"I still have one operative cruiser stationed at the starbase," said Gruzinov. "I could dispatch it to D'rahl at once and make certain none of those ships leave orbit."

Picard shook his head. "No, Ivan, I wish it could be so, but with the possibility of a cloaked Romulan Warbird in the area, we don't dare leave Artemis VI unprotected."

Gruzinov made a wry grimace. "It wouldn't be very much protection," he said. "A Warbird would make short work of my light cruiser. And even if they are not holding our people prisoner, any one of those vessels in orbit above D'rahl could be used to ferry an a.s.sault force over to N'trahn."

"Unless they already have troops in place," Picard said. He shook his head. "No, I cannot take the chance. The colony on Artemis VI must be protected. Dispatch your cruiser there at once and have them stand by on yellow alert."

Gruzinov nodded. "Mr. Worf, get me Starbase 37."

"Aye-aye, sir."

"If Kronak has a Warbird, then by now they are aware we have left orbit," said Picard. "And you can be sure that they will follow us. Yellow alert, Mr. Worf."

"What have you done?" T'grayn said, wringing his hands in anxiety. "You have exposed me as a liar and a collaborator! You have exposed J'drahn! You have ruined everything!"

"Be silent," said Kronak, as he rapidly punched in a code on the viewscreen console.

"You could have withdrawn your troops!" T'grayn said. "I could have denied everything! It would have been their word against mine!"

"I said, be silent, you miserable slug!" said Kronak.

"What ... what are you going to do?" T'grayn asked, fearfully.

The face of a K'tralli appeared on the viewscreen.

"This is Tribune Kronak. I wish to speak with Overlord J'drahn at once," said Kronak.

"Overlord J'drahn has retired for the night, sir," said the K'tralli.

"Then wake him! Now!"

"One moment, sir... ."

"Is everyone in this b.l.o.o.d.y culture an idiot?" said Kronak. There was a signal on his communicator. He removed it from his belt and snapped it open. "Kronak," he said.

"Your Excellency, the Enterprise has left orbit."

"Predictable," said Kronak. "Stand by to beam me back aboard the ship." He turned back to the console. "What's keeping that fool?"

J'drahn's sleepy-looking face appeared on the screen. "What is so important that it could not wait until morning, Kronak?" he asked, petulantly.

"Picard has Colonel Z'gral," said Kronak. "He is aboard the Enterprise, which has just left orbit and is undoubtedly on its way to N'trahn even as we speak."

J'drahn grew pale. Suddenly, he was wide awake. "B-but ... h-how is that possible?" he stammered. "You a.s.sured me that Z'gral was going to be taken care of!"

"Regrettably, Picard reached him first and rescued him," said Kronak. "I did not think he had the nerve, but he is more clever than I thought. If you wish to maintain your position as overlord of the K'tralli Empire, then I suggest you see to it immediately that H'druhn is in no position to remove you from office."

"You mean ..."

"I mean, kill him."

"But ... my own father?" said J'drahn.

"Your own father, when confronted with your actions by Z'gral and Picard, is liable to have you executed for treason. I certainly would, if you were my son."

"No, he could never do that," J'drahn protested. "I have my loyal troops-"

"And he has his," said Kronak. "At the very least, he will bring a civil war down on your head, and as he is considerably more popular than you, I would not give great odds for your chances. You know what you have to do, so do it. Now."

"But the Enterprise ..."

"Leave the Enterprise to me," said Kronak. "Now stop wasting time. You have precious little of it left."

Kronak cut off the transmission and called his ship on his communicator. "Prepare to leave orbit," he said. "Beam me up now."

"But ... what am I to do?" T'grayn asked, miserably.

"I could not care less," said Kronak, with contempt. "I have no further use for you."

The transporter from the Warbird locked on to him, and an instant later he was gone.

T'grayn stood alone, wringing his hands, his chest rising and falling with his panicked, labored breathing. Sweat stood out on his high forehead. This was not how it was supposed to be, he thought. It was supposed to be nothing more than easy profits, letting the freebooters take all the risk ... and all the blame. But everything had changed when J'drahn brought Kronak into it. Kronak and Blaze.

