Lit Challenge 27: One of One

("While investigating a strange energy signature in the outskirts of the Delta Quadrant, your ship comes across a derelict spire-like relay station of sorts. Scans reveal it is of Borg origin and it's data banks reveal a planet not far from your current coordinates. On the planet surface is a grounded Borg ziggurat of some kind. The old Borg data suggests this is the burial site of the very first Borg, Designation One of One. The Borg revere this being as a sort of icon to their Collective. Exploring the site could reveal major information on the Borg. But scans of the ship reveal a faint life sign inside it. Could One of One still be alive? Do you dare risk an encounter with such a mythical being? Write a log detailing the expedition. Is it simply an intergalactic ghost story....or can even death itself be adapted to service the Borg?"

I just thought it was time to check up on... someone... with this one.)

Personal log: Veronika "Ronnie" Grau, officer commanding USS Falcon NCC-93057

"The Borg don't do reverence," I protest. "Trust me on this. I know."

Tallasa glances at the image on the screen. "Nonetheless, sir -" she begins.

"Nonetheless, nothing. It's a mothballed Borg facility." I limp towards the viewer, studying the picture. "They do that, often enough."

The picture shows a roughly pyramidal structure of blackened metal and spidery girders, towering up from a rocky, barren plain, under the wan light of an M-class star. It's hard, at first, to get a sense of scale for the thing - until you look close, at a tiny, tiny white dot, and realise that's a Starfleet runabout, and do the math. Then you know that this thing is several kilometres tall, so tall that the tip sticks out of this world's thin troposphere....

"It only looks like a monument," I say in pettish tones. God, I can do pettish these days. Not to mention querulous. I'm beginning to wonder when I'll make it all the way to senile. I turn, and narrowly avoid stumbling as I make my way back to the centre seat. My Andorian exec stands up, starts to reach out a supporting hand, thinks better of it.

"Still reading one faint life sign." Saval's voice comes from my blind side. I still hate having a blind side. I turn my head. The bewhiskered Vulcan's face is completely impassive, as per usual, but I reckon I know what's going through his mind. Same thing as is going through Tallasa's, probably.

"Well, there you are, then," I say. "So much for One of One, Patient Zero for the Borg infection. I mean, they'd be how old, by now? Thousands. They'd be dead. The organic parts of drones, they age, they wear out, and when they've worn out, the Borg dispose of them." I slump in the command chair, feeling aged and worn out myself. The Borg pyramid on Pelsidia II is still on the screen, towering, enigmatic.... Not so long ago, I would have known what it was. I tap irritably at one of the remaining Borg implants in my temple, next to the patch over my left eye. Two of Twelve, the Borg voice that used to be in my head, says nothing.

Do I miss her? Do I honestly miss her?

"Dr. Ricardo's science team report they're about to penetrate the sub-levels," says Leo Madena from the comms station.

"I'll bet they are, the dirty little devils." I heave myself out of the chair again. "It's time for me to do my exercises. Keep me informed." I limp off towards the ready room.

---

I look in the mirror. Pale, gaunt, dark spiky hair, scars and Borg remnants, all present and correct. Unlikely to win Miss Universe this year either, I think. Cautiously, I raise the eyepatch.

My vision blurs immediately, and my new left eye fills with tears. The problem is, using it is the only way to integrate it into my nervous system, to get my visual cortex used to processing the input. But, until it does get integrated, the input is... confusing. To say the least.

I turn away from the mirror, grope across the ready room to my desk, and sit down heavily. I have about half a minute to regroup, before the door hisses open, and a blue and white Cubist nightmare comes into sight. In my exec's voice, it says, "Sir, are you all right?"

"Just dandy," I croak, leaning sideways as the visual scrambling affects my balance. Good thing I'm sitting down. Tallasa comes further into the room, so the door slides shut behind her.

"You shouldn't be here, sir," she says. "You're still... convalescing."

"I'll convalesce here a darn sight better than under Quinn's feet back at Spacedock," I growl. "Besides, I'm fine, damn it." It occurs to me, as I sit here listing fifteen degrees to starboard with tears running down my face, that that last sentence might not sound entirely convincing. Never mind.

"You don't have to prove anything, sir," says Tallasa. "If you're not physically up to things, no one would blame you -"

"Look. OK, I'm not at my best, but I need to be up and doing, right? Besides, I won't get over my current limitations unless I push them a bit. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."

I think Tallasa might be nodding, it's hard to tell. "And who said that, sir?"

"Me, just then." I make an irritated gesture and knock something off the desk - don't know what, but it goes thump on the floor and not smash, so that's OK. "Look, I know what you're getting at. Yes, my memory's not what it was when it was... artificially augmented... but that's OK, everything still works, I can cope, dammit." I take a deep breath. "Also, Arthur C. Clarke. See? Still got it."

"I hope you're right, sir," says Tallasa. "For all our sakes."

"Of course I'm right. Arthur C. Clarke. Dead sure." She knows I'm deliberately misunderstanding, and I know she knows, and I don't know what difference it makes. I couldn't read the expression on her face now, I know, even if I could see it properly.

There is a pause in the conversation, broken by the entrance of a distorted blurry thing with Leo Madena's voice. "Trouble, sir," he says. "We've lost contact with the science team - and their life signs are no longer registering."

---

I've put the eyepatch back in place, but the console readout doesn't make a lot more sense that way anyway. "Transponders and remote vital signs monitoring both cut out here," says Saval, pointing to an abstract glowy thing that must mean something to him. "We read small increases in overall EM activity, but nothing definite - no high output energy discharges, no transporter signatures."

"Well, I won't say I told you so," I say, "but I told him so." Dr. Erwin Ricardo, up-and-coming expert on Borg history, now missing, presumed - well, when your life signs vanish inside an old Borg facility, presumptions start at "dead" and work upwards towards the really horrible. "Abandoned Borg whatsit, does not contain mythical progenitor of the Borg, does contain heaps of big trouble, stay the hell away. Why bother to call me in for an opinion if you don't listen to it?"

"I don't think you told him what he wanted to hear, sir," says Leo.

"Yeah, well, too bad," I say. "Something tells me he made a mistake he's not going to learn from.... Have we got any idea what that faint life sign is, down there?"

"Still unknown at this time, sir," says Saval.

"Mmm." I scratch pensively at the side of my eyepatch. "It might help to know what it is and how it's managing to stay alive down there. Because we need to send someone in and see if we can recover the science team, and it'd be a lot of use to know how to stay alive doing it."

"Indeed, sir." All of a sudden, Tallasa has her taking no nonsense from my commanding officer voice on, and her antennae are standing up very stiff and straight indeed. "We need to send in medically fit personnel as soon as we can, to effect a search and rescue if possible. I'm sure your directions and advice to the search team will be invaluable. Sir."

A good executive officer knows what her CO is thinking, and Tallasa is a good executive officer. Damn it. "All right," I say, trying to think a bit faster. "Let's get some assessment of what tools our team's going to need down there, and I'll work out what Borg countermeasures they're liable to run into. Meet in the morning at 0830, that OK with everyone?"

I'm sure Tallasa registers surprise, but it's quickly hidden behind the professional mask. "That sounds like a good move, sir. We'll be ready."

"Good to hear it." I pick up my cane and limp off towards the ready room. "If anyone needs me, I'll be burning the midnight oil in there, trying to figure out the Borg." God, that used to be easier. So did getting past Tallasa.

---

"Computer. Tell me the location of Commander Tallasa."

"Commander Tallasa is in her sleeping quarters."

"Hot diggity. At last." I stand up and stretch. I've been sitting behind that desk for hours, partly digging through files on Borg installation architecture, mostly waiting for this moment. Andorians have irregular sleep patterns, but they have to sleep sometimes, and Tallasa is going to be much less inclined to argue if she's tucked up in bed.

I stride to the ready room door, worry for a moment, then step out onto the bridge. It's quiet out there - lots of watch-standing types whom I don't see often, the reliable second-stringers who actually keep my ship running. The only regular there is Leo Madena, still on comms. So it's him I go up to. "Leo. With me."

"Sir?" He looks worried. And well he might.

"I have an idea or two. Come on, walk with me." He looks even more worried. "Oh, come on, it can't hurt to listen. I'm not a Drongidian screeching death-beetle, after all." I have no idea what one of those is, if it even exists, but it sounds good. "Turbolift, now."

He comes with me. His agitation, already marked, increases when I say "Transporter room three."

"Sir -" he begins.

"I've got an idea, Leo, and to check it out, I need to be down on the ground. And I need some backup, so you're elected."

"Does Commander Tallasa know -?"

"Leo. Who's in charge here?" He looks at me with kicked-puppy eyes. "Oh, for God's sake, Leo, this is still a military organization, it's not a multiple-choice question. Me. I'm in charge. Just me."

"Yes, sir." He swallows loudly. "Uh, are you going to tell Commander Tallasa that, sir?"

"Not if I can possibly avoid it." The turbolift doors hiss open. "Now come on. Let's dress for the occasion."

---

The Dyson combat armour feels good. Since half my Borg implants got burned out and pulled out during the final conflict with the Rift entity, I've had to get used to being slower, weaker - more basic human - than I used to be. But the power-assist in the converted Voth battlesuit makes up for the loss of my Borg wiring, lets me move with smooth power and efficiency. I settle the helmet into place. It still has space at the back for an elongated Voth crest; I keep trying to figure some way to fit a hip flask or something in there, but Engineering won't let me.

Leo is armoured up in standard polyalloy weave, hugging a phaser rifle that looks as big as he is. "Coordinates locked," I say, fiddling with the transporter panel. "Ten seconds to energize. Get on the pad, Leo, 'cause I'm taking at least some of you with me no matter what." Leo looks miserable. I don't know why, when he's at the comms station the bridge is usually exploding all around him, you'd think he'd be glad to see some different explosions at least.

The warning light on the console blinks. "Energizing," I say, and blue light sparkles all around us -

- and we're down. It's dim and dark and metallic, a corridor of black metal gridwork, sunlight filtering down through myriads of tiny holes, giving us just enough light to see by. I raise my proton beam rifle to the ready position. "Give me a quick tricorder scan," I say. The air is thin and dry, just about adequate to breathe.

