"Blue Moon"

[Mr. Atoz]

BLUE MOON >>

Captain's log, Stardate 52355.8: The Odysseus has arrived at New Paris, to pick up personnel and supplies intended for Federation outposts in the Pavonis sector. We expect a layover of three to four days as we wait for the transport ship from the Omega sector.

The snowboard was already going too fast when it hit the ice ramp. Charles Fawkes, his feet hooked into the clamps one in front of the other, tried to shift his weight backwards, hoping to steer the thing back onto the softer snow. The board skidded sideways, shot like a luge around the curve of the half pipe, and by that time all he could do was flip completely over and hope that he landed upright.

Fawkes hurtled into empty space, seeing nothing but clear blue sky, his body feeling weightless, and then slammed hard into the virgin snow next to the path. The board kept going, dropping off the edge of a short cliff and shooting down the further slope. He raised his arms desperately to regain his balance, skewing his path back to the right and gasping in surprise at the crevasse that opened up just in front of him. The snowboard soared across the gap, clipped a jagged lip of ice on the far end, and tumbled. Several cartwheels later, Fawkes came to an abrupt halt, face down in the snow.

Awkwardly he unclasped himself from the snowboard and started to push himself upright, trying to look back up the mountainside. Just as he turned over, there was a wild cry from overhead and a heavy weight came down on top of him. Two arms thrust his shoulders back into the snow, as a pair of legs straddled him. "Woo Hoo!" Vespis cried, her breath hissing out like mist in the frigid mountain air. "Was I right? Isn't this more fun than a holodeck?"

"Oh yes," Fawkes grunted, trying to move. "Massive bodily injury has always been one of my top five sources of amusement."

"Your trouble is you're too stiff," the Andorian retorted, rubbing his broad shoulders through his thin xenylon parka while her antennae wriggled with excitement. "You need to loosen up."

"I don't suppose you'd recommend any specific remedy for that, lieutenant commander?"

In answer, she suddenly bent forward and locked her cold lips over his. The kiss began hard and somewhat clumsy, but after his initial surprise, he found himself responding, and as their bodies grew warmer together, the kiss itself grew more heated. After a minute or two, there was a sharp pain as her fine white teeth came together on his lower lip.

"What was that for?" he said, tasting blood.

"Sorry," she panted. "Got carried away." And kissed him again, tearing open his parka and feeling for the opening of his shirt underneath.

Fawkes was making a mental note on the relationship between air temperature and the libido of female Andorians when suddenly he heard the shimmering whine of a transporter beam somewhere close by. Biting back an ancient Anglo-Saxon swear word, he took Vespis firmly by the upper arms and pushed her gently off of him. "I'm sorry to break this up, love, but we've got company." Then Vespis saw the two hooded, fur-clad figures who were materializing on the hill just a dozen meters away, made a heavy disappointed sigh, and scrambled to her feet alongside him.

The two people hadn't moved from their position, but they were staring at Fawkes and Vespis intently, as if this weren't just an accidental meeting. Without speaking a word, they marched straight towards the couple, drawing phaser pistols from underneath their coats.

"Now, just a minute--" Fawkes began, as an energy beam -- sounding remarkably loud in the thin mountain air -- lanced through the air and plowed into the snow in between them. Fawkes was attempting to judge the possible merits of diving down the ice crevasse behind him when the second shot caught Vespis on her left aside and spun her around. With a cry of pain, she dropped into the snow and lay still.

The figure on the right raised his weapon to take careful aim at Fawkes, but his companion forestalled him, speaking at last in an alien language that Fawkes didn't recognize, even though there was a certain intonation about their accents that seemed very familiar. Then they both moved forward, nudging him towards the crevasse with their guns. It didn't take much intuition to guess that they were about to shove him off the cliff. "You tossers can get in a lot of trouble for shooting at Starfleet officers," Fawkes said, making a show of giving up and going along with them.

As he turned around, however, he deliberately tripped over the snowboard he had discarded earlier. Abruptly he slung the stiff plastic object around in an arc which caught the two assailants by surprise. The edge of the board struck the first one across the face, slapping his gun arm upwards and sending the phaser pistol flying into the snow. Fawkes kept moving, slamming the unwieldy board into the second before he could recover. He shot to his feet, drawing back his fist...

In the confusion, their hoods had fallen back so that he could see their faces for the first time. They were Andorians!

While the first one was clutching his broken nose, trying to locate his pistol by feel, the second one flung the snowboard aside, firing wild. Fawkes ducked under the beam and rolled, using the downward slope to send them both tumbling. As they grappled, Fawkes got in one good solid punch to his opponent's jaw before the ground below them crumbled. He felt himself falling, desperately reached for a rock outcropping, while the man he had been fighting fell down the crevasse.

Fawkes struggled to draw breath into his burning lungs, fighting his way back to the top of the hill just in time to see the other alien and Vespis both vanish into the shimmering coherent energy aura of the transporter effect.

8.0

[Mr. Atoz]

Fawkes dug his comm badge out of the pocket of his parka to find that the ship was calling him. He had himself beamed directly to the bridge of the Odysseus. "Mister Rosh," he snapped to the officer at the Tactical station, "someone just transported Vespis up from the planet. Locate her transport signature. I want to know where they went!"

"I will attend to it, Commander," said the Eminian security officer, his brow ridges tightening as he reacted with surprise. "But you are to report to the Captain's ready room immediately."

Fawkes, his thoughts totally focused on getting to the injured Andorian, scowled with displeasure at the delay, but fortunately his respect for Captain Atoz kept him from blurting out the first thing that came to mind. "All right," is what he did say. "But find her, Mr. Rosh. I'm counting on you." He strode quickly to the ready room door, pushed the chime button, and marched inside.

The first thing he saw was an Andorian, dressed in the uniform of the Imperial Guard, sitting at the desk across from the Captain. "What's he doing here?" Fawkes said before he could stop himself.

