"Sounds like you're planning a rescue operation, Johnny," Batanides said, smiling.

Picard gestured toward Crusher. "Nothing overly aggressive, Admiral. Just myself and the doctor. There may be wounded at those Nightside coordinates who will require her attention."

"There'll be three of us in that shuttle," Batanides said, her tone and posture brooking no argument.

Picard nodded, knowing that there were some battles he couldn't hope to win. "All right," he said. "But we must leave quickly. The message's time reference could mean that we have less than a six-hour window."

Data spoke in a manner reminiscent of the Sherlock Holmes persona he enjoyed playing on the holodeck. "At which time it may be possible to penetrate the detention grid mentioned in the message, then extract whoever is being held at the specified coordinates."

"My thoughts exactly," Picard said. "Mr. Data, you'll be in command until I return." The android nodded soberly, and Picard stepped toward the port turbolift, preceded by the doctor and the admiral. The doors whooshed open and the two women entered ahead of him.

"Captain," said a voice from the front of the bridge. Crusher held the door as Picard stopped and turned toward the man who had spoken.

"Mr. Hawk," Picard said. The lieutenant had risen from his seat behind the conn station.

"Sir, I need to speak with you. Privately."

Though he wasn't pleased about the interruption, Picard managed to keep the exasperation out of his voice. "Lieutenant, we have very little time."

"I know, sir," Hawk said quickly. "And that's exactly why we need to talk."

Picard knew that this forward behavior was very unlike Hawk. The lieutenant's gaze was locked with his, his expression unreadable.

Something truly dire must be on the young man's mind. He turned toward Crusher and the admiral and asked them to wait for him in the main shuttlebay.

After the turbolift doors had closed he turned back toward Hawk and appraised him. "You have two minutes, Lieutenant. In my ready room. Now."

Hawk was deep in thought as he followed Picard into the ready room. Strange that I'm not feeling more... fear. He recalled telling Tabor that watching Picard had been a valuable education for him. The ambassador had reminded him that sometimes the captain bent the rules to achieve the correct aims. This was most certainly one of those times.

More important, Tabor had told Hawk that Zweller was particularly significant in whatever secret agendas were unfolding in this sector. It seemed vitally important to Hawk that he do everything possible to ensure the commander's rescue. Zweller, after all, just might be the key to the mysteries of Chiaros IV and the rest of the Geminus Gulf.

Hawk wondered if he should tell Picard about Tabor's overtures, and about Zweller and his connection to Section 31. But the ambassador had been so clear on the need for utter secrecy regarding the organization that Hawk hadn't even told Keru about it, or about his discussions with Tabor. Despite the ambassador's death-or perhaps because of it-it seemed wrong to betray this confidence now.

Hawk suddenly became aware that the captain was speaking to him. "Have a seat, Lieutenant," he said from the chair behind his desk. Hawk wondered when the captain had sat down, and cursed himself for woolgathering.

"Thank you, sir," Hawk said, swallowing convulsively as he took the proffered chair.

"What's on your mind, Mr. Hawk?"

Hawk gathered up his courage, then spoke his mind. "I'd like to go along with you on the rescue mission, sir."

Picard said nothing at first, an indecipherable look in his eye. Finally, he broke the silence. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, Lieutenant, but I don't think your presence on this mission will be necessary."

Hawk shifted awkwardly in his seat, but calmed himself by recalling the best advice his partner had ever given him when dealing with Starfleet matters: Trust your instincts.

"Sir, may I have permission to speak freely?"

"Of course, Lieutenant."

"Sir, with respect, I think my presence is necessary. Your shuttle has three command officers, one of whom is a doctor. You are about to attempt to navigate treacherous atmospheric storms, approach a hostile military base-which may or may not be a trap-and rescue an unknown number of Starfleet personnel from either the Chiarosans or the Romulans."

Picard leaned back in his chair, one eyebrow cocked, as Hawk continued. "No matter how good a pilot you are, sir, your attention needs to be focused on getting everyone back to the shuttle safely. Admiral Batanides will be of some help, but what happens to the shuttle while you're rescuing the prisoners? Do you leave Dr. Crusher behind to face a possible attack? Or do you leave the admiral on board?"

He paused for a moment to let his words sink in, then resumed his plea. "I understand why you aren't taking a large security contingent along; there's no room in the shuttle, especially if you hope to bring our people back. But there is room for an excellent pilot and navigator. You're familiar with my record, sir. You know that I'm one of the best pilots serving on the Enterprise. So I think it's in everyone's best interest for you to have me come along."

Picard sat in silence for a long moment, his eyes boring into Hawk's. The lieutenant's heart raced as he forced himself not to break the captain's basilisk gaze. He hoped he hadn't pushed him too hard.

Finally, Picard spoke, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "We'll be under way in twenty minutes or less, Mr. Hawk. I'd suggest you get your best driving gloves on. Dismissed."

Hawk grinned, and rose to exit. "Thank you, sir."

