged on her ear again. "I think we need to talk about the travel office again."

Nan rolled her eyes.

Esperanza quickly said, "I think we've covered that."

"I don't think we have, Esperanza." Xeldara leaned forward. "Jorel told the entire press room that the president was meeting with Archpriest Tamok. Amba.s.sador T'Kala a.s.sured us up, down, backwards, and sideways that she'd arranged with the council travel office and with what was left of her government to get Tamok here. And what happened? He never left Romulus-he didn't even plan to come to Federation s.p.a.ce to meet. It made us look like idiots when we hadn't been in office for five minutes. There need to be some kind of consequences."

Nan let out a long breath. "We've suffered the consequences. The press laughed at us, T'Kala looked like a devious schemer out to make the Federation look bad-which puts her in company with every other Romulan politician I'm aware of-and we apologized."

"The people in the travel office- " Xeldara started, but Nan refused to let her repeat herself. Xeldara had been bringing this up in every meeting since it happened, and it was wearing on Nan's last remaining nerve ending.

"I'm not about to fire people for honest mistakes. This wasn't the fault of anyone in the travel office, and I'm not about to make scapegoats out of them. We screwed up, we said we screwed up, and even if we didn't, lots of other people were standing in line to tell us we did. We try to make some kind of rest.i.tution now, it'll look petty. Given a choice between looking stupid for trying to do something right and looking nasty for doing something wrong, I'll go with option number one. What else?"

"Ma'am, I think- "

The nerve ending finally snapped. Nan glowered at the Tiburonian. "I know what you think, Xeldara, I've been listening to what you think for the last month. Say it again, and you can explain it to the press when you announce your resignation as deputy COS."

Esperanza stood up. "I think we're done."

"d.a.m.n right," Nan muttered.

Fred, Ashante, Z4, and Myk rose from their chairs. After a moment, Xeldara did, too. Each of them said, "Thank you, Madam President."

"Xeldara," Esperanza said, "wait in my office, all right? We need to go over some things."

She nodded. "Sure."

When they were all gone, Nan fixed Esperanza with a cheeky grin. "Can I a.s.sume the 'things' you're going to go over are when to shut the h.e.l.l up in a meeting with the president?"

"Don't worry about it."

Nan laughed. "I'll take that as a yes." She got up from her chair and looked out at the vista of Paris. "Look at that."

Esperanza moved to stand next to her. "Look at what?"

"That." Nan pointed at the Champs Elysees. "You know, until the seventeenth century, it was just fields. Then Marie de Medici made a tree-lined path. It was named after the Elysian Fields in Greek mythology, which was where good people went after they died. By the eighteenth century, that path was a fashionable avenue-Marie Antoinette used to stroll it with her friends all the time."

Esperanza smiled. "Was that before or after she ate all the cake and got her head cut off?"

"Not sure, but I'm guessing before."

"Right, because she wasn't doing much walking after the decapitation."

"The point is- "

"There's a point?" Esperanza grinned. "Trying something new, are we, ma'am?"

"Hush, you. The point is that the Champs Elysees has remained Paris's main thoroughfare for seven hundred years. The Louvre, the Hotel de Ville, the Arc de Triomphe, the Batiment Vingt-Troisieme Siecle, the Place de Cochrane, they're all here. The Tour de France has been run here for centuries, every parade in Paris comes down here, and it's on this very spot that the Traite d'Unification was signed by all the governments on this planet two hundred and fifty years ago."

Esperanza was still grinning. "Ma'am, I could've sworn you mentioned a point."

"Try a little patience, Esperanza, they keep telling me it's a virtue."

"We're politicians, ma'am-both patience and virtue tend to get in the way of the work."

Nan chuckled. "The point is-it's all because some rich woman who lived in a monarchy decided she wanted a place to walk. From that came this."

"It's my hope, ma'am, that we'll do a little better than the Medicis. Or Marie Antoinette."

"We can learn a lot from Marie Antoinette. For one thing, I'm coming around to the idea of bringing beheadings back. Did you know that during the French Revolution almost three thousand people were executed via guillotine on the very spot this building was constructed on? You think if we put Artrin on judiciary, he'll support that?"

"Probably not, ma'am."

"Too bad-still, it'd make the meetings go faster."

"No doubt, ma'am. Is there anything else?"