"Yes, sir." The whine of the tricorder is the only sound. Except my own pulse... and a vague, staticky whispering, somewhere at the edge of hearing, that feels like it might be whatever's left of Two of Twelve. Well, if anything's going to bring her out of retirement, being in a Borg facility will do the job.

"Nothing much registering, sir," says Leo. "The Borg machinery appears to be inactive... I'm not reading that life sign anywhere near... wait." The whine changes in tone. "I think I have something. Might be the automatic distress call from a Federation combadge."

"Ricardo's team. All right. We go in that direction, but carefully." We shuffle off down the corridor. It's at something of an angle... I think the ground must have shifted since this place was put into mothballs.

We're trying to be cautious, but the sound of our booted feet on the metal grating... carries. It's the only sound. There isn't even a wind. I don't think I've ever been anywhere that felt so dead.

Then, as we advance, we see it. Ahead of us, the floor of the corridor ends. A line of blackness cuts across the metal, a chasm that I can't see the far side of. I shuffle forwards cautiously, peer over the rim. Below, a tangle of broken metal, and an irregular hole... going down, far, far down, towards a dim red glow.

"I don't know how far that goes, sir," says Leo. He's come up beside me and is fiddling with his tricorder.

"I do," I mutter. Things are starting to fall into place, half-shredded memories of Borg technology. "All the way down. Through the crust. This is a mantle mine. Hoovering up, I dunno, some rare mineral, topaline, maybe."

"Why's it so tall, sir?"

"In operation, it'll be taller. The thing must open up and the machinery rises up, sticking right out of the planetary atmosphere, blowing the stuff out into space for passing Borg ships to pick up. Then, the stuff ran out, so they closed down the facility. Left it here, in case they needed the planet for anything else."

"The science team -?"

I point. Downwards. "Must've fallen through the floor. They checked for power sources, Borg technology, force fields, transporters, whatever. They didn't check for a simple booby trap."

"I'm reading... one combadge, sir," says Leo quietly. "Down among that debris. It must have... come off. When they fell." He looks at me. "Booby trap?"

I point to one of the support struts. "That's been cut. Not recently, but a hell of a long time after this place was abandoned. I think we need to have words with that one life sign down here." I look around. "No way I'm doing a Tarzan of the apes over that pit. Let's find another way in."

"There's a cross corridor through the machinery over to our right, sir, but I don't know how we'll get to it -"

I get my bearings, cross to the wall, raise a power-assisted Voth boot, and kick. The metal groans and shudders. I kick again. And again. At the third blow, the panel caves in, revealing a narrow maintenance passageway beyond. The staticky whispering in my auditory nerves gets louder. I ignore it.

"After all this time," I say as I heave the panel aside, "smashing up Borg stuff still gives me a kick."

The accessway is narrow, very narrow. The hollow crest on my helmet keeps bumping into things. Never mind. After a while, we reach the cross-corridor, and I kick out another access panel and stick my head out - cautiously - to look around.

"Leo. Scan stuff. Paying particular attention to structural soundness." I'm beginning to wish I'd brought one of the engineers along for this junket.

"Scanning.... Sir, there's a pressure plate and what looks like some sort of deadfall ahead."

"Gotcha." I pick the panel up and throw it. Got to love this battle armour. The panel lands on the floor and clangs, and something clicks and rumbles, and all of a sudden several hundredweight of junk falls out of the ceiling. "That is so not the way the Borg work," I say.

Then something goes whang off the wall behind me, and I duck and dive for cover on general principles. Another whang. "I think we've found our life sign," says Leo, cowering sensibly behind a chunk of machinery. Whang. Solid-shot projectiles, nothing fancy... kinetic damage. Stuff the Borg can't adapt to. Good choice of gun, if you're expecting the Borg. Whang. I squint around, trying to work out where the shooting's coming from. Somewhere above us - can't get the angle to return fire -

"Uh, bad news, sir," says Leo.

"What? There's more than one up there?" I look around. I'm starting to get the hang of this place, and I have an idea -

"No, sir. Really bad news."

"Oh, hell." I cut in the suit's comms. "Tallasa? Can't talk now, being shot at." I draw off one glove.

"Transmit your coordinates for the strike team to beam in," Tallasa's frigid voice says in my ear.

"No way. This place is lousy with booby traps, and anyway, I am on the case." I flex the fingers of my still-Borgified hand. The actuators whine, and below the skin, I can feel the charge building up in the neural capacitors. "Still got some Borg junk in my system, I'm going to use it. Leo. Expect an earthquake."

"What are you going to do?" They both ask it. Hell, they even harmonize.

I spot a likely-looking conduit, and jab my fingers into it. "Wake this place up," I say, and I let the capacitors go.

For a moment, nothing happens, except another slug whanging rather too close to my head. Then -

Green lights glow, and the floor shudders, and for a second or two my Borg circuits light up from the induction. I can feel the whole tower, feel the circuits running through it, the flickers of not-quite-sentience in the ancient computers....

Feel something in me, something buried deep but not quite dead, yearning to be a part of all this, yearning to mesh with it and serve its needs.

The floor bucks beneath my feet; the entire building is starting to change shape. There is a wail from nearby, and it's not Leo. A humanoid figure is descending from the ceiling, fleeing the clashing jaws of Borg machines as they spring to life. The noise of the massive engines is overpowering as they strain against centuries of disuse.

Then the circuits register that there's nothing to mine, and filter out the small power surge I created, and the mine remembers that it's supposed to be dead, and shuts down again. The roar of machinery dwindles to a rumble, a mutter, and finally to silence again.

The humanoid is on the floor, scrabbling for his gun, which he's dropped amid the debris of the deadfall. I raise the proton rifle and fire a single warning shot. The blue beam screeches over his head, and he freezes.

"One of One, I presume," I say. "I'm Admiral Veronika Grau. Call me Ronnie, everyone does."

---

After all that, the conference room of the Falcon seems quite peaceful and homey. Or it would, but for the baleful presence of a fuming Andorian.

"He's a Pelcodian petty criminal," Tallasa says. "Apparently, he explored the structure a number of years ago, and he's been using it as a sort of base. First exporting bootleg Borg salvage, then as a sort of drop-point for a number of smuggling endeavours."

"And he spread the rumours about it being the last resting place of One of One, to make sure people kept the hell away." I nod sagely. "And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids and their dog."

Tallasa glares. "He seems to have spent years living there alone - setting up those traps, among other things. Frankly, I think he's more than a little deranged. Perhaps you should handle the interrogation, sir, since you obviously speak his language."

"Oh, hell, a little deranged is a completely different dialect from stark staring bonkers. Never mind." I give her my very best superior smile. "See? It all worked out all right in the end."

"Except for Dr. Ricardo, sir."

"Yes, well. The lesson to be learned from that is, always listen to Auntie Ronnie, she gives good advice."

Tallasa's mouth is compressed into a thin line. "I'll go handle the rest of the interrogation, and coordinate with Delta Command on our next step, sir," she says.

"Great idea. I'll just get on with my exercises, then." I reach for the eyepatch.

Tallasa glares at me again, looks as if she's about to speak, evidently thinks better of it. She stalks out of the conference room. A few seconds later, there comes a loud bang, as of a very angry Andorian boot hitting the wall very hard.

I lean back in my chair, and contemplate the ceiling through teary eyes.

"Yep," I say to the world at large, "still got it."

Vectors 34

Pexlini

Somehow, we all end up back at the Hazari base. It seems like the best place, to take stock, to transship the Hazari wounded, to organize contact with Delta Command.

The docking bays are crowded and chaotic. I catch a glimpse of Y'Nadan, as he is bundled off to the Hazari medical centre; I wave to him, and he manages a half-hearted salute back at me. There are people moving everywhere, mostly Hazari and Starfleet. Engineering specialist crews and SAR teams have beamed down aplenty from King Estmere, working to fix the station's beaten-up infrastructure, and maybe even pull a few more survivors out from shielded bunkers underneath the shot-up sections.

We may wind up doing ourselves some good with the Hazari, here. Maybe. But maybe we need to... if more of them have Ge'Sirn's attitudes, we could have trouble there.

There's a hundred and one things to manage, not least the treatment of my own wounded - and my unwounded, too, since Ostankino has had to be pretty much emptied out. Tylha Shohl's work crews are aboard, now, patching my little raider back into some sort of functioning shape. Damn, the King Estmere has a lot of people....

A traffic control and admin office has been set up at the docking bays, and I'm on my way there, threading my way through the crowds... when I notice, out of the corner of my eye, something that needs attention, like, right now.

So I turn around and head for the airlock, where one lithe black feline in Starfleet uniform is facing a lithe blue feline in Klingon leather.

"You guys," I say, "play nice, now, all right?"

Rrueo turns her head towards me. "Rrueo was inquiring as to the time and place of a formal debriefing session," she says. "Since Pexlini is here, perhaps this is as good a time as any for an informal one."

"She's right," says M'eioi. "Heaven knows there's enough to discuss."

"'kay," I say. "I'll see if I can book us a meeting room somewhere. Better get Tylha Shohl and T'Pia in on it... at least that way we can talk direct to other commanders, without anyone listening in."

"We have a line on that encoder console," M'eioi says. "There's only so many places where the physical equipment, and especially the security software, could have been cloned off. Starfleet Intelligence is already onto a suspected Octanti sympathizer -"

"Octanti sympathizer?" Rrueo breaks in. "Rrueo would have thought that a rare failing, even in Starfleet Command."

"There are plenty of people who are anti-Borg, though," says M'eioi. "We've lost so many people to them, from Wolf 359 to Vega Colony... there's no shortage of people who will fight the Borg by any means they think necessary. And if they think the Octanti can help them take the fight to the enemy...."

Rrueo shakes her head. "The Borg are an enemy," she says. "Ruthless, implacable, and without honour. But we must never be defined by what we fight. Not like the Octanti."

"I agree," says M'eioi. She looks hard at the Ferasan.

"Ah," says Rrueo. "Rrueo understands. My people and yours, each defining the other as what they are not. Well. Rrueo has no especial love for Caitians, but she has not found working with M'eioi to be excessively difficult. Rrueo is inclined to let the past stay in the past."