As he moved out onto the bridge, Hawk's heart beat strongly in his chest. One way or another, he was now on a collision course with Zweller, Section 31, and possibly every secret the Geminus Gulf held.

He couldn't be sure whether his racing circulation came from trepidation or exhilaration.

Probably both.

Chapter Eight.

The shuttlecraft Kepler descended swiftly through the turbulent Dayside atmosphere, its passage creating plumes of superheated plasma that clutched at the hull like the fingers of some angry god. The cockpit rattled and jerked. Picard stole a backward glance at the admiral, who was sitting beside Crusher in the crew cabin. He could only imagine the hell she had endured, having first lost Tabor and then having discovered the ambassador's possible malfeasance on Chiaros IV. He noticed then that her skin had taken on an almost greenish tinge; space-sickness, adding insult to injury.

"Will someone please explain again just why the Federation is so interested in this place?" Crusher said as she scanned the admiral with a medical tricorder.

Batanides smiled weakly. "I could tell you. But then I'd have to kill you."

"Excuse me?" Crusher said, looking startled as she deactivated the tricorder.

"Sorry, Doctor. A very old intelligence operative's joke." The cabin shuddered again, and the motion appeared to intensify the admiral's nausea. "I just had an even better idea, Doctor: Why don't you kill me?"

Smiling, Crusher touched a hypospray to Batanides's neck. "You'll start feeling better in a minute or so, Admiral."

Lieutenant Hawk occupied the control station to Picard's right. "The plasma discharges are still affecting the inertial damping system, Captain," he said.

"Continue compensating manually, Lieutenant."

"Aye, sir." Hawk's fingers moved nimbly, almost too quickly for the eye to follow. Picard was reminded for a moment of Data's ultrafast motions at the ops console.

"Ship's status, Mr. Hawk?" Picard said.

Hawk continued manipulating the controls as he spoke: "As predicted, sir, our sensors are at less than half efficiency, thanks to these atmospheric effects. And even our enhanced subspace transmitter can't make contact with anything as small as a combadge, if any of the survivors still have one. Shields won't function at all in the lower atmospheric layers, but the phasers are operational. The transporter is on-line, but I wouldn't recommend trying to exceed a two-kilometer radius with it."

"Grand," Picard said wryly. He was grimly aware that without shields, a single hostile phaser blast could finish them all in the space of a heartbeat. Fortunately, that problem cut both ways; most of the rebel compound would be accessible via the Kepler's transporter, even if the base's detention-area forcefields were to remain intact.

Though the sensor display was still obscured, the forward viewer showed the planet's rapidly approaching terminator. Seconds later, a nightward mountain range rolled past and a shroud of darkness enveloped the little ship. To avoid detection, Hawk brought the ship low, hugging the planet's dim curvature, maintaining an altitude of no more than sixty meters. The topographic map Batanides had obtained from Ruardh's Intelligence Ministry was helping to keep the half-blinded shuttle clear of hills and rock outcroppings.

Hawk tapped several controls on the navigation console, and the shuttle responded by banking gently onto a southeasterly heading. The craft's forward velocity began to diminish, as did the buffeting and turbulence.

"Captain?" the lieutenant said, his brow crumpling. "Something about these sensor readings isn't right."

"Apart from the interference?"

"Yes, sir." The younger man gestured to the static-garbled tactical display. "Even through the charged atmospheric particles, we're already close enough to detect some sign of the rebel base. But I'm reading absolutely nothing. Not even a stray calorie of waste heat."

Picard pondered what that might mean. Then he glanced at his chronometer and decided to put the matter to one side for the moment. "Carry on, Mr. Hawk," he said, rising from his seat. Best to let the lad do what I brought him along to do.

Picard sat beside Batanides and Crusher. The admiral was massaging her temples.

"Admiral, perhaps you should remain aboard with Dr. Crusher," Picard said. "If you're not feeling up to this-"

Meeting his gaze, she cut him off. "Remember the time I came down with that Berengarian virus?"

He was glad they lacked the time to tell Crusher that story. During their Academy days, Batanides had been exposed to an alien enzyme that put her into a coma and nearly killed her. She was alive now thanks partly to her own innate ruggedness, and partly because Picard and Zweller had secretly-and illegally-taken her to the remote planet Yrskatdon for the gene resequencing therapy that had ultimately saved her life.

He wondered: Was she trying to remind him that she was tough? Or that their current circumstances might force him once again to bend Starfleet regulations?

"How could I forget?" Picard said, nodding. If she could survive that, then a little queasiness wouldn't even slow her down. He could already see the color returning to her cheeks.

"How's the mission timetable?" Batanides said.

"We're locked on course for the coordinates we received from Corey. The shuttle should be over the base in..." Picard paused to consult his chronometer "...two minutes and five seconds. We'll have only a few moments to beam into the base before the Kepler flies out of transporter range. That will put us inside the base four and a half minutes before the forcefields in the detention area come down."

