"Lieutenant Dorn and I created cover ident.i.ties for each of us, with papers to match," said Riker. "We all chose names reasonably close to our own, so it would be easier responding to them. I'm Lieutenant Bill Stryker, graduate of the Merchant s.p.a.cefleet Academy, formerly executive officer aboard the merchant ship Phoenix, which called in at Artemis VI two weeks ago and departed for Mars yesterday morning. Geordi's cover ident.i.ty is Chief George LaBeau, ship's engineer ..."

"Yo," said Geordi.

"... and Lieutenant Dorn is Warrant Officer Angie Thorn, a supply officer with a medical rating. We all served together on the Phoenix, but were caught stealing ship's stores, selling them, and altering supply records. We were exposed when we got greedy and started diverting cargo, claiming it was damaged and faking insurance reports. Rather than go through the time-consuming process of filing formal charges and all the attendant paperwork, the captain simply had us thrown off his ship when we reached Artemis VI. We managed to hustle a transport ride to D'rahl, and now we're looking for a new berth. If anyone checks our records with either the starbase or the Merchant s.p.a.cefleet data banks, that's what will come up. Under the circ.u.mstances we've created for ourselves, no legitimate ship's captain would touch us with a ten-foot pole. But having some larceny in our background might make us acceptable to freebooters and black marketeers."

"It sounds like a good cover," said Picard, nodding. "Very well thought out. How do you intend to proceed?"

"We'll be beaming down to a landing strip just outside K'trin," said Riker. "Most of the shuttle landing zones are on the south side of the city, near the warehouse district. That's where all the action's going to be. We'll check in with the Merchant s.p.a.cefleet Union office, be told that there's not much chance of our signing on with another ship anytime soon, given our records, and then we'll hit the Combat Zone and start cruising the s.p.a.cer bars to see if we can turn up anything. In other words, we're going to go through all the motions that people in our situation could be expected to go through. Meanwhile, we'll keep our eyes and ears open and see what we can learn."

"Excellent," Picard said. "Make sure to check in on a periodic basis."

"I've already arranged that with Data," Riker said. "We'll be reporting in at regular intervals."

"Isn't there a risk of being exposed if you use unguarded Merchant s.p.a.cefleet frequencies?" Picard asked.

"I've already thought of that, sir," said La Forge. "I've altered these communicators so that they are capable of broadcasting on a coded Starfleet frequency in addition to their regular channels. Short of actually taking them apart, no one should be able to tell the difference."

"Well, you seem to have covered all the bases," said Picard. "Good luck. And be careful."

"We will, sir," Riker said. They stepped up on the transporter pads. "Energize," said Riker.

Picard watched as their shimmering forms faded from view. He took a deep breath. Well, now both teams had been dispatched. So far, things were proceeding well, but it was still early in the game. Now it was time for him to play his part, and it was potentially even more risky than what Riker's team was doing. He would have to penetrate K'tralli security and see Colonel Z'gral.

Chapter Four.

AFTER BEAMING DOWN to an isolated location near a shuttle landing strip, Riker, La Forge, and Dorn made their way to the s.p.a.ceport buildings and the office of the Merchant s.p.a.cefleet Union. In a busy s.p.a.ceport city like K'trin, there were always openings for crew members listed with the union. Merchant s.p.a.cers were a transient lot, and few of them ever stayed with the same ship for very long. However, when the union secretary brought up their carefully manufactured records on his monitor, he simply looked at the screen for a long moment, then slowly raised his eyes to Riker.

"This ... uh ... last evaluation," he said, clearing his throat slightly, "from your previous commander, the captain of the Phoenix ..."

"Yeah, what about it?" Riker said, in a challenging tone.

"Mr. Stryker, you realize I have nothing to do with these things... ."

"I know what it says," Riker replied, curtly. "But there were never any formal charges filed."

"Yes, sir, I realize that," the secretary replied. "However, despite the fact that there were no charges filed, your commanding officer's evaluation report, all by itself, will make getting you another berth somewhat, uh, problematical."

"Are there listings or aren't there?" Riker demanded.

"Well, yes, there are listings," the secretary replied, "but at this point, all I can do is enter your names for consideration and allow the listing captains access to your files. If I receive a positive response, I'll be sure to let you know."

"And how long is that liable to take?" Riker asked.