Atoz stood up in evident surprise. "This is Captain Thann, of the Andorian starship Yepok Velas. He wants to speak with Lieutenant Commander Vespis. Where is she?" The Andorian looked Fawkes over and, noticing that he was a subordinate, merely tilted his antennae slightly in his direction.

"She was just shot and abducted," said Fawkes flatly. "By two Andorians."

Thann stood up slowly. "I was afraid of this. It seems that they have stolen a march on me."

"Who has, Captain?" said Atoz. "You seem almost to have expected this."

"It is a matter of internal security, Captain Atoz," the Andorian replied, turning towards the door. "I'm not authorized to say more. Vho Vespis is a citizen of Andor. I will see to her recovery. You need not concern yourself any more with the incident."

"She is a Starfleet officer, Captain," said Atoz. "And a member of my crew--"

"If you will check your Starfleet regulations," said Andorian icily, "you will find that I have jurisdiction in matters dealing with Andorian citizens. Your assistance is not required. Do I make myself clear?"

There was a pause before Atoz nodded. "You do, Captain." He tapped his comm badge. "Mister Rosh, kindly escort our guest to the Transporter room." The Andorian nodded curtly and left.

Once the door had closed behind him, Fawkes said, "Captain, I don't know what his problem is, but--"

"Mister Fawkes," Atoz interrupted, pacing out from behind his desk, "you just heard a Captain of the Imperial Guard tell me to keep out of it. When he returns to his ship, the first thing he'll do is contact the nearest Starfleet command base. Ten minutes from now, I expect I'll be getting a message from Admiral Sprague, officially making that an order. You realize what that means, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," said Fawkes, glowering with ill temper.

Atoz sighed thoughtfully. "It means that the Scylla had better launch within the next ten minutes, with yourself and any other volunteers you can round up. I'll put it down in the log as a training mission."

"Thank you, Captain."

"Don't waste time thanking me," Atoz snapped. "Vespis may be an Andorian, but she's family. We take care of family."

***

The runabout Scylla glided out of hangar bay 2 and banked steeply to starboard, quickly accelerating away from the Odysseus. "I was not actively scanning the planet at the moment in question, Commander," said Lieutenant Rosh apologetically from the copilot station. "But there were only three transport traces in that region just prior to your arrival."

"That should narrow it down some," said Fawkes, in the pilot seat.

"Yes, sir," said Lt. Caeli, the ship's helmsman, sitting at the auxiliary station behind them. "One ended up at the transport terminal at Chamonix City. The other two went to a Barathian trader in orbit."

"Barathian?" said Fawkes. "That doesn't make any sense." They were a slug-like race, not known for involvement in smuggling or trading in anything illegal – mainly because their physical needs were incompatible with those of most humanoid races.

"There's a first time for everything," said Ben Pierce, the Chief Medical Officer, standing crowded beside Caeli in the small thingypit. "I'm worried about her injuries, Charles. How badly would you say she was hit?" At that moment the comm panel whistled.

"Odysseus to Scylla," came the voice of Ensign Penner, the starship's communications officer. "Your training flight to Tarith III is approved. Have a good time, guys. Bring me back a jandor."

"Message acknowledged, Odysseus," said Fawkes, realizing that he ought to respond in the same casual tone in case someone was listening. It was just hard to think of anything. "Aren't you a little young for a jandor?" was all he could think of off the top of his head.

"I'm older than I look, sir," Penner replied playfully. "Odysseus out."

Rosh meanwhile had already run her voice message through the runabout's signal processor and found an embedded message from the ship's assistant security officer, Lt. Blackadar. It read, "Passive EM shows the Barathian ship was used as a relay. Traces ended up on glider designated X01. Went into warp immediately heading for Bernicia."

"A glider?" asked Pierce.

"An unidentified vessel," said Rosh, nodding sagely. "I remember it well. According to its registration beam, it was a passenger vessel from Ardis Minor, but I was suspicious of its gamma signature. It was carrying a Type J shield system."

Pierce whistled. "Does sound a bit tough for a passenger ship, doesn't it?"

Fawkes was already laying in a course. "Strap in everyone," he called loudly for the benefit of Claussen and Vilenkin back in the passenger section, then he stabbed the Engage button. The runabout leaped into warp with a flash of displaced tachyons.

***
Twenty minutes after Scylla went into warp, the Andorian cruiser Yepok Velas was still in orbit, scanning the planet. Captain Atoz watched from the command chair, wondering what they were up to. As he had expected, the message from Admiral Sprague had arrived only minutes before: "I've been told by Captain Thann that this is a matter of internal security, which means that it is outside Starfleet's jurisdiction. I expect you to focus on your own duties, and let our allies deal with their business. I hope that is clear, Captain."

To Atoz, what the admiral had not said was just as interesting. Starfleet had a long tradition of granting starship captains on detached service a wide latitude of discretion. Strictly speaking, the admiral had said nothing to prohibit Atoz from continuing to look into the matter as long as he didn't get in the Andorians' way -- and exactly what constituted getting in their way was left rather ambiguous.

"They've beamed up the body of the Andorian who fell into the crevasse," said Science Officer Weir quietly, peering into her sensor display. Like most of the bridge crew, she had volunteered to go with Fawkes, but second thoughts had convinced her that she might be more helpful on the Odysseus. Sitting back in her chair, she swiveled to face the command chair. "Curious how they didn't need a narrow-field scan to find it. Almost as if there was a transponder of some sort on the body."

"That is curious," said Atoz. "Were you able to get a scan of the body before it dematerialized?"

Weir shook her head regretfully. "I'm afraid not, sir. They were very quick."

"Captain," said Ensign Penner at the comm station, "the Yepok Velas is requesting departure clearance." A minute later, the sleek Andorian vessel fired its thrusters, steering out of orbit and moving out on the same course the suspicious trading vessel had taken. With a bright flash of tachyon energy, it went to warp speed. Atoz drummed on the armrest of his chair in frustration. Now his orders didn't leave him much discretion. He had to wait for the freighter Carolina from Omega sector, due in one or two days. If he only knew who that strange ship was, and where it was going...

