"Three years ago, Captain, you picked up a Romulan defector. He left the empire in disgrace after leading a coup against the empress. When that failed, he fled to the Federation and you offered sanctuary. Correct?"

"Oh... yes, a minor incident for us. We gave him sanctuary and resisted the extradition police on the planet where we found him. What was his name, Mr. Riker, do you remember?" "Uh... believe it was Renn something, wasn't it, sir?" "Check on the man, would you, please?"

"Aye, sir." Riker moved to the science station and looked over the android's shoulder. "Check ship's log and all ancillary doc.u.mentations for Stardates 41099.1 through the ensuing six months. It's in there somewhere." "Checking, sir"

"Then link into the archivist's computer at Starbase Ten. We're still in range, aren't we?"

While they worked, McCoy said, "Disgraced blood's as good as any. This defector's the third cousin to the empress on her mother's side, so it'll be undiluted blood and give us a strong base for immunological work."

"That must be what the message means," Picard said, glancing at Spock. "The admiralty gave me orders to cooperate with you both and transport you to any location in Federation s.p.a.ce that you specified. They must mean for us to take you to this Rekk person, once we find where he is."

Spock nodded. "Rather than risk transporting him from station to station, we hoped to use the starship, for safety and security reasons." "We're at your disposal, of course," Picard a.s.sured.

"If I can't find any uncontaminated plasma," McCoy contemplated, "then it's all over. Ninety-five percent of the infected people are going to die and there's no way to stop it. You get this thing, you are dead." His flat statement had a chilling effect. "The next trick," McCoy added, "is getting us in there."

"What?" Crusher asked. "Why don't we just go in? They know why we're coming, right?" 'They'll give special access to Dr. McCoy and to you," Riker told her, "but not to the starship. Medical access is a little different from military access."

"Correct' Spock said. "If any starship moves through the Neutral Zone and into Romulan s.p.a.ce, the imperial leadership will be forced to act against us. Their own people will stand for nothing less. The empress knows Federation medical science may be their only chance, no matter who concocted this attack, but she would be forced to respond against a ship of the line or she could lose power before she loses her life."

"That's why we're not going" Picard explained. "At least, we are not." And he looked worriedly at Beverly Crusher.

"Arrangements will be made" Spock a.s.sured her, and felt suddenly remiss in having delayed securing pa.s.sage. In fact, permission for pa.s.sage into Romulan s.p.a.ce had been secured, but not the method of pa.s.sage.

"It's a problem;' Captain Picard said. From the captain's expression, Spock could tell that the blue-blooded commander of this Enterprise thoroughly understood the ramifications of secured s.p.a.ce, and when a starship could and could not be of service.

"Yes," Spock reluctantly admitted. "Even the UFP diplomatic corps cannot breach imperial s.p.a.ce. This time, the royal family wants us in, but no one else does. Perhaps... secrecy required concessions I should not have made this time."

"Sir?" Riker straightened at Data's side. "We've got something here"

The android touched his controls and read off, "The Romulan defector Rekk Devra Kilmne is no longer living in the Federation" "Where is he, then?" Picard asked. "We'll go get him." Data swiveled around in his chair, his expression particularly childlike. "No, sir... he is no longer living in the Federation."

Riker held out a hand that stopped what seemed to be turning into a debate of unclarity, and looked at his captain. "Rekk Devra was murdered, Captain... fifteen months ago, during a visit to Deep s.p.a.ce Nine." A mantle of chill descended upon the bridge, as winter cloaks northern hills. Spock felt it, and saw that all the others also felt it. Shoulders tightened, pensive glances traveled, fists clenched, lips pressed, Strange how a revelation could be so tangible, so very present.

The last living uncontaminated royal family member, dead. Whoever was driving the force of this plague was a critical step ahead. And now... what?

Chapter Twelve.

Combat Support Tender Saskatoon, Starfleet Registry CST 2601 "DAMAGE CONTROL, TOP DECK!" "Take some of the new midshipmen up there with you."

"Right. You and you, and your friend over there, come with me." "And this one."