The secretary shrugged, uncomfortably. "Ordinarily, I'd say anywhere from a few hours to a day or so, but given your, uh ... recent diflficulties ..." He cleared his throat again. "I simply couldn't say. I mean, surely you realize the situation you're in. It's really out of my control."

"Yeah, right," said Riker, with a grimace.

"If you could check back with me tomorrow, perhaps there might be something... . I mean, you never know, sometimes, if a ship is shorthanded and the captain can't afford to wait in port, then ..." The man hesitated.

"He might get desperate, is that what you're saying?" Riker asked.

"I didn't say that, Mr. Stryker. I will certainly do what I can for you, but under the circ.u.mstances, it's going to be rather difficult. Perhaps if you insisted that your previous captain file charges ... given his report, you certainly have that right ... then at least you could contest it, and if you won your case, or the captain failed to prove his, then this report could be expunged and-"

"There's no possibility of doing that," said Riker. "The Phoenix has already departed this sector."

"Oh ... yes, I see that," said the secretary, glancing back at his screen. He sighed and shook his head. "Well, I'll see what I can do. But to be perfectly frank with you, it could take quite a while."

"How long?" asked Riker.

The secretary shook his head. "Days, possibly weeks, or even longer. I'm sorry."

"Yeah," said Riker, sourly. "By then, we'll be flat broke."

"I really wish there was something more that I could do," the secretary said. "Look ..." He cleared his throat again and leaned forward, speaking in a low voice. "... I'm not supposed to say this, but you might stand a better chance trying to make connections in the Zone. There are a few bars down there-the Ramjet, the Derelict, the Flying Dutchman ... just ask anybody, they'll tell you where they are. You never heard it from me, you understand, but word is if you're in a hurry and looking for warm bodies to fill out your crew, and you're not too particular, then you can always find some people there who are anxious to ship out and don't really care what their next port of call is, if you know what I mean."

Riker nodded. "Yeah, I think I do," he said. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

"A word of caution," said the secretary. "We're out on the frontier here, and even though we've got a starbase in this sector, you won't find any Starfleet Security Men down there. And the local authorites don't give a d.a.m.n what happens in the Zone, so long as it doesn't spill out into the rest of the city. In other words, watch your backs. Especially in those places."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Riker. "Thanks again."

"Don't mention it," said the secretary. "And I do mean don't mention it."

"Well, that worked like a charm," said La Forge, as they left the union office.

"And we picked up a few possible leads, as well," said Riker. "Now if anyone happens to check with the union office, the secretary will remember us and confirm that we were really looking for a ship." He turned to Dorn. "You know anything about those bars he mentioned?"

"I've heard about them," she replied. "They're bad news. Real slaughterhouses. People have been known to go in there and not come out again. Our jurisdiction does not extend beyond the s.p.a.ceport. And even if we had permission to police the Zone, we simply lack the personnel to conduct regular sh.o.r.e patrols. T'grayn wouldn't allow it, in any case. The city makes a lot of money off the Zone."

"So what you're saying is we're on our own in there," La Forge said.

"We've been on our own ever since we set foot outside the s.p.a.ceport gates," Lieutenant Dorn replied, dryly.

The area they were walking through as they moved away from the s.p.a.ceport was composed of a mixture of warehouses and bars, with various other business scattered up and down the street. Most of the buildings along the crowded street were no more than about five or six stories tall, and just about all of them were garishly illuminated with signs advertising bars and nightclubs, tattoo and piercing emporiums, cyberentertainment salons, and exotic show clubs, some of which openly advertised acts that were illegal throughout most of the Federation. Looking at one of the signs, which displayed a colorful and shocking digital representation of what went on inside, La Forge could only shake his head and mutter, "I definitely get the feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Riker nodded as he glanced around. "I've seen some pretty wild liberty ports," he said, "but this one is in a cla.s.s all by itself."

K'trin was a busy port city and the streets of the Zone were crowded with merchant s.p.a.cers from all over the Federation, on liberty from their ships stationed in orbit, as well as locals and various transients who made their living from them. In most s.p.a.ceport cities of the Federation, Riker knew, there was usually a "Combat Zone," a small section of the city where s.p.a.cers could find the sort of entertainment that would allow them to unwind from their long voyages. s.p.a.cers were usually paid when they made port, and when they took their liberty, they had money to spend. Many of them liked to spend it in drinking and gambling and other diversions, and areas like the Zone existed to supply them.