Nan stared at her chief of staff. Though she saw a woman in her early fifties with olive skin and raven hair tied back in a severe ponytail, Nan couldn't help but see her as an infant, born to Nan's two best friends back on Cestus III, Victor and Nereida Piniero. Their daughter, named with the Spanish word meaning "hope," had gone to Starfleet Academy, had had a distinguished career until the end of the Dominion War, then had resigned her commission and returned home. While there, she'd convinced Nan-who had been planetary governor for seven years and had had no ambition to be anything more than that-to run for president. That opportunity had come sooner than expected with Zife's resignation, and Nan knew that she wouldn't have stood a chance of even being seriously considered as a candidate, much less a winner, without Esperanza.

"Nah, that'll do for now. Oh, I want Jorel to tell the press what we're doing with Delta and Carrea. In fact, have him do it before we tell the amba.s.sadors."

"They'll be p.i.s.sed that we didn't talk to them first."

Nan shrugged. "They're already p.i.s.sed. Besides, I've found that if you eliminate the talking-to-them-first stage, the whole thing goes a lot faster."

"Which explains some of your loopier decisions back on Cestus."

Grinning, Nan said, "Yeah."

"Thank you, Madam President."

Esperanza left, and Nan hit the intercom that put her in touch with Sivak. The elderly Vulcan-he was over two hundred-had organized Nan's affairs for the past three years on Cestus, and she often wondered how she'd managed to survive without him prior to that. Not as often, she thought with amus.e.m.e.nt, as Sivak himself wonders it.

"Sivak, what's next?"

"As I informed you before your senior staff meeting, the next item on the agenda is your security briefing. Admiral Abrik, Captain Hostetler Richman, and Secretary Shostakova are waiting. Madam President, I once again would like to make my offer of several Vulcan techniques that enhance the memory- "

Nan let out a long sigh. "Shut up and send them in, in that order."

"Very well, Madam President."

Sometimes Nan also wondered how she managed not to kill Sivak.

The door opened to reveal an elderly Trill man in severe civilian clothing, an elegant young human woman wearing a Starfleet uniform-four gold pips and a gold collar indicating a captain in security-and a short, stout human woman from the high-gravity colony of Pangea dressed in the bulky one-piece outfit favored on that world. They were, respectively, Jas Abrik, a retired admiral who served as her security advisor; Captain Holly Hostetler Richman, the liaison to Starfleet Intelligence; and Raisa Shostakova, the secretary of defense.

Raisa and Holly approached the sofa, while Jas made a beeline for the chair next to the one modified for Z4's use. Since this was a smaller gathering, Nan moved out from behind her desk, intending to sit in the chair opposite Jas.

As they came in, she said, "I'm an old woman with a weak heart, folks, so please don't tell me that another major power in the quadrant has fallen."

Holly smirked. "Not since the last one, ma'am."

"That's a relief."

The two women sat on the sofa. Holly, who was tall with long legs, sat ramrod straight, her feet planted comfortably on the floor. By contrast, Raisa had awful posture, even though she was in a lighter gravity than she was accustomed to, and she sat hunched on the sofa; her lesser height meant that her feet were dangling over the edge of the couch, looking just like Nan's youngest granddaughter, an image that Nan hoped she would one day cease to find amusing. Besides, it wasn't especially fair to Raisa, who may have looked like a little kid sitting in a high chair, but who in fact had coordinated the planetary defenses on Pangea during the Dominion War and had been responsible for the upgrades to those defenses that had kept that planet from suffering the same fate as Betazed and several other Federation worlds that had fallen to the Jem'Hadar.

As for Jas, he sat on the edge of his chair, as if expecting to bolt any minute.

Regarding the retired admiral, Nan gave him a smirk of her own. "Expecting to run a race, Admiral?"

"No, ma'am," Jas said in a subdued voice.

"Then relax, will you please? You look like you're about to jump on a grenade."

"Yes, ma'am." Jas moved back slightly in his chair.

Nan sighed. Dealing with Jas Abrik had been awkward from the beginning, as he had been the campaign manager for Nan's opponent during the election. However, Jas also knew the real reason why Zife had resigned, and in exchange for not revealing that information-thus plunging the Bacco administration into a war with the Klingons before they'd had a chance to change the color of the carpet-Esperanza had offered Jas the position of security advisor.

In that, at least, he had proven to be competent. He'd been in Starfleet for decades, and that experience was now being put to good use.