"Captain," said Lt. Blackadar at Tactical, her soft Scottish accent almost echoing his thoughts, "I've run the engine pattern of that glider through the Starfleet security database. It matches the Andorian Cython-class corvette."

"A warship?" said Weir, turning to Atoz. "Isn't that the same kind of ship Vespis once served on, sir? Before she transferred to Starfleet?"

Atoz nodded. "I think so."

"According to our intel," Blackader added, "the Cython-class is no longer in active service. They were last used as privateers during their conflict with the Tamarians, ten years ago."

Most of the allied navies had little need for their own warships except for piracy suppression. The Cython class had once been very good at that sort of thing, but these days piracy was pretty much nonexistent. Still, there was no denying that it was well-armed -- better armed than a runabout, in fact. "Diane, I want long-range sensor sweeps of that area until further notice. Use warp power to extend the range if you have to. We need to know what's going on."

"Yes, sir."

"Mister Fawkes is nae a fool, sir," said Blackadar, almost as if she was reading his mind. "Tis sure he won't try to take on an armed corvette with just a runabout."

Atoz tossed her a wan look, then turned back to the viewscreen. If only he could be certain of that.

***

Vespis woke up in the dark, feeling as if she'd been lying there a long time. The bunk she was lying in was a hard slab built into an alcove within the bulkhead, with very little headroom. The mattress and pillow, although clean, smelled strongly of cheap disinfectant. Glancing over the edge of the bunk, she could tell the dimensions of the little room by the row of tiny lamps that ran across the floor, giving just enough light to find your way to the head. "Computer, lights!" she said, but nothing happened. She groaned. The whole thing was very familiar. As she tried to sit up, her entire left side hurt where the phaser had hit her. Someone had crudely tried to bandage it, but whoever it was had not done a very good job.

The door slid back into its wall pocket with a shuddering series of jerks. Two Andorians, a male and a female, walked through the doorway and flicked on the cabin ceiling lights. The male had a bandage over his nose. He also had a phaser pistol, which he pointed at her.

"Goolev!" said Vespis, sitting up on the bunk, her antennae registering both recognition and a fair amount of disgust. "Why did you shoot me, you moron?"

Caught off guard, the male Andorian shifted his weight uncomfortably, his own pair of antennae writhing almost with embarrassment. "I had to disable your locator chip, didn't I?"

"Starfleet doesn't use locator chips, tarmuck! Mine was removed when I joined the Imperial Guard!"

"Well... how was I to know that?" he replied sulkily.

"Don't let her talk to you like that," said the female, punching him on the arm. "You're the one carrying the gun!"

"And I'll bet everyone sleeps better knowing that, Surl," replied Vespis sarcastically. "You guys have really fallen on hard times if you give Greasy Goolev a phaser and trust him to run an operation."

"Don't talk about me like that," he hissed, looming over her and brandishing the phaser pistol. "I'm the First Officer now."

"Who's the Captain, Zukko the clown?" she retorted. Vespis spoke lightly, but she was worried. All the evidence indicated that she was back on the old privateer ship Cyana, where she had served a decade ago during the undeclared conflict with the Tamarians. She and Commander Thann had been recognized for their service with commissions in the Imperial Guard, but it looked as if the others were still playing pirate. And of course that lead her to wonder if...

"I'm the Captain," said another voice. A tall, commanding male figure had stepped through the door. Goolev and Surl backed off into the corner, leaving her free to study the newcomer.

"Thovun?" said Vespis, looking up at him. His face was harder than she remembered, and he had a few new scars, but he was still very handsome, and he had the same grin that she used to love, all those years ago. But the smile no longer quite reached his eyes, which were a lot harder and colder. "What do you want from me, after all this time?"

"Is that any way to say hello to your husband?"

"I'm terribly sorry," Vespis said, standing up so that she could look Thovun in the eye. "Goolev, hand me your phaser so I can say hello properly to my EX husband."

The Andorian captain laughed harshly. "Same old Vespis."

"You tried to sell me to the Tamarians!"

Thovun twitched, as if an unseen hand had slapped him in the face. "You would have done the same to me, if I'd given you the chance," he said darkly, his antenna flexing at her angrily.

"Thov? What's wrong?" asked Vespis, reaching for his face, suddenly worried. This wasn't like him at all.

He caught her wrists before she could touch him. Goolev stepped forward at this point, getting impatient. "Get on with it, Thovun!" he prompted. "Uh... I mean, Captain..."

"Do you remember the medical shipment we lifted from the Tol-Chavis before she blew up?"

Vespis' antennae fluttered in surprise. "Oh. You mean the drugs?"

"The Levakel blue," said Goolev nastily. "Sure you remember. Do you remember how you and Commander Thann hid the stuff?"

"It was eight years ago, for Zarkhon's sake! How am I supposed to remember?"

The First Officer loomed closer, hefting his phaser like a club he was eager to use on her. "You better hope you do remember! We don't have any use for you otherwise!"

"What?" said Vespis. "If I don't, are you going to shoot me and toss me out the air lock?"

Thovun clenched his teeth, quivering for a second as if in pain. "The coordinates, Vespis," he said unfeelingly. "We know it was somewhere in system Chi Lacertae, and we know you didn't take hostile environment suits."

"Give us the coordinates!" hissed Goolev, pressing the barrel of his phaser against the side of her head and flicking off the safety. By the glare in his eyes and the set of his antennae, he was itching to pull the trigger if she didn't answer. And, incredible as it seemed, Thovun didn't look as if he were willing to lift a finger to stop him.

She didn't really want to test him.

[Mr. Atoz]

The bridge of the Cyana was small and cramped. Control stations were arranged haphazardly, with no big viewscreen as the Odysseus had. The crewman in the pilot's seat, traditionally facing forward, looked over his shoulder as the hatchway door opened. "Evasive sequence is working, Captain," he said. "No pursuit. Arriving Chi Lacertae in four hours."

"Steer for the eighth planet," said Thovun, as he went straight to the holographic chart table in the center of the room and called up a visual display of the system. He and Goolev studied it carefully, while Surl kept a phaser pointed at Vespis. After a moment, Thovun slumped down into the captain's chair and stared silently into space.

