Subject: [FANFIC] Outbound Flight: Prelude and Chapter One. Date: 19 Feb 2002 14:12:46 -0800 From: jhansen007@aol.com (Ensign Jimmy) Newsgroups: alt.startrek.vs.starwars Prelude: The Enemy Within. Bastion . . . the capital of the last eight sectors of the Galactic Empire. A mere ghost of the Empire's might, unsurpassed as of only a short decade and a half ago. A ghost which still existed only because it was much too small for the New Republic to worry about at the moment. Still, it was an eventuality that every citizen and soldier of the Empire had to consider. Those who ruled the Empire had even more to fear from that eventuality. The eight Moffs who controlled the Empire knew that if the New Republic were to finally finish the war, those eight men would be the first loaded up on a ship headed to Coruscant . . . not to be welcomed as returning heroes, but to be subjected to a humiliating kangaroo court, and then executed before throngs of eagerly vengeful subhumans and Rebels. No man knew this better than Moff Jehud Disra, the ruler of the sector that was home to the last planet in the Empire that mattered. He knew well enough that the Imperial twilight was ending. Night was about to fall. This was a prospect that angered, as well as terrified, Disra and the other Moffs. Unfortunately, it was a prospect that the Supreme Commander of Imperial Forces, Gilad Pellaeon, seemed remarkably complacent about. Almost to the point of acceptance. Small wonder Disra hated the man so much. Imperials were supposed to never gave up, never surrender. And Disra was determined to fit that mould. He wasn't about to let the Empire fall to the over-glorified Rebellion. For eight years he had scoured the Empire and the Galaxy at large for somebody who could pull off the coup he had in mind. Now, not only did Disra have the man he wanted, he also had a lot more. On his desk sat a collection of datapads, neatly spread out across his desktop. Purposefully, he picked up one of the datapads. On it was a picture of a very trim man, a man who had the look of a career military officer about him. Even Disra was initially hard-pressed to believe that the man was his modestly competent military aide, Major Grodin Tierce. For eight months, the man had him completely fooled. For twelve years before that, he had everybody fooled, even Admiral Thrawn. Yet, thanks to some very skilled slicing, Disra had exposed the man for what he really was. Soon, he would confront Tierce, and his charade would end. He needed a man of Tierce's skills for the coming months. Especially now that he had two more things to deal with. One was discovery of the hypergates on the rim of the Empire, and the discovery of a whole new galaxy . . . complete with humans. Disra wasn't quite sure how to work them into his plans . . . but already he knew they would eventually be useful. The other thing, was possibly the key to a riddle that had troubled Disra for a very long time. That riddle was the director of Imperial Intelligence, a man so confidently entrenched in his position that Disra and the other Moffs could do little to reign him in. Disra disliked Admiral Phong Nguyen almost as much as he disliked Gilad Pellaeon. Nguyen was enigmatic, and powerful. For those reasons, he was a threat to Disra, and possibly even the entire Empire. Before today, Disra lacked the means, or the evidence to confront him. But today, today it seemed that Nguyen had just committed a blunder that could lead him straight into Disra's grasp. He learned that a coded message sent from the Star Destroyer /Kordoza/ had brought Nguyen and his ship, the /Unstoppable,/ out to the new hypergates as fast as ship's hyperdrives could carry him. And, better still, now Disra had a copy of that message. And the best thing was that as soon as it was decoded, it could possibly spell the end of Admiral Phong Nguyen. And the thought of Nguyen's downfall gave Disra almost as much satisfaction as the chaos he would soon unleash against the New Republic. ***End Prelude. Chapter One: The Return. Ambassador's Log, Stardate 54885.8: Almost an hour ago, the /Athena/ emerged from hyperspace. Soon, we will rendezvous with the /Witz/ and begin the work needed to bring her and her crew home. Chakotay stowed his PADD under his bunk and looked off at the far bulkhead. Even he would've been hard-pressed to believe that in the space of a week, the future of the Alpha Quadrant had been changed forever. A week ago, he was in his quarters aboard the /Witz,/ a good, if a little dissatisfied, Starfleet officer. Captain of his own ship, and of a crew he got along well with. Now, he was aboard a ship manufactured sixty-million lightyears from Earth by a civilization that was highly advanced by Federation standards, or by the standards of almost anybody in the Milky Way. He was the Federation Ambassador to the Galactic Empire, a position he did not volunteer for, and he now had to work with people he wasn't sure he could trust. Things were just . . . different. For example, the ship he was on now. The /Athena's/ accommodations were spartan by Starfleet standards, and only slightly improved over Maquis standards. Yet, it could comfortably outrun and outgun either the /Witz,/ /Voyager,/ or any number of ships the Maquis could've fielded. Worse still, it was regarded as being only slightly better than obsolete by the Imperials. Chakotay's Imperial-issue communicator started beeping insistently. Chakotay picked it up and activated it. "Go ahead," he said, his moment of thought over. "Captain Chakotay, we are pulling alongside the /Witz/ now. We'll soon have her docked, and you may go aboard at that time," reported an Imperial crewman in that crisp, professional tone they all seemed to use. "Thank you. I'll be down there shortly," Chakotay replied, turning off the communicator and slipping it into his belt. Commander Serena Durst watched expectantly as the massive /Athena/ secured her docking tubes to the /Witz./ It had been only a couple of days since Chakotay and that Imperial captain boarded a shuttle and made the run back to the Alpha Quadrant. For those hours, she waited tensely for any word of their return. She waited as any good First Officer should. Unfortunately, not all of her tension was due to her concern over the well-being of the ship's crew and the future of the Federation. Part of it . . . no, a lot of it, was concern over one man, and one man only. Chakotay was Serena's going concern. He had been for quite a while, and even more so now. When she first met him, she was more than a little star-struck. Chakotay was the Maquis rebel who had been swept into the Delta Quadrant and forced to work with Captain Janeway, a Starfleet Officer. The story had been told, and re-told ever since Starfleet had re-established contact with /Voyager./ When Serena learned that Chakotay had been picked to command the /Witz,/ she had expected a storied and dashing man . . . though maybe a bit of a non-conformist. Serena shook her head and smiled a little smile. She was a bit of a romantic. Not by much . . . the Durst clan had a long, long tradition of service in Starfleet, going back to one of her ancestors, Roger Durst, who had served aboard the /Enterprise/ when it was