M'eioi's eyes narrow a little, and her tail switches. The whole Caitian Diaspora thing, I seem to remember, is kind of a lot of past for Rrueo to be dismissing just like that.

But, in the end, she says, "Well, we have to cooperate. This whole business has proved that, in any case."

"Only a fool fights in a burning house," Rrueo quotes. "And there are issues remaining. Tuarak - we do not know what has become of him. With the loss of his ship and his base, he may be a spent force, but Rrueo would be happier if she saw his corpse. Then, there is the matter of Ge'Sirn's device...."

"Well," I say, "the device itself is kind of toast, right? And Ge'Sirn himself -"

"Assimilated," says Rrueo. "Which means his knowledge is part of the Borg, now. But Rrueo frankly does not believe that the Borg Collective could not build protomatter devices of its own. The Collective chooses not to, because it, like ourselves, cannot guarantee the results of using such devices...."

"But sometime," says M'eioi, "we are going to have to find some way to - to tame protomatter. Because you can't put that kind of scientific genie back in its bottle. For now, I think we're OK, because the Hazari don't have the resources to make the stuff, and the Hierarchy won't consider it cost-effective, after what happened to their research station. But all it will take, somewhere, someday, is one researcher with the talent to duplicate the Genesis Project, and who doesn't have the wisdom to see the consequences -"

"Quite," says Rrueo. "All ethical scientists renounced the use of protomatter in their researches, once. Thus leaving the field clear for the unethical scientists. Rrueo wonders whether that was wise -" Her wrist communicator beeps. She frowns at it. "Rrueo must return to her ship. It is necessary to ensure that Tylha Shohl's people have not worsened the condition of that nacelle... and, of course, to check that Oschmann has not killed anyone of importance." She turns to me. "Rrueo will leave Pexlini to organize the debriefing session. Contact the Brathana once the time is fixed." She turns back to M'eioi. "Rrueo notes, by the way, that M'eioi's banners have not yet fallen. Rrueo would advise M'eioi, perhaps, for M'eioi's own peace of mind, to stay away from the dabo table." And she turns and stalks away.

I stare after her for a moment, then turn to M'eioi. "What was that about?" I ask.

I can't really read Caitian faces, but there seems to be a funny sort of expression on M'eioi's. "Private joke," she says eventually. "Nothing important."

I shake my head. "'kay," I say. "Well, I guess it's good you can have private jokes with her...."

"She's still an arrogant genetic experiment with an ego the size of Betelgeuse," says M'eioi. "But I guess we can work with her." Something tells me we haven't exactly healed the breach between Cait and Ferasa, today. But what the heck. Baby steps, and all that. At least they didn't actually kill each other, it's a start.

"So," I say. "What do you think of the Delta Quadrant, then? Everything you were expecting?"

Now that's a definite cat smile on her face. I think. "Yes and no," she says. "I knew it would be a challenge, but I didn't know what sort." She shrugs. "I guess you never do."

Then she points. "I think someone's looking for you."

I follow the line of her finger. Hal Welti is there, pushing his way through the crowds of Hazari and techs, waving at me with his free hand. There's a PADD in the other one. That can't be good news. "Oh, hell," I say. "I'll catch you at the meeting, 'kay?" And I jog over to meet Hal without waiting for a response. She'll be there, anyway. She's Starfleet, she's reliable. She'll be fine.

"Ajbit wanted me to go through the manifests," Hal says. "If we're transferring to a new ship -"

"Aw, yeepers, you know Ajbit usually handles all this stuff." I grab the PADD off him. I reckon this is Ajbit getting back at me for gambling her on that kajhod game. She's got a long memory for stuff like that. Long lists stare at me from the PADD's display. Long, long lists.

"If 'twere done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly," Hal says.

"You've said that before. That is a quote, isn't it?" Hal nods. "Yeeps. You ever meet that Borg Admiral at Earth Spacedock? Ronnie Grau?"

Hal nods, and his dark face lights up with a rare smile. "We met, once or twice."

"Thought so. You've got a lot in common."

Hal is evidently feeling perky. Wish I was. "She said," he says, "that, given our ages, she might be my great-great-great-great-great-great-aunt."

I look up from the PADD, scowling. "Nah," I say. "Nobody's that great."

Vectors 33

The shuttle slid into the docking bay, landing struts deploying with a solid clunk. "You see?" said Tuarak. "According to plan. All my contingency plans are operational, I am prepared for anything." He tapped out commands on the pilot console. The doors of the docking bay closed, and a faint hissing announced the bay's repressurization. "You see?" Tuarak said, again.

In the co-pilot's chair, Sarn said nothing.

"Planning. Foresight." Tuarak stood. The scars on his cheek were livid. "I am alive to every contingency, Sarn. You should recognize that fact. It is that which qualifies me to be an Overseer of the Supremacy."

Sarn still made no answer.

"That, and discipline," Tuarak added. "Discipline is essential. Discipline must be maintained at all times." He moved to the shuttle's hatch, checked the environmental readouts. "Pressure equalized. Yes. I will obtain assistance from Nessick, now. He will not disobey me." He shot another glance at the silent shape in the co-pilot's chair. "You understand that, now. Discipline must be maintained. And you, you will know better than to criticize me again...." He unsealed the hatch and clambered out.

Behind him, in the shuttle, Sarn said nothing. He had been dead long enough, now, for the blood to have dried around the gunshot wounds in his chest.

---

The light was different. Tuarak peered around him in confusion. The light in the docking bay was wan and greenish, and there was a metallic scent to the air.

"Nessick?" he called out. "Nessick, have you been redecorating?"

No answer came. Tuarak shrugged. It would have been appropriate, of course, if the Octanti scientist had come to meet him when he docked - but Nessick was probably up to his antennae in some project or other, oblivious to the real world. No matter. Tuarak would command his attention, now.

He strode across the bay, towards the doorway that led to the interior of the station. It failed to slide open at his approach, and he frowned. He found the command access panel, tapped in the entry code. The door opened. Beyond it -

The corridor was dark, lit by only occasional green lights. The walls were rough, blackened, covered with an encrustation of circuitry. Tuarak reached out, touched one wall, then drew his hand back with a curse. Something had stung him. Even through the heavy leather of his gauntlet, he had felt it -

Ahead of him, down the corridor, something moved in the dimness.

"Nessick?" said Tuarak. "Nessick, what are you playing at? I am in need of assistance."

The figure moved closer. It was not Nessick.

Tuarak shouted, a wordless cry of outrage, and drew his gun. The massive shape of the Borg drone lumbered relentlessly towards him. Tuarak levelled the gun and fired, once, twice, a third time. Each shot was on target. The drone, half its head blown away, still took another step forward. Then it stopped. It stood in the passageway, apparently pondering whether it was dead or not. Slowly, slowly, it slumped to the floor.

There was a terrifying buzzing in Tuarak's ears.

"Nessick," he whispered. "Oh, you have been careless, Nessick - you should never have used that Borg device -"

He turned around. The shuttle's warp drive was adequate, still, to reach a Vaadwaur base. There would be problems - the bureaucrats, the petty time-servers, they would present difficulties - But he was Tuarak of the Vaadwaur, he would not be balked.

Except that the buzzing in his ears was getting louder and louder, and there was a strange tingling in his hand.

Behind him, he heard slow footsteps; more drones, moving down the corridor. He could kill them - but the damned Borg would adapt, too quickly, to his weapon - and the buzzing in his ears was making it hard to think, as was the tingling numbness in his hand -

He drew off his gauntlet, and stared in mounting horror at his hand, at his bleached fingertips, at the dark lines of circuitry spreading beneath the skin.

"No," he whispered, and then shouted, "No! I am Vaadwaur, I am Tuarak of the Vaadwaur, I am - we - I - I am - we are -"

The voices in his head rose up and swallowed him. He had one last instant to realise all that he had lost.

Then, a hundred metres away, the molecular acid ate its way through the antimatter core's shielding. Normal matter and antimatter met, and the whole asteroid flared into sun-hot vapour, then faded away into the dark.

Vectors 32

Rrueo

"Approaching rendezvous coordinates," K'Rokok announces.

I gaze moodily at the status board. The repairs were completed... more quickly than I would have liked, truth be told. The power curves for the starboard nacelle are not aesthetically pleasing. It functions - for now - but that is all. One more shot on that engine, and we could lose warp drive again.

"Ships on sensors," Toriash calls out. "Two only. Timor, and Ostankino." He shakes his massive head. "I do not like the look of the Ostankino...."

"Hail them," I snap at Oschmann. "And get me a visual."

Timor is still damaged after the fight at the planetoid, though M'eioi has evidently completed all immediately necessary repairs. Ostankino... the little raider's warp field is wavering, the shields are below full strength, and there are worrying fluctuations in the deflector output. When the visual comes up, I do not wonder at them. The Ostankino is battered, patched, its hull armour blistered, its prow looking as though it is half melted.

"Channels open to both ships," Oschmann says.

"On screen."

M'eioi looks tired; her fur is matted, almost bedraggled. Pexlini has a healing gash on her head and appears even more bruised and beaten than she did before. Both of them, inexplicably, look cheerful.

"Where are your Hazari escorts?" I ask.

"Uh, yeah," says Pexlini. "The survivors from mine are mostly in my sickbay. Kinda crowded down there, gotta admit. M'eioi's escorts lit out when they got a whiff of the Borg. Nobody's impressed by that. Y'Nadan says he's gonna kick N'Larl's backside, though I guess that'll have to wait till the docs have fixed him up with new legs. Anyway, no Hazari."

"Then it is just us." I glare at the tactical display. "Rrueo hopes our ships are still capable of stopping two undamaged Hazari destroyers."

"Yeah, well," says Pexlini, "don't sweat it too much. Way I figure it, we just have to... slow 'em up a little."

"Rrueo admires your optimism. Do we have an intercept point plotted?"

M'eioi speaks. "Coming through on your data feed now."

I look at the tactical plot. The Borg communications node is a massive structure, surrounded by shields and patrolling spheres and probes... but, over the decades or centuries of its operation, it has developed a weak point of its own. Outgassing, ejection of debris, and various low-level gravitational interactions have created a sort of nebula trailing from it, and in that cloud of gas and particulate fragments, ships can move... if not undetected, at least with a chance of getting close enough.