On the severely angled bridge deck of the Saskatoon, Eric Stiles hooked the nearest midshipman and handed him to Jeremy White as Jeremy rushed past him, dragging the other three kids.

"Did it hit us or just skin us?" Stiles tossed as an afterthought as he brushed hot bits of plastic from his shoulders. "Mr. Perraton, have somebody trim the deck gravitational compensators, please. Rafting hands, man umbilicals one, two, and four."

"Direct hit, midships upper quadrant, lateral shield, port side." "Did you say upper quadrant?"

"Upper. At least I think it's there-" Jeremy's words became garbled as he disappeared into the bulky body of the CST, jumping through hatch after hatch until he got to the tubular companionway that would take him to file operational deck above the middle of the ship. Smoke rolled freely from chamber to chamber through the body of the CST, a ship built on lateral lines to avoid transfer of equipment up and down ladder wells. Despite its 200-meter LOA, the tender only had three decks. Factories didn't need stairways.

"Rats," Stiles muttered, surveying the shattered trunk housing that had just been blown all over the deck. "Ship to ship."

To his right, at the comm station, Midshipman Zelasko controlled a cough and squeaked, "Ship to ship, sir."

Nearly choking on the acrid smoke from fried circuits in the deck and sparks on the smoldering carpet, Stiles held onto the helm stanchion as the CST rolled noticeably under him. "Captain Sattier, I've got to be able to get closer than this. If both our ships can't move off as a unit, you've got to kick those fighters off harder when they come into range. I know you've never done this before, but-"

"Sorry, Commander-Fire!" The captain's voice from the Destroyer Lafayette crackled back at him through the electrical charges of phaser and disruptor fire in open s.p.a.ce. "Sorry again. Two units got past us. I can't move off with a kinked nacelle, not even on impulse, without knowing what else is damaged up there."

"The arbitrariness of battle is for you to worry about, Captain, thank the G.o.d of problems."

"He said cheerily" Travis Perraton edited from the other side of the narrow horseshoe-shaped bridge, where he was dodging from station to station coordinating the next few moves. To somebody on the upper deck, he spoke into a communit. "Just control the damage, Adams, don't repair it yet. We don't come first out here, remember?"

Spitting dust from his neatly trimmed moustache, Stiles turned forward again and wrapped up his communication with the destroyer. "We'll have your external diagnostic in a minute, Captain."

"Are you damaged? You're venting something off your upper hull."

"Yes, we've got some damage, but we'll repair it later. Your ship comes first. Keep the comm lines open if possible. You'll have to drop your shields while we raft up and do the work.

That'll be the tricky part. You'll want to have one of the other Starfleet ships run a cover grid."

"I'll contact the Majestic and-tactical, broad on the bow-fire! Deflectors, shift double starboard! Hail the Majestic-fire at will, Samuels! Majestic, Sattler here-"

"She's got her hands full." Stiles turned and called back into the scoped hatchways, not bothering with the comm. "Tell me when you know something, Jeremy! Those Romulans can see we're vulnerable, so work faster."

Jeremy's disembodied voice trailed back through three sections. "Scanning... nacelle hasn't been breached... not on the outside, anyway... could be internal feedback from a hit someplace else, though. The main injector's secure... there's a crack in the sliding bulkhead. Let me follow it down... I got it, Eric', I see a fractured buckler. It's not the nacelle. It's the strut "

"Great!" Stiles clapped his hands once, and startled the socks off his new helmsman. "That's a relief. Ship to ship-Captain Sattier, good news. It's not the nacelle that's kinked. It's only the strut. We'll raft up right here and square it, but you've got to keep those stingers off us for a solid fifteen minutes. I have to put extravehicular crew on the skin of your ship and I don't want anybody barbecued on your hull."

"Commander, you fix my nacelle in fifteen minutes in the middle of this mess' and I'll owe you a big soppy kiss and a crystal decanter of your favorite. We'll put out the warning pennant and anybody who comes near your workers will feel the heat. There's nothing like a movable starbase when we need one!"

The charming-oh, yes-and sultry voice of the destroyer's captain made Stiles smile again. For a moment, he had trouble imagining her in a uniform. "I'll take the kiss and send the decanter to my grandfather. Maintain standby communications and let us handle the rafting. Drop your shields on our mark."

