Chapter 15: Under the Dust

Scour your soul of all that is bad and all that is good. What will grow in the furrows after the cleansing? Logic is a behavior of observation. That can grow. Emotion is a natural process of evolution. We want it to grow, row by row. Observing our instincts with logic is a source of strength. Allowing our emotions to forge our logic is a source of chaos. – The Book of Masons. Vulcan religious text 6120 BC. Compiled by T'Pau 2165 AD.

HPS Skein

"I don't see them," Olanga declared.

"Nor I," Heartshock mused. He glanced at Tylan and Shin before returning his attention to the tactical hologram.

"Is this a trick?" Olanga demanded.

"Captain Koon is resourceful. He will be here unless he's dead," Heartshock said.

"How can you assure me of this?" Olanga asked.

Heartshock's copper eyes glittered with anger. Olanga was his mate, and he was bound to her down to his blood and bone. However she was impatient with him. Always had been. Was it not enough he was offering everything she asked for? Of course not. Olanga wanted what she wanted, and she felt no impulse to suffer shortfalls for any reason. "Do you think he would release members of his crew to you and I if he were to betray us?"

"A tactical decoy," Olanga pointed out.

Chief Hunter Brettle exchanged a look with Heartshock. There was an emotion there: exasperation. "Space is large," she observed. She activated the Net interface and expanded the view of the region. "Pioneer should be along this line," she said gesturing to the appropriate, and empty, region of space.

"Is there a way to mask their presence on the Net?" Tylan asked.

"There are, but why bother when nobody is looking for us out here?" Brettle said.

"What about that ship we blitzed while we were out looking for you?" Shin asked.

"We would have seen them," Olanga assured the little dwarf.

"Yes, but where are they?" Heartshock asked rhetorically. He pondered this question a moment before making a decision. "I need to return to the Ivin. Get Gnan on the line along with the Xian. Something is holding up Pioneer, and we can't see it."

Olanga was outraged. "You will not leave me!" she snapped. "Send one of the dwarves back to your ship."

Heartshock was about to protest when an idea bloomed in his mind. "You're correct. Lieutenant Tylan should return to the Ivin."

"Me?" Tylan blurted.

"You found that dreadnought before, work with my people to do it again. I'll coordinate from here," Heartshock explained. "They will listen to you."

"They didn't before," Tylan sulked.

"Until you found the ship and we did some damage," Heartshock pointed out. "My crew will listen to you. We are headstrong, but we learn from our mistakes, Lieutenant."

"What about me?" Shin asked.

Heartshock didn't answer. Instead he ordered the Ivin to transport Tylan over to their bridge.

USS Caligula

"Would these be the ships?" Captain Solovey asked.

"Two of them are," his tactical officer reported. "HPV Ivin and HPV Kresh."

Solovey felt a twinge of recall. "Ivin?" he asked. "Wasn't that ship destroyed with Pioneer?"

His first officer gave him a blank stare for a heartbeat before bringing up a report. "The Diocletian reported her in direct contact with Pioneer before they lit the corona burn," he confirmed.

"And yet this ship shows up again to slap us around while we were fully cloaked," Solovey observed. "Hirogen are resourceful, but not this obnoxious."

Had Solovey an opportunity to swap notes with Koon, the two men might have been mutually impressed. USS Caligula had been dead in space a few days ago. Thanks to a heroic effort from her crew, the ship was functional again. While the job could not be called tidy, she was whole, under cloak, and moving under her own power. The frame had warped to the point she had a slight list to port, but that would be remedied in time. Jobs which would require spacedock time had been done by engineers in space suits and structural fields. A two meter section of the keel had been cut out and remade. Something even the chief engineer had been skeptical of.

His team monitoring the Hirogen Net had informed him how they had been spotted about ten hours after the attack. Modifying the warp fields to leave a smaller wake behind the ship hadn't been all that hard, but the acceleration had been reduced to a crawl. Once the Caligula dropped into warp, the field was so wide and diffuse, the force against the frame was negligible. Accelerating from Warp 1 to Warp 2 had taken four hours. Warp 3 had taken another six. The data supported a cruising speed of Warp 6 with no detectable trail, but getting to that speed would take days.

"Four Hirogen ships in our path," Solovey mused. "One of them figured out how to detect us. Does anyone object to eliminating them before they figure out how to find us again?"

"Captain, we could simply get to the other side of the Great Barrier, and leave them to grasping at nothing," his first officer said.

"We could, Commander," Solovey said. "However we have some dead crewmen because of those Hirogen out there."

"Revenge?" Commander John Burke was appalled.

"Something more sensible than that," Solovey allowed. "They pranked us before with loss of life, and got away without a scratch. We can't risk leaving someone that tactically dangerous in our wake."

There were nods of agreement around the bridge.

"Get us into a firing position against the Ivin," Solovey ordered. "If there really is a sharp mind aboard her, taking the others down in succession should be less hazardous."

USS Constantine

The Drift was dense enough to shroud their movements even while travelling close to its margins. Not even the interlink to the Hirogen Net could function more than a kilometer inside it.

"Let me get this straight," Schubert said. "You want me to abandon half the ship?"

"A third of it, Captain," Chief Engineer Albert Kuali corrected.

"As a decoy," Schubert said uneasily.

"Subterfuge was the idea," Kuali said.

Melissa looked uneasily about the bridge. This had become her home. Deliberately destroying it grated her nerves to shreds. "We can live in the main body?" she asked.

Kuali shrugged. "There are not so many of us now. Besides, I don't have enough people to fully rebuild her to her former glory."

Melissa shot the man a rare smile. "But she's so cozy this way."

Kuali smiled back. "Captain, we have lost a lot of the crew since the mutiny. System maintenance is consuming all my time. Improving our operational status under the circumstances requires me to either shut down large sections of the ship…"

"…You have shut down large sections of the ship, Chief," Melissa interrupted.

Kuali closed his eyes and took a breath. The man was frustrated. And unlike his counterpart Commander Gordon aboard Pioneer, he had not been resting in sick bay for a month. "Captain," he continued with his eyes still shut, "We have more than enough quarters to keep us housed in style. If you wish, I'll transport the contents of each crew compartment into the main body to speed the process along. I have the power to do so if nothing else."

"Relax, Chief, you sold me," Melissa lied. "I'll go through the Admiral's quarters to make sure we have his stuff myself."

"It does offer us a means of escape," Commander Bittu pointed out.

Melissa nodded. "I agree. Do we have the time to shift the torpedoes?"

Kuali's expression tightened. There were three photon torpedo launchers in the saucer section, and the only plasma torpedo launcher there as well. Despite being heavily engaged, the plasma torpedoes still had a full magazine. Rebuilding the launcher and moving the torpedoes would be difficult. Moving the photon torpedoes to another launcher would be time consuming, but largely tedious. They'd done it under combat conditions before and managed well enough. Kuali just didn't want the job.

"I suggest we forego that," Bittu said. "Allow me to explain."

When he was done Melissa and Kuali were nodding in unison. "See to it," she ordered. She turned to Kuali and motioned him to follow her to her ready room.

Once the door closed behind him, she limped around the desk, but didn't sit down. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Albert," she said softly.

"It's a pleasure to serve you, Captain," Kuali declared. "Much more so than Jones."

"This is our home," Melissa's voice cracked. "It's been our home for six years. I hate treating her this way." Tears flowed silently down her face. She didn't recall the last time she had shed them. "This is my first command," she announced. "This is my first ship. It kills me to do this."

"Bulkheads are less important than people, Captain," Kuali said firmly. "We will have space enough for everyone."

"My memories are on that bridge, Albert," Melissa said. "Moving to the battle bridge will not change that."

Kuali stood stoic before the door. Schubert knew the man was exhausted. His people were exhausted. And if she were honest with herself, USS Constantine was falling apart.

"What if we bypassed the 606?" she offered.

"The main phaser cannon is integrated into the core," Kuali said. "I can let it grow less effective, but I can't shut it down without ripping the main lines completely out."

Melissa laughed. "She really is a piece of shit, isn't she."

"She was meant for a crew of 2,500," Kuali said. "We're down to 1,110. I can't keep up with this."

Melissa put her arms around Kuali. "Just take care of yourself, Albert," she said smearing tears on his uniform.

The engineer awkwardly returned the embrace for a heartbeat or two before pushing her away. "I'll do my duty, Captain," he said.

Melissa felt jilted, but she knew the man was right. She had nobody to confide in anymore. The Captain of USS Constantine could not afford to bend to a lesser authority aboard. She had been foolish to indulge in sentiment. "I'll have my things ready for my new quarters by the end of the day," she said. "Dismissed."

HEV Klon

Hirogen don't age well. Much like extreme athletes, their physicality can act as a double-edged sword. Elder Plu's decline started in the joints of the knees and wrists. He was still intensely strong at the time, but slowly aches turned into crippling pain as his body started to break down. Once the joints started to decline, the underworked muscles slowly atrophied. The cruel turn was that his mind was more acute than he could ever recall. Given what he knew now and the body of his youth, Plu would have been even more formidable than he'd managed as a young blood. However his last hunt had left half his face paralyzed, and he was missing the ends of three fingers on his right hand. There had been no shame in returning to his Clan this way, and by way of respect they had sent him to the Hirogen Council. He wasn't even the most crippled hunter there. He was one of the oldest though. Plu had managed to stay alive and hunting for 75 years. Most of the rest of the Council had been invalided there thirty years before he had delved into politics. Most didn't last long on the Council. There was only so much tedious talk a Hirogen could stand before their minds completely shelled out.

Age did come with advantages though. His mate copulated with him multiple times a day. Due to his injuries, she was forced to do much of the work, but she was happy to do so. The tenderness she expressed in his arms was unaccustomed, even indecent, but he gratefully accepted it. He was also asked to tell tales of his hunts frequently, and any Hirogen loved to contribute to the oral history of his Clan.

Plu was not traumatized by his past. Nor was he haunted by his past success. Elder Plu was old, and he was older than most Hirogen ever thought of becoming. As problems went, it was insoluble. With the mind of a Master Hunter, and the body burdened with over a century of use, it was getting harder to appease the inner priorities.

Then the Strangers had arrived.

First Heartshock and his entire crew had vanished, then Pak had vanished. Rumors of Chieftain Gnan running around on some ephemeral hunt had started to gain his attention. However, the first of these big prey had appeared practically in front of a Net Node. The fight that one ship had put up had wiped out five clans completely, and seriously cut into the reserves of ten more. After studying the battles, Plu determined the obvious tactical problem: no single Hirogen ship engaged had the required firepower to face this newcomer. Even in swarms, the Stranger could kill more close or far than a hunting ship. But the Strangers had not faced an Elder ship before. Judging by the weapons he could observe, this was some sort of heavy cruiser. Heavily armed, heavily armored, fast, and nimble for her size. Hunter ships could have a crew of about a dozen. None of them carried enough firepower to do much more than get a lucky shot in. An Elder ship was meant to hunt and kill ships exactly like the Strangers. An Elder ship had firepower capable of cutting through the shields, armor, and dealing a deathblow all in one shot. Plu had an Elder ship at his disposal, and it seemed only judicious to join the hunt before more clans were bled dry. He didn't imagine this to be a flawless kill, but he could stop a conflict which had altered the balance of power dramatically in only two engagements.

Much to his delight, the Stranger had drawn in more of her kind. To Plu's further satisfaction, the newcomers had been drawn directly into a cul-de-sac. Plu had barely arrived on the scene when these large ships ducked into the Glacius Expanse.

Despite his age and experience, Elder Plu had never been so close to the Glacius Expanse for the very good reason that the hunting was poor there. Seeing it for himself, he felt a wave of unalloyed fear overcome him for the first time in his long life. He could smell the blood, dust, and cannibal mites even from the comfort of his bridge. It made him cautious. No Hirogen wanted to go in there, and he wasn't about to order any to try it. He ordered everyone to move away from the Glacius Expanse for a better chance at bringing one of these big cruisers down once they came out. He'd been losing much of the gathered fleet ever since. Hirogen may be patient, but that was a cultural construct. Their blood was always restless.

Patiently, painfully he paced the bridge of the Klon. Like the caged predator he was, the impulse to have his senses embrace his prey demanded movement to scent the air, taste the breeze, snatch the sound of a beating heart, and lock eyes with his target. The wounded one would emerge first. The others would follow.

That bothered Elder Plu. Why was this wounded ship the target of the others? In pack-oriented predators, culling the weak was common enough. Sophisticated predators such as the Fluidic Space species tended to husband their strength quite resourcefully. Society works in equal measure against the pressure of instinct as it grows in sophistication. It occurred to Plu Hirogen genocide laws were a prime example to demonstrate this maxim in action.

"We shall revere the mother and the pups. We shall honor the urge to pass on the genes to the next generation. Abhorrence is to be tolerated as a sign of required change," he mused aloud.

He felt a gentle hand on his arm. "Something on your mind?"