He had been a fool not to see this coming. Blaze was uncontrollable. And that had suited Kronak's purposes perfectly. T'grayn now saw that Blaze had been nothing more than a lure to bring the Federation starship. That was what Kronak had wanted all along, and J'drahn had been too greedy and too full of his own self-righteousness to see it. Or perhaps he truly didn't care if the Romulans took over. Perhaps he really believed they would retain him in his position as overlord of the K'trall. T'grayn knew better now. Kronak would discard J'drahn just as he had now discarded him. He could easily have killed me, thought T'grayn. Except that he did not even think that I was worth the trouble.

He had to get away. He had to escape while there was still time. If the Federation prevailed somehow, it would be all over for him. J'drahn's government would fall and they would both be tried for their crimes. And if the Romulans prevailed, as seemed likely, then every citizen of D'rahl would be howling for his blood. There would not be a safe place for him anywhere in the K'tralli Empire.

He sat down at the console and reached for the keyboard, his fat, beringed fingers trembling. He swallowed hard, moistened his lips, and punched in a code. When his call was answered, he took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves, and said, "This is Governor T'grayn. I must speak with Captain Blaze at once."

Riker got out of the turbolift on Deck 7 and made his way quickly to sickbay. When he got there, Dorn was busy tending to a couple of the Glory's crewmen, applying sealant to their wounds.

"I'll be with you in a moment," she said, glancing at Riker as he entered. She turned back to the crewmen and gave each of them a hypospray injection. "There, all finished."

"Thanks, Doc," the crewman said.

"Don't call me 'Doc,' I'm not a doctor," she said. "And I'm a little rusty at this, so try to finish each other off next time and save me the trouble of patching you up again."

"You're all right, Doc."

"Get out of here. I've got another patient and I'm still not finished taking inventory. Go."

"Doc?" said Riker, as they left.

"It seems I'm the closest thing they've got to a ship's doctor," Dorn said, wryly.

"What about Katana, with her built-in pharmacy?"

Dorn sneered. "You think she gives anything away? Besides, she's a shooter. All she knows how to do is inject drugs and biogens. And the stuff she's loaded with is worse than any pain you might've got."

"What happened to those two?" Riker asked.

"They got into a fight down in the cargo bay while they were unpacking some of the supplies. Went at each other with pry bars, for G.o.d's sake. Multiple contusions and lacerations, some minor fractures, a broken nose, and several missing teeth. Somebody broke it up before they killed each other. By the time they got here, it was all a big joke. They don't even seem to remember what started it." She shook her head and snorted. "Boy, this is some bunch. Merchant-fleet and military rejects, criminals and borderline psychopaths ... Yet Blaze has somehow managed to make a crew out of them."

"You almost sound as if you admire him," said Riker.

"I suppose I do, in a way. He's got something. He's a charismatic individual, you've got to give him that."

"It sounds as if maybe he's been turning some of that charisma on you," said Riker.

"He's a very handsome man. And I think he's attracted to me," Dorn said, with a grin.

"You think that's funny?" Riker asked, frowning. "Well, isn't it? I mean, considering the circ.u.mstances ..."

"I am considering the circ.u.mstances. Where is he now?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. He brought me down here, gave me the grand tour, then told me to take inventory and make a list of anything I think the sickbay needs. And he wants it in a hurry, too. He doesn't plan on staying around here long."

"Well, neither do I," said Riker. "I don't have much time. I told the bridge crew I was just coming down here to get something for a headache."

"And they bought that?"

"It wasn't far from the truth," said Riker. "I'm getting a migraine trying to figure out how we're going to get out of this mess."

"Any ideas?"

"The transporter's our best shot," said Riker. "He's got two shuttlecrafts aboard this ship, but if we tried taking one of them, they could blast us before we got a hundred yards."

"Have you seen La Forge?"

Riker shook his head. "Not yet. I think he's still down in Engineering. And I haven't managed to get a fix on our position yet. But as soon as I do that, we'll have to move fast. We've got to get back to the Enterprise before Blaze can complete his repairs. We're going to have to arrange someplace to meet."

"Most of the crew is quartered on Deck 5," Dorn said. "Blaze and his senior personnel are on Deck 4. Deck 6 is vacant. We could meet in one of the empty cabins down there after most of the crew has gone to sleep."

"a.s.suming Blaze doesn't keep them working around the clock to get all the repairs completed," Riker said. He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "No, Deck 6 won't do. It would be the first place they'd look if they discovered we were missing, and it would be too easy for us get pinned down. Can you get to the aft Jeffries tube?"