Leaning back in her chair in the vain hope that it would inspire Jas to do likewise, Nan said, "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and a.s.sume that we're starting with the Romulans."

"Good guess, ma'am." Holly held up a padd and started reading from its display. "Outpost 22 along the Romulan Neutral Zone picked up a ship heading straight for it from the Miridian system in Romulan s.p.a.ce."

"Military?"

Holly hesitated. "In a manner of speaking."

Nan rolled her eyes. "What the h.e.l.l is- ?"

"The outpost's sensors read it as a Shirekral-cla.s.s vessel."

That got Jas's attention. "What?"

"My history of Romulan ship registry's a bit rusty," Nan said dryly.

Jas was back to the edge of his chair again. "Madam President, the Shirekral-cla.s.s vessels haven't been in operation since the late twenty-third century."

"Earlier than that, actually-this one still has an ion drive." Holly gave Nan a firm look. "Ma'am, vessels of this type were common during the Earth-Romulan wars of the twenty-second century, but all the ones that were still in active service in the late twenty-third century had their ion drives replaced with the singularity drives that they still use."

"All right," Nan said, "so we've got a bunch of Romulan soldiers on a ship that was obsolete a hundred years ago."

"Actually, ma'am, that's not what we have. First of all, no Romulan soldier would be caught dead on a ship that old-even with the military in the mess it's in right now. Also, we've been able to make a general lifesign reading on long-range, and every indication so far is that the ship is full of Remans."

Nan blinked.

Raisa shot a look at Holly next to her. In a voice that had a trace of a Russian accent, she said, "Repeat that, please, Captain."

"The outpost's long-range sensors are picking up Reman lifesigns-and only Reman lifesigns."

"h.e.l.l." Nan let out a long breath. "What do you think, Holly?"

"I think they're refugees."

"That's a stretch," Jas said.

Holly glared at the security advisor. "They're heading straight for Outpost 22, Jas, and they're doing it at warp three-point-one-two, which is faster than those ships are supposed to be able to go. Twenty-two is in the middle of nowhere, but it's also the closest Federation station to the Miridian system. No way that it's not their intended destination. The chances that they're heading toward it by coincidence are infinitesimal." She turned back to Nan. "Madam President, it is my opinion that these are Remans who will be requesting asylum in the Federation."

"I believe that Captain Hostetler Richman is correct, Madam President." Raisa leaned forward, her feet now touching the floor. "I believe these are Reman refugees."

"Based on what?" Jas sounded annoyed. So was Nan, but for different reasons.

"Because Remans have never operated in Miridian. They have not had to. It is a system that was taken by the Romulans approximately fifteen years ago."

"Okay, I'm missing a step here," Nan said. "What does that time frame have to do with anything?"

"It is not the time frame, Madam President, my apologies-it is that the Miridian system has an indigenous life-form that has provided the slave labor that, in other parts of the empire, has traditionally been performed by the Remans. Since Shinzon's coup, the Miridians have also risen up, and with their infrastructure in tatters, the Romulans have been unable to quell the uprising."

Holly picked the ball back up. "We've been getting reports of the Miridians creating a kind of underground rail-road- supplying ships and methods of getting out of Romulan s.p.a.ce."

Nan nodded. "That explains the clapped-out ship." She thought for a moment, then looked at her secretary of defense. "Raisa, what do you think?"

"We must turn them back."

All three of the other people in the room looked at Raisa with shock. Nan snapped, "Excuse me?"

Before Raisa could answer, Jas added, "a.s.suming these are refugees-and I'm not a hundred percent sold that they are-we can't turn them back."

"We have to turn them back," Raisa said in a hard voice.

"How the h.e.l.l can I justify that?" Nan asked incredulously. "How the h.e.l.l can I tell people fleeing Romulan oppression- "

"They are not fleeing Romulan oppression, Madam President."

Nan frowned. "Don't be ridiculous, of course they- "

Holly's eyes widened. "She's right, ma'am, they aren't."

Looking over at Jas, Nan asked, "You want to interrupt me, too?"

Jas pursed his lips. "Ma'am, they're right. All Remans residing in Romulan s.p.a.ce currently live under the protection of the Klingon Empire."

"What do you- " Then Nan put it together. "Oh, dammit."

Raisa put her hands together in front of her chest. "If we grant the Remans' request for asylum- "