Ay'yhan was his mate. She was fifty years his junior, but that didn't stop her from be devoted, loving, and quite as shrewd a hunter has himself. She was his third mate. Hirogen females tended to live longer thanks to their sedentary lifestyles, but they did not live as long as a Hirogen male that had managed to survive into their elder years. Typically, they could only bear three pups before expiring. After that they aged exponentially faster than males. The physical drain of birth simply was not put into their design. It made for almighty robust pups, but increasing frail mothers. A female Plu's age was unheard of even if she remained childless. As such, Elders tended to have younger mates. As was customary, Elder Hirogen were to revere their mates even if they were tedious, stupid, or shrewish. Ay'yhan had taken the mantle of his third mate upon the death of her own during a hunt. She never spoke of her former paramour. She adored Plu. It was something Plu could not understand about Hirogen females. They could jump from mate to mate and never pass a breath of regret. Plu had mourned the loss of his second mate for years even with Ay'yhan at his side. She once told him it was best to savor the present love rather than lament the past love. She was not getting any younger, and it suited her to lavish her special mix of tenderness upon Plu while she could.

"These strangers concern me," Plu admitted.

"They do appear factionalized," Ay'yhan observed.

Plu touched her face with his good hand. "What is blessing it is to be understood," he declared.

"Why hasn't Olanga reported back about this other stranger?" Ay'yhan asked.

"I don't require one," Plu said. "But I suspect she hasn't encountered the other stranger yet. These people are resourceful enough to hide when it suits them. Give Olanga time."

Ay'yhan sulked. Hirogen females were famously impatient compared to their male counterparts. "We need to find out what these factions have split over."

"It makes no difference," Plu pointed out. "They are prey. We will hunt them."

"Blindly impulse, my darling," she warned.

Plu nodded. "I had not considered it that way. I agree now that you mention it."

"You would not have me were I not deft," she pointed out.

He found her constant need for affirmation tedious, but it was a small price to pay for the mind supporting her ego.

The main hologram flashed an alarm. Plu and everyone aboard barely had time to register what was happening before it was upon them.

A light was growing in the Glacius Expanse. It roiled and churned like a thunderhead in spring. Flashes of blue and burned down to a dirty yellow and red. The dust began to race to the glowing yellow-red ball along the stabs of expanding flashes of white-blue. It held still growing from a point to something spanning several kilometers in the space of five heartbeats.

"WEAPONS!" Plu barked.

A glowing rusty ball shot out of the Glacius expanse at Warp 4. Six kilometers in diameter and drawing yet more of the evil dust with it, white arcs of energy sucked up more and more of the dust as it raced to free itself of the depths. The dust would draw down to the surface of the ball, churn from purple to the dirty red color, and shed tons of black diamonds behind the ball. The diamonds refracted the dancing strobes of light in a corona of light resembling thousands of lasers fanning out in all directions. In an instant there was a flower, stem and all, rising out of the Glacius Expanse. The rusty ball looked like the head of a stamen. The cascading light resembled petals, and the cloud of glowing material racing towards the rusty ball was the stem of this hellish plant. Subspace twisted in the wake of the flower like crumpled paper funneling more material up the stem of the flower. When the material hit the red ball it tried to drop out of subspace but was given an additional twist following the petals of diamond light.

"The ball, THE BALL!" Plu shouted.

The main armament of the Klon lanced out to the rusty red ball in a pure white line of energy. It was too late. The ball accelerated to Warp 5 before the targeting solution could resolve.

Every hunting ship within a lightyear converged. They tried and failed to get targeting solutions on the ball. The localized subspace was simply too distorted for a long range shot. Arachnid warheads got within a kilometer before being drawn down to the stem of the flower. They detonated with brilliant flashes of purple creating flat disks millimeters thick and a kilometer wide. These disks spun wildly at thousands of RPM before shattering into shards flaying off the stem like spears fifty meters long. One Hirogen ship unfortunate enough to be nearby was sliced into oblivion in a heartbeat by the shards. Two other ships were sliced in two by the disks before they had a chance to break up.

"Everyone evade and intercept," Plu ordered. "Grab that subspace field and stop the rotation."

The rust-red ball continued to accelerate to Warp 6.

The Hirogen shot away from the stem at Warp 9 before coming around to track directly ahead of the rust-red ball. The Klon tracked in just as two more ill-advised Arachnid warheads managed to hit the surface of the ball. The ball soaked them up, and started rolling about the pitch axis of its travel instead of its roll axis. This apparently drew the dust and diamonds up from the stem and hurled them ahead of the ball. Four more Hirogen ships were shredded.

"Main armament, fire!" Plu ordered.

The Klon could only fire the main armament directly ahead of the ship. The helmsman had to invert the warp field and pitch the nose in a vertical arc as if lobbing something over her shoulder. A twenty meter long shard of black diamond pinned the chin of the ship like a nail shot from a gun. A kilometer wide disk formed by an Arachnid warhead sliced under the ship at relative speeds missing her by a hand span. The Klon fired, hit the shard in her chin, and blew the nose of the Elder ship off.

The Klon staggered and shook like an animal in a sneezing fit. Her helmsman gathered his bearings and checked his systems. Most were failing fast. Plu had chosen his crew wisely though. The helmsman and the Chief Hunter had deep reserves of resolve. Without being asked, the helmsman pitched up again and stopped the Klon dead. The Chief Hunter fired the main armament again as the rust-red ball, now seven kilometers across bore down on them.

The surface of the ball cracked, then shattered in a cone of debris. The ball turned out to be a shell barely a meter thick. Without the structural cohesion of the shell, the subspace energy began to unravel. In an intense flash of white light, the flower imploded upon itself.

USS Constantine shot out of the debris at Warp 7. Minus her heavy load of iron pyrite shell, and trimming up her warp field to something more appropriate, she could dance ahead of the debris until it fell out of subspace.

The Klon was directly in her path.

She fired two quantum torpedoes. They missed direct hits, but the kicked the Klon out of her path.

The enraged Hirogen showered the Constantine with firepower. She deftly fended off the heaviest blows, absorbed the lighter blows in her shields, but several hits scored on her saucer section. The Hirogen pounced on this weak point. The Constantine staggered, raced ahead for a few seconds, but it was too much. She vanished in a brilliant white explosion.

From start to finish, the battle lasted barely three minutes.

Plu was shaking from the strain. Ay'yhan clutched at his arm as if to drag him to the deck. "Get us clear," he ordered. The Klon limped away. "It was a flawed kill," he declared. "But worthy. Keep the perimeter of the Glacius Expanse patrolled. If another one of these ships emerges, we want them out in the open."

The Klon could not stay. She was too badly damaged to stand her point on the line. She limped home over the next two weeks.

USS Constantine

The trick of it was much like another maneuver she'd heard of. "Can't do that again," she sighed.

"We dare not try it," Bittu added.

Starfleet was good at warp speed tactics, but transwarp tactics were completely untested. This one would not be shared if Schubert had anything to say about it. The ball was something they had made out of drawing a warp field onto the shields. They'd done something similar by creating a fusion explosion around the ship using her own vented hydrogen. The dust complicated travelling at warp, but once they were clear of the Glacius Expanse they were relatively free to proceed.

At least that's what they expected to begin with. Nobody expected the Glacius Expanse to keep feeding material into the iron pyrite shell for so long. The stem and the petals of the resulting fusion flower were completely outside any of their calculations. Nor had they expected the ball itself to gain enough mass to become self-sustaining. Kuali and Bittu had tried shrinking the warp field to slow down the reaction on the surface of the ball, only to discover subspace causing a flash reaction greater than they could initiate. Had the Hirogen not destroyed the shell, nobody was certain they could escape being crushed by it.

After racing free of what was becoming hundreds of thousands of metric tons of diamond-tipped iron spears, they had brushed aside the Elder ship not caring if she chased after the Constantine or otherwise.

And that was the relatively safe part of the plan.

Accelerating past Warp 9 was key. They could open a transwarp conduit easily enough, but they needed a narrow one for the job. Dropping into transwarp from Warp 1 required a conduit hundreds of kilometers wide. Opening one at Warp 9 only required a conduit 150 meters wide for the mass of the Constantine.

Trouble was a conduit even that small would be noticed.

So they had detached and detonated the saucer section to cover their tracks. It meant destroying it bare meters away from the rest of the ship, but the main body of the Constantine had just managed to slip into the conduit and been drawn away from the blast. Nobody had ever detached a saucer section so fast. Furthermore it began to tumble almost right away. The Constantine had to drop 100 meters, open the conduit, and close the conduit behind them in one fortieth of a second. It wasn't perfect, but it worked.

"Drop us out of transwarp. Prepare for course change," Schubert ordered.

The conduit they had opened had been a blind stab in the dark. Navigation in a conduit was hazy at best, so it was safer to go a short distance away from the fight, and take a moment to make a course correction. The Constantine dropped out of the conduit, and continued to race along at Warp 9.

"We have our bearing, sir," Bittu announced.

"Set course for Kiri Min and engage," Schubert ordered. If Pioneer was heading under the Great Barrier, she would go under the Great Barrier as well. Thanks to USS Diocletian and Captain Angela Semmes making an extensive survey of the Hirogen Net, Schubert knew there were very few ways through the Great Barrier. Kiri Min was the closest. It stood to reason Koon would take his ship there.

What Schubert didn't know, and in fact nobody in Section 31 knew, was the closest portal through the Great Barrier was Salan Saln. The Constantine was going to overshoot Pioneer by two weeks of travel.

HPV Ivin

Tylan was amazed to discover the Hirogen were quite willing to obey her. All she had to do was explain Heartshock's orders, and they all nodded as if this sort of thing happened all the time. She wondered if she were observing catastrophic naiveté, or if Hirogen simply understood each other that well. With Pliny and Cark absent the ranking Hirogen aboard was the ship's surgeon Vulo. The soft-spoken Hirogen was a fretful sort, and he granted her command right away. His black eyes had a mournful expression. She understood bringing the females along was as much for Vulo as it was for Heartshock. These males were still terribly shaken by Chieftain Pak's madness and the part they had played in it. Most feared for their untreated exposure to Pak's madness leading to mental frailties of their own. Apparently Hirogen females were quite effective and obliging to the needs of their males, mated pairs or not.

While this much was interesting, Tylan wasn't fully at ease giving orders until Vulo explained, "I'm a surgeon. I have the blood of an empath. I can't summon the cunning of a true hunter. You have the blood of a Master Hunter, despite being a dwarf."

"Just so," Tylan observed parroting Pliny's favorite phrase. "What about everyone else?"

"Heartshock trusts you," Vulo said. "That little stunt with the cloaked ship has also demonstrated your fighting acumen."

"Just one thing," she said stamping her foot. "I don't like being called a dwarf."

The big aliens all froze, stood to their full heights, and turned to gape at her. She barely stood to the chest on the shortest of them, so it was like a flower planted in a copse of tall trees. They all started laughing. Vulo plucked her off the deck and crushed her to his chest in a bear hug. Before she knew what was happening she was passed around for the same treatment. She was flabbergasted. She was also aware enough that these intensely strong aliens were not harming her. She was placed back on the deck right where she had been before.

"We are grateful for the amusement," Vulo announced.

The other Hirogen bowed their heads and voiced a deep "hummmm" in agreement.

"Where is that ship we blitzed a few days ago?" Tylan asked.

The Hirogen turned back to their stations immediately. "No trace of it," one of them reported a moment later. "They activated their cloaking device and vanished off the Net's sensors five days ago."

"What about a warp trail?"

"Nothing detectable. They either stood still or discovered how we were tracking them."

Another Hirogen brought up the tactical view on the main hologram. "They could be in this vicinity given their prior position and this region."

"Yes, but why be here? Of all the empty spots in space, why here?" Tylan asked.

"Well," the helmsman spoke up, "not exactly here. This is along a trade rout."

"So they can mask their warp trail with others," Tylan reasoned.

"There's a lot of traffic through here along the way to Kiri Min," Vulo said. "Isn't this along the conveyor?"

"Yes. A pulse train could be along in a few hours," the Navigator said.

"What's a pulse train?" Tylan asked.

"Extra-motive transport," the Helmsman explained. "Large cargo shipments this close to the Great Barrier can be sent via warp wakes quite easily. Simply stand a few ships and their trains behind them and draw a wave up from the Great Barrier. The ships establish a warp field around them, the station creates a warp wave above the Great barrier, and they ride the wave to the next outpost. The wave disperses into the Great Barrier with no ill effects."

"Starfleet tried that a few years ago and almost cut a planet in half," Tylan announced.

"The Great Barrier draws the wave into it. Otherwise we would never consider using it," Vulo explained. "They move at Warp 8 though."

"Show me one of these waves," Tylan ordered.

They did her one better. They showed her all the waves and the schedule from the wave stations. How these Hirogen managed to have such an elaborate infrastructure and be so disconnected was truly baffling.

She studied the waves for a moment or two before landing on a solution. "They went at Warp 3 to near this station." She indicated the proper point on the hologram. "That would take them to…"

"Telon Tal," the Navigator explained. "It's three months away. If they broke it off nearby with a jump to Warp 5 they could wait for the next wave coming through here in a few hours. That would take them to Kiri Min by tomorrow." He checked the data for a moment or two before changing the display to show a reading for a day ago. "Got it. There's the broken waveform just like we'd see from somebody breaking off the crest."

"Tell the others," Tylan ordered. "It doesn't explain where Pioneer is, but we have a problem nearby."

HPV Kresh

"Pioneer isn't destroyed, but she has to be lurking nearby," Gnan mused. "Close down communications to bursts for the moment. That cloaked ship has to be listening in."

He paced around the main hologram trying to get into the mind of this other ship. He didn't doubt it was there. Koon would have met them otherwise. They would have detected debris or sensed something else catastrophic on the Net had something gone wrong with Pioneer. They had chosen this spot in space precisely for the same reasons Tylan had deduced in finding the Stranger.