It would not be enough for a full-on assault on the node - that would take a fleet of ships, one far too large to hide. But, for what Nessick is planning... it offers his best chance to make an approach, to infiltrate and to launch his holographic poison into the Borg's networks.

The nebula extends light-hours from the Borg complex... we are well outside the range of its patrols. It is here, though, that Nessick must begin his infiltration. So, it is here that we must stop him.

"Brathana remains the most potent military asset at our disposal," I say firmly. "Rrueo will issue the demands, here. A Starfleet science vessel would not be... credible. Nor would a Kazon raider."

"Uh, yeah, sure," says Pexlini. "You do the talking, right, fair enough." She exchanges glances with the Caitian. These two know something....

"Sensor contacts inbound," Toriash says. "Running comparison checks... ID confirmed. Ge'Sirn's and N'Drask's ships."

Now with Octanti crews. "Hail them," I order. "Red alert. All weapons to ready status."

Brathana comes about, aiming herself at the approaching Hazari ships, standing between them and the nebula. Behind me, Timor and Ostankino swing around to support me.

"Hailing frequencies open," Oschmann says.

"On screen."

The Octanti scientist appears... nondescript, inoffensive. He is thin and stooped, and wears shabby civilian clothes. I am not deceived. This is Tuarak's shadowy associate, and from what I have gathered, he is the directing intelligence, where the Vaadwaur commander was all brute force.

"Rrueo-Captain, Rrueo-Thinker, commanding IKS Brathana," I say. "You are to stand down and surrender the stolen Hazari technology."

He shakes his head, his antennae quivering. "No, no," he says, "I do not think so."

"You do not know what you are doing," I hiss at him.

"You are wrong," he answers, with the quiet calm of a fanatic. "My calculations are precise, quite precise. We will deliver a blow today that will break the back of the Borg menace."

"Indeed, Rrueo thinks you might do that. But you could destroy half the quadrant in the process! Listen to Rrueo. Protomatter is inherently unstable, its effects are not predictable. Your device might work as you intend it, or it might fail completely - or it might destroy everything in range of the Borg subspace network! You cannot take that risk!"

"There is no risk," Nessick says, in such a matter-of-fact tone that I almost believe him myself. "My calculations are exact, entirely exact. There might be a certain degree of collateral damage -" He straightens, and the tone of his voice deepens and strengthens. "But it will be worth it. To be free, free of the Borg -"

"You leave Rrueo and her allies no choice. We must stop you."

"You may try," says Nessick. "But I have sensor readings on your ships, I can see their condition, and -" He looks to one side, and stops.

"More inbound contacts," Toriash reports. "Reading... six vessels." He turns, and his mind-tone shows perplexity. "One Tholian Orb Weaver, one Tholian Recluse, with four Mesh Weaver frigate consorts."

On the screen, Nessick is clearly assimilating the same information. "Tholians? What do the Beta Quadrant crystal spiders want here?"

A strange feeling of lassitude comes over me; I slump in the command chair. It is almost as if, suddenly, I know I can afford to feel weary. I turn to Oschmann, whose face is contorted as if she is tasting something foul. "Do we, by any chance, know those particular Tholians?" I ask.

"I believe so, sir," Oschmann spits. "Receiving a general hail."

The next face on the screen is not that of a Tholian; it is that of a blue-skinned humanoid, with white hair, and antennae, and a looping scar on one cheekbone. "Octanti ships. This is Admiral Tylha Shohl aboard the USS King Estmere. We cannot permit you to continue with this course of action. Stand down and surrender your vessels, or you will be fired upon."

"No!" Nessick's quiet calm has vanished, the word is a screech. "No, you will not stop me! Tactical plan Theta Two!" And the channel to his ship cuts off.

On the tactical plot, the two Hazari ships separate, abruptly. It is not a move one would expect from the Hazari, who work in tightly teamed pairs. But now, one ship is plunging towards the King Estmere, weapons ablaze, while the other - Nessick's ship - flies out and free on a wildly diverging course.

"Tactical linkup with Starfleet," I order. "Keep a sensor lock on Nessick!" The nebula can fog Borg sensors, it can also fog ours. And if we lose Nessick in it.... We must not lose Nessick.

The other ship is a sacrificial lamb, and even as I watch, it fulfils its destiny. The Mesh Weaver frigates dart forward, and lines of blue light reach out from the Recluse carrier towards them... and then a blaze of blue smashes out from the frigates into the doomed Hazari ship; a coordinated tetryon barrage that tears its shields down to nothing, just in time for King Estmere's plasma weapons to fire. I had heard rumours that Tylha Shohl's ship was to be retired from service, after the damage it suffered during the Siohonin invasion. The way it blasts the Hazari vessel into nonexistence, now, though, suggests that it is still a viable military asset.

"Energy spikes from Nessick's ship!" Toriash shouts. "Sir, it's like -"

"The Genesis Wave," I spit. Nessick is using the augmented holo-projectors. "Warn Starfleet! If he can create something that will bypass our shields -"

"The matter is being attended to." A new voice, a new face; the impossibly prim figure of the red-haired Vulcan on the bridge of the Orb Weaver Tapiola. "Coordinating fire control with Timor now," T'Pia adds. Of course, M'eioi would call in a favour from her old commanding officer -

A captive singularity hurtles out from the Timor's projectors, and Nessick's ship rolls wildly in its radius of effect. But I can see exotic energies building as the protomatter device begins its work - I see space itself curdle around Nessick's ship, see forces reaching out -

To be caged, suddenly, in a net of golden shimmering lines, as T'Pia brings her Tholian web generators into play.

Whatever Nessick's device is generating, it reaches the bounds of the web, and recoils, in upon itself, feeding on the energy released by M'eioi's singularity, intensifying and reduplicating itself in a sudden feedback loop. Within the glowing icosahedron of the web, an entire new creation is born, energies and forces for which I have no names, developing in a network of fractal complexities - a new cosmos, confined in that tiny space, that races in seconds through its own history, from inception to final annihilation. To watch the data readouts, to see it on the screen... is to glimpse an almost mystical experience....

The web collapses in a shower of antiprotons. The new creation dies in a burst of random elementary particles. There is no trace of it... or of Nessick's ship.

I lean back in the command chair, and give a huge yawn. "Rrueo thanks Starfleet for that... timely assistance," I say. "Be certain, though, that Rrueo and her consorts had matters entirely in hand."

"I don't doubt it for a minute." Tylha's voice is dry. "Do you need help with repairs?"

I take another glance at the readings from that nacelle. "Rrueo supposes it would be unwise to reject the expertise of the Experimental Engineering group...."

"Hell, yeah," says Pexlini's voice, "we're gonna need all the duct tape you got spare. And there's still some loose ends to tidy up. Like, we're still not sure what happened to Tuarak...."

Vectors 31

M'eioi

"What's the latest from the Ostankino?" I ask.

Sumal Jetuz looks at the comms console. "I have their last transmission here. They took heavy damage, but they're making progress with the repairs. Still no word on when they'll restore their warp drive, though."

"Same with the Brathana?"

"Rrueo is further along with repairs, but... yes, basically, the same." The Betazoid, normally so impeccably groomed, is looking tired and ragged around the edges. I think we all are.

"Thank you, Mr. Jetuz," I say, formally, and turn my attention back to the main screen. We have been pursuing N'Drask's line of flight for hours, now. And, thus far, we have found nothing along the line. Timor's sensors are out to their fullest extent, probing space, and we have... nothing.

Behind us, our two Hazari escorts are sleek and gleaming in the light of the rushing stars, and they are the only things nearby.

"We must be getting close now," I mutter to myself. The Hazari ships are reasonably familiar - we know enough of their capabilities to predict their speed, their endurance. Given N'Drask's course, there are only so many places he could have reached....

"I think I have something," Marya Kothe calls out from the tac station. I sit bolt upright in the command chair.

"What is it?"

"Looks like... some kind of asteroid." Marya is peering intently at the displays. "I'm not sure, but I think I'm reading elevated temperatures - above normal interstellar space levels."

Interstellar space is not absolutely empty - there are rogue bodies adrift in it; asteroids, even whole planets, torn from their native suns by some gravitational catastrophe and cast away into the absolute darkness. But very few have enough internal vulcanism to sustain their temperatures for any length of time - most attain, fairly quickly, the temperature you normally find in the black gulfs; three degrees above absolute zero, the temperature of cosmic microwave radiation. If this asteroid is radiating heat at a higher level - it might be fuelled by internal radioactivity or some such process, but the most likely explanation is... a base.

"I don't suppose there is anything on our charts of the Delta Quadrant?" I ask.

"Nothing here, sir, no," says Sumal.

Only to be expected. Random space debris like this doesn't show up on our charts of the Federation, never mind the Delta Quadrant. "Take us in," I order. "Carefully. And get me N'Larl."

The face of the senior Hazari captain appears on the viewer. N'Larl is thin and wiry by his people's standards, with a nervy, watchful air about him. "We have what might be an asteroid station on sensors," I tell him. "It's on N'Drask's projected line of flight, and there's precious little else out here, so we're going to check it out."

"Makes sense," says N'Larl. "It's showing on our sensors too. I don't recognize it, though." He shrugs. "No reason why I should. Pretty quiet part of space, this."

Timor trembles as she drops below lightspeed. "Sensors to maximum, full spherical sweep," I order. "Let's see what we've got, here."

Images take shape in the viewer, data scrolls up the screen. The asteroid... there is a station there, a ramshackle collection of modules linked by tubing. And there is a ship -

"Octanti battlecruiser," Marya Kothe says. "Inactive... signs of weapon damage... no life signs."

"Do a subspace scan for warp signatures," I order. N'Drask and Ge'Sirn must have passed through here, at any rate... and somebody jumped that Octanti ship. "What about the station?"

"Shielded power source... looks like lots of comms equipment," says Marya.

"Confirmed," says Sumal. "Most of it is passive listening equipment, I think - up close, I'm getting tremendous amounts of feedback from our sensor pings, but from any distance -" He stops, abruptly. I turn towards him, and his face is pale.

"What's the problem?"

"Lifesigns on the station," Sumal says. "Positive ID... Borg."

"What's that?" N'Larl's voice, over the comm link. "Borg? Borg, here?"

