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has already demonstrated significant military superiority?” He stared at her, waiting. “If you think we have a chance of winning, I’d like to hear your advice.”

    Lt. Yar flushed and looked away, unable to face her captain’s challenging look. He was right, of course. And she was embarrassed.

    Tasha Yar knew what her worst fault was. She reacted too quickly. It was why she was a good security chief. But it was also why she often had trouble coping with situations where ship’s security was compromised. She still found it difficult to allow for diplomatic and strategic considerations.

    The renegade colony in which she had grown up had been lawless and murderous. Her early years had been spent surviving, and all her experience had taught her to act first and try to control a situation before analyzing it. Until she entered Starfleet Academy, she had acted on the sure knowledge that hesitation could mean death. The humanitarian principles on which Starfleet based all its decisions had at first been a shock to her. But see had listened and she had learned. . . .

    Something about Starfleet’s basic tenets spoke to her. Not to the person she pretended to be, or the performance she put on for the people around her, or even the person she wanted to be—it spoke to who she really was. Her secret self. The self that she had shared with no one in her life.

    Starfleet’s policies were based on the single assertion that
Life is sacred. Everywhere
.

    Tasha had not trusted this assertion. Not at first. Her initial reaction had been skepticism and derision. The Starfleet Ethics and Moral Philosophy courses were full of those discussions. But after a while, Tasha began to realize that what they were really talking about was the same thing that she had secretly dreamed of for years.

    Life as it is lived isn’t necessarily the way life has to be. We can do better. We are each and every one of us, always capable of going beyond what we think are our limits. That is our history. We will do better
.

    Tasha realized—like the dawning of a great light—that Starfleet truly wanted the same things she did. Children did not have to die of starvation. People did not have to live in poverty. Illiteracy was not inevitable. The conditions under which she had grown up were a terrible aberration, and
not
a norm.

    This was the life she had dreamed of—she could start living it today. And she had accepted that in a simple declaration: “If it is to be, let it begin with me.”

    And from that moment, she was never the same woman again.

    But even so, there were moments—like this one—when she still responded with her old instincts. “I . . . spoke before I thought, sir. We should look for some way to distract them from going after the saucer section.”

    “Better, Lieutenant,” Picard said, nodding approval.

    “Full stop, sir,” Data reported. “Holding position.”

    Picard looked over at Troi, who was manning the communications board. “Troi, signal the following in all languages and on all frequencies. ‘We surrender.’ State that we are not asking for any terms or conditions.”

    A ripple of consternation flowed around the battle bridge as the crew exchanged puzzled looks.
Surrender?
This from Jean-Luc Picard? Only Troi felt the calm, the confidence, the sense of
rightness
that the captain put forth. It was not a sense of failure or capitulation. Picard clearly had the conviction this was the only correct thing to do.

    “Aye, sir,” Troi said firmly. “All language forms and frequencies.” She opened the communications channels and tied in the universal translator. “
Enterprise
to
Q
. We surrender. Repeat: we surrender. Our surrender is unconditional. We do not ask for terms.”

    As Troi repeated the broadcast, all eyes turned to the viewscreen where the alien hostile was seen to be rapidly bearing down on them. As it neared them, the gleaming shape began to open up, partially revealing the grid. It curved