"Chieftain," Levran spoke up. "I have a transwarp signature on the Net." He brought it up on the hologram. "Very faint," he added. "It's smaller than what a Borg sphere would make."

"Also smaller than what the Constantine and her sisters would require," Gnan pointed out. "Yet Captain Schubert would know to be discreet if she were about to use her transwarp drive." He thought for a few heartbeats. What did his blood say about Captain Schubert? The path this conduit was traveling led directly to Kiri Min. After having bolted from his protection before, he understood Schubert was intent on fleeing to the Beta Quadrant. Barely hours later the Net had lit up with a full-scale engagement with more of these… what had she called them? Caesar-class dreadnoughts. It had managed lure an Elder ship to the area. That had been days ago. Might Schubert have found her path to the Beta Quadrant blocked by her Section 31 counterparts? It stood to reason they would be outraged with her for tribal infractions. The one they had stumbled across on the way to meet Olanga might have been detached for a separate mission. Unless Schubert was in contact with the detached Section 31 ship, Schubert was trying to get through the Great Barrier. The only reasons to do that were to create mischief in the Core, or to unite with Pioneer. If she intended to create mischief in the Core, she was wandering into trouble. The Pfing and the Chunn had been at war for almost eleven years, and that was going on directly the other side of Kiri Min. For that exact reason, Heartshock and Gnan had talked Koon into crossing under the Great Barrier at Salan Saln. Schubert had not hinted she knew anything about what was beneath the Great Barrier.

Was this transwarp conduit the Constantine? Gnan had no way of hailing her at this distance.

How could he safeguard against the Stranger currently hunting them, and potentially keep Captain Schubert from strolling headlong into a warzone?

"We are being hunted," he declared.

The other Hirogen bristled. This was an affront to their dignity.

"We lack the firepower to drop them," he went on.

"We must draw them into a trap," Levran said quoting from "The Manual of Prey" the text all Hirogen were taught as children.

"Agreed," Gnan said. "Tylan and Shin explained to us the damage to the Stranger was sufficient to keep her restricted to Warp 7 for a time."

"It would explain why they are in this region," the Navigator pointed out. "Another wave will be along shortly. They could launch an attack, and escape on the wave should they fail to kill us."

"Does anyone here believe this Stranger will destroy the Constantine if they cross paths?" Gnan asked.

They all agreed that was the most likely scenario.

"Do any of you wish that fate to befall Captain Schubert and her crew?"

They all shook their heads almost without thinking. This was followed by a dazed expression shared from hunter to hunter. Had any of them suggested saving Schubert and her crew for anything other than trophies a month ago, they would have died of shame. What was happening to them?

"I want Doctor Victoria to bear her pup," Levran announced.

"I want Captain Schubert and her crew to be cured of their sterility," the Helmsman added.

"I want Captain Schubert and her crew to join us on the Hunt for Voyager," the Navigator said.

Gnan surveyed the faces of his hunters. "We are changed," he declared. "We are still Hirogen!"

They all bowed their heads and voiced a low "hummmm" to mark the sacred truth.

Gnan thought about the tactical situation for another moment. "We're going to require chum for the Stranger."

HPV Illes

Chieftain Nia studied the recording of Heartshock again. The depth of feeling he communicated with only words was breathtaking. So breathtaking she wanted Heartshock for herself. Trouble was Olanga was his mate, and Olanga was a friend. By force of personality Olanga had kept Nia at her side for years binding the fates of their clans at the hip. Nia would not dare challenge Olanga for Heartshock. From what had been explained to her, all the Hirogen from Pak, Gnan, and Heartshock's ships had experienced a change similar to what had transpired with Heartshock. Nia was determined to have such a specimen for herself.

To what end though? Nia was a fierce hunter in her own right, and she did not want to soften her prowess. Was this Voyager really the path to glory? She had to admit the sheer scale of the hunt for this lost ship was epic. If they managed to pull it off, her name would be stitched in legend even if she never saw the errant craft. Had the proposition ended there she would have signed on. But this poetry, this feeling, the love Heartshock expressed for Olanga had driven a barb of dissatisfaction into Nia's heart she'd never known before. Could she endure it without her own Heartshock? Years of hunting for Voyager would exact a penalty of loneliness that would only grow sharper as time went on.

"Nia?" the com chirped at her side.

"What do you want, Gnan?" she demanded crossly.

"I have outlined a snare," Gnan explained. The data showed up on her console.

Nia read it and her eyes narrowed. "And you ask this of me?" She was outraged.

"If there is a better way, I don't see it," Gnan admitted.

Nia calmed her emotions to consider Gnan's snare as a hunter. It gambled on two points, but only two. She'd executed far worse in her time. "What can you offer me in exchange?" she asked.

"We really don't have time for that, Nia," Gnan protested. "Can you do it?"

She had to admit her mind was not in the situation. She wanted a mate to speak "sweet nothings" as Heartshock dismissively called his sentiments, to her and she wanted it immediately. She glanced about the bridge of the Illes and noticed everyone was distracted. Was this show of sentiment infecting her crew?

Nia cut the com off. "What is happening to us?" she asked.

Expressions around the compartment universally showed she had stirred them out of a daze.

"There's a cloaked ship out there targeting us!" she almost shouted at her crew.

Two heartbeats later and they snapped into full awareness. It was none too soon.

USS Caligula

"The next wave is almost here, Captain," the Science Officer announced.

"Any luck decoding the burst transmissions?" Solovey asked.

"No. The universal translator is having trouble with the Hirogen script," the Science Officer explained.

That wasn't shocking. Hirogen used a holographic calligraphy, and the grammar was murder to figure out. While the spoken language was easily translated, documents took hours to decipher. "Guess you have to be born to it," Vladimir allowed. "Are we ready to fire?"

The Weapons Officer drew in a hiss of breath rather than answer.

"Something concerns you, Mr. Corbin?" Solovey asked.

"Passive sensors will not give us a concise target picture," Lieutenant Blake Corbin muttered. "The approach of the wave is already distorting my target leads. Once the weapons are released, they'll have active targeting, but there's a few seconds where they will be exposed and aimless."

"Romulans do this all the time," Solovey pointed out.

"And I've only done something like this in simulation without one of these warp fronts in the area," Corbin explained. "Sorry, Captain, but can we drop the cloak and be done with it?"

Solovey turned back to the Science Officer. "Are there any other ships in the region Mr. Horn?"

Commander Franklin Horn shook his head. "I can't see the other side of the waveform clearly, but otherwise nothing is in the area."

"What does the Net tell us?" Solovey asked.

The job of interpreting data from the Hirogen Net had fallen to the Communications Officer. While Lieutenant Roth Gaspar was a brilliant linguist, he was no scientist. At the moment he was barely grasping the Hirogen Net controls, let alone the output data. And why should he know how to manipulate the Hirogen Net? The Caligula had been in Hirogen space for barely a week. The team aboard USS Diocletian had taken a year to master it, and they could barely keep themselves from being detected. Gaspar had been focusing on Vorta linguistics for seven years. This sudden shift in focus, while fascinating, did not have the benefit of his actualized specialty yet. "Sorry, Captain, but…"

"Understood," Solovey interrupted. He was annoyed, but not outraged. All the more reason to get out of Hirogen space right away before this tactical disadvantage caught up with him. "So what I'm hearing from all of you is the need for an active sensor sweep."

"Aye, Captain," Corbin said.

The Caligula could fire only plasma torpedoes cloaked. While they hit a target very hard. Harder than half a dozen photon torpedoes, and about half a hard as a standard mine, they were slow. They were also bulky which reduced their rate of fire. While he could put a full spread in the launcher, that launcher could only hold three torpedoes. That left one of the Hirogen ships completely in the clear until he could either reload the launcher, or resigned himself to dropping the cloaking device. Tactically he did not want to drop the cloak because he was sitting in a busy commerce lane. So far as he knew, the Hirogen thought he was fifteen light years away, and he wanted it to stay that way. An alternative would be to take the long view and target only one ship at a time. He might miss one shot, but three would bring anything down. If he were patient, he would bag all of them.

The four Hirogen ships, the Kresh, the Ivin, the Skein, and the Illes were cruising along at about warp 2. Solovey could only presume they were waiting on the waveform to come along just like he was. Or was there something else that brought them here? Was he missing something? Briefly he revisited the notion Pioneer might be in the area after having been reported destroyed. Yet the Ivin had been right there at the scene of Pioneer's destruction. Did that mean anything? Had Koon managed to rise from the dead again? Captain Vladimir Solovey stood and paced in front of the main viewer studying the tactical display. The urge to look over his shoulder was strong. Did Captain Peyter Koon have him in his sights? Did he fear Pioneer? He outgunned the Nebula-class ship by a factor of three when cloaked and a factor of ten with his shields up. It would take Pioneer's full offensive load to poke a hole in Caligula's shields. However a swarm of duly informed Hirogen ships could be on the scene in minutes if he dropped his cloak. That was a threat he had to take seriously in a busy shipping lane. Vladimir Solovey had not come this far by ignoring his instincts, so he decided to act cautiously.

"Target the closest one with a full spread," he commanded. "Bring us closer."

"Aye, Captain," Corbin said.

"Closer, helm," Solovey's voice was soft as if his prey could hear him through the void. "Fire!"

USS Pioneer

"There he is!" Hurst shouted.

"Execute," Koon said.

Pioneer dropped into high warp and shot away from the trailing edge of the waveform. "Good Gawd!" Darin chuckled with delight. The hurricane core had not been tested under combat conditions before, and Darin was shocked at the power curve. Pioneer's linear drive tended to deliver power to the warp field much like a road car: the slightest of lag followed by a steady press of acceleration. The hurricane drive had no lag and responded with the full potential energy in one stroke. Acceleration was exponentially higher while the structural fields holding the ship together accepted that acceleration in a smooth curve without overloading. The 12 phase power grid simply had so much power on tap, there was an abundance Darin had never experienced before. The new warp nacelles even managed to drop them into subspace smoothly and without any flutter.

Pioneer was still carrying tons of gold on her hull. Shuttle bay one was completely plugged with the stuff despite their best efforts to clear it. Even so, she dashed into action like a dancer. "Warp 8, Captain. I'll have warp 9 on the mark."

"Very well," Koon replied. "Carrie?"

"Sorry, Captain, the launcher is jammed. I'm switching to mines."

HPV Illes was hit by the first plasma torpedo before Pioneer could get to her. It overpowered the hunting ship's shields and knocked her warp drive offline. The Illes was not about to go down easy though. Two deft shots destroyed the other two plasma torpedoes. Unfortunately one was at such close range, the Illes was knocked aside several kilometers in a half a heartbeat. Her port side caved in under the force of the blow, and she rolled drunkenly to starboard. Furious, the little craft unloaded her full magazine of warheads. One Arachnid and one powertap warhead found the Caligula. The Arachnid ripped the hull off Caligula's belly. The powertap warhead activated on the dorsal side of the saucer section. It immediately drew in all the energy from the cloaking device and shunted it into the hull. The cloaking device reset for fear of collapsing the singularity, and for five seconds, the Caligula stood exposed for all to see. The jet of energy shot into the hull was another matter. To the credit of her builders, the hull armor was most effective. Cloaking devices are high power to maintain, but have very inefficient output. As such the powertap managed to burn a hole through the saucer section about the size of a coin. Caligula's engineers wouldn't find it for hours, but they would have it fixed in minutes. It scared the hell out of everyone aboard though. The sound and smell of burning armor plate was enough to make the ship jump as if stung by insects at the same time.

The Kresh, Ivin, and Skein bolted into warp. Drunkenly the Illes tried to do the same.

The Caligula reloaded her plasma torpedo launcher and fired again.

It was called the bear-shit maneuver. Developed by Captain Pavel Chekov eighty years before, it was essentially a warp speed hat trick. Pioneer came in vertically at warp 9 in front of the Illes, grabbed her with a tractor beam, and dropped a mine where the Illes used to be. Chekov did it back in the day with a photon torpedo shot directly at the assailant, but Pioneer's launcher had jammed. The attacking ship would see a torpedo where a target used to be, but in this case a mine detonated where the Illes once was. The risk to Pioneer involved dashing in front of an enemy ship firing its weapons. It had to be done at high warp, close proximity, and with the shields down. Koon had read about it while he was a cadet and recalled laughing about how the bear-shit maneuver earned its name: Does a bear shit in the woods?

"She's breaking up!" Hurst warned.

"Get them out of there, Adam!" Koon ordered.

"Hot damn!" Speer said. "Got 'em!"

"Drop the ship," Koon ordered. It was none too soon. The Illes bloomed into oblivion a heartbeat later.

Darin looped around to the lee side of the waveform and dropped back to warp 7.

"She's gone again," Hurst said.

"Keep looking, Willie," Koon said. "Cark, get down to transporter room one, and see if everyone's alright."

Cark left at a run. A few moments later Chieftain Nia followed Cark onto the bridge.

"How did you know?" Nia demanded.

Koon ignored her. "Carrie, we need something," he warned.

"Sorry, Captain, the launcher is still down," she said.

"Phasers?"

"Sorry, sir," Carrie said.

"Darin, be ready to run," Koon ordered.

"Aye, Captain," Forte replied.

"Let's hope they can't see us back here," Koon said.

"Where have you been?" Nia demanded. "We've been looking for you for hours!"

"We noticed their arrival a few days ago," Commander Hurst explained. "At least we thought so. Something big caused a waveform to breakup."