The laws governing the existence of such districts varied with each world. In some cases, local authorities had an agreement with the Federation to allow Starfleet security personnel jurisdiction to police the area and keep things under control. In others, local law enforcement took care of that job, and if s.p.a.cers got themselves in trouble, they were answerable to local laws. In a few ports, the local authorities tended to look the other way for all but the most serious infractions, tolerating activities that might be illegal elsewhere on their world. However, on D'rahl, it seemed that to all intents and purposes, no laws applied. So long as whatever happened in the Zone stayed within the Zone, the authorities didn't seem to care one way or the other. And Starfleet had no jurisdiction. Riker could not imagine a more ideal environment for criminals, particularly freebooters like Blaze.

As they approached the center of the Zone, the streets became more crowded. Small groups of gyro sleds with helmeted riders astride them zoomed up and down above the streets, executing aerobatic maneuvers overhead, then swooping down with alarming speed until a frightening crash seemed inevitable, only to pull out of their dives at the last moment and level off or else zoom back up again. Local youths, thought Riker, out for a bit of h.e.l.l-raising. He wondered how many of them got killed or maimed performing their daredevil antics, and how many innocent pedestrians they killed or injured in the process.

As they pa.s.sed a side street, a cloaked figure suddenly stepped out into their path, pulled back her hood, and struck a provocative pose. "Looking for a real good time?"

Riker stared, startled, and his hand instinctively reached for the phaser that wasn't there before he caught himself. For an incredible moment, he thought he was confronted by a female Borg, but then he realized that the modifications were considerably different. This woman had extensive cybernetic augmentation surgery, but in addition to that, she'd had biomods, as well.

The upper part of her face, from just below her eyes on up into her thick, lush hairline, was covered with nysteel alloy, so that it looked as if she were wearing a gleaming steel mask through which bionic optics fixed him with their electronic gaze. Through her parted lips, he could see artificial tooth implants extend, resembling the fangs of a vampire. Her right hand and arm were natural, but the left arm, from the shoulder down, was robotic, with unusually complex-looking, articulated fingers. Beneath her cloak, she wore barely enough for modesty, revealing a startlingly muscular body. She wore high, over-the-knee boots and her legs were bare up to what amounted to little more than a thong, above which were washboard abdominal muscles and large, firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s encased in a brief halter top. She had thick, l.u.s.trous black hair down almost to her waist, but the left side of her head had been shaved and covered with gleaming nysteel alloy studded with tiny microcircuitry receptors and interface jacks. She held up her natural right hand, palm toward her face, and Riker saw an example of her biomods as three-inch needles slid out from beneath her fingernails.

"Natural endorphins, adrenochrome, enhanced biopeptides," she said, with a predatory smile. Then she held up her robotic hand with a flourish, and Riker saw that where the fingernails would be on a normal hand, there were small hypospray injectors built in. "Chinese heroin, K'tralli ice, Rigelian cerebrocain, laboratory-grade morphetomine, Orion ambrocide, I've got it all."

The tip of her tongue flicked out to touch her upper lip, and Riker saw a small gland surgically implanted in its underside. She secreted a tiny drop of cerulean blue saliva that glistened on her lower lip. Riker repressed a shudder. The woman wore no weapons, but she didn't need any. All she had to do was trail her robotic fingertips across somebody's skin and she could inject an entire pharmacopoeia of lethal drugs, or else use the needles implanted in her natural hand to wreak havoc on a nervous system with her bioengineered glandular secretions. He had no idea what a love bite or a kiss could do, and he wasn't sure he really wanted to know.

"Uh ... no, thanks," he said.

"Are you sure?" she said, her fangs retracting as she smiled and reached out for him. "For you, I could arrange a special discount. I could take care of your friends, too."

Riker stepped back. "I said ... no, thanks."

"Too bad," she said, looking him over. "I could really enjoy doing you."

"Nothing personal," said Riker. "It's just not my cup of tea."

"Tea is the one thing I don't have," she replied with a smile, stepping aside for them. "If you should change your mind, ask for Katana at the Flying Dutchman."

"The Flying Dutchman," Riker repeated. "Where's that?"

"Straight down this alley, last door to your left," she said. "One of the best bars in the Zone. Check it out. Tell the bartender I sent you. He'll give you a free drink, on me. Maybe I'll see you there later." She snicked out her needles once again. "If this isn't your cup of tea, there's lots of other things that I can do."

'I'll think about it," Riker said.