"There is a large moon there," said Goolev, breaking into a relieved grin, "with a class F atmosphere. Good thing for you," he added, sneering at Vespis.

"You're welcome," she replied sarcastically. "Well, if we're all playing pirate, I guess I should get down to Engineering, see if I can coax some more speed out of this old tub."

"I don't think so," said Surl, waving the phaser at her pointedly. "We wouldn't want our camouflage field to accidentally break down, would we?"

"Oh, the camouflage field," said Vespis, snapping her fingers innocently. "I had completely forgotten about that."

"Anyway," said Goolev, "if I know Commander Thann, he left a couple of surprises for whoever found the stuff. We'll need you to disarm them."

Thovun looked up from the chart table. "Take her to sickbay to see about her wound, Surl. And get her something to eat. As Goolev says, we're probably going to need her."

***

"Come on, Charles," said Pierce kindly. "Why don't you take a break? I can mind the store." Rosh and Caeli were asleep back in the passenger compartment, so that they could man the controls in relays.

Fawkes was sitting in the pilot seat as if he was molded into it, keeping one eye on the navigation display which showed the warp signature of the trader, ahead of them and still on course for Bernicia. It was traveling at a steady Warp Five, and for the past seven hours, the runabout had been straining its engines keeping pace with it. "You're probably right, doctor," he said, glancing up but making no move to give up his seat.

Rosh had just returned to the copilot station. "Commander," he said, narrowing his eyes at the sensor display. "Does something strike you as strange about this vessel?"

Fawkes turned back to the console. "Everything. What do you mean, specifically?"

"Watch what happens as we pass through this hydrogen cloud." The area, which would have been invisible in normal space, showed up on the runabout's forward sensors as a pale region. The moment the strange vessel passed through it, its warp envelope contracted slightly, slowing the ship by an infinitesimal amount, before it expanded back into shape.

"What?" said Pierce, who didn't understand the significance..

"Quantum fluctuation," said Fawkes, frowning. "The engineer should be making adjustments to keep the warp envelope constant. Of course, if it's just a merchant vessel, he might just be asleep at the switch."

"Quite true, sir," said Rosh.

"But you don't think so, do you?" said Pierce.

"No more than I believe this is just a merchant vessel," said Fawkes, tapping commands into the helm. Pierce's eyes widened in alarm as the runabout's weapons pod came on line.

"Now, wait just a second, Charles..."

"Particle beam charged," said Rosh. "Weapon locked on target..."

"Charles...!"

The beam fired, streaking out and impacting on the alien vessel. The warp signature immediately vanished from the navigation display. Fawkes hissed under his breath, bringing the runabout to a dead stop.

"What the heck happened?" said Dr. Pierce.

"It was a decoy," said Fawkes bitterly. "All this time, we've been chasing an unmanned probe."

***

"Captain," said Weir, "our mystery ship is using a positron flywheel effect to camouflage its hyperspace signature. However, Arachne and I have examined every warp signature and subspace anomaly in this sector. By the process of elimination, we've determined that they are headed for system Chi Lacertae. No habitable planets, according to our charts."

"Good work, Diane," said Atoz, and he meant it. She had been working on this problem non-stop for six hours.

"And Captain," she continued. "The Yepok Velas is heading directly there at Warp Six. They will arrive first."

Atoz stirred uncomfortably in his chair. "Ensign Penner, relay that information to Mr. Fawkes, please."

***
The mess hall of the Cyana was just as she remembered it – all dull, battered and scratched stainless steel, badly lighted by those horrible blue-green ceiling panels. As usual, the food replicators were only partly working, providing only two choices – pastilli or meatloaf, both of which smelled of the synthetic algae they were really made from. It was hard to believe that she sometimes got nostalgic for this place.

The room was designed to accommodate thirty people at a time, and right now there were less than a dozen, which tended to confirm Vespis' suspicion that the ship was undermanned. Sickbay had been an Autodoctor and two volunteer trainees. The Cyana was designed to carry a crew of ninety, but Vespis guessed that she held fifty at most. Most of them were young people, too -- talking in that serious, righteous way that can only be managed by people who have never actually seen a battle, much less been in one. As she got her food, she overheard one guy ranting about "the Establishment" and how it had "sold out the glorious Warrior Culture of Andor" in exchange for peace under the alliance with Starfleet.

Coming from Starfleet herself, the thing that struck Vespis as the oddest was the variety of civilian clothes they were dressed in. Even in the old days when they had been privateers, they had worn some sort of uniform, even if it was only the same style and color of jumpsuit. None of the crew she had seen seemed to share any sense of brotherhood, nor did they seem to care what they were missing. "Where do you dig up all these kids?" she said to Surl, as she put her tray down on an empty table.

The Andorian pirate just shrugged as she flipped an empty chair around and straddled it. "If you know where to look, you can always find people dissatisfied with modern life, or just bored and looking for a thrill."

"Oh yeah?" said Vespis, spearing a piece of algae-based meatloaf on her fork. "So when did you guys start dealing in addictive hallucinogenic drugs?" Thanks to the efficiency of Starfleet, real piracy just didn't pay anymore. You could only get away with it by not being a nuisance. Modern economics being what it was, shipping companies didn't mind losing a few tons of cargo every now and then, as long as no one was hurt. But trafficking in controlled substances was something else entirely.

"It's a living," said Surl. "Anyway don't worry. We're not selling it to our people. We're taking it across the border and selling it to the Ferengi."

"And that makes it right?" Not that Vespis had any love for Ferengi, but she had been around Terrans long enough to learn that people were people, regardless of their skin color.

"You're one to talk," said Surl, watching her eat. "You used to be one of us, remember? You were nearly a legend."

"That was different. We were at war then." Vespis took a bite of her meatloaf. "I guess I grew up. I decided to do something constructive with my life."

Surl scoffed. "Yeah, right. The rest of us didn't have your luck. We were passed over. We weren't offered positions in the Imperial Guard, or in Starfleet. So we have to make do with what we're stuck with."