"Cloaking devices being what they are, we hid behind the oncoming waveforms until we could detect the ship had left the area," Koon elaborated. "Then you arrived."

"You used us as bait," Nia snarled.

"We had to flush them out somehow," Cark explained. "Besides, I was certain they were waiting for the Kiri Min waveform. They would have gone through Salan Saln by now."

"Trouble is we can only run," Koon said. "We can run fast and far, but I don't trust this is the only one of these ships around."

"There isn't," Nia said. "There's another one travelling to Kiri Min at transwarp right now. They should arrive in two days."

"Trying to link up with this bastard," Koon mused.

"Actually no," Nia said. "Gnan suspects this is the ship you contacted a few days ago."

"The Constantine?" Okuma was surprised. "Why would they be coming back?"

"It would appear the sister ships to this one attacked her," Nia said. "Quite a show just outside the Glacius Expanse. We engaged at least five of them."

"Captain, we need to get out of here," Okuma said. "I saw what the Constantine is capable of. If there are more of these dreadnoughts wandering around, we can't face them down."

"And that would include the one Gnan and Heartshock blitzed a few days ago sitting just off our port bow," Koon mused. "If they really managed to repair that kind of damage this fast, or it's a ship we haven't seen before, we have to steer wide of her."

"Leave that to Gnan," Nia said. "Just follow the Ivin and Skein to Salan Saln."

"Explain," Koon demanded.

Nia did.

"Ballsy move," Okuma said. "Can we stop him?"

Nia gave Okuma a withering look.

"We can't ask him to do that," Okuma explained.

Nia's expression changed. "Are you truly that concerned with our welfare?"

"I know this is shocking, but I won't squander your lives," Koon said.

Nia noticed a blue alien turn her head when she heard Koon say this. The blue woman was suddenly furious. Nia noted this for later. "Gnan is going to do it regardless."

"Should we follow him?" Okuma asked.

Koon stroked the white stubble on his chin thoughtfully. "Carrie, what about those weapons?"

"We've got too much gold to shed before we can even talk about them, Captain."

"What a motherfucking problem to have!" Koon mused. "We can't follow Gnan. We move to Salan Saln. Hold here until the Ivin and Skein link up with us."

USS Caligula

The damage wasn't as bad as before. Corbin was outraged and fit to split. "How the hell did they know to snipe my shots?" he snapped at nobody in particular.

"Calm down, Lieutenant," Solovey ordered. "We got them anyway. What about the other three?"

"Coming back around, sir," Horn replied. "Cloak is back online. They can't see us."

"Who'd a thought that little ship would go up like that?" Corbin mused. "Damn near tore the bow off the saucer section."

"So long as it's still there, I'll be in ten forward in due time," Solovey said breezily.

The cloak was doing a few less favors than anticipated. Without active sensor sweeps, the detail they could glean from outside was severely curtailed. They could see the Hirogen ships out there and track them well enough, but the interference from the approaching waveform was causing all sorts of distortions in subspace. As the Caligula traveled on, she passed the warp wake of Pioneer, but she let it drift astern without noticing it.

"Casualties?" Solovey asked.

"Nothing serious," the Tactical Officer reported. "Couple of people got swept off their feet when the ship exploded off the bow is all."

"I'd say one irate Weapons Officer is a small price to pay for killing an opponent," Solovey said.

"Don't be so sure, Captain," his First Officer said. "I'd say those three ships are heading directly at us."

Solovey studied the tactical display for a moment before shaking his head. "No," he judged, "they would pull that little warp stunt again if they could target us. That's a search pattern, Commander."

Commander Nick Halliburton nodded in agreement. "It's a damned accurate one. They're still heading right at us."

"Is the plasma torpedo launcher reloaded?" Solovey asked.

"Aye, sir," Corbin answered. "Full spread."

"If they insist on playing chicken with us," Solovey said.

The waveform gently brought the ship up to warp 8.

"Should we disengage from the waveform?" Halliburton asked.

Solovey thought about it. He could stay here and take care of some obnoxious Hirogen, or he could move on to Kiri Min. "Break off," he ordered. "We have business to settle here."

It was the wrong thing to do. Almost immediately the three Hirogen ships spooled up to full speed and damn near collided with the Caligula. They tried the high warp blitz again, but instead of bracketing the cloaked ship, they winged it. The Caligula snapped about in a flat spin before anyone could react. The cloak stayed up, but the footprint of the spinning ship was clearly visible on the trailing edge of the waveform. The Caligula managed to right herself, and she shot three plasma torpedoes at her attackers in defiance. They were easily outrun, but the three ships split up and moved away. One raced through the waveform and made a direct course for Kiri Min.

"Get us back in the waveform," Solovey ordered. "If he's going to warn Kiri Min about us, we might as well not give them much time to prepare."

And that was going to be a problem. The Caligula was still badly damaged from her first encounter with the Kresh and Ivin. Her transwarp was down. Her Warp drive was limited to warp 3 if they expected to remain undetected and warp 7 flat out. Riding the waveform would bring them to Kiri Min at warp 8 without a trace. They could deal with the Kresh once they arrived.

USS Constantine

"You should let me look at that," Victoria said.

"Don't you have a sick bay to run, Doctor?" Captain Schubert snapped. Idly she continued to pick fibers from the main viewer that were stuck under her eyebrow. It wasn't easy with the mangled claw of a left hand on the end of her arm.

"I could reconstruct…"

Schubert slammed a hand down on the arm of her chair to silence Victoria. "Dr. Collins, I've never been a beauty, and there's no point in chasing after it now. This…" she motioned at her disfigured body, "…only means closing the doors on what were dim hopes to begin with."

Victoria suddenly wished for the Hirogen to return. Chieftain Gnan had a knack for soothing Schubert. Ever since arriving aboard she'd noticed just how high-strung the crew of the Constantine was. She'd already treated half a dozen cuts, broken bones, and concussions from altercations between the crewmembers. There was the obvious traumatic stress to blame, but she couldn't begin to treat everyone here.

Victoria stood to go.

"Dropping out of transwarp," Lieutenant Jarbro announced.

The conduit opened up to a view of the Great Barrier Schubert had never seen. Constantine had been slated to approach it, but the mutiny and the new orders from Admiral Grinnell scuttled those plans. Schubert and her crew were transfixed. The slow fusion gasses playing a pleasant blue glow like water refracting light with gentle waves.

Victoria had seen the Barrier aboard Diocletian outside her quarters. She had allowed Muddy Murdock to have his way with her under this light. She recalled that encounter lasting hours. Had they conceived here? She also recalled being tired and cranky the rest of the next day for lack of sleep. She felt a sudden pang for Muddy. Emotionally he was a cheery sort, and it had grated on her at the time. However she'd had no sex since she'd told him about the pregnancy. Her distending belly was kicking her libido into higher gear, but she was not attracted to anyone here. She could scratch the itch maybe, but the crew of the Constantine were uniformly grim, aggressive, and brittle. Nothing kills the mood like bad company, she reasoned. Yet the light of the Great Barrier transported her back to blissful sins in the arms of a loving boy.

"Are we being monitored?" Schubert asked.

"We're being hailed," Bittu answered.

"On screen," Schubert commanded.

"Hello, Captain," Chieftain Gnan said warmly. "Welcome to Kiri Min."

Schubert stood. At a loss for words, she could only stare at the screen.

Gnan's expression was shadowed by concern. "I mean you and your people no harm, Captain."

"Like my doctor you killed?" Schubert challenged. "What other crimes have I committed under Hirogen genocide laws?"

"You have another doctor. She is a better one, I might add," Gnan said.

"How would you know?"

"I can discuss that at length, Captain," Gnan offered, "but for the moment we need to get you out of here. One of you sister ships is about an hour behind me."

Schubert was about to cut him off, but Victoria piped up first. "Where is Pioneer?"

"We're prepared to escort you to her," Gnan said. "We will need one small favor though."

"How much blood do you want, Gnan?" Schubert growled.

"The presence of Dr. Collins has garnered your safety with my kind, Captain," Gnan explained patiently. "But Hirogen do not control Kiri Min. That would be the Elspen. They require latinum."

Schubert was quiet for quite a while before answering, "Is that all?"

"A single bar should do it," Gnan admitted.

Schubert glanced at Bittu. The man had an eidetic memory, and as such he'd always been in charge of the ship's stores. "We can manage it," he answered with a thoughtful tug on his beard.

"I suppose you can manage the exchange?" Schubert asked.

Gnan looked puzzled. "Just move towards the gateway, Captain. The Elspen will cover the rest."

Schubert nodded at Jarbro who keyed in the proper course. Within minutes they were hailed again.

The alien that appeared on the screen was short, round, and fussy. "A toll is required," he said without preamble. "One bar of pressed latinum for a vessel your size."

"We can pay," Schubert agreed.

The Elspen appeared in front of Schubert a heartbeat later. His mottled green skin looked wet under the bridge lighting. A prominent nose, four yellow eyes, and mandibles to either side of his mouth gave him a menacing appearance. However the creature was tiny. Standing no taller than Schubert's knee, the little guy glanced about the bridge with casual disinterest before proffering a chubby hand up to her. "The latinum," he demanded.

Schubert had never seen anything so adorable and menacing wrapped up in a single package before. "Uh," she said uncertainly, "a moment please." She turned to Bittu. "Ibrahim?"

The Bittu left at once.

The Elspen gave Schubert a withering look. "Since you are new to our services, I'll wave the fee for wasting my time. In the future, have the toll ready for my arrival."

"Of course," Schubert said. She hesitated again before adding, "We've never come across your species before."

"Passage to Elspena will require three more bars of latinum," the little guy declared. "Is that your destination?"

"Possibly," Schubert admitted. "We're explorers."

The Elspen sniffed in contempt. "Unlikely. You're too heavily armed for mere exploration. We don't appreciate rudeness. I'm inclined to revoke a visa request if this is how you intend to treat us."

Bittu appeared with a case under his arm. He presented the case to the Elspen without a word.

The Elspen, opened the case, snatched the bar of latinum, and swallowed it whole. "Excellent quality," he chittered. "I see a Hirogen vessel is escorting you. The quality of this bar is enough for their passage as well."

"That would be generous of you." Schubert was dubious. But she had to admit to herself she'd not had a cordial exchange with an alien species in seven years. The shock of this officious little guy was jarring.

"Be aware, the Pfing are conducting operations against the Chunn just inside the gateway. We will not be held liable for your safety, unless you wish to visit Elspena for a fee," the Elspen announced. "Please conduct yourself through the gateway at no more than three hundred meters per minute. Maintain this speed or slower within a hundred kilometers either side of the entrance. Failure to obey these rules will result in damage to your ship and further fines." He vanished in a shimmer of transporter energy a heartbeat later.

"Captain, the gateway is opening," Jarbro announced.

Schubert shrugged. "You heard the little guy," she sighed. "Take us through. Call Gnan while we're at it."

"I trust all went well?" Gnan asked.

"Best first contact I've ever had," Schubert admitted. "He did warn us about 'rudeness' while he was here."

"The Core is full of old cultures, Captain," Gnan seemed exasperated to speak of them. "The war between the Pfing and the Chunn is largely a point of etiquette taken to the level of blood."

"Is this an easy point to explain?" Schubert asked.

"Child euthanasia is a common practice with the Pfing. They took over some Chunn worlds and expanded the custom to their conquered subjects."

"Sounds like we should steer clear of the Pfing," Schubert mused.

"They make for challenging kills," Gnan admitted with a wistful lilt and a blissful expression. "But for our immediate purposes, it'll be best to evade them and the Chunn."

"We're crossing the threshold of the gateway, Captain," Jarbro announced.

The Gateway turned out to be a granite ring 800 kilometers across, fifty kilometers wide, and twelve kilometers thick. With it closed, the slow fusion gasses flowed freely across the ring. With it opened, the gasses were pushed around the ring leaving a thick, luminous blue fog of helium and argon. The fog was 12 kilometers deep, and completely obscured the space below. One of the benefits of the fog bath was it stripped the hull of ion buildup. A bright glow of Saint Elmo's fire bathed the bow and around the warp nacelles. Five loud POPs announced a static discharge. Constantine shivered practically in delight, as if tension was being soothed from her hull with deft fingers. A fine layer of dust from the Glacius Expanse dropped off the hull and was consumed by a huge sphere of ball lightning. Finally the Saint Elmo's fire built up again and flashed over the entire hull. It stripped most of the paint off the exterior and tempered the metal.

Constantine and the Kresh emerged from the Gateway which slammed shut behind them.

"What the..? SHIELDS!" Schubert ordered.

A pitched battle lay before them. Alien craft darted about space exchanging heavy weapons fire.

"Tactical!" she ordered.

"I'm detecting three hundred vessels in this engagement. The battlefield extends half a light year before us."

"I need you to follow me, Captain," Gnan said.

The Kresh turned hard to starboard. Tracing a path about fifty kilometers off the inner surface of the Great Barrier.

"What's going on?" Schubert demanded.

"Captain, it's best to walk past these people. Just follow me until we're clear," Gnan said.

The Kresh kept her pace to full impulse rather than jump to warp. With little choice, the Constantine followed.

USS Caligula

They arrived outside Kiri Min an hour after the Kresh escaped into the Core. Solovey wasn't concerned.

"Any contact with the Trajan?" he asked.