"It could be Cooperative rather than Collective," I say. The liberated Borg of the Cooperative have been at odds with the Octanti - that might explain the Octanti wreck - but where did these Borg come from? Too many complicating factors....

"There's subspace traffic on Collective frequencies," Sumal says. "Not a lot, but... enough."

"I am not messing with the Borg," N'Larl's voice says firmly. "No way. The Collective uses Hazari - they say we make good tactical drones - There is no way I'm going near the Borg!"

"We need to know what happened here," I say. There are warp signatures - recognizably, there have been Hazari ships here. And there is the inbound contrail of the Octanti ship... and something else. Not Borg... Vaadwaur, I think. The antique warp engines of the Vaadwaur ships leave very distinctive echoes in subspace.

"Find out for yourself!" N'Larl's voice sounds panicky.

I look at the asteroid, at the modules on its surface, glinting faintly in the light of distant stars. "All right," I say, "I will."

---

Blue light sparkles around me, and I am there.

The corridor is dimly lit, and there is a greenish cast to what light there is. I'm standing on ordinary metal decking, with plain metal on the walls beside me... but only metres away, dark blotches are showing on that metal, blotches which run together and swell out into green-pulsing circuitry....

I step forward, cautiously. The sensor rig flashes up data onto the visor of my helmet.

"Nanovirus," I say. "And it is spreading... slowly, but it's spreading."

"Are you in danger, sir?" Sumal's voice.

I check the readouts. "It's an old strain. My countermeasures will hold." The silvery MACO suit covers me, fitting like a glove, and it is up to date with all Starfleet's latest anti-Borg measures. My tail switches nervously - I resolve to watch that. The nanoskein material covers my tail, it should afford the same level of protection as the rest of the suit - but if it breaches - My tail is a direct extension of my spine, of my central nervous system. If the Borg virus gets through the nanoskein -

I put that thought firmly out of my mind. I lift my phaser rifle to the ready, and advance down the corridor.

"The underlying architecture isn't Borg," I say, over the open channel. "I don't know what it is - it could be a mix of several different cultures." Something flickers in one corner of the readout. "Wait. Movement."

No one speaks. I want to flatten myself against the wall... but the wall is covered in an encrustation of Borg circuitry, and I don't want to touch that. Stupid, I tell myself. Stupid animal reflex....

There are footsteps approaching. Slow, plodding footsteps.

The MACO suit feels suddenly hot, itchy, uncomfortable. It isn't, of course. The discomfort is all down to my fur bristling inside it.

The drone comes into view, lumbering around a bend in the corridor. It is big and bulky, and the Borg prosthetics do not conceal its origin. Hazari. One eye is covered by a scanning device; the other is blank and dead. The drone ignores me. It walks up to the wall, raises its left arm, thrusts its hand into a hole that has suddenly opened up. I edge cautiously around it. My phaser rifle is ready, but if I shoot this one, others will come... perhaps too many others. Something nearby hisses and clanks. The drone withdraws its hand from the wall... and the hand is no longer a hand, it has been replaced with some kind of prosthetic. The drone turns away from me, and lumbers on, down the corridor.

I lower the rifle. My hands are shaking.

"Hazari," I say. "It was a Hazari... recently converted. Still having... parts... added."

"Sir." Sumal's voice again. "N'Larl and his consort have just warped out."

Scared of the Borg. I don't blame him. I would do the same, but I need answers. I turn up the gain on the sensor rig. Data explodes onto my HUD - power sources, EM emissions, data pulses. It is mostly familiar stuff - the endless self-interrogations of a new Borg data node taking shape.

Then something catches my eye, and I pause, and call up the data menu to interrogate the sensor rig. "Just a moment," I say. "I have something here."

"What is it, sir?" Sumal asks.

My eyes widen. "It's a data signature. It's a Starfleet data signature - correction. It's an Omega Force signature."

"What?" Sumal sounds as baffled as I feel. Alpha Quadrant anti-Borg tech? The only examples of that, here, should be the ones I'm wearing right now.

"It's close at hand. Within fifty metres, at least." We selected the beam-in point carefully, putting me as close as we dared to what looked like a control centre. I pad down the corridor. "Scanning on those frequencies now."

Another drone plods into view. Different modifications... but, underneath, still Hazari. N'Drask's crew? Ge'Sirn's? We have the analysis of the warp contrails, we know they did stop here... but if the Hazari were converted to Borg, who took their ships back out?

The new drone walks past me, unseeing, uncaring. "They must be relying on the nanovirus to handle any further conversions," I mutter.

"Your suit is still holding, sir?"

"All readouts in the green." That is one data point I'm watching carefully. There is a door ahead of me - no, not so much a door, simply a gap in the corridor wall. Beyond it -

Beyond it is a shimmering, insubstantial barrier - a panel of dim white light. "That's... experimental MACO shielding," I say, wonderingly. "It's a barrier against Borg probes. Supposedly, it fools their sensors into thinking nothing's there. It's new, very new." I step cautiously through the white light -

I blink. There is an entire room behind it, a room full of equipment - computer consoles and communications gear. It is an eclectic collection of gear - I recognize some Hierarchy and Talaxian and Hazari modules, others are strange to me. There is another doorway in the wall opposite. I make my way over to that. There is a door, sealed now. A transparent aluminium panel shows nothing beyond but... stars.

"Some kind of data centre. And... a back door. An airlock, or maybe an escape pod. Whoever was in here, they got out that way." I turn around. "There's some kind of control interface... still open."

"Can you transmit a visual, sir?"

I check the panel. "It's Octanti. Nessick. This must be where he was working from...." The log files are still open. I link in the helmet's visual data recorder, start to scroll back through the log entries.

"Escape pod launch. Internal communications... communications with the Octanti cruiser...."

Gradually, the sequence of events becomes clear. I pull over a stool, and sit down. I need to sit down.

"A Borg comms device. Nessick deliberately released the nanovirus from inside a captured Borg device." I would never have believed an Octanti would do such a thing. "He's pulled up coordinates for a Borg subspace communications nexus -"

"Sir," Sumal says, "I have a transmission from the Ostankino - Captain Pexlini is requesting an update."

"Patch her straight through. I think this is important."

A pause. I scroll further through Nessick's records. I don't like the picture I'm getting, here.

"What's up?" Pexlini's voice sounds in my ear.

"What's your status?" I ask her.

"Completing repairs. Ship's gonna need a new paint job, but no time to worry over that now. What about Nessick?"

"I'm sending a visual record to the Timor... the bottom line is, he has the Hazari device. Ge'Sirn tried to get it back, and Nessick suckered him into boarding this station - which was flooding with the Borg nanovirus. Nessick and the survivors from the Octanti ship have Ge'Sirn's ship now, and they're headed for a Borg comms node."

"Uh, planning what, exactly?"

"My guess is, trying to use the actualizer as a weapon against the Borg. And from what I can piece together of Nessick's records -" I stop. My mouth is dry.

"What?" Pexlini demands. "What is it?"

"He's planning on overriding the actualizer's safeties, and dumping a protomatter-enhanced holo-matrix directly into the Borg subspace network," I say.

"Just a sec," says Pexlini. "I'm no expert, but -"

"It means blasting an amplified version of the Genesis Wave through half the Delta Quadrant," I say.

There is a brief pause. Then Pexlini says, in a masterpiece of understatement, "I'm guessing that's not such a good idea, then."

"Oh, it'll hurt the Collective," I say, "maybe hurt it really badly. But the collateral damage -"

"Let me guess," says Pexlini. "Safer to watch it from the next galaxy over, yeah?"

"Most likely." I'm guessing. Where protomatter reactions are involved, we are all mostly guessing. But Nessick's guesses are fuelled by wishful thinking and a profound hatred of the Borg....

"We need to get a line on where he's headed," says Pexlini, "and stop him."

"I think I have that," I say. I stand up. "Let me make sure - I'll cross-check on his star charts." There's a stellar cartography module nearby.

"I don't get why this is all left lying around," says Pexlini.

"It's behind an anti-Borg shield," I say. "Though... even so, they'd expand around it." Borg tech grows into the surrounding areas, it would work its way around that MACO screen sooner or later. Unless -

I check the sensor rig. "Nessick's log says something about setting another clock running," I mutter. "Must be... some kind of self-destruct on the station."

"The Borg would find it. They'd neutralize it," Pexlini objects.

"Must be something hidden behind this screen. But the only things behind this screen are... all this comms gear... and the escape exit... and -"

I stop. For the second time, my fur bristles underneath the MACO suit.

"And what?" Pexlini demands.

"Looks like... the housing for the station's power unit. Antimatter storage," I whisper.

I scan in, but I already know what I'm going to find, now. "Molecular acid canister. Ruptured. Now the stuff is eating through the rock of the asteroid, and it's directly over the main antimatter confinement. Once it eats through -"

"Any way to stop it?" Pexlini asks.

"Not a chance. Too close to the matter-antimatter intermix, you'd never get a transporter fix on it to beam the stuff out - and if you tried to dig it out, mechanically, you'd likely breach the confinement that way, instead. Unless you went really slow and careful, but there isn't time to go slow -"

"How long have you got?"

I shake my head. "No way to tell. Minutes, maybe, or hours."

"Get the data and get out of there!"

"On it." I make my way to the stellar cartography unit, and then glance to the side -

"Oh, boy," I say.

"What?"

I look at the sleek grey console. "Found your leak. That is a Starfleet-issue priority diplomatic subspace encoder." I touch the device's controls, and watch data flow up its screen. "Even without data priority codes of his own, Nessick could have pulled up immense amounts of information here - Starfleet, KDF and Republic." I tap my own priority code into the panel, watch the response. "I'm uploading the registration number and command prefix codes from this thing now. We have got to know where this came from and how Nessick got it. Every one of these units is supposed to be accounted for -"

"M'eioi," Pexlini's voice says. "Hours or minutes, remember."

"I've got minutes. I'm going to use them." Without a Starfleet Admiral's personal ID codes, there are limits to what Nessick could have accessed through this device. But I have codes like that, and there is more that I can do -

There are ship IDs here that I recognize. I grin.

"M'eioi," says Pexlini, "get the hell out of there."