"Pennant%' flashing. Standing by for rafting approach. Do you intend to use tractors or umbilicals?" "Both," Stiles told her. "Aren't tractors faster?"

"Usually, but if we get hit and there's a power failure, our ships would just drift away from each other and we couldn't help each other. With umbilicals, we'll be netted together no matter what happens," "Good thinking. Ready when you are." "Three... two... one... mark." "Affirmative, shields down. Approach when ready." Glancing at his bridge crew, Stiles said, "Okay, boys, we've got fifteen minutes! That's two to raft up and thirteen to effect repair. Let's clone that destroyer a new nacelle strut. Sound off."

From deep through the body of the combat support tender, team leaders and section masters called off. "Internal repair squad ready, sir!"

"Rafting hands ready. Umbilicals one, two, and four manned, magnetic tethers hot." "Rivet squad suited and ready, sir" "Caissons ready." "Gun team?" "Weapons armed and ready!" "Where are the evil twins?" "Already in the airlock, Eric." "Beautiful! Lateral thrusters one half. Let's move in." "All hands, brace for action rafting! Shields down!" Ah, the chatter of activity. What a good noise.

Out there, not far away on the cosmic scale, a half dozen Romulan fighters darted around two Starfleet destroyers, one patrol cutter, and three merchant ships caught in the crossfire. Bursts of phaser fire, disruptor streams, glancing hits and direct detonations lit the fabric of black s.p.a.ce like flashing jewels. There was a startling beauty about it, st.i.tched firmly into the crazy quilt of hazard and excitement.

"Okay, you lot-tea time! Battle Cook Woody reportin' f'duty, sah !" Stiles rolled his eyes and groaned. What timing.

At the port entryway, Ship's Mess Officer Alan Wood came rolling in as he always seemed to in moments of critical action, or did critical action always happen at teatime? Stiles didn't argue, as their in-house reallive London butcher distributed cookies, tea, and coffee to an obviously busy crew.

"Them y'go. Two sugars, Tray. Told y'I wouldn't f'get. Eric, sir, no caffeine for you, double cream, honey, and ye olde ginger snaps."

"You always know what calms me down, Alan. And don't call me 'honey.'" "Aye aye, dear"

"Put the tray down and take over Jason's driver coil balance, Battle Cook." "You got it."

They were completely vulnerable now. Both the CST and the destroyer were shields down. These were the crucial minutes during which any enemy shot could cut all the way through any bulkhead or hull plate and take out anything inside, man or machine.

He glanced around at the bridge crew, peeked back through the infinity mirror of hatchways leading into the depths of the Saskatoon and its work areas, saw the unit leaders looking back at him from their various places, and satisfied himself that all segments were ready to work. He turned now to watch the two main screens, one always viewing forward, one always aft, and the sixteen auxiliary screens around the horseshoe. On the screens, shown from a dozen different angles, there was a hot battle going on at this edge of a small solar system. He stood beside the command chair, so seldom used that it held parts and charts and anything else they needed handy at any given time. He almost never sat in it. Should have it removed altogether.

"Watch your aft swing;' he told the helmsman. "There's a solar current here."

"! can do it manually, I think" the helmsman boldly claimed.

"You think, sir." Travis turned at the brash helmsman's statement, reached across the auxiliary board on the upper controls, and tapped one of the pads. "I've got it. Stabilizers on." The young helmsman fumed, but said nothing. Stiles glanced at Travis and shrugged. Kids.

He stepped a little closer to the helm, just to intimidate at the right level. ff only he could remember the kid's name.

"Okay, junior" he decided, "this is your first battle rafting. Let's do it fight." The midshipman glued his tail. "Aye, sir."

"Adjust to starboard on the transverse axis... watch your amplitude of pitch... not bad. Don't let the roll go... quarter reverse on the port lateral. More thrust to port... less underthrust... never mind the b.u.mpers, don't try to be graceful...."