There wasn't. That was a shame. Solovey got along with Captain Damian Estes quite well. The hours between the engagement and arriving at Kiri Min had cooled his temper, and Vladimir found himself asking the strategic questions again. Caligula needed a spacedock. She might make it to the Gamma quadrant through this way, but her combat power was less than what it should be. Vladimir could wait for the Trajan to contact him, and quietly effect repairs here. Or he could buy the services of a shipyard and perform all the repairs he needed inside the Core.

"Solovey to Oscar," he called into the com.

Commander Quentin Oscar replied back right away. "Oscar here."

"I need your team on the bridge."

"On our way, Captain," Oscar replied.

Six officers arrived on the bridge a moment later. "The Anthropology team is at your service," Oscar announced.

"I have some dilemmas for you to sort through," Solovey explained. "We need to get through that Gateway. We need to repair the ship. And we need to link up with the Trajan."

"The Elspen could be instrumental to all three objectives," Oscar declared. "We need to drop the cloak and pay their fees. They deal only in latinum and silver Lawrencium."

"How much is the going rate?" Solovey asked.

It turned out to be quite reasonable. Section 31 used latinum for bribes, and as such valued it higher than the utopian Starfleet. However Solovey saw no reason to hoard the stuff. He had tons of it aboard for occasions like this. On the other hand, he did not want to drop his cloak if he could avoid detection.

"The Elspen are discreet," a member of Oscar's team assured Solovey. "They are like scrupulous Ferrengi."

"Too scrupulous," Oscar pointed out. "They are litigious and Byzantine. Extracting ourselves from more than a cursory exchange might prove difficult."

"How long have we had agents with the Elspen?" Solovey asked.

"We don't," Oscar said. "It would take a Ferrengi to tackle the dense legal issues."

It was a backhanded compliment, but it was an ironclad fact the Ferrengi thrived where rules could be undermined. Tholians thrived on rules, but they wrote very exacting laws to clobber the practitioners rather than subvert them.

"Can you keep us ahead of these entanglements?" Solovey asked.

"Keep it to a single transaction at a time," Oscar warned.

"Very well. Stay here," Solovey turned to his tactical officer and ordered the cloaking device dropped.

"We're being hailed," the com officer announced.

"A toll is required," the Elspen announced once he came on screen.

"I suspect we can pay it," Solovey said. "Can we discuss further business while we're at it?"

A shimmer of light and a chime of ionized air later, and the little officious Elspen appeared before Solovey. "The toll is two bars of pressed latinum."

Solovey nodded to the com officer who trotted off to the hold to get the stuff. A moment later he reappeared and the little Elspen swallowed the bars. "Excellent quality. Be warned the Pfing and the Chunn are engaged in warfare beyond the Gateway. We are not liable for your safety once you cross into the core unless you wish transit to Elspena."

"We do wish transit to Elspena," Solovey said.

"Four more bars of pressed latinum are required," the Elspen announced.

Two more Elspen appeared to swallow the transit fee. Two more appeared to cover the spacedock fee. Six appeared for the repair and refit fee. And one more appeared for the fee levied to convey a message to the Trajan once she appeared. Oscar went so far as to pay a retainer for an Elspen attorney. The little aliens seemed neither impressed nor annoyed. Every service was payed for at an agreed upon fee, which they duly consumed. About the only relish they showed was for the quality of the latinum Solovey offered them. Soon what business that could be attended to outside the Great Barrier was concluded. The little aliens vanished off the ship, and the Gateway opened.

Unlike Constantine's transit, the slow fusion gasses were vented into the Core creating a very clear corridor to travel. Once the Caligula entered the corridor, she was swept down the corridor in a manner not unlike a transwarp conduit. This corridor only brought them to warp speeds, but they arrived over Elspena barely three hours later. Ten minutes after that, they were safely inside a well-appointed spacedock. The Elspen were efficient, but the damage was extensive. More latinum went down the gullets of more Elspen. Solovey wasn't worried.

USS Trajan

Captain Damian Estes was worried. It was his nature to fret, and circumstances made him brood. Presently, his orders had changed four times in two weeks.

Three weeks ago he was still operating under provisional orders under OPERATION TARTAR: Section 4a: USS Trajan will proceed at best possible speed to Gamma Quadrant via the border with the Alpha Quadrant/Scutum Arm Sector 1/1^1. Once there USS Trajan will join the Combined Squadron and proceed to Dominion Territory via the Gamma Quadrant.

Unfortunately he'd been further and further away from his direct course since his launch date two years ago. USS Trajan was the newest of the Caesar-class. She was faster, smarter, better armed, and better armored than her sisters by at least 30% in all categories. She could make transwarp 4 while her sisters could only make transwarp 2.500. She carried the newest phasers and phaser cannons developed for USS Prometheus. She carried twice as many photon and quantum torpedoes than USS Caesar, and half as many more as USS Diocletian. Her crew was smaller by a thousand people thanks to better systems integration. She had a more powerful computer. She even had adaptive warp nacelles a generation better than those used for the Intrepid-class. USS Trajan was the finest in the fleet with a slight technological edge favoring the Akira-class cruisers.

All this ability came at a price. Admiral Grinnell seemed to believe because the Trajan was so fast, so smart, so rugged, and so powerful, she could do more with fewer people, faster, and better than was actually the case. It was nothing for Grinnell to order Estes to run back to the edge of Breen space for a little covert work. Once that was done, head over to Tholian space and do some mischief there. Patrol the border with Ferringi space. Do some charting of Scutum Arm. And the next day there would be a thick list of other things to do. One order Admiral Richelieu had fortunately axed would have sent USS Trajan to the Galactic Heliopause between the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants to drop off some agents. His path to the Great Barrier could have been completed in eight months at transwarp 2. Instead their path weaved and corkscrewed towards Scutum Arm Sector 1/1^1.

Grinnell simply could not get his mind away from that transwarp 4 speed. Simply put: transwarp drive was useless above transwarp 2 because they couldn't navigate while inside a transwarp conduit past transwarp 2.400. At those speeds, space became too small to traverse. Uncharted stars, pulsars, black holes, black matter, folded space, chaotic space, dimensional rifts, dust clouds, asteroids, and dozens of other pitfalls endangered his ship every instant it moved at transwarp. He desperately needed a better navigation system. He'd gone so far as to ask for a Medusan navigator, only to be informed the Medusans were not to be trusted in Section 31. At best he could move in fits and spurts across the Milky Way unless he could find a convenient trade route to follow. Or he could happily move along at transwarp 2 and be completely safe.

Grinnell remained unconvinced.

Captain Estes loathed the man.

No sooner had he arrived at his target, than OPERATION TARTAR was scrapped. His part in the operation had been the last to be shut down. He was ordered to make a hard right turn to the 3KPC Arm and join the rest of the fleet inside Hirogen space. This close to the Great Barrier transwarp conduits arced into Sagittarius A, the huge quasar at the middle of the Milky Way. Travelling parallel to the spin of the galaxy meant he could only make short hops of a minute or two before he had to collapse the conduit and retack. He could swung wide of the Great Barrier and came back to Hirogen territory via the Ferringi border. But that added two months of travel time. Grinnell would doubtless have a hundred things for him to do if he returned to known space again.

Travelling at warp 8 or 9 kept the Trajan out of Grinnell's clutches by virtue of skimming the Great Barrier. It would be a journey of weeks, but steady progress.

No sooner had he adopted this course of action, than his orders changed again. USS Trajan was to proceed back to the Gamma Quadrant via the Bajoran wormhole.

Captain Estes threw a very public tantrum in front of his crew once he killed the link to Grinnell's office. He felt he was throwing it for them as well as himself. It was better to nurture a common outrage than to keep up appearances.

So the Trajan had fired up the transwarp drive and started cruising back to the Alpha Quadrant.

Then new orders came in ordering him to join up with the rest of the fleet to destroy USS Constantine two days later.

Four more days later, the orders changed yet again and ordered the Trajan to make her way to the Gamma Quadrant via the Core for a renewal of OPERATION TARTAR.

Captain Damian Estes was near the limits of his patience. Effectively he'd been run in circles for two weeks. His way out here managed to nurture a sympathy for the crew of USS Pioneer and Captain Koon. Estes might have thought Section 31 was trying to kill him off in the same manner as Koon, but that made little sense.

He was at wits end with Grinnell and Richelieu. The few orders he'd received from Admiral Jones could only have come from Grinnell. So when Vladimir Solovey offered to meet him at Kiri Min, it was the first light of rational orders to shine in two years. He explained the scheme to his crew to what could only be described as rejoicing.

They raced along at warp 8 through dense clouds of dust. The dust had the happy effect of breaking his Pulse-link communications with Earth. He set his science team to discover why since the Diocletian was in clear contact with Earth and that was deep inside The Great Drift. The answer was simple: the Chief Engineer had shut the fucking thing off until they arrived at Kiri Min. Such was the power of exasperation.

They were better prepared for the attack when it came. Caligula's experience had informed them what to look for once they drifted inside the Hirogen Net. They scooted along at warp 8 until the first Hirogen ships started to gather for an ambush. The Trajan allowed the ships to gather, slowed to warp 3, and picked off two Hirogen ships with plasma torpedoes before the rest fled the scene.

Captain Damian Estes was not one to imagine Hirogen would remain prone with their tactics, so he quietly shuffled away from the scene of the crime. He also slowed to warp 2.

He arrived at Kiri Min two days after the Caligula had transited the Gateway. He dropped his cloak. Did the little rain dance with the latinum and the little aliens, but he did not pay for the passage to Elspena. Instead he opted for a simple transit into the Core. Once there, the battle between the Pfing and the Chunn had ended. USS Trajan raised her cloak, and quietly made her way across the broken wrecks of the battlefield. With her cloak up, and no Hirogen Net to buttress their sensors, USS Trajan's ability to see ahead of her was a third of her standard capability. Once the Great Barrier closed over her, Section 31's Pulse-com could not reach her. Captain Damian Estes and his crew felt like they had entered the Promised Land.

USS Pioneer

They still had to tread carefully. Kiri Min was operated by the Elspen, but Salan Saln was held by the Hirogen. Heartshock had suggested it expressly because of this and a few other important facts. Salan Saln was closer. Salan Saln was smaller, and not on a major trade rout. Salan Saln opened up into uncontested space. And most important, the Chunn were the closest empire inside the Salan Saln Gateway as opposed to the Kiri Min Gateway opening up directly into a warzone close to the Pfing.

"Tell me about these Pfing," Koon said.

"Reptilian, prolific, patriarchal, highly centralized, aggressive," Cark explained. "But the most dangerous part about them is their overly structured caste system."

"I would not be allowed to speak to you in Pfing culture," Chieftain Nia added. "They keep their females as breeding stock, and try to keep them as ignorant as possible." She made a disgusted face. "It's a weakness really. A sizable fraction of their population is effectively worthless. They don't even allow them to raise the hatchlings."

"Why not just call it half their population is effectively worthless?" Okuma asked.

"Not many females are allowed to mature to adulthood. It's not uncommon for one female to be the dame of several hundred Pfing," Nia explained. "They call it civilized behavior, but they are crippling their genes by doing this."

"They do make for good hunting," Cark mused.

"Only because they are a loose hive in groups," Nia pointed out. "They are a cunning lot, but it takes ten to fifteen of them to do the thinking of a single Hirogen."

"We've encountered societies like this before," Koon admitted. "They can be dealt with cordially."

"Pfing will be a tough diplomatic issue if that's what you're thinking, Captain," Cark said. "They are thin-skinned, myopic with their conceptual depth, and easily offended if the exacting cultural nostrums they promote are not observed."

"So they are best avoided," Koon declared. "What about the Chunn?"

"I've been reading your poets Plato and Virgil," Cark said. "Chunn are much like Romans, only less autocratic and less hedonistic."

"Go on," Okuma said.

"They make for lousy hunting," Nia sniffed. "If they're cornered, they talk rather than fight."

"So you have hunted them?" Koon asked.

"Not for centuries," Cark admitted. "They sometimes allow us to retreat into their territory if we have a mind to hunt Pfing or Klestran."

Koon appraised Cark carefully. "They hire you as mercenaries? Assasins?"

"It's an equitable exchange so far as most Hirogen are concerned," Nia said.

"Is it possible to get past their territory without stirring their interest?" Koon asked.

"Yes, but you'd have to enter Klestran territory to do it. If anything I suspect you don't want to be involved with them," Nia said.

"Why?" Okuma asked.

"Klestran live for war," Cark said. "Honor codes, glory hunting, large conflicts, and small, constantly warring tribes."

"Sounds like Klingons," Koon said. "I think we can manage if we must."

Okuma looked out the main viewer and shook her head. "I never thought Hirogen had it in them for something on this scale," she mused.

"What?" Cark asked, "The Dyson sphere? We didn't build it. Various Hirogen houses have owned it for thousands of years."

"Who did build it?" Commander Hurst asked.

"Nobody knows," Nia admitted. "Legend has it the first Hirogen found it right after the Net was built. We've been peacefully using it ever since."

It was a strange sight. The Dyson sphere was a perfectly smooth ball of ice .78 AUs in diameter. What few Dyson spheres there were to be found in the Alpha Quadrant were mechanized to the point of Borg cubes and smaller. Stranger still was a young, blue star orbiting the Dyson sphere. Common logic made this arrangement impossible. The pull of the star against the Dyson sphere was enough to destroy the delicate structure. Yet there it stood.

"Maybe the Great Barrier creates a gravitational eddy to keep the system in stasis," Hurst speculated.