Vespis was about to protest that it didn't matter what you were "stuck with". You didn't have to be in Starfleet to make a positive contribution to society. But something in the set of Surl's antennae made her stop. "Thovun? Is this about Thovun?" Surl looked away, deliberately closing down her emotions and holding her bearing rigid as if this were a dangerous topic. Vespis paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. The tender feeling Surl had momentarily displayed at the mention of Thovun's name... the strange physical symptoms she had seen in him...

Without warning, an awful klaxon sounded, and Goolev's voice announced, "Alert stations! All crew to alert stations!" The crew in the mess hall jumped to their feet and started crowding for the exit, while Surl merely stood up lazily, unholstering her phaser.

"That means we've arrived," she said, gesturing with it towards the door. "Let's go."

Vespis took her time returning her tray to the disposal unit. This was what she had been dreading

***

"Where is it?" demanded Thovun, as Vespis and Surl arrived on the bridge. "There's nothing at the coordinates you gave us!" Vespis looked into the chart table to cover her nervousness, hoping that her antennae were not betraying her by trembling as much as she felt they were. Planet number eight was a very small, pale green gas giant with four natural satellites. According to the display, the Cyana was in orbit over the largest of the moons.

"Give us a little credit," she managed to say calmly. "You don't think Thann and I would leave something valuable right out in the open where anyone could pick it up, do you? The chamber is shielded with kelbonite." As the crewman standing at the sensor station leaned forward to perform another scan, Vespis grabbed him by the collar and pulled him off. "Oh, get out of the way! I don't know where you got all these incompetents, Thov, I really don't..."

Her fingers flying, she blanked the screen, focusing the search beams on the moon while incidentally shutting off the passive EM receptors and thanking her lucky stars that the crewman hadn't noticed what she had. "Ah, there we are," she said, with Surl peering over her shoulder. "A kelbonite deposit, right where I said it was. There's your chamber."

Goolev and Surl grinned at one another in triumph. Thovun scowled at Vespis. "I assume it's locked?"

"I suppose," she replied, as casually as she could. "But you're out of luck there. Thann is the only one who--"

"Don't try and con me, Vho," Thovun interrupted. "We all know that Thann trusted you with any secret he had. Let me tell you what's going to happen. You're going down there with me. And we're coming back to the ship with the drugs, or you're not coming back at all."

[Decind]

I like it! Good job sir!

[Niemz]

COOL

[Mr. Atoz]

I appreciate the kind words. I've never snowboarded myself, so I was afraid that part would ring hollow. And now, the conclusion...

[Mr. Atoz]

The moon was essentially a ball of rocky ice, about two steps up from being a comet. Its atmosphere did have a reasonably high content of elemental oxygen, but there was also a fog of natural hydrocarbons coming off its one soupy ocean. Three columns of coherent energy shimmered into existence on a hillside which had seldom seen a humanoid footprint. "Well? Where is it?" growled Thovun, his voice sounding even harsher than usual.

"Don't get your skivvies in a bundle," Vespis replied, looking around at the landscape. To her dismay, nothing looked even remotely familiar to her. Neither Thovun or Surl would trust her with a tricorder, so she was trying to remember the location of a chamber she had last visited eight years earlier. With phasers pointed at her. And to make matters worse, she pretty sure her captors were not going to be happy when they found out what the drugs really were.

"Hurry up!" said Surl, waving her phaser.

Then she saw it – the hill and the ledge leading up to a cave opening. A little more eroded, but still there after all these years. "I think maybe there," she said, and Surl waved the phaser at her to proceed. Vespis cautiously led the way. Inside the cave, there was nothing but blank wall. As Thovun and Surl seethed with impatience, Vespis paced until she heard the hollow sound underneath her boots. Bending over, she brushed the dust away from the hatch with her gloved hands. Now, if only she could remember the combination.

She tried to stall, but with Surl pointing the phaser at her head, she was on thin ice. It was either fish or cut bait. After three tries, she hit upon the correct sequence. The hatch unlocked, allowing them to slide it open. Surl immediately jumped down into the chamber. "It's here, Thovun!" she said, her head just visible above the hatchway as she looked over the booty -- in the form of thirty or forty metallic cylinders, each with about the capacity of a gallon.

Thovun took a communicator from his belt and flicked it open. "You should be able to scan it now, with the door open," he said to Goolev, back on the ship. "Lock onto the canisters and beam them aboard!"

"Hey wait," said Surl, her voice hesitant as she picked up one of the heavy containers, the biohazard warning plainly visible on the label. "This isn't Levakel blue!"

"Uh, yeah," said Vespis. "I was going to mention--"

"I know what it is," snapped Thovun. "Beam it up, Goolev!" Surl hastily scrambled out of the way as the shimmering transporter beam took effect, dematerializing the cargo.

Vespis just stared at Thovun, stunned. "Thov, if you know what that stuff is--" She froze in her tracks as he drew his phaser and pointed it at her.

"It's Tonarius plague," he explained for Surl's benefit, but keeping his eyes locked on Vespis, covering her with his weapon. "Developed by the Malurians over a century ago. Our forces captured it when we took Alem Becksyr."

"I've heard of it," said Surl, blinking in disbelief. "The deadliest tetragenic virus ever created. Every sample was supposed to have been destroyed..."

"That was the Tol-Chavis' mission."

"I don't understand, Thov! Why did we come here if you knew what it was?"

"Because I want it! We're going to launch it at Andor."

***

On board the Cyana, Goolev had just finished securing the cargo when the tactical officer looked around urgently. "Sir, there's an Imperial Guard cruiser approaching! I don't know where it came from!"

"Zek!" Goolev swore. "It was probably hiding on the far side of the moon. Sound red alert!"

"It's hailing us!"

The small viewscreen over the comm station lit up to reveal the face of Captain Thann. "Cyana, in the name of the Emperor you are ordered to stand down your weapons and surrender."