"Shouldn't be any problem. There's a tube entry hatch just down the corridor from my cabin."

"Good. When it's time to make our move, take the Jeffries tube down to Deck 14. At the aft end of the horizontal intermix chamber is a double-sliding door leading to the landing bay control room. From there you can get down to the landing bay level on Deck 16. The chief engineer's office is down there. That's where we can meet up with Geordi. From there we can make our way down the stairwell to Deck 17 and the secondary hull's emergency transporter facility. Geordi can bypa.s.s the bridge controls and make sure they can't cut the power off from there."

"Right," said Dorn. "Then what? We can beam down to the planet surface, but how do we get in touch with the Enterprise without our communicators?"

"I'll try to get ahold of one, if I can," said Riker. "But by now it's been almost twenty-four hours since we checked in. Even if we can't signal the Enterprise, they'll be looking for us and they should be able to get a fix on us as soon as we're back down on D'rahl."

"Meanwhile, Blaze can get our transporter coordinates off the emergency transporter console after we're gone and beam down a party to come after us," she said.

"I didn't say it was going to be easy," Riker said. "But if we can't get our hands on a communicator, we can call the Enterprise or Starbase 37 from the Merchant s.p.a.cefleet Union. Once we've reached the s.p.a.ceport, we're in Starfleet jurisdiction."

"And I can get every security man under my command down there," said Dorn. She nodded. "It's a good plan. When do we move?"

"I don't know yet," Riker said. "As soon as possible. I'll have to talk to Geordi first. If he can figure out some way to sabotage Blaze's cloaking device, then we can disable the relay boards for the phaser bank controls and the photon torpedo launchers before we leave. That'll leave them essentially defenseless."

"Blaze will probably figure that out," said Dorn. "And he may have replacement components. I'd be surprised if he didn't."

"Maybe not, if we're lucky," Riker replied. "But even if he does, the repairs should tie up essential personnel and buy us and the Enterprise some time."

"We could use a diversion," Dorn said. "If I could disable the automatic fire control system on Deck 6 and get a blaze going, I'd still have plenty of time to make it to the Jeffries tube before the general alarm went off."

"It's risky, but it's worth a shot," said Riker. "Especially if they've got a drug laboratory set up down there."

"If they do, Blaze hasn't mentioned it. I asked him what he does with all the empty s.p.a.ce down on Deck 6 and he said they just use it for additional storage. If that's true, maybe we can pick up a communicator or some weapons down there."

"With a crew like this, I doubt he'd leave equipment like that lying around unprotected. In any case, there's not going to be much time to look for it." Riker shook his head. "No, forget the idea of going down to Deck 6. A diversion would be nice, but it's going to take time for you to get down to Deck 14 through the Jeffries tube. It's just not worth the risk."

"I can make it," Dorn said.

"I said no, forget about it," Riker said. "That's an order, Lieutenant. There won't be any time to wait for you. And it just adds to the chances for something going wrong. I'd better be getting back. I've still got to talk to Geordi. Sit tight until you hear from me. I'll get word to you somehow. If I can't do it any other way, I'll take the chance of calling you on the ship's intercom. We'll need a coded signal of some kind."

"You can call and ask me if I've found that medication yet," said Dorn. "If anybody asks, tell them it's something for your bad back and I couldn't find it when you came down before. I already told Blaze this place was a mess when he first brought me here, and it would take some time to organize everything."

Riker nodded. "Okay, that should work. But when you get the signal, don't waste any time. Got it?"

"Got it."

"And watch yourself with these people."

"I can take care of myself."

"Just remember, we can't afford any slips." Riker took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. "Keep your fingers crossed. With any luck, we'll get out of this thing in one piece."

"If not, we'll take as many of them with us as we can," said Dorn.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," said Riker.

"I hear you. But if it does, remember this: That cybrid b.i.t.c.h is mine."

Chapter Seven.

"SIR, SUBs.p.a.cE COMMUNICATION coming in from Starfleet Headquarters," said Worf, glancing up from his console.

"Onscreen, Mr. Worf," Picard said.

The logo of Starfleet Command appeared on the main viewscreen, along with the time and stardate, and a moment later, the image of Fleet Admiral Creighton appeared on the screen, seated behind his desk.