"Or maybe it's just well made," Commander Gordon pointed out. "Any chance we could take a close look at it?"

"We don't have time," Okuma growled.

"I could examine it," Pi offered.

Nobody was accustomed to what Pi added to the ship's computer yet. Nothing dangerous had come up yet, but it was jarring to have an AI this proactive. Her limits were difficult to define, and she was oddly taking on little quirks the mimicked the personality of Pioneer herself. Just the other day Pi had taken over helm control to swing wide of a black hole they hadn't detected in time. She was getting in the habit of explaining to Forte exactly how she wished the ship to be driven. A bit of power here, a few less g's there, a slower acceleration from warp one to two, yet no restrictions over going faster. She also was beginning to nag the crew about unfinished bits of "her" that she wanted completed. When people became frustrated and slapped various consoles around the ship, Pi would flash the console off, and verbally scold the offending crewmember. It was oddly endearing, but nobody could tell what this would mean in the long run.

Then there were offers like this. "What do you mean?" Hurst asked.

"I could use the Hirogen Net and Mr. M'rath to examine the structure thoroughly. I could even forward the data to Lieutenant Cabrillo for a detailed analysis once I'm done," Pi explained.

Hurst glanced at Lieutenant Kree who shook her head in reply. "He's still babbling everything in Spanish," she said. "I'm not sure his mind is all there yet."

"Do it anyway," Koon ordered.

"But…" Kree protested.

"…The boy is a scientist," Koon interrupted. He turned to Hurst. "Could Totem supervise this? If David's mind is truly broken, he could tell, couldn't he?"

"I prefer not to take Totem off his current assignments," Hurst explained. "We're still trying to shake all the gold off the hull, and he's been compiling everything we took from Cove. We lose that momentum, and we might lose ten years of progress."

"What's wrong with this Cabrillo?" Nia asked.

Kree explained the extent of his injuries and the circumstances under which he suffered them. "He seems alright, but he's not spoken a word of English since he came to."

Nia glanced at Cark.

"I told you about him," Cark said with a nod.

"I'll see to him," Nia said. She rose and motioned for Kree to follow her.

After they left the ready room, Koon returned to business. "Pi, just start compiling the data. If you think M'rath can help, fine, but I need him focused on tactical matters until our link to the Net is severed."

"Aye, Captain," Pi said.

Koon surveyed the Salan Saln system again. "What will Heartshock tell them to let us through?" he asked Cark.

"Most likely a story," Cark said. "We seem to have a weakness for them."

Koon dismissed everyone. Eddie stopped Cark before he could leave. "Is Tylan alright?" he demanded.

Cark smiled. The little dwarf's concern for his mate was endearing. It was like watching an elaborate mating ritual for an exotic species. Something about it was so strange yet so familiar. "She's commanding the Ivin presently."

Eddie's eyes narrowed. "You mean advising," he corrected skeptically.

"Commanding," Cark repeated. "Heartshock put her in charge, and the crew have accepted her. She's doing well."

A shadow of worry crossed Eddie's face.

"You're afraid she'll discard you?" Cark asked.

Eddie looked away.

"Patience, Commander," Cark said. "She will be back soon."

Eddie grasped the cane he was forced to use while he healed in a death grip. "I'm crippled," he growled.

"I confess I've never suffered the indignity," Cark admitted. "It will not matter."

David was hobbling around much like Eddie. Even with the use of a cane, his limp was exaggerated. Most of it was due to a number of severed nerves Fahdlan had reconstructed to David's left leg. His brain was learning to walk again, and it wasn't happy about it. The limp was turning into a nasty twitch in David's right arm, which was turning into an exaggeration of his grip on the cane, which was making David that much more frustrated, which made Kree that much more worried about him.

Nia understood in a heartbeat what was going on. "You're fornicating with him?" she asked Kree.

Kree shook her head. "He's…"

"What are you talking about?" David demanded in Spanish.

"Is that a language?" Nia asked. "What kind of babble is that?"

Kree was frustrated. She had her man back, but she wanted him whole again. She was beginning to think David would never be whole again.

Nia reached out with a massive hand, grasped David by the skull and gave it a sharp squeeze and a twist. A sound like several bits of hard candy being cracked reported from David's skull and neck. A thick run of blood oozed from his nostrils even as his hands flew to his head as if to hold it together. His eyes went wide in shock, and his knees buckled under him. Nia caught his weight deftly, but she deliberately popped his sternum with her other hand. David's breath came out in a whoosh, and he started gasping for air.

Kree flung herself at Nia intent on killing the big alien. Nia expected the attack, and deftly deflected it. She sent Kree skittering to the corner of the room desperately trying to regain her balance with a smooth motion that swiped her ankles from under her.

Nia grasped David's jaw with her other hand, keeping a firm grip on David's skull. There was another loud pop, and a little cry of pain from David. Gently she set him down. "There," she declared.

Kree flew through the air with a roundhouse kick. Nia deftly caught Kree before she touched the deck again. She dangled the Andorian from her ankle and held the little dwarf outside of her reach.

"Give it a moment," Nia said. "What do you do to him that he likes the most?"

Kree stared in horror at David. His eyes were wide and blank. His jaw hung open. Her Andorian sense of smell detected all of his pheromones had suddenly stopped. He sat upright on the deck like a puppet with his strings cut. "David?" she asked uncertainly. "David?"

"What do you do to him that drives him wild?" Nia asked reasonably.

"You've killed him!" Kree was sobbing. She reached out to him.

"I've done no such thing," Nia said. "I've reset his nerve trunk is all. What do you do that he identifies only with you?"

Kree, dangling from the mighty Hirogen's paw, didn't believe Nia. She gently ran her fingers over Daniel's face before the warmth of him faded."

"Hmmm," Nia muttered. "Not quite it. Is there something else?"

"Like what?" Kree shouted. "He's dead!"

Nia turned a skeptical eye on Kree. "I can hear his heart beating from here. I need you to give him something familiar he will identify with you."

"Really?" Kree sniffed.

"Tactile sensation usually works," Nia said. "The key is to bring the senses back into focus one at a time."

Hesitantly Kree reached out to David again. This time she ran her fingers through his thick black hair. At first nothing happened. Then David's breath caught.

Nia put Kree down. "That's it. His sight will restart soon."

Kree kept running her fingers through his hair. She kept her face in front him his. He blinked a few times then focused on her.

Kree kissed him.

"You're getting this down," Nia said. "Touch, sight, taste. You'll need hearing and smell in the next few minutes. He'll be fine before long." She left.

Kree kept talking to him softly. Slowly she noticed he was starting to sit up straight. She thrust the top of her head under his nose so he could smell her hair. Nothing seemed to happen. She ran her hands over him and noticed he had an erection for the first time since he'd come back. On impulse she stood and drew his face between her thighs. It worked. David's breathing grew more regular. His hands rose up to grasp her with a strength he'd never had before. A moment later he stood without the use of a cane. "Kree?" he asked. He looked around at their new quarters uncertainly. "How did I get here?"

Kree smiled. "You're speaking English again."

David gave her a confused look. "Was I speaking something else?" He took an effortless step away from her examining the room in greater detail. "There's a hazy span of memory I don't understand," he said. "Quite a lot of it actually."

Kree pulled him to her. She buried her face against him taking in the renewed scent of him. "You're mine," she said. "You're mine, David Cabrillo."

David was still confused. "How long have I been…?" He didn't know how to describe it.

"Too long," Kree told him.

"Are we still at Cove?" he asked.

She stepped back. She surveyed his expression and saw a complicated series of feelings cross his face. "Are you remembering?"

He nodded.

She hesitated before asking, "Are you still my David?"

His eyes locked with hers. A blissful smile grew across his face, and he brought her hands to his lips. Gently he kissed the pads of each finger. It was a gesture that she loved. "I am yours, Kree," he said.

"Lieutenant Cabrillo?" Pi asked.

"This is not a good time, Pi," Kree warned.

"I'm sending the preliminary data to astrometrics," Pi said. "The Dyson sphere is intriguing."

"Dyson sphere?" David asked.

"It'll wait," Kree growled. She had her man back. She deserved to savor him a while.

HPV Ivin

Tylan paced the deck nervously. "Where are they?" she asked.

HPV Skein had entered the Dyson sphere an hour ago, and no word had reached her since. She desperately wanted to fly back to Pioneer, but Heartshock had left her in charge of the Ivin. Despite her crew being a bunch of skyscraper powerhouses to her delicate frame, they were responding to her commands gratefully. Consequently, she felt it would be rude to abandon them just to rush back to Eddie. Besides, she was discovering she had a knack for this.

"Most likely they are negotiating with Chieftain Hannik by now," the Chief Hunter explained.

"Surely transit is a simple token gesture," Tylan protested.

"Not with Pioneer in tow," the Chief Hunter said. "Hannik may want blood."

Tylan paced some more before arriving at a decision. "Might as well look around. Take us to the Gateway."

The Ivin pulled up close on another of the mighty granite rings poised to allow transit through the Great Barrier. Tylan examined it for a while before she zoomed in the hologram for a closer look. The granite was carved with tightly packed glyphs. "Why has nobody mentioned this before?"

"Nobody can read them," the Chief Hunter explained.

"These are Tholien," Tylan declared. "I'm certain of it."

The Hirogen stopped to stare at her. "You can read it?" Dr. Vulo asked.

"No, but Sophia could," Tylan cast another nervous glance at the Dyson sphere. "Let's scan these for her when she emerges."

She was obeyed at once. Hirogen had jarring gaps in their curiosity, but when these gaps could be pointed out they moved quickly to resolve the issue. Before she could stop herself she blurted, "I love you guys!"

The Hirogen froze, turned as one her way, and surveyed her carefully.

"Well, I do," she babbled. "You give me not flak. We work well together. We have good times…" She trailed off, feeling awkward.

The Hirogen exchanged awkward looks. "I like being loved by you," Vulo admitted.

The others didn't hesitate, "Hummm," they rumbled.

She gave them a quizzical look.

"It's an expression of profound truth for our kind," the Chief Hunter explained.

Tylan felt the emotion swell within her. The old habit to suppress it behind the Vulcan veneer of logic tried to clamp down on it.

"You're unaccustomed to this, aren't you," the Helmsman observed.

Tylan laughed. She grasped Vulo's arm. "I'm not, actually."

"Hummm," the Hirogen rumbled again.

"That's a good 'humm' isn't it?" Tylan asked.

They all turned and bowed. "We would be honored if you would be a part of our clan," Vulo said. "You have the blood of a true hunter in you."

"My parents would disagree with you," Tylan said. "Especially my mother."

"They are fools," the Helmsman said. "It's not uncommon in parents to project their misconceptions. Were they reserved with their true feelings?"

"Not in private."

"Duality," Vulo declared. "Thereby making the real reflection of self a fractured image."

Tylan was taken aback. "How do you know this?"

"That would take some time for all of us to explain," Vulo admitted. "If you join our clan, we would grant every effort in order for you to understand."

"What about Eddie?" she blurted before she could stop herself.

The Hirogen exchanged the same quizzical expressions. "Are you under the impression we would stop you from enjoying the comforts of a partner and family?" the Chief Hunter asked. When Tylan shot him an uncertain expression, the Hirogen shook his head. "Barbaric!"

HPV Skein

Lieutenant Sophia Shin had to admit there were few things that made her feel more secure than to have a literal ring of Hirogen around her. With six of them surrounding her, she felt like she could have Klingon crews slaughtered before her.

However.

"NO!" she shouted.

Heartshock gave her an unsympathetic glare. "We need this Lieutenant," he hissed.

"FUCK NO!" she shouted.

"You're being rude!" Heartshock pointed out.

Shin recoiled from Heartshock.

Chieftain Olanga locked her massive hands over Sophia's shoulders and casually pitched the woman out of the hatch. She turned to Heartshock. "We have to work on your tact, lover," she said before stepping out the hatch herself.

Heartshock followed Olanga without hesitation.

They fell into the atmosphere of a pristine world. The reason Salan Saln was a backwater of the Hirogen Empire was by design. Inside the Dyson sphere lay multiple worlds lush with life. To keep the risk of polluting the control world Saln Prime with anything at all, visitors could not beam to the surface. Nor could the Skein land on the surface. Instead Shin, Olanga, and Heartshock had to drop onto the surface from the very edge of the troposphere. They had provided Shin with the proper gear for the drop, but when the time came, Sophia panicked.

Screaming her lungs out for a full minute, she finally wore out. Then Olanga caught her. The sudden jolt made Sophia panic all over again.

"Oh, do settle down," Olanga scolded. "You're going to be on the ground soon enough."

Heartshock raced past Olanga and Shin. "Coming up on the barrier," he told them. "Watch carefully, Lieutenant."

The barrier was a powerful shield that burned organic life into ash before reducing it to transporter ions. Heartshock's suit began to fluoresce for a moment or two before every contaminant was eliminated. A few heartbeats later, Sophia was alarmed to see her suit get white hot. She wriggled in Olanga's grip, but the big alien kept a firm grip.

The ground raced up to meet them. Then Sophia distinctly felt the press of opposing acceleration against her. She slowed until she was able to simply extend her feet, and settle to the ground no worse than taking a single step on a staircase.

She raced over to Heartshock and beat against him screaming profanity. The two Hirogen appeared amused.