"In a minute." I find the comms modulator, and start opening channels. "I'm just going to do something you told me was impossible."

"What?"

My grin widens. "Calling in some cavalry."

Vectors 30

Pexlini

"Aww, crud."

I think there are still life signs on the Hazari wrecks, but the operative word there is wrecks, they ain't gonna be any use to us in the fight. And there will be a fight. Tuarak is not a live-and-let-live kind of a guy, he is already moving towards us.

I could try to break away and flee at warp speed - it'd be the sensible thing to do. Problem is, Vaadwaur ships are fast, there is no way I could get out of his weapons range quick enough.

"Welp," I say, "looks like we've got two choices. Surrender and die, or fight and die. Me, I'd rather do the fighting thing."

Ajbit gives me a brusque nod. From the tac console, Vebanillo says, "I make lots of holes in him."

"There's a fair number already," Voesyy remarks. "I don't think he's had time to make full repairs after that last fight. His drive harmonics are way off -"

"OK. Hard about, one niner seven mark two. Reinforce forward shields, stand ready for max evasive, evasion pattern Zeta Two. Oh, yeah, red alert and stuff."

I'm trying to sound casual. I don't think I'm fooling anyone, certainly not myself. My heavy raider is outclassed and outgunned by a Vaadwaur interdictor cruiser. We are a rat attacking a wolf. Maybe, if Vo's right, a wolf with a thorn in its paw. Don't see how that'll help much.

"Vaadwaur is turning," Ajbit reports.

Presenting his polaron broadside. My pulse is hammering in my temples. The Vaadwaur polaron barrages are deadly, but their targeting scans show visible traces before the firing begins - if we have our wits about us, we can weave between those markers, can ride out the worst of the pounding -

On the tactical board, the markers are showing up. "Run evasion pattern now!"

Ostankino weaves and twists as space erupts around her. The deck trembles and the lights flicker as near-misses pound our shields. "Steer three seven niner mark one!" Clear space, outside the range of Tuarak's guns - outside the immediate range of Tuarak's guns -

"Incoming hail," says Voesyy, then adds, "Shields at thirty-six per cent."

"Put him through." While he's talking, he's not shooting. I hope.

"You," Tuarak's voice says over the comms link. "You were at the Hazari station... you interfered with my plans. I will show you, now, why that was unwise. I will -"

"Oh, can it, you ranting snakehead loudmouth!" I yell back.

There is a wordless screech from the other end. I don't know if it's Tuarak's reaction or just comms interference. Voesyy cuts the connection.

"He's launching torpedoes," Ajbit remarks.

"Yeah, kinda figured he might.... OK Stand by to vent theta radiation, and I want this." I sketch out the course on the tac board. It'll be tight, and a whole bunch of tricobalt torps are coming at us now -

Deep breaths, Pex, I tell myself. Yes, it'll be tight, but it'll work.

As Tuarak's torps come screaming in towards us, Ostankino turns in a tight circle, clouds of theta radiation spraying from her vents. Dim flashes within the greenish murk show where the charged particles have overwhelmed the torps' guidance systems and caused them to self-destruct. Ostankino continues to turn - then lunges, back through her own radiation cloud, back towards Tuarak.

My cannons hammer at his shields, my plasma torps roar out of the launchers. Polaron fire slams into my shields as Tuarak shoots back. Then the Ostankino zooms under and past the interdictor cruiser, catching Tuarak - just - in the last gasps from the theta vents. My turrets snap off shots at the Vaadwaur ship as it wallows, temporarily helpless, in the radiation cloud.

It won't last. Tuarak's drives are offline, but his weapons aren't badly affected, as the continuing impact of polaron bursts is telling me. "Come about, give him the forward cannons!" Veb has a big dreamy smile on her face as she complies.

It's taking Tuarak a long time to get his drives back up. Maybe he's hurt worse than I thought.

Then the tac board lights up again with targeting markers. "Evasion pattern lambda!" I yell, as space breaks out in blue-violet glares around us. Consoles flare with sparks from transient overloads, the deck bucks beneath me like a wild thing, and everywhere we turn, we run into another blaze of killing light. It lasts for seconds that seem like years, and then Ostankino finds her way out of the barrage and into clear space.

"Shields down to six per cent," Ajbit reports. "Structural integrity fifty-one per cent, hull breaches decks three and six." She quirks an eyebrow. "Looks like the captain's quarters took a direct hit."

"Aw, yibbly squeeps, that was where I kept my stuff." We can't take much more of this. Tuarak's ship must be hurt, but I don't know how bad. We can kill him, maybe, if we get real lucky. But we also have to stay real lucky, just to stay alive.

Somehow, we need to make our own luck.

"Reading a torpedo launch," Voesyy says. "Big. Could be a cluster warhead."

Our luck just got worse. One of those things will get in close, then fire its submunitions and pound us to death from a dozen different directions at once. Ideas flash through my mind -

"I nail it good," says Veb.

"No," I say. "Hold off till the warheads separate, then fire the isometric charges." The charges will leap from warhead to warhead, detonating them prematurely - creating, in the process, a nice spectacular light show. "Then we go straight in, ramming speed. Only we don't ram."

"Near miss?" Ajbit asks.

"Very near. Like, inside his shields. Rapid fire on the plasma cannons at zero range."

"Thirty seconds to torpedo range," Voesyy calls out.

"It'll knock our shields down," Ajbit says.

"They're practically there already. Do it."

"Torp on final approach!" Voesyy yells.

"Punch it," I say, and Veb hits the isometric charges. Space is filled with crackling white light and blue blooms of tricobalt detonations, and Ostankino swings around and lines herself up -

The interdictor cruiser explodes towards us, swelling on the viewscreen with terrifying speed.

Something - some almost indescribable sensation - washes over me and through me, like an impact, or an electric shock, or maybe neither. Our shields, tough though the Aegis systems are, flatline as the ship plunges through Tuarak's shields. The bare metal hull of the Vaadwaur ship is so close I could reach out and touch it.

"All cannons, maximum fire!"

White-gold bolts rage out of Ostankino's cannons to smash almost instantly into the cruiser's hull. The viewscreen fills with a solid pulsing glare of vaporizing armour plate. My ship shudders and jerks, alarms screaming, the air full of sparks and smoke.

"Thermal overload on the cannons!" someone shouts, I don't know who.

"Plasma fires in all forward compartments!" Ajbit screams over the din.

Ostankino moves nose-down over the hull of the Vaadwaur ship, like a cutting torch wielded by some suicidal god of blacksmiths. The rear-mounted turrets are chattering constantly, sending bolts downwards, deep into the flaming trench we are carving across Tuarak's hull.

Then we shoot past the cruiser's hull, and the hellish glare ahead fades to nothing. I hardly dare look at the damage control board. But we must have hurt Tuarak, hurt him bad. Maybe even bad enough.

"Come about," I start to say, "set plasma torps to -"

WHAM.

And everything goes dark and weightless for an instant as Ostankino's power grid blinks off. For that brief moment, I wonder if I'm dead. Again. Then the gravity comes back, queasy and uncertain, and there is light and sound everywhere from exploding consoles and flaming conduits. There are screams and curses all around me.

"I think we hit a stray tricobalt warhead," Ajbit croaks.

My head is spinning. The tac board is a mess of random flickering lights. Voesyy is white-faced and tight-lipped at her science console, her hands pressed to a wound on one thigh. The main weapons console has blown itself apart completely, and Veb is on the deck beside it, groaning faintly. I stand up. I wish I hadn't.

"Engineering!" I shout. "Tell me what's left that works!"

"Main power is down." Goyar's voice. "We have... partial manoeuvring thrusters... life support is still online -"

No point asking about shields or weapons. "Get me a scan! Get me visuals, get me something!"

The viewscreen flickers and flashes, and a fuzzy shape appears on it. For a moment, I don't know what it is, and then I blink and focus my eyes properly, and it comes clear.

Tuarak's ship. I didn't recognize it at first, because most Vaadwaur cruisers aren't spouting torrents of plasma flame, flares reaching out from the ravaged hull for hundreds of metres in all directions. As I watch, the cruiser turns, and seems to lurch... and then it dissolves in a wash of blue flames and is gone.

A couple of seconds later, there are some loud, dull booms as a couple of random fragments bounce off our hull.

I kneel down beside Veb. The Pakled's eyes are closed, but she's still breathing. I take one of her hands in mine.

"It's OK, Veb," I say. "Bad guys go muchly bang."

She doesn't open her eyes, but she manages a faint smile and a tremulous squeeze of my hand.

"Come on," I say, "let's get you down to medical."

---

The sickbay is kinda busy. Veb is not the worst hurt, not by a long way. It takes a while to get her settled, and on my way out a medic grabs me and runs a protoplaser over a bleeding gash in my scalp. I honestly didn't know that was there.

By the time I get back to the bridge, Ajbit, God bless her, has started returning some semblance of order. The artificial gravity has stabilized, at least, and the lights are staying on. I don't want to think about what shape Ostankino is in overall, though. Not right now.

"Repairs underway to power grid," Ajbit tells me. "We should have auxiliary back online within the hour, and then we can reinitialize the warp core and run some tests. Do not ask for warp speed," she adds, firmly.

I take a grip on the back of the command chair, unobtrusively using it to stay upright. "We got any comms capacity?"

"Subspace is back online," Voesyy reports. She has a dressing around that leg, and looks marginally happier. "We've reached the survivors from the Hazari ships. Y'Nadan and some of his people are steering escape pods in our direction now. And I've got through to the Timor - M'eioi is proceeding on course to Nessick's probable location."

I toy with the idea of asking her for help - but no, we're alive now, and tracking down Nessick is more important than fixing my warp core. I step around the command chair, and then I notice a sullen look on Ajbit's face. "What's up?" I ask.

Ajbit looks even more sour. "I ran through the sensor logs," she says. "Just before the cruiser blew, something launched from it. Looked like - maybe - a warp-capable shuttle."

And three guesses who was on board it. "Aw, cripes," I grumble as I drop into the command chair, "that guy must have more lives than Rrueo and M'eioi put together...."

Vectors 29

Nessick's antennae twitched with pleasure as he set the last datapad down on the neat stack. Soon, very soon, he would be back among his own people... and soon after that, they would be on their way to loose the new weapon against the Borg.