"If the forcefields come down," Crusher said grimly.

Picard ignored the doctor's comment. "After the beam-in, Mr. Hawk will circle around, pass back into transporter range, and retrieve everyone from the beam-up point."

His eyes on the instruments, Hawk said over his shoulder, "It'll be tricky, because I'll have to do the beam-outs a few at a time. I'll just have to keep circling over the base until I've recovered everyone." With a sheepish grin, he added: "Assuming that the Chiarosans don't shoot me down first."

"And also assuming," Crusher said, her gaze trained on Picard, "that this entire situation isn't a trap. It's still possible that Commander Zweller's message was a ruse created by the rebels."

"Or perhaps even by the Romulans," Picard said as he rose and walked to the portside weapons locker. He quickly removed two tricorders, a pair of hand phasers, and a compression phaser rifle. "I'll grant that we may be walking into a trap. On the other hand, we can't accomplish anything by waiting. This is the best-and the only-lead we've got."

Batanides followed him and took possession of a tricorder and one of the hand phasers. After checking the charge on her weapon, she turned toward the cockpit. "Heads up, Mr. Hawk." She threw the phaser to him, hard.

Hawk swiveled his chair toward her and plucked the phaser out of the air as though it had been standing still. The admiral smiled. "Good reflexes, son. You'll be a real asset to the away team."

Picard frowned as he slung the rifle onto his back. "Admiral, I prefer to have Mr. Hawk piloting the shuttle. His reflexes will be put to better use here in case of a Chiarosan attack. I hadn't intended on leaving the doctor on board alone."

Crusher gave him a look of mock umbrage. "I'm capable of piloting a shuttle, Captain."

Batanides took the remaining phaser and tricorder out of Picard's hands. "She won't be alone. You'll be staying aboard with her."

Picard struggled, not altogether successfully, to control a volcanic surge of anger. "Damn it, Marta, I brought Mr. Hawk along specifically for his piloting skills-"

She interrupted him once again. "Skills that we'll need more urgently after we've rescued the hostages. You've certainly got more than enough flying expertise to keep things going until we get to that point. In the meantime, Hawk and I will assemble the prisoners at the prearranged beam-up coordinates."

"Riker and Troi are my officers. I should be going down there to rescue them."

"As the captain of the Enterprise, you're less expendable than Mr. Hawk." Batanides nodded toward the young officer. "No offense intended, Lieutenant."

"None taken, sir," Hawk said, wide-eyed. He was still seated in the cockpit.

"With all due respect, Admiral, you're beginning to sound like my first officer. You are the most senior officer here. And that makes you the least expendable of any of us."

Batanides walked to the aftmost section of the cabin and took her place on one of its two transporter pads. "This hellhole has taken too much away from me already. I'm not going to put another old friend at risk unnecessarily. And I'm through discussing it." She pointed at the pips on her collar for emphasis.

Picard silently bit the inside of his lip as he contemplated just how deep and wide her stubborn streak had grown since their Academy days.

"Then Godspeed," he said after a long moment.

"Beam-down window opening in thirty seconds," Hawk said, staring at a readout. The viewscreen still showed nothing but featureless darkness, punctuated by sporadic auroral light-flashes that made the barren land stand out in sharp, shadowed relief.

Hawk suddenly looked up from his console, a puzzled expression on his face.

"What is it?" Picard said.

"It's strange. I'm picking up tetryon emissions from somewhere. It's faint, but it's interfering with the transporter lock."

"Can you compensate?"

Hawk made several minute adjustments to his console. "There. Lock established. Fifteen seconds to beam-down window." Hawk then rose from his seat and shot a questioning glance in Picard's direction.

Picard unslung his rifle and handed it to Hawk, who walked over to the admiral's side. The captain sat behind the cockpit controls and methodically punched in the transporter commands. Then he turned his chair aftward.

"Marta, I will be very upset with you if you get yourself killed," Picard said.

She grinned as the pads energized. "Just drive carefully, Johnny. And don't forget to leave a light on for us." The beam brightened and the pair shimmered out of existence.

Crusher took the seat beside him. "'Johnny?'" she said inquiringly.

An alarm klaxon sounded. He said nothing to the doctor; the wavering image on the tactical display now demanded his full attention. At least four small vessels were approaching, coming from all directions.

And they were all closing on the Kepler very, very quickly.

Will Riker paced back and forth in the holding cell for what seemed like days. Asking the guard for the time had been an exercise in futility, akin to soliciting a charitable donation from a Ferengi DaiMon. The total absence of any sort of clock gave time an elastic, unreal quality.

"Will," Troi said. Though she was sitting on the cell's single cot in a contemplative-looking lotus position, she appeared to be having trouble concentrating.

Riker stopped in his tracks. "Sorry. I can't seem to stop pacing. And there's not much else to do."

Zweller, who was leaning insouciantly against one of the cell's stone walls, chuckled.

"Is something funny, Commander?" Riker said testily.