They were standing in a meadow surrounded by tall trees topped in green and blue leaves. Thick carpets of flowers stretched in all directions. Bees the size of mosquitos happily moved from bloom to bloom. Oddly enough, they looked exactly like terrestrial bees with the exception of scale. Tiny birds preyed upon the bees sporadically. Several perched for a time atop Olanga's helmet. They were so tame, or oblivious, to their presence, the birds didn't bother calling up a din to drive the intruders off.

A newcomer marched out of the trees wearing nothing but a loincloth. "What is this dwarf doing here?" the Hirogen asked.

"We brought outsiders with us to pass into the Core systems," Heartshock said.

The newcomer's eyes narrowed. "How many?"

Heatshock was about to speak when he caught himself short. "I never asked. Lieutenant, do you recall how many are aboard your ship?"

Sophia felt a chill run up her spine. After all they had been through, would Heartshock betray them now? "Six hundred ninety," she said. "Six hundred ninety-one if you count Emily's pregnancy."

All three Hirogen snapped their attention to Sophia. "How many gestating females do you have?" Olanga demanded.

Taken aback by the intense interest, Sophia could only shrug. "I don't know. Emily is the only one I know of."

Olanga and Heartshock exchanged a look. "You might have told us," Olanga protested.

"This Emily," the newcomer asked, "is her mate living?"

Sophia found this to be an exceedingly strange line of questioning, but saw no way of deflecting their intense interest. "Commander Garrett died months ago. Not long before we met you, Heartshock."

"You killed the mate?" the newcomer asked Heartshock.

Heartshock had to turn to Sophia again. "He died in a shuttle accident."

"Does the dwarf know everything of value, Chieftain Heartshock?" the newcomer asked.

Heartshock was about to answer when Sophia noticed a pendant around the newcomer's neck. Made from platinum, it had a glyph on it she recognized. "What are you doing with a Tholian pendant?"

The newcomer grasped the pendant. "This is ancient," he explained. "You know where it came from?"

"I know what the glyph says," Sophia explained. "It means 'Master Control Second Level.' Where did you get it?"

The newcomer raised a staff also made of platinum and covered in Tholian glyphs. "What do these say?"

Sophia read the script. "What is this doing here?" she demanded. "Where are we? Tholia is years away in the Alpha Quadrant."

Nobody had expected this. Least of all the newcomer. "Come with me," he ordered.

Tholia Prime

Brazos awoke that morning to the chime of an unfamiliar sound. He stirred from his mercury bath, and made his way towards the sound as if a switch had been flipped to bring him to life. He'd slept for thirty months until this sound disturbed him, but he wasn't upset. He was baffled, and that could be painful for a Tholian. The Tholian mind was not built to handle disorder well, and a new chime among familiar sounds upset Brazos's equilibrium.

The unfamiliar chime sounded again, but it was unnecessary at this point. Brazos kept his abode so organized, there was no question where the chime came from. He scanned the controls and felt his nine hearts skip a beat. What was this?

Brazos was old by human standards, but middle-aged by the mark of his kin. During his lifetime, humans had built the last of the pyramids and founded the Federation. But in all that time, this chime had never stirred. It was a Pulse-link channel from Salan Saln notifying him of certain controls in use on the distant world. Iconians sometimes did mischief with old Tholian outposts, but they had died off during a war with the Founders over in the Gamma Quadrant. Brazos had still been young when that happened. The Assembly counted the Iconian extinction as the loss of a persistent nuisance. In more recent years they were offended when the Elorians had been virtually wiped out by the Borg. Elorians had the merit of informed dignity while the Iconians were crass expansionists. Much like the Federation and Starfleet, Iconia chased after a destiny they failed to understand they were trying to regain rather than establish. It was all so boring. Brazos had endured the stories from his grandparents impatiently when he'd been told millennia ago.

Brazos was about to examine the chime in detail when he noticed another anomaly. Someone had been using Pulse-link communications, and they'd been using it badly. Tholians used the technology infrequently because there was little need for it within the borders of the Assembly. The technology was also dangerous. It might lure outside forces back to the Milky Way. Forces the Tholians had spent much blood and will expelling from their home galaxy.

This put Brazos in a corner. It was not his job to alert anyone about unauthorized Pulse-link traffic or an old outpost stirring to life after fifteen thousand years. Calling attention to these anomalies might be beneficial to head off further entanglements, but the presumption it would require on his part was excessive.

But Brazos was relatively young, so he called his elders to ask for advice. The conversation was caustic. He had been overreaching after all, and the Tholian authorities quickly admonished Brazos before he'd managed to inform them of his concerns. Yet having suffered the wrath of his betters, Brazos managed to pass on what was happening with the unauthorized Pulse-com traffic. The Assembly as one was furious, and more than a little alarmed. Fortunately it was a simple matter to close down everything. The technology being used was so crude, it was simplistic to disrupt.

Brazos was sent away before he could explain the second concern he had for what was essentially a family estate. Salan Saln belonged to Brazos along with other properties in the region. It would not do to have outsiders squatting on his worlds and depreciating the value. There was nothing for it. He had to examine Salan Saln in person before things went completely awry.

Trouble was Tholians didn't get out much. Booking travel with a Tholian craft was out of the question. It would be difficult enough gaining permission to journey outside the Assembly. The easiest option would be to charter a Ferengi vessel for the trip, but Brazos understood that was an exercise in futility. Any Ferengi vessel would stop before they ventured into the 3KPC Arm, declare multiple excuses to drive up the cost of the charter past his ability to pay. There was the Federation, but they were rapidly growing entangled in a war with Cardassia, the Dominion, and most annoyingly the Breen. Their diplomats were so inept they were close to having the Klingon and Romulan Empires turned against them.

Brazos decided to take the calculated risk of waiting for the coming war to end before deciding on transport to Salan Saln. Somebody capable of the trip would be left standing after all. Brazos returned to an uneasy sleep.

Salan Saln

I wish Commander Hurst was here," Lieutenant Shin admitted.

The local Hirogen, Sophia thought of him as "The Native" Hirogen, turned again to Heartshock for an explanation.

"They have hunters who are trained specifically to be curious," Heartshock explained. "Hurst is their professionally curious hunter."

The Native considered this for a moment before nodding his approval. "I'll have to look into the job. I could delegate it to any number of gifted minds."

"This is a residence," Sophia explained. She motioned to glyphs along a nearby wall. "This is the lease agreement for this place."

"This chamber is leased?" The Native asked.

"This entire system is leased," Sophia corrected. "Essentially this is a large estate so far as this documentation is concerned." She moved to the far wall and tapped a few glyphs which promptly lit up. "Basic stuff. Environmental controls, power level readouts, there's a com array." She tested the com array only to have an additional set of glyphs light up in an unpleasant purple alarm. "Oh!" she squeaked in surprise.

"What is it?" The Native demanded.

"Those are telling me not to try that again," Sophia said. "Some kind of security clearance is required."

The Hirogen laughed, but not unkindly. "Skip the com controls. What else is there?" Heartshock asked.

Sophia wandered through the corridors of The Native's villa. Glyphs denoting all kinds of controls lined the walls and ceiling like that of the bridge of a ship. She supposed a structure like a Dyson sphere had to have some controls, but she was shocked they all could fit into one modestly large house. She glanced out a window and saw the distant star in the sky. It was a white star and ten times smaller overhead than the sun back on the surface of Earth. Yet it supported dozens of worlds inside the Dyson sphere. It was almost painfully bright outside thanks to an extensive series of lakes an oceans lining the inner surface of the sphere. The waters acted like heat sinks from the intense radiation from the star. It was explained to her the most severe of these oceans on worlds nearest the star were made entirely of liquid sodium and liquid tungsten. The oceans lining the sphere were simply salt water.

This world was one of fifteen sharing an orbit around the star. Each world had five moons all sharing the same orbit around their respective planets. The next orbit away from the star had a similar scheme of five larger worlds with three larger moons each. The most radical orbit nearest the inner surface of the sphere had no few than fifty-five worlds with three inhabitable moons each. This made some sense to Sophia. Five was a sacred number to Tholians much like three was a particularly useful number for humans. Even so, this control villa had limited function over the larger workings of the Salan Saln system.

"Hang on," she said. "Those are defensive controls."

The Native smiled. "They are effective. We've managed to deduce their function through time, but their specific nomenclature would be a valuable trade."

Sophia glanced at Heartshock and Olanga. They nodded their approval. "You can trust Chieftain Amab," Olanga assured her.

"Then he needs to understand there are four other estates around the Great Barrier like this one," Sophia explained.

Amab, Heartshock, and Olanga gaped at her.

"Ten more exist at the polar extremes of the Great Barrier. It says so right here," she indicated the proper glyphs and keyed in a display. A magnificent hologram of the Core, the Great Barrier, and Sagittarius A bloomed to life inside the room. "This has been on for a long time, but in the ultraviolet spectrum," she said. "Typical for Tholian preferences."

"I will accept the dwarf as payment for passage," Amab said.

"Amab," Heartshock chided. "Be reasonable. You'll be collecting slaves next."

Chieftain Amab accepted this gracefully. "I must learn this written language," he pointed out. "What might the dwarf be able to do about that?"

"Hey, I'm right here, you know," Sophia said stamping her foot. "I could leave you with a universal translator, but Tholian is a nuanced language. It takes some getting used to."

"That means a straight translation is insufficient," Amab declared. "Interaction learning is required."

"Exactly," Sophia agreed. "I really can't stay too long."

"You need a Tishin," Olanga declared. "That plus a universal translator could make the proper progress."

One of the other Hirogen took Sophia aside to explain that the Tishin were a species inside the Core renowned as linguists.

Olanga, Heartshock, and Amab seemed to reach an agreement. "We'll bring a Tishin here," Olanga said. "Sophia, leave a universal translator here. We're going into the Core."

USS Pioneer

"Almost too easy," Koon mused.

"It does mean a return to Salan Saln once we have a cooperative Tishin, Captain," Heartshock admitted.

"Will that be difficult?" Koon asked.

Heartshock managed to look uncomfortable. "The Tishin home world is on the opposite side of the Pfing Empire," he explained. "We either go around it or through a warzone and back again. It would be the difference of a year of travel time."

"Let's take a closer look once we're on the other side before making that decision," Koon said.

"I've given my word, Captain," Heartshock said. "I will bring back a Tishin to Amab."

"Then you've spoken for all of us," Koon declared. "Be careful about that in the future."

The Gateway opened and Pioneer, Ivin, and Skein slipped into the Core.

Commander Gordon waited before the transporter pad. He was not the man he once was. Before he was relatively tall. He was deeply stooped and leaned heavily on a cane now. He was once a powerfully built man. He was thin now, and his uniform hung like a big sack on his wasted frame. His voice was still a thin reed compared to his former jocular volume. Before he could work without wearing out for days. He weakened after a few minutes of walking now.

So when Tylan appeared on the transporter pad, Eddie thought she might recoil from the ashes of the man she once knew.

She appeared on the transporter pad, and her eyes widened in alarm when she saw him. Slowly she stepped off the pad and surveyed him. Stopping a pace away she made a thorough head-to-toe examination.

"I'm sorry, Tylan," Eddie's voice was just above a whisper.

Her brown eyes snapped up to his. She regarded him sharply, as if ready to scold him. "Have you moved my things into your quarters?" she demanded.

Eddie nodded.

"Take me there," she ordered.

Eddie turned to limp back to his quarters. Rejected again. He was used to it. It had been good to love her openly for a while. Maybe he'd forget her in time.

She took his arm. Surprised, he almost fell over. She managed to catch him from toppling over. "You're so light!" she gasped. "I feel I could carry you all around the ship with you in this state."

To prove her point, she snatched the cane from his hand, and draped his arm across her shoulders. Much to his shock, she took most of his weight. Not knowing what else to do, he led her to his quarters.

He was panting by the time they made it inside while she looked ready to go for a run. She eased him onto his bed. He managed to remain upright, but he was completely winded. He flinched from a dozen sharp pains. So much of his body ached, the agony robbed the respite of any relief.

Tylan surveyed the room. Her things remained neatly packed in a corner, while his things were stowed away. "This is a crash pad, Eddie," she scolded. "Have you always lived like this?"

Eddie nodded.

Tylan paced around the suite taking things in. "You have no idea what a home is like, do you, Eddie," she declared.

"I can't imagine," he said. He felt a slight tug on his mind and saw her concentrating fiercely on him.

Her expression softened. "Eddie," she sighed, "do you really think I'm going to leave you now?"

"I'm weak."

"You're mine!" she barked stamping her foot to emphasize the point. "Mine, mine, MINE!"

Her anger surprised him. It was dazzling. Her eyes went from soft brown to a luminous gold. Her features set into a focused resolve he'd never seen before. "You're cute when you're angry."

Tylan was taken aback. "I am?"

"Do it again," he said with a smile.

Tylan collapsed in laughter.

It was good to see her laugh. Tylan had not laughed in front of him hardly at all since revealing she was a Romulan. She had a wickedly demented cackle.

She leaned forward and touched his ravaged face. "You are a dear, dear man, Edmund Gordon. Will I ruin you?"

"I am ruined, Tylan," he said motioning to his thin frame.

She regarded him sharply again. "Korri, korri, Eddie," she said. "And in case you forgot, that means I'm here, always."

Tylan lay awake while Eddie slept. One arm wrapped under her pillow, around her shoulder to have the hand resting on her bare hip. The other slipped around her waist and up the front of her so she could nestle her face into his palm. Their legs lay entwined under the sheets.