He looked around the cluttered laboratory, considering. Time to blank the computers? It scarcely seemed worthwhile... the listening post was still providing valuable information, it might be useful in the future. If Tuarak did not destroy it in a fit of pique, when he returned to find it empty. Nessick shrugged. He was not going to miss Tuarak.

A discreet chime sounded from one console. He turned towards it, touched the controls. "Nessick," he said.

"This is battlecruiser 219-67-C," a voice replied. "Approaching for pickup."

Nessick sighed inwardly. The ship had a name, there was really little point in being so guarded on a secure channel... but, there was no use arguing. "ETA?" he asked.

"Sixteen minutes."

"Excellent, excellent. I will transmit the schematics now, and you may transport the specimen of the device once you enter range... but, I think it is preferable if you dock and I transfer the protomatter fuel by hand. One does not wish to take chances with such a volatile substance."

"Best not to risk the transporter," the voice agreed.

"Quite, quite." Nessick slotted a datapad into the console, tapped out a sequence of commands. "Schematics transmitting over your data channel now. We have a location for a first strike?"

"We have identified a Borg communications node. It is not strongly guarded - we will infiltrate, and proceed along the lines you have described."

"Yes," said Nessick. "Yes, that should prove most satisfactory. How long to reach the node?"

"A matter of - " The voice broke off. Nessick frowned.

"Battlecruiser. Battlecruiser, respond, please," he said urgently.

A long pause, then the voice came back. "We have sensor contacts inbound."

Nessick hurried to another console. "I have tactical telemetry and will transmit," he called out.

"Two inbound. Identifying now -" The voice cut out, abruptly, with a discordant squawk of sound. Nessick muttered under his breath. He keyed in urgent commands on the tactical console.

The display formed as a spray of random visual noise at first, signatures of every scrap of solid matter or energized plasma in the nebula. Then it steadied, and the computer assigned identifications to the objects on scan - and Nessick groaned aloud.

The Octanti battlecruiser was crippled already, warp drive wrecked, shields down, escape pods spitting from its hull. Some short distance away, two sleek elegant shapes were still pounding at the cruiser with white-gold flashes of corrosive plasma fire. Hazari. Nessick's mind raced. Of course, he had had dealings with the Hazari - he had had dealings with half the powers of the Delta Quadrant, it was part of his role - but how had the Hazari come to him, now, like this?

Not just Hazari, he thought, but hostile Hazari. And there was only one reason why the Hazari might be hostile to him.... Somehow, Tuarak must have let something slip, and now Ge'Sirn was here. Nessick was thinking faster than he had ever thought in his life, and the conclusions he was reaching... appalled him.

But there was no help for it. Nessick turned his attention to another console, where a communications icon was flashing urgently. He touched the control. "Nessick," he said.

"This is Ge'Sirn," the Hazari's voice answered. "You've got something of mine. I want it back."

Nessick's hands moved on the control panel. Status lights blinked on and off, changing. Several rooms away, the constant humming of a force field abruptly stopped.

"You have damaged one of our cruisers. Please assure me that you are doing everything in your power to rescue my compatriots from their escape pods. We Octanti are so few in number -"

"They'll keep," Ge'Sirn's voice snarled. "Or, if they don't, what the hell do I care? I want the actualizer. Now."

"You do not have schematics for it? Careless of you, most careless."

"I need the protomatter. And I don't want you to have it. Now transport it, or I open fire."

"No, no," said Nessick, "you will not do that, because if you do, the protomatter may be destroyed in the barrage. Indeed, I am quite certain that it would be destroyed. I am in a position to make sure of that, you see."

There was a brief pause, then Ge'Sirn said, "Then I'll board your station and get it."

"Will you, now?" Nessick knew he had to choose his words carefully. "My station is not large, but it is... complex. I know it well, and you do not. You would have to search a long time to find all my hiding places, a long time indeed."

Another pause. "You've got transporter inhibitors engaged,"said Ge'Sirn. "OK, so I can't beam troops onto your station. But there's nothing stopping me doing a straightforward board and storm. In force. I will flood your little rathole with troops, and there's nothing you can do about it. You better be waiting at the airlock for me, with the protomatter in your hands, because that is the only way you stand even a chance of surviving this, you treacherous little -"

"Yes, yes, you make your point forcefully," said Nessick, "but, nonetheless, I do not think I shall comply." And he cut the channel before Ge'Sirn could answer.

He peered vaguely about the room. He had to be very sure he knew where everything was, now, and there was much to do. The clock was ticking. Two clocks were ticking.

---

The indicators on the airlock extension glowed green. Hard seal. Ge'Sirn smiled grimly.

The door slid open, revealing a docking hatch. It was one of several such dotted about the crazy little conglomeration of modules that was Nessick's listening post. Right now, N'Drask would be connecting up to a similar one, somewhere a couple of hundred metres above and to Ge'Sirn's right - if he had the plan of the station clear in his head.

"Checks out OK," his science officer said, beside him. "Locked, but I think I can get a standard override through the control bus. No radiation or toxins on the other side, either, at least not that I can scan -"

"He won't poison his own breathing air," growled Ge'Sirn. "Let's have it open, then."

"You sure? I mean, this is only a basic unit, and he's got some sort of sensor spoofing going on in there -"

"Open it." The Octanti wanted to hide himself, so much was obvious. Ge'Sirn's grim smile broadened. He couldn't hide from this force.

"All right," he said, turning to face his crew. "We are going in as soon as the doors are open, we will set up a secure perimeter in the space beyond this lock. Looks like some sort of receiving area for cargo, and it communicates with the docking port N'Drask's on. Once we've linked up with N'Drask, we cut the ships loose with a skeleton crew so Nessick can't slip past us and get aboard. Then we sweep this place, section by section, corridor by corridor, room by room."

"Till we find him?" someone asked.

"We find him, or we find his damned transporter inhibitors or whatever sensor jammers he's got out. Take those out, and finding him gets a lot easier. Or we can just find the protomatter, take that, and blow the whole station on our way out. I'm easy."

There were muttered grumbles of assent from the ranks. "OK, then," said Ge'Sirn.

"Door's opening," the science officer said.

The hatch swung inwards, revealing the barren metal chamber of an airlock beyond, another hatch in the wall ahead. Ge'Sirn stepped through, armed troopers crowding after him. "Think that inner hatch is locked on a separate circuit," the science officer called out. "Opening now."

The inner hatch opened, and Ge'Sirn saw - a wall, beyond it. A metal barrier, a simple barricade. Useless. He raised the stubby corrosive-plasma gun in his hands, took aim, fired. The metal burned away in white-hot, flaming droplets. Ge'Sirn kept firing until the barrier was comprehensively destroyed. He waited a while before leading the way over the hot, smouldering deckplates.

The receiving area was a vast empty space, loading gear stacked neatly against the far wall. The Hazari troops formed up, weapons ready, their eyes vigilant. Ge'Sirn looked about him. There was no movement in the room -

He frowned. Was there a voice, though? He thought he could hear some kind of voice - somewhere, at the edge of hearing -

There was a very definite boom and crash from somewhere close at hand. He looked up. A catwalk crossed the room, a little below the vaulted ceiling, and N'Drask was on the walkway now, leading his own crewmen into the station. "He blocked the damn door!" he called to Ge'Sirn in aggrieved tones.

Ge'Sirn looked round again, spotted a ladder up to the catwalk, gestured to N'Drask to take it. He was charting the exit points from the loading area in his mind's eye. The station was complicated - but it was not so large, after all. They would keep this room secured as a base, and spread out slowly -

"Told my ship to stand off," N'Drask said as he joined Ge'Sirn.

"Me, too." Ge'Sirn glanced at the science officer, who nodded. "OK. So there's just us, until we get the transporter inhibitors down." He looked at his own crew, and at N'Drask's. "Think we've got enough here to deal with one Octanti."

"Damn sure we have," said N'Drask. "Though I guess all we want's the protomatter, right?"

"And I don't want Nessick to have the designs for the actualizer," said Ge'Sirn.

"Yeah," said N'Drask, "but by now he'll have looked it over, he'll have some idea how it works -"

Ge'Sirn lifted the plasma gun in his hands, looked at it pointedly. "So he will."

There was a pause, during which he could hear N'Drask gulp. "All right, then," N'Drask said, reluctantly.

"Just so long as we're clear on that," Ge'Sirn said. He frowned. He still couldn't shake the feeling that someone was whispering.

"I've got some idea of the layout," N'Drask said. "He had to be talking to us from some control centre, right? Now, there's a bunch of modules with serious electronic hardware in them -"

He stopped. Ge'Sirn was looking straight past him, at something else. An intercom panel on the wall. A panel with an alert light flashing.

Ge'Sirn strode over to the panel, flipped the switch. "This better be surrender," he said.

"Ah, regrettably, no," Nessick's voice replied. "I just wanted - well, I suppose, I wanted to see how things were progressing. And to apologize. I do regret, I most deeply regret, what I have been forced to do. But you left me no choice. No choice at all."

"Where are you?" Ge'Sirn demanded. Nessick's voice had sounded strange and faint, over the rising buzzing in his ears.

"Ah, I am on my way to take control," said Nessick.

"Control of what?"

"Oh, this situation. And your ships. You should not judge all Octanti by the standards of an academic like myself. The survivors from the battlecruiser are spacewalking to your destroyers now. They are highly competent soldiers, they will easily overwhelm the few of your crew left aboard."

"Like hell! They won't have time to take control of the systems before I knock down your transporter inhibitors, and once my crew get back aboard -"

"That will not happen," said Nessick. "It is something, as I say, that I regret bitterly. But it had to be done. I wonder, what sensory cues have you been perceiving? I understand that some people feel a tingling in the flesh, or smell strange odours, but the most common sign of infection is an auditory one. Have you been hearing anything, Ge'Sirn? Voices, perhaps?"