On the starboard deck, Travis clamped his lips to keep from laughing at the helmsman's obvious annoyance with help he clearly needed. Stiles saw the effort, but any possibility of amus.e.m.e.nt for himself was lost in the sheer danger of what they were about to do. An action rafting was never routine, no matter how well-drilled the crew could possibly become.

When the CST and the destroyer were snugged up beam-tobeam and in line, and the CST had been raised to near touching level with the Lafayette's starboard nacelle, Stiles called, "Pa.s.s line two." "Pa.s.s two!" the response came from amidships.

On one of the small monitors, umbilical number two snaked out and grappled the attraction bracket on the high side of the destroyer. "Capture two!" the line handler called.

Suddenly the destroyer heaved up on its port nacelle as a Romulan fighter veered in too close and opened fire. Bright light washed Stiles and everyone around him from all the starboard screens, a fierce shining glitter of destruction and raw heat. "Whoa," Stiles murmured, shielding his eyes. "Close one."

Travis flinched at the proximity of death. "Lafayette. steady your position, can you?"

"We're attempting to hold as steady as possible, Saskatoon," the other commanding officer responded. "That current came up under us just as that Romulan fired on us. Double whammy."

"I know you're taking fire!" Stiles interrupted, "but we only need thirty seconds to finish this. Hold still that long." "Understood."

"Spring in closer now" he said to the helm trainee. "Keep us trim. Work a little faster. Don't overcompensate. Let the gravitational umbilicals do the heavy lifting."

"Closing," the kid said. "Twenty meters... fifteen meters..." "Pa.s.s one" "Pa.s.sing one!" "Hold two" "Two holding" "Capture one!"

"Forward starboard thruster one quarter and shift down port bow 10 degrees." "Forward one quarter, port bow down ten, aye." "Pa.s.s four, hold one." "Pa.s.sing four!" "Hold one, aye." "Two and four, haul away." "Haul away two!" "Haul away four!"

Music, music. the church chimes of efficient rafting. Thirty seconds to spare. Snuggling his CST up to a big, powerful, scarred, smoldering battleship in the middle of a flashing firefight-ahh The chunky hull of the CST didn't fit well against the streamlined multihulled destroyer, so he had to pick and choose which umbilicals would line up best, then cast one and pivot in on it. What a gorgeous process.

"I love skirmishes" he effused happily. "That's good! Cut thrust. Engine crew, stand by. Mr. Blake! Scan for stress" "Scanning, sir."

As disruptor fire flashed on some of the smaller monitors, showing the ongoing s.p.a.ce battle between another destroyer and those Romulan buzzsaws, Stiles nodded in satisfaction, even though Blake couldn't see him. Greg Blake had known him since they were both fifteen years old. The "sir" was almost silly in that regard, but he knew his long-time crew threw it in for effect at moments like this. There were always impressionable midshipmen and junior officers serving on the CST, most of whom would move on 'after the grueling training they would receive here.

On the screen to his left, the streamlined body of the Destroyer Lafayette drew close to the lurebering CST, in fact close enough to touch if that viewport had been a window they could open. He saw the gleaming hull plates and the b.u.t.tonhead rivets as clearly as his own fingernails.

"What a great way to live," he muttered. "She gets all the glory and the headaches, she has to guess what the enemy's doing-and on top of that she has to protect us in the middle of a battle. This is the best d.a.m.n duty around."

"You could ask for a date," Travis suggested. "I bet she'd go, the way she sounds when she talks to you. Maybe if you grow your beard back-"

"I'm not dating anybody who outranks me," Stiles commented, aware of the glances from Midshipman Zelasko at the commstation and the two little ensigns over at the engineering board. "Bad enough having a c.o.c.ky Canadian first officer around. And the beard itched."

Outside, close enough to smell the gunpowder, seven other ships were engaged in a spark battle, a border skirmish with hotheaded Romulans. These eruptions had been going on for months now, sparks of aggression that seemed like temper tantrums from isolated Romulan units The empire kept claiming nothing was wrong, that these were just dissatisfied commanders venting their frustration, but Stiles didn't believe it. Something was going on in the Romulan Empire that was causing rogue attacks. The Federation wanted to be prudent. Ignore acts of war. Avoid any one of these bursts turning into a lit fuse that couldn't be put out by anything other than full-out conflict.