She was in shock. What had happened made all the stolen kisses seem very tame indeed. To be certain, what they had done was far from tame. Eddie was weak, but he made up for what he lacked in ardor and stamina with tenderness and overwhelming adoration. She also had to admit he was also an imaginative, artful lover as well. However the emotional ride was nothing short of ecstatic. It was puzzling.

When she was young, her sexual career began with M'rath. She recalled the first few months as a happy time. Slowly that faded. M'rath discovered his homosexuality about a year into their marriage. Like any number of wives confronted with a sudden rejection of her sexuality, Tylan had tried to keep things together. M'rath never refused her, but he became indifferent at first and resentful as time went on. By the time Pioneer encountered the Hirogen, M'rath was physically abusing her. Thanks to a somewhat inconvenient set of circumstances, Tylan managed to heal the physical manifestations M'rath's blows burdened her with. It spared her the indignity of explaining the bruises, cracked bones, and missing teeth. Putting all that behind her was gelling into a reassuring reality.

Tylan spent forty-four years as M'rath's wife, and a Tal'Shiar's agent. She had fucked many other men and women in her life in the service of Romulus. She'd even managed to take pleasure in it often as not. She recalled one man back in San Antonio who had truly loved her. The sex had been amazing for his devotion. Tylan recalled savoring the musk he gave off whenever he saw her. But the Tal'Shiar wanted the man ruined, turned to their cause, and emotionally destroyed. Tylan had enjoyed doing that as well.

What happened last night both amazed and horrified her. Eddie's arms gently shattered her soul's equilibrium. Tylan understood that if she'd ever met Eddie when he was just a boy, she could not have been capable of the evil things she had done. She understood something in Eddie absolved and bound her to her better self. She imagined meeting the six-year-old Edmund Gordon when she was forty. She'd been in Liverpool at the time. She could have made the short trip to Portsmouth anytime. She remembered having an uncompromising urge to see the place she'd somehow denied. Had she met Eddie even at that tender age, the years after would have been unbearable as a Tal'Shiar agent.

Instinct told her she dare not do evil to this man. If she hurt him, parts of her only now awakening from a lifetime of shadows and stony discipline would die forever. A ruthless part of her pointed out these tender chains of sentiment were easily broken. Maybe she should break them just to remain free of them. Tylan snuggled closer to Eddie just to make sure the tender chains took hold a little firmer.

For the first time she understood why Okuma did not trust her. Tylan was amazed the woman could see through her so easily, but Okuma knew what Tylan was capable of should she start down the path leading back to her past. The woman might not be able to explain it, but somehow "Dragon Sam" Okuma knew Tylan was a monster.

"Maybe I'll have to discuss it with her," Tylan murmured.

Eddie didn't stir. A glance inside his mind showed a peace he'd never known before. There was a part of his mind that was perpetually lonely. Nurtured by neglect in his childhood and rejection as an adult, this part of him he'd kept guarded behind a cheerful exterior. That part was quiet, sated, and happy.

"He loves me," she said. Yet others had loved her. Why was Eddie different? Why had she found this good man so far away from home? Why had she required the blanket of the Great Barrier between her and Romulus to feel safe enough to love him? "Have I really been so afraid all this time?"

This time Eddie did stir. He took in a deep breath. As he did so his arms squeezed her breathless. Her eyes bulged. "Eddie!" She gagged. "Eddie!"

As if realizing there was a woman in his arms for the first time, Eddie didn't stop squeezing her, but he stopped increasing the pressure. "Mmmm?" he growled in surprise. His fingers danced playfully across her. "Mmmm!" he growled exultant. He eased his grip and shifted his arms just… so. "Hmmmph!" he half growled, half sighed.

Tylan tittered. She liked his growl. It rattled her ribs pleasantly. It was another discovery that bound her to him. Eddie was full of all kinds of noises as it turned out. He had the growl, a snarl, a hum, and a whole series of howls. She couldn't get enough of any of them.

"Eddie?"

"Mmm?"

"I can't be Tal'Shiar anymore."

"Mmm yeah?"

"You hear me?"

"Mmmm, hmm."

"You've ruined me forever, Eddie."

He took in a deep breath. "About time," he said. Gently his fingers touched her brow, her nose, her lips and chin. They rested there more as a sensation of warmth than anything more. The pads of his other hand gently did the same on her belly.

She felt an intense need to move, but resisted it. Slowly the warmth of his fingers spread out across her. She could feel the peace of his mind flowing through her, cleansing a lifetime of abuse with it.

When the knocking at the door woke her up, she was still locked against him only by the pads of his fingertips.

"Commander Gordon?" It was Emily Blackburn.

Eddie didn't move.

"He's sleeping," Tylan called out.

"He is," Pi confirmed cheerfully.

Tylan felt the urge to scream in outrage. "Get out, Pi!" she snapped.

"I assure you I was not invading your privacy, Lieutenant," Pi said.

"GET THE FUCK OUT!" Tylan shouted.

There was a pause. "Emily, you and I will have to resolve this ourselves." Pi sounded oddly reproachful, but Tylan didn't care.

Eddie stirred, gave her another of those breathtaking squeezes again, and sighed. Finally awake, he slipped his arm from under her and limped into the shower.

Tylan dozed while he was in there. The sound of the shower was the perfect white noise to settle her nerves. A few moments later, Eddie returned. Instead of donning his uniform, he slipped back into bed with her. She flipped over and nuzzled against him. "What happened last night?" she asked. "Since when do you know Vulcan mind-melds?"

"I don't," he admitted.

"You did something to me," she persisted.

Rather than answer, he slipped the blanket over her shoulder. Then he ran his fingers gently up and down her back.

"I'm serious," she said. "Something…" she dozed off again.

His fingers slowly raked through her hair, and he was kissing her brow. "I really need to go on duty, my love," he said when she tilted her face up to his.

BANG! Something hit the door hard.

Tylan sprung out of bed ready to defend herself and Eddie.

"TYLAN!" M'rath shouted from the other side of the door. "You get out here with whatever'd running down your thighs right now!"

Tylan recoiled.

Eddie arose painfully from the bed.

"TYLAN!" M'rath's voice broke in a shriek this time. "THIS DISGRACE WILL NOT GO UNANSWERED!"

Eddie, weak as he was, marched to the door. He opened it standing stark naked before M'rath. He opened his mouth to say something, but his head cocked quizzically to the side instead.

M'rath was a mess. His clothes were soiled. He smelled of excrement. Red eyes stared from a gaunt and haunted expression. Like Eddie, he was stooped. His hands were curled into claws. It dawned on Tylan M'rath had been completely immersed in the Hirogen Net for over a month. Had he forgotten himself this far? Under the Great Barrier, the Hirogen Net was effectively shut down. M'rath must be like a drug addict suddenly deprived of his fix.

"YOU WILL NOT SOIL HER!" M'rath shrieked and lunged at Eddie.

Eddie didn't move. He didn't have to. Massive gray hands clamped onto M'rath and slammed him to the deck. "You and I have a reckoning at hand, little man," Heartshock said calmly. Vulo, Olanga, and Cark each clamped onto the struggling Romulan on the deck.

"Allow me," Cark said softly. He deftly administered a Vulcan neck pinch, and M'rath went limp. "Damn, it works!" he said.

Lieutenant Commander Speer came running up the corridor a heartbeat later. "What happened?" he demanded.

"Jilted lover returns," Olanga explained laconically. "Unsavory stuff. Should we take care of this now? Or should we return the little fellow to his quarters?"

Speer surveyed the scene with his remaining eye, the other one remained clamped under a patch while it healed. It gave him a sinister expression, but the shock was too much to hide. "Brig," he said. He turned to face Eddie, gave him a head-to-toe glance and picked up M'rath by the ankle to drag the filthy fellow away.

"Mr. Edmund," Heartshock said. "You're Tylan's. My crew thinks quite highly of her. Should we keep an eye out for the two of you while you recover your health?"

Tylan peeked from behind Eddie. "You'll protect him?" she was incredulous.

"I insist," Heartshock declared.

"You've been accepted into the clan," Olanga explained. "We are honor-bound to vouch for your safety. Your mate shall enjoy the same from us."

Vulo examined Eddie carefully. "You're in a shocking state," he declared. "I shall discuss your recovery with your doctor."

"I'll lead you to Dr. Fahdlan," Pi said causing the Hirogen to cast about looking for the owner of the disembodied voice.

Tylan clutched at Eddie. The old fears had assaulted her right when she thought they were behind her.

Olanga noticed. "You and I must speak of this later," she told Tylan. "Heartshock told me there was a place for me on this crew. I'm beginning to see it already." She appraised Eddie. Her eyes narrowed when she saw his genitals, but they took in his eyes and hands at length. "Gentle with you, is he?" she observed.

Tylan nodded before she could stop herself.

Olanga took Heartshock's arm. "Mr. Edmund will require privacy, Heartshock. Tylan is in good hands."

The Hirogen turned and walked away. Eddie shut the door. He picked up his com badge and keyed it. "Gordon to Okuma," he called out.

"I just heard, Commander," Okuma answered.

"I need two days off," he said.

"So long as Tylan takes you to Fahdlan once a day, you can have them," Okuma said reasonably. "You're confined to quarters otherwise. Okuma out."

Eddie shook his head in amazement before turning his attention back to Tylan. "What did you do for the Hirogen?"

"Heartshock gave me command of the Ivin while he was with Olanga." She was just as puzzled as he was.

Eddie gave an impressed growl. "Must have impressed them." He moved to put his arms around her. She recoiled, but he persisted until she calmed down. Gently he eased her into a chair and kneeled before her so their eyes were at the same level.

"I thought I was free of him," Tylan's voice was flat. She felt drained. She looked up to him. "What are you going to be like in forty years?"

"I had ambitions to be an old rascal," Eddie admitted. This earned him a laugh from her. His expression turned serious. "I will ask when I might demand," he declared. "I will listen when I could talk. I will be tender because I'm built that way. And I will fall in love with you every day, Tylan."

"But…"

Eddies expression turned to an impatient scowl. "If you're looking for exceptions to the rules rather than ways to explore our strengths, Tylan, what do you think you're going to find?"

"What are you doing to me?" she asked.

Eddie didn't answer.

She latched her hands onto his head in a Vulcan mind meld. It was less effective for her since she'd never trained in the technique, but Eddie didn't resist. She searched for the parts of him that would be dark and cruel. She searched for his hurts and hungers. She searched for what would rob her of this good man in time.

"Tylan," Eddie chided gently. "Why don't you look for what you want from me?"

That was easy to find. The kindness, the joy, the smiles and the laughter were all around his mind. His memory was a dreary place, but what cruelty he had in him was chained to embarrassment. His imagination was filled with all kinds of lustful adventures, and she was gratified to understand she could fulfill all of them without hurting herself."

"Is that all?" he asked. "You won't hurt yourself? Does that mean you can't enjoy me?"

She broke the meld. He was looking at her with a worried expression. "What are you doing to me?" she repeated.

Eddie kissed her. "I'm yours, remember?"

It was going to be hard to let go of the fear. M'rath, her parents, and the Tal'shiar had fostered so consistently during her life. Eddie was a calm pool of repose by comparison. He didn't give her courage to combat the fear, but he gave her rest enough to face it. He was willing to put himself between her and danger, even if M'rath would have killed him. It was pure luck the Hirogen had stopped by.

She had her knight. She even had a very devoted pack of wolves to protect her. And she had someone she could love openly. Her life would never be the same.

Koon's eyes narrowed when he saw her. This was a ship's Captain? "I hate to pull rank, but I have seniority," he observed.

Captain Melissa Schubert's good eye glittered with rage through the main viewer. "Thought you might want to be at the top of the pyramid," she hissed.

"For a time," he admitted. He motioned around the bridge indicating his crew. "This is a Starfleet vessel. Yours is a Section 31 vessel," he pointed out. "While I'm a pragmatic man, it does not blacken my ethics into a corner of shame. I'm proposing I take charge until we reach cultural agreement."

"Of all the arrogant..!" Schubert spluttered.

Koon cut her off. "…Would you prefer Ward Jones over me?" He was chiding her harshly, but it was going to take a few harsh blows to crack her. "I knew the idiot years ago. From what I've been told, he abused you and your crew beyond reason. I might have expected as much from the sniveling motherfucker."

"You don't know what we've been through!" she objected.

"But you know what I've been through for the past seven years in some detail," Koon said evenly. "You have me at a loss. I find it a trifle rude, but unlike your former masters, I insist you explain yourself. I prefer you back in the family, Captain. We can do more good together as a team for your peace of mind as well as mine."

"You're chasing after an empty dream, Peyter!" Schubert snapped. "Voyager is deep in Borg space, and she will not survive it!"

"I will not abandon family, Melissa," Koon declared. "That includes you."

Schubert slumped in her seat. "You're an exasperating man," she muttered.

Koons eyes grew haunted for a heartbeat. "You're exhausted, Melissa," he observed. "My first order, should you choose to accept it, is to find a place to repair and refit. I believe Chieftain Gnan can help locating an ideal spot for our purposes."

"We've repaired everything we can," Schubert mumbled unhappily.

"Call it shore leave," Koon said. "I can give you three months before we need to be underway again."

"To Voyager," Schubert said.

"Yes."

Melissa Schubert glared at Koon. "You and I will never see Earth again if you persist with this quixotic mission of yours."

"Maybe not," Koon allowed, "but we will see things never before known to everyone back home. We will get Katie Janeway home. And we will sleep the sleep of the righteous for the rest of our days."