***
"Thov, no!" said Surl, following him back outside the cave to the ledge. "You can't do this!"

For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut as though in pain. Vespis inched forward cautiously, hoping to catch him off guard. If only Surl would move out of the way... But then his eyes snapped open again, holding the phaser steadily pointed at her heart. "I can't not do this, Surl."

"No!" Surl protested, wrestling with his weapon arm. The phaser went off with a loud report in the thick atmosphere, the beam slicing straight through her body! Vespis gasped as Thovun tossed her to the stony ground and raised his communicator.

"One to beam up, Goolev!" he ordered, his eyes locked harshly on Vespis.

She could hear the First Officer's voice over the link. "Thovun, the Velas is here! They've got weapons locked on us! The shields--"

"Thann won't fire on us yet," Thovun barked. "Not until he knows for sure what we've got. Beam me up! And go to Warp Seven as soon as I'm aboard!" Five seconds later, the transporter effect shimmered around him, and he was gone, leaving Vespis stranded.

***
"I say again, stand down, Cyana!" Thann's voice was saying. "I will not warn you again!"

Thovun strode to the chart table, turning to face the little comm screen. "The drevins return to the nest, Thann," he said. "Stop me if you can." Then he flicked off the comm link and barked over his shoulder, "Warp Seven!"

"Thovun, we're in orbit!" Goolev stammered. "We can't--"

"WARP SEVEN!" the commander shouted, pushing his second in command aside and pressing his phaser into the shoulder of the helmsman. "NOW!"

***

Vespis immediately crouched beside Surl, discovering to her surprise that the woman was still alive. "I really caused the ice to crack this time, didn't I, Vho?"

"Shut up," said Vespis, cradling her head as she tried to assess if were possible to move her. "We've got to get inside the cave." Pale stains of her blood were all over the place, but the phaser beam had instantly cauterized the wound as quickly as it had carved it out of her flesh. Her spine felt as if it were completely severed at about the seventh lumbar vertebra. Everything below that simply hung, lax and dead.

Surl coughed weakly. "Luckily he was aiming for my heart." She looked up into Vespis' eyes. "He's not a bad man, Vho. He's had Sortha's syndrome for six years now."

"Zek! Why doesn't somebody tell me these things?" It was a rare degenerative nerve disease, sometimes caused by the inadequate radiation shielding on these older Cython class ships. "Why didn't he see a doctor?"

"You've known him – cough! -- how long?"

"Oh, yeah. What was I thinking?" Thov had always been one of those men who can't ever admit weakness. To young Ensign Vespis, fresh from the engineering school, it had been an attractive trait, attractive enough to make her want to marry him (if not quite fall madly in love with him – she always figured that would come later). It would be just like him to ignore or explain away his symptoms as something else, something minor. And once they became impossible to ignore, denial would jump straight to anger and revenge, with none of the usual intermediate steps.

"I think something went out of him when you left, Vho," Surl said quietly. "It's like he was counting on you to hold him together, to keep him from going off the jagged end."

Don't you dare blame this on me, Vespis almost said. But she held her tongue, not so much out of consideration for a dying woman, but because she had just remembered what Thovun had said about Warp Seven. "Zarkhon! What are we sitting here for? We've got to get inside the cave!"

One quick try convinced her that she'd never be able to drag Surl that distance in time, so Vespis pushed the woman against the cliff and huddled over her. And just then the shock wave hit.

When a starship goes into warp, it creates a bubble of artificial space/time around itself, which then transits into hyperspace so that the ship can travel faster than light. When such a warp bubble is formed in close proximity to a strong natural gravity field – say a planet or a moon – the results are seldom predicable in advance. But they are always bad. When the Cyana went straight to Warp Seven, the tachyon backlash crashed into the Yepok Velas' shields, overloading two of its fusion generators on the spot. The Lorentz surge creased the troposphere of the gas giant, causing a jet of energized hydrogen to hurtle into space, igniting part of the atmosphere of the small moon.

Vespis felt the hot wind tearing at the back of her jacket. With her eyes shut tight, she pushed Surl deeper into the corner under the cliff, holding on for dear life.

***
The runabout Scylla dropped out of warp thirty minutes later, as the disruption of the atmosphere was beginning to die away. "Indications of gravitational disturbance, Commander," said Caeli, his eyes on the sensors. "Fortunately the moon is uninhabited. I'm reading hyperspace fields from two ships leaving this area."

Fawkes gritted his teeth with impatience. "We have to wait a few minutes to let the Cochrane manifolds cycle. Use the time to plot their course."

"Hey, wait a second," said Pierce, leaning over Caeli's shoulder and pointing at the sensor display. "There are life signs on that moon. Two Andorian life signs!"

Fawkes scrambled out the rear of the thingypit and into the passenger section, where he activated the transporter. Within seconds he had locked onto the two women and beamed them aboard the runabout. Both were unconscious. Rosh, Vilenkin, and Claussen rushed over to help, and the men managed carefully to convey them to the big central table where Pierce could have some room to work.

"Nearly asphyxiated," said the doctor, running a quick scan with his tricorder. He slapped his hypospray against Vespis' left arm and gave her a triox injection to help her breathe. "Inhaled some toxic gases, signs of lung damage. Put the respirator on her," he added to Fawkes as he turned to the other woman, who was far worse off.

"Papa," Vespis whispered, smiling up at Fawkes as he fitted the transparent mask over her face. "You came for me." Her free hand reached up to caress the side of his face. Abruptly she seemed to remember something important. Her fingers gripped a handful of his uniform. "We... must... go..."

"Don't try to talk," said Fawkes, squeezing her hand. "You're safe now."

The Andorian shook her head as vigorously as she could. To her right, Pierce was drawing a sheet over Surl's face. Vespis paused as he looked over at her and shook his head. "The Cyana... we have to... stop them..." At that point she ran out of breath, and Fawkes helped her to lie back.

"Mister Caeli?" he said, lightly stroking her hair. "Have you got a reckoning on those ships yet?"