"Okay, Travis," Stiles said when he was satisfied that the ships were as close as possible and the umbilicals were taut. "Go do that voodoo that you do so well."

"Ten seconds and counting," Travis responded, and hit a comm b.u.t.ton. "Rivet team, hit open s.p.a.ce. Signal when you're on the davit boom."

"Acknowledged," one of the Bolt brothers responded. "Ready." "Launching." Travis. .h.i.t his controls. The hiss of the airlock shot through the whole ship. There was no place on the CST to get away from that big sound as the lock depressurized and the repair crew sprayed out from the tender on a spider web of cables from the swinging davit, two men to a cable, a total of twelve men in s.p.a.ceworthy snits, each fully armed with a trapeze harness and a tool vest. Their job wasn't to fight the enemy-it was to fight the enemy's results.

The interior of the CST fell oddly silent, giving way to the bleeps and whirs of shipboard mechanical redundancy, and a symphony of eyes swept the wall-wide grid of screens. Dozens of angles, each fixed on some aspect of the repair job-only a few were dedicated to the fight that was still going on within phaser-striking distance of this oddly protectionless refuge.

Stiles settled back on his heels and listened to the critical exchange between Jeremy White, back in the engineering control room, and Travis here on the bridge, whose job it was to manage the rivet squad. In less than a minute, the two men had the rivet squad swung over on the external davits to the nacelle of the Lafayette, crawling all over it with their magnetic boots like a tidy infestation.

The open comm lines brought in the work as if it were happening right at his feet, bits of dialogue overlapping others as the squad split up to do a half dozen jobs in a matter of minutes. "Got some burnoff plating infecting this binding strake." 'I'll help you." "Stand clear." "Two more centimeters."

Travis talking at the same time: "Don't crowd him, Zack. You're too close to the welding stream." "I'm Jason." "Clone." "I need the spreader over here." "-swing that caisson under me, will you?" "-and engage the thrusters so you're got balance-"

Then Jeremy's voice from two sections back: "Mr. Evans, countersink those outer rivets before you caulk them in." "You sure, sir?" "We always countersink. Maintains a flush surface." "What difference-"

"A big one at hypeflight. Morton, what are you doing? Move your arm so I can see." "Crocking the vertical bracket stringers?"

Stiles touched his comm b.u.t.ton and interrupted. "Chock 'era in under the sh.e.l.l plating, Mr. Morton. Then caulk it with foam." "Won't hold more than a week."

"It only has to hold a day. Just double-secure the center of effort and wrap it up. You got nine minutes left." "Thank you." "Welcome." "Mr. Lightcudder?"

Startled by a completely unfamiliar voice only inches from his shoulder, Stiles cranked around and found himself face to face with a total stranger. Total! Never seen the guy before. Right here on the working deck!

Civilian. No uniform, no identifying patches or badges. Work clothes. How could this happen?

It couldn't, but here he was, grinning like a Halloween pumpkin. No escort, no nothing.

Oh-actually there was a nervous ensign standing at the bridge hatchway, evidently having just brought the man in. Why hadn't the ensign done the officer approach? The ensign shrugged as Stiles raked him with a glare.

The civilian was stocky, wearing a bulky tan jacket with big round b.u.t.tons and a heavy neck scarf, which gave the man an illusion of being short. Actually Stiles looked him nearly in the eye, so he was at least five feet nine. He had a round face with flush-dots on the puffy cheeks, a halo of metal-shaving hair mounted behind his balding forehead, round brown eyes, round shoulders-the guy was round. "Are you Mr. Lightcudder?" the round guy asked.

"What?" Stiles stepped back and got a better look. "Who are you? How'd you get on my bridge?"

The odd newcomer kept his eyes fixed on Stiles. "They just put me on board from the Lafayette. I was told to report to Mr. Lightcudder. My name's Ansue Hashley and I'm so grateful for-"

"A civilian is transferred to my CST and this is the first I hear of it?"

Greg Blake strode by and handed him a padd on the way past. "n.o.body likes to talk to you:'