"Do that," said Katana, over her shoulder, as she turned and walked away.

La Forge gave a low whistle. "What was that?" he said.

"They're called 'shooters' around here," Lieutenant Dorn said, tersely, "but the proper term is cybrid, for cybernetically augmented, biomodified hybrid."

"What? I've never even heard of such a thing," said Riker, with a frown.

"Not many people have," said Dorn, staring hard at the departing cybrid. "They're very rare. Fortunately."

Riker noted her marked stiffness, a hostile reaction indicating there was probably something personal involved. "Come on, let's go," he said, turning down the alleyway. "We've still got work to do."

"What would make people want to do something like that to themselves?" La Forge asked.

"It wasn't really their choice," Dorn replied. "Ever hear of Diversified Biotronics Corporation?"

"Wait a minute, that rings a bell," La Forge said. "Wasn't that one of the old industrial conglomerates out in the Belt? I seem to remember reading something about their cybernetic engineering patents back in the Academy."

"That's the one," said Dorn. "They perfected a new generation of cybernetic bioaugmentation procedures, originally intended for medical applications. But then somebody in the corporation decided to diversify into a whole new area. They came up with the idea of cloning biohybrids and augmenting them with various cybernetic implants at key stages in their physical development."

"Wow. Was that legal?" asked La Forge.

"I suppose it was a matter of interpretation," Dorn replied, as they walked. "Cloning human cells for commercial purposes has been outlawed for years, but DBC maintained that the cybrids were not, technically speaking, human and therefore they were a patented, bioengineered life-form. The project was already well under way when an injunction was issued against them while the matter was thrashed out in the courts. It took years to settle the whole thing, and by the time it was all over, DBC had lost their court battle and their stock had plummeted. The company did not survive, and several of its officers were convicted on numerous felony charges."

"When did all this happen?" Riker asked, finding it curious that he had never heard of it.

"About sixty years ago," said Dorn.

"Sixty years ago?" said Riker, with disbelief. "But that woman didn't look a day over twenty-five!"

"Looks can be deceiving," Dorn replied, "especially with cybrids. Remember, they're bioengineered. If she was one of the last ones DBC produced, she'd have to be at least fifty years old."

"If she's a biological hybrid, then what exactly is she?" Riker asked.

"I have no idea what went into the matrix," Dorn replied. "Chances are she doesn't even know herself."

"How many of them were there?" asked La Forge.

"No one seems to know for sure," said Dorn. "When DBC was brought up on charges, somebody panicked and destroyed all the records. n.o.body even knows for certain what their purpose was supposed to be. DBC maintained they were designed for medical applications, and that might even be true for all I know, but there was a widespread belief that they were designed as a mercenary force that the company could hire out. It sounds plausible to me. They certainly fight well enough."

"How do you know that?" asked Riker, glancing at her sharply.

"Same way I know the rest of it," said Dorn. "It was all part of the job. We had some trouble with a few of them on Artemis VI not long after I was a.s.signed here. They came over from N'trahn and there was no law barring them from entry. There is now."

"What happened?" Riker asked.

"Three of them killed twenty-seven colonists and seriously injured another dozen or so."

"My G.o.d. Why?" asked La Forge.

"We never could quite figure that one out," said Dorn. "None of the cybrids survived to be questioned. They wouldn't be taken alive."

"What became of all the others?" Riker asked.

"According to my research, when DBC went down, all the cybrids simply disappeared. Rumor had it they were terminated, but some of them obviously got away. And a few apparently came here. We learned that General H'druhn used a number of them in the K'tralli revolution. Now they're K'tralli citizens. Legally, we can't touch them. We don't even know how many of them there are. J'drahn claims he has no idea and hasn't seen any of them in years. He believes they're probably all dead by now. Apparently not."

"Well, they're not really our concern," said Riker.

"They are mine," said Dorn, with a hard edge to her voice. "I lost six of my people taking down those three shooters on Artemis VI."

"Lieutenant ..." Riker said, stopping and staring at her pointedly, "I said ... they're not our concern. We've got a job to do. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, stiffly.

"I can understand how you feel, Lieutenant," Riker said, sympathetically. "It was your first field command, wasn't it?"

She stared at him. "Yes, sir, it was."

"Believe me," Riker said, sincerely, "I know how you feel. I've been there. But if you keep carrying it around with you, it'll eat your guts out. It's over. Let it go."

"Is that an order, sir?" she said, flatly.