"They appear to be on course for Sector 002, Commander." Well, that was it then. They were heading for home. And since the Odysseus had been specifically ordered not to interfere with the Andorians' internal affairs, there was no reason Fawkes shouldn't do the same. Still...

"Lay in a pursuit course, Mr. Caeli."

***
Captain Atoz was in bed, trying in vain to sleep, when the comm system whistled. "Sorry to wake you, Captain," said the voice of Crewman de Coverley, the third watch communications operator, "but there's been a message from Mr. Fawkes. He says they've recovered Lt. Cmdr. Vespis, and she's all right. But something else is up. He's requesting permission to continue the chase to Andor, sir."

"Andor?" blurted Atoz, sitting up in bed. That was eight sectors away, a travel time of weeks! "Is there any word yet on the Carolina?"

"Still expected twelve hours from now, Captain."

Atoz rubbed his eyes wearily. If Vespis was safe, there had to be another compelling reason for Fawkes to continue the pursuit, even if it wasn't something he could put over subspace radio. When it came right down to it, the big question was whether he could trust his First Officer's judgment. "Tell him permission granted."

[Mr. Atoz]

"Are you sure you should be up?" said Fawkes, as Vespis crossed the thingypit and dropped into the copilot seat. The others were in the passenger compartment, replicating lunch.

"The doctor says so," she replied looking at the sensor display to avoid meeting his eyes. The warp signature of the Cyana was about fifteen minutes ahead now, while that of the Yepok Velas struggled along just behind it. The Scylla was slowly but steadily closing the gap. "Their engines are straining," Vespis remarked. "Barely making Warp 4.4 now. You can't get plasma injectors for those old engines any more. In the old days I had the devil of a time keeping the thing together. The Velas is probably holding back because its deflector grid was damaged by the Zafkin-Parse blowback when Thovun went to Warp Seven. If the Votan class has one drawback--"

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Fawkes interrupted. "I'm chasing these people on your say-so."

"You want the short version or the long version?" she quipped, her antennae flexing with tension. She definitely wasn't ready to explain to Fawkes everything about her relationship with Thovun, even assuming she had it straight in her own head. "They have enough Tonarius plague to wipe out a couple of planets, and they're on their way to Andor."

"Where did they get it?"

Vespis squirmed in her seat. This was the part she hadn't wanted to think about. "Eight years ago, we salvaged the stuff from an Andorian medical ship, the Tol-Chavis. I wanted to destroy it, but Thann decided – you don't know Thann..."

"I've met him," said Fawkes shortly, thinking of the Andorian captain and the brief impression he had received of hawkish arrogance.

Vespis looked taken aback for a second. "Oh? Well... he decided it was better to keep the stuff in storage someplace, in case it was ever needed. Only the two of us would know how to find it. I argued with him, but what can I say? He was my commanding officer. We told the others it was just hallucinogenic drugs, because at that time we were all patriots. Nobody was interested in piracy."

"But now, apparently, they are."

"Yeah, well, Thovun..." Vespis took a deep breath before launching into that explanation.

She was spared the ordeal by a sudden chirp from the comm panel. "Starfleet vessel, this is Captain Thann of the Imperial Andor cruiser Yepok Velas. Identify yourself!"

"This is Commander Fawkes in the runabout Scylla. What can I do for you?"

The Imperial Guard captain glared. "You were told not to interfere, Commander!"

Fawkes was about to reply when Vespis thrust her face into the screen. "Thann, be careful with him! He's not thinking straight!"

The other Andorian held his face rigid, but even Fawkes could see from the set of his antennae that he was a little dismayed to see her here. "You know what he has, Vespis. I don't have the luxury of being careful. My shields will be recharged in thirty minutes. The moment they are, I will engage the Cyana and blast it out of the sky. I suggest you keep to a safe distance at that time." And with a final curt nod, he blanked the screen.

"It never rains but it pours," muttered Fawkes.

"Fawkes, we've got to do something!"

The Human sighed. "Figured you'd say that."

***
It must have been because of all the excitement, but the seizures were coming more and more frequently now. Thovun leaned over the chart table, pressing his forehead against the cool polymer of the holoscreen, while Goolev stood hesitantly behind him, thoroughly bewildered at how fast things were developing.

"Uh... Thovun?" he ventured to ask. "What are we doing?"

"Are those canisters loaded into torpedoes as I requested, Goolev?"

The First Officer swallowed nervously. "Yes. It took four to hold it all, but I don't--"

A shrill beeping sound interrupted him. The pilot began rapidly punching buttons on his console. "Captain, there's a fluctuation in our dilithium feed chamber. Conversion efficiency is down twenty percent. It looks like a anti-proton stream coming in over the influx sensors."

"Vespis!" Thovun hissed. "She did the same thing to that Romulan smuggler we were chasing by Renifex III!" Goolev gaped in surprise, having assumed the worst about her, while Thovun looked down at the chart table. "Change course to 144 mark 22. Prepare to reduce speed," he snapped to the pilot. "Goolev, load one of those torpedoes."

The First Officer had also glanced at the chart table. "But that's Oblik IV. It's just a Tellarite colony..."

Thovun slapped him across the face. "Obey my orders, Goolev, or I'll find someone who can!"

***

"Commander," said Caeli in the copilot's seat, "he's dropping out of warp. No, wait. He's..."

Fawkes and Vespis, huddled with Vilenkin at the auxiliary engineering station, turned forward to look. Now heading directly toward the distant globe of the planet Oblik IV, the Cyana had suddenly reduced speed to Warp One. As the Scylla and the Velas followed suit, there was a brief flare from the prow of the ex-privateer, and then it abruptly accelerated back to Warp Four. "He's launched a torpedo," said Caeli.

"At the colony?" gulped Fawkes. Seven thousand innocent people!

The hailing signal whistled. "I'll take the torpedo," Thann announced tersely. "Go after him!"

"Do it, Mr. Caeli," said Fawkes, sliding into the pilot seat as Scylla jumped to Warp Four.

"That was one of Thann's tactics," said Vespis, hanging on against the sudden inertia, "to delay pursuit. You have to admit, Thovun learned from the best."