He was hearing voices. A torrent of voices, growing louder and louder -

"I monitored many sources of information." Nessick's voice was fading in the rising storm. "I even had some devices of our most deadly enemy. Working with those, now, required precautions, many precautions. I have disabled those precautions, especially for you. I repeat, I do regret this, most sincerely, most sincerely indeed. I would not willingly have given even one living soul over to them -"

Ge'Sirn was no longer listening. His face was turned towards N'Drask, and it was growing pale, not with shock or any emotion, but as part of the process, the process which was making dark lines of circuitry spread under suddenly pallid skin, was drowning his own consciousness in the roar of a billion voices in his head -

The being that had been Ge'Sirn faced the one that had been N'Drask, and they spoke in unison.

"We are the Borg."

Vectors 28

Pexlini

"So name me another palace," I say to Hal Welti, who sighs.

"Buckingham," he says. "Blenheim. Palais de la Concorde -"

"Aw, no, those are too obvious. I've heard of those. C'mon, I want an obscure one."

"Can you have an obscure palace?" Ajbit asks, giving me a stony look. "I thought the point of them was to be ostentatious."

"Well, one people haven't heard of, so much. Like the Ostankino Palace." I turn to meet Ajbit's gaze. "You look like you don't approve, much."

Ajbit shrugs. "It just feels a bit... well. Dead men's shoes. Ghoulish."

"Well, yeah, see your point, but... too good an opportunity to pass up, right?" The Hazari ground casualties were savage, but the ships in the armoured docking bays were largely undamaged. Hazari salvage laws entitled me to a share in the assets I'd helped to protect - and it wouldn't make sense for my cover identity to miss out on the opportunity. And, for that matter, the real me knows the importance of acquiring Delta Quadrant tech for analysis by Starfleet.

So, I have scored myself a new ship - a salvaged Hazari destroyer. And Ajbit can like it or lump it. Meanwhile, I want to think up a name. Starfleet's shipyards churn out hundreds, maybe thousands, of new ships every year, and since giving them names is an unbreakable tradition, they are desperate for any sort of repeat-useable naming convention. Me, I name all my ships after palaces on Earth....

I look around the cramped bridge of the Ostankino. Yeah, it looks pretty palatial to me, or it would if someone would finally give the viewscreen a wipe down.

Still, a trade up to a Hazari destroyer will be a good thing. I can see several of them on the tactical display right now, running a tight patrol pattern around the planetoid. Most of them will keep on doing exactly that, but three pairs have been detached - one pair has already left with the Brathana, and the others are falling into position with ourselves and the Timor right now.

"Timor signals ready to go to warp," Voesyy reports from comms.

"Narayanhity," says Hal. "Dechenchholing."

"That sounds like a good one," I say. "Vo, tell M'eioi good hunting from us, willya?"

"Right," says the Rigelian. "Also, Y'Nadan is on the line, asking what the hold-up is."

I turn to look at Goyar. "Still some mild fluctuations in the starboard phase coils," he says, "but they're within tolerances, and I guess we're good to go."

"OK." On the tac display, two Hazari destroyers and the Timor flash with warp-field icons and are gone. No reason to delay, then. "Vo, tell Y'Nadan we're ready to go. Ajbit, Goyar - let's punch it." I settle back in the command chair. "Dechenchholing?"

"Former royal residence of the King of Bhutan," says Hal.

"Where on Earth's that?"

"Asia. Mountainous bit."

"OK." Truth be told, I don't know Earth geography all that well, but what the heck, I trust Hal. "Well, anyway, it's different," I say, as we go to warp.

---

The Underspace exit is a tedious long way away, if you're going the long way round via normal warp travel. Plenty of time for me to catch up on some sleep, rest my aching body, maybe use those eyedrops the doc gave me. As it is, I still look and feel like I've been beaten up in the middle of the worst hangover in history.

But it turns out I don't have time for any of that. "Incoming subspace transmission from the Brathana," says Voesyy. "Flagged urgent, eyes-only."

"Oh, sheesh. Plug in that one-time PADD, willya?" We have worked out an extra layer of encryption, based on one-use enciphering overlays - whoever's listening to Delta Command should see nothing but gibberish, unless they have crazy levels of fractal decryption expertise on tap, in which case all bets are off. Voesyy connects up the PADD, and the viewscreen hazes over, then clears to show Rrueo's face. Her whiskers are drooping bad.

"Rrueo was deceived," she says without preamble. "Ge'Sirn led us to some random point in space, disabled Rrueo's engines, and then departed - Rrueo must assume towards this Nessick's true location."

Oh, darn. And other words. "What's your status?" I ask.

"Ge'Sirn stuck to the letter of his agreement. Arguably. We have no crew casualties, but our warp drive is still offline and will be for some hours before repairs can be completed. It will be up to Pexlini and M'eioi to intercept Ge'Sirn - hopefully, once he has reached Nessick."

"Two birds with one stone, OK." And oh, darn, again. Brathana represents the biggest chunk of our available firepower, and now it looks like we have to take on two Hazari destroyers as well as a Vaadwaur interdictor cruiser. This is shaping up to be not a good day, I reckon. "Vo, get a line to the Timor, let's clue M'eioi in on the change in plans. Ajbit, patch in the telemetry from N'Drask's ship - I take it N'Drask is with Ge'Sirn?"

"Joined at the hip, Rrueo thinks." She glances offscreen. "Rrueo cannot materially assist further - Rrueo must tend to her repairs."

"OK. Keep this frequency open, and we'll send coordinates for a meet-up as soon as we know what those coordinates are. Pexlini out."

"I have the Timor," says Voesyy.

"Put 'em on." Blue cat face replaced by black cat face. M'eioi's whiskers look more cheerful, but I guess that'll change in a moment. "Ge'Sirn sucker-punched the Brathana and has lit out after Nessick for himself," I tell her. "Change of plan. We're going to track them down."

It makes sense. It makes sense based on one huge assumption - that the Nessick Ge'Sirn knows is the same one Tuarak mentioned. OK, so that's maybe a pretty enormous assumption - as Ge'Sirn himself pointed out, it's kind of a big galaxy out there, plenty of room for two people to have the same name. But, hell, we have to start assuming somewhere, right?

"I can link up to the tracking devices you put on N'Drask's ship," says M'eioi.

"Yep, makes sense, we're doing the same now." I glance at Ajbit. Then I take a long hard look at Ajbit, who is wearing a fearsome Bajoran scowl, and we are talking about a species that scowls real good, here. "What's the matter?"

"Tracker is not responding," Ajbit says shortly. Uh-oh, I think to myself.

M'eioi is leaning to one side, talking to someone out of my line of vision. She turns back. "We're not receiving a signal from those tracking devices," she says. "They might be out of range -"

"No. Not unless N'Drask's clean out of the quadrant already. Oh, darn. I reckon he's caught on."

"The fact that we followed them to the meeting point -"

"Yeah. And very likely Rrueo let something slip. Ferasans, they're really prone to grandstanding. Cultural thing, comes with the whole earning-a-name bit. They do something, they want recognition for it." I swear under my breath. "As Starfleet officers, of course, we respect the validity of the loudmouthed furballs' stupid culture, but it don't half make our lives harder -"

"Just a moment." M'eioi's grass-green eyes are focused on something below the screen. Console, probably. "You sent me the specs on those things. That warp contrail modulator, now...."

"Yeah, that thing should light up N'Drask's warp drive like a parachute flare, except by now he's found it and tossed it off the ship."

"That needn't matter," says M'eioi. She is frowning in intense concentration. "It leaves a secondary subspace harmonic behind, a sort of standing wave. It takes weeks for that to dissipate, and if you've got the ship's drive signature on file, it should be detectable from several parsecs away...." Her voice trails off into muttering.

I shoot a questioning glance at Voesyy, who shrugs. "It's subspace field theory, sir, a bit over my head."

"Feed me the Brathana's current location," says M'eioi. Well, what have I got to lose? I nod to Voesyy, who does the business.

And there seems nothing left to do, except watch the screen where M'eioi is muttering.

"Got it," she says, at length. "Well, got something. Sending the raw data now."

"What've you got, exactly?" I ask.

"Line of N'Drask's subspace trajectory up to the point where he removed the device," M'eioi says. "If he doesn't know about the secondary harmonic - and he didn't strike me as much of a warp theorist - then he might not realize that contrail's still detectable. In which case - we have his current course and speed, and we know how long he's been on it -"

"Got it," says Voesyy. "Processing now.... It checks out, as far as I can see. Patching through to navigation, plotting an intercept locus now."

"Awright," I say with some feeling. "Punch up a star map or something, let's see where we're going."

M'eioi's face vanishes from the screen, to be replaced by a patchy-looking map of the Delta Quadrant with a long smeary line drawn across it. I lean forward to study it. Darn, and other words, again. The line goes near as dammit the opposite direction from the course M'eioi took, she and her Hazari backup are way out of position.

Also... try as I might, I can't see anything interesting on that line. If this is N'Drask, he's not heading for any inhabited system, or a major deep-space station, not one he can reach inside a month, anyway. There is an odd scattering of nebular material here and there, and there is a trace of something unrecognizable - which, now I look closer, might just be where Vebanillo spilled soup on the screen a little while back.

"Signal Y'Nadan about the change of plan," I say, "and let's drop out of warp, compare notes, try and figure out what the yeeps they might be aiming for." Maybe Y'Nadan knows about some back-of-beyond outpost where this Nessick might hang out....

Ostankino shudders as she drops to sublight speeds. A short while later, Y'Nadan is patched into the conversation, and cursing fluently while he's brought up to speed. Something tells me Ge'Sirn's name is going to be mud in these parts when all the dust's settled.

Y'Nadan is reviewing the star chart when Voesyy speaks up. "Sensor contact, sir, at extreme range. Approaching under power."

OK, let's assume that's not good news. "Yellow alert. Got an ID?"

"Not yet, but -" Voesyy looks up. "Incoming hail."

"Let's hear it."

A brief pause, then, "Hazari." I haven't heard much of that voice, but I hate it already. "I have been seeking Hazari, but not those Hazari. Those Hazari are superfluous."

And blue light boils across space, the thunderous glare of a polaron barrage accompanied by the livid blasts of tricobalt explosions. There is no doubt who we're dealing with, now -

And Y'Nadan's destroyer and its consort reel in the midst of the barrage, flames spouting from their hulls. Dead or crippled - either way, out of the fight.

Leaving just me and the rapidly approaching shape of Tuarak's interdictor cruiser.

I knew this was shaping up to be a bad day.