"We're coming up on him fast," said Fawkes. "Is there any way to breach their shields long enough to board?"

Vespis bit her lip, slowly shaking her head. "Cyana's got a multi-channel compression shield system. I modified it myself. But maybe..."

***

The privateer took a long spiral path through the system's asteroid belt, then suddenly reversed down system towards the gravity well of the gas giant. "We've lost the cruiser," said Goolev, standing with his face to the sensor station. "But that scout craft is still stuck to our tail like a scat-fly on a taiga goose."

"Come about!" snapped Thovun. "Charge main phasers to full power!"

All three bridge officers looked up sharply, but the pilot and tactical officer were too young to question their captain, and Goolev had known him too long. At Thovun's command, they locked weapons on the small target, rapidly approaching, and fired.

But whoever was flying the Scylla was also an extremely good pilot. The small craft dipped sharply downward as the phaser beam roared past, then twisted back upwards, it's own particle beam firing as it came around. "Hit on our starboard field converter," said the tactical officer. "It looks like some kind of phased neutrino beam. It's cutting through our shields like they don't exist!"

"Take him out!" yelled Thovun.

Once more the Scylla flew past the Cyana, this time nearly close enough to read the name painted across her bow. But this time the privateer's phaser beams struck a glancing blow. The runabout's shields flared as the small craft began to tumble, ion engines whining as her pilot struggled to regain control. "Resume course for Andor," Thovun said.

[Mr. Atoz]

Fawkes took a look around at the battered stainless steel décor and the sickly blue-green lighting. "You beamed us into the mess hall?"

"Hey, you were in a hurry," said Vespis, as Rosh and Claussen, phaser carbines in hand, secured the corridor outside. "They were the only coordinates I could think of right off hand."

Doctor Pierce opened his tricorder. "I've never heard of a transporter beam carried in a neutrino stream before. Are you sure there aren't any ill effects?"

"Wouldn't know," Vespis replied. "I've never tried it before either."

"Which way is the bridge?" said Fawkes testily. The Andorian pointed.

They set out rapidly and in silence, Rosh leading. At the first intersection, they met three of the Cyana's crew. The Eminian security officer slammed the first in the gut with the barrel of his carbine, knocking the breath out of him. Before he had even hit the deck, Rosh had side-kicked the second off his feet. The third was already running down the corridor as Fawkes took aim with his hand phaser and dropped him.

On Deck 2, one short companionway below the bridge, they encountered another crewman, this one armed. Rosh brought him down quickly, but the weapon fire triggered an intruder alert. "We will hold them here, Commander," said Rosh, motioning Claussen into a defensive position in the narrow corridor, while Fawkes nodded and thundered up the stairs, with Vespis right behind.

"Don't go in shooting, please," she said, pushing her way up beside him. "Let me talk to him."

Below, they could hear the sound of running feet and the howl of phaser fire. "Just make it quick," he replied, holstering his hand phaser. Vespis waited as the door slid open and stepped inside.

The pilot and tactical officer were sitting at their stations, but Thovun and Goolev were standing over the chart table. The First Officer swore and went for his sidearm. As the weapon came up into firing position, Fawkes was just in time to intercept it. He caught Goolev's arm, swept him around with a body throw which slammed him to the deck.

As Fawkes stood up again, he was staring down the barrel of Thovun's phaser. "Thov, don't," said Vespis. "It's over."

"It's over when I say it's over," he retorted, tightening his grip on the weapon.

She lightly slid over to his side of the room. For a fraction of a second, the phaser wavered, but he instinctively seemed to realize that keeping Fawkes in his sights was the best threat he had right now. "Not this time, Thov," she said sadly. "I know you've fought the odds your entire life. Tried to be bold so the universe wouldn't know how scared you were. But this time, the universe isn't impressed. The universe still says you lose."

The hand holding the phaser trembled. "No! Not while I still have a breath!" With his free arm, he suddenly reached over and grabbed Vespis around the waist. Fawkes made a move, but gritted his teeth and held his position. Thovun's phaser was now pointed in between himself and Vespis.

"The two of us, together again," Thovun said. "Forever."

"Is that what you want?" she replied. "Are you such a selfish bastard you'd take me with you? Is that the kind of man I married?"

"Maybe it is," he said, as he pulled the trigger.

Vespis deflected his wrist at the last second, so that the beam fired into the chart table instead. Thovun raised it again, struggling to point it at himself, but by then Fawkes had leaped forward and grabbed his other arm. The Andorian swung the pistol around, leaving Vespis free to jab the hidden hypospray full of melorazine into the back of his neck. He dropped to the deck.

Goolev stood up, aiming his sidearm at Fawkes. "If you're in command of this ship now," Fawkes said, spreading his hands to show them empty, "you ought to order your men to stand down before someone gets hurt."

"It's all right, Goolev," said Vespis, sitting on the deck cradling Thovun's head in her lap. "Everything is all right."

Thovun looked up, his gaze hazy as he fought off unconsciousness. "I just wanted... to go down fighting."

She combed at his hair soothingly. "I know."

***

Captain's log, Stardate 52362.3: At last we have completed taking on the cargo destined for the Pavonis sector, and the runabout has returned from its training cruise escorted by the Andorian vessel Yepok Velas.

"Captain Atoz," said Thann from the Odysseus' viewscreen, "although you did interfere when you were told not to, your people did prove somewhat useful. Therefore I will not be reporting this to Starfleet."

"I appreciate that, Captain Thann," said Atoz. Just as certain aspects of this would not be mentioned it his own log. As far as Atoz was concerned, as long as the Tonarius plague was destroyed – as Fawkes and Pierce assured him they had witnessed with their own eyes – the incident was best forgotten. "You know, we may belong to different navies, but we do share common goals."

"Agreed, Captain," said Thann grudgingly. "It is difficult for us to trust Outworlders."

Atoz nodded to show that he understood. "But there's no reason we can't work together, once in a blue moon."

Thann's antennae twitched in annoyance at the expression. "It's only a figure of speech," Atoz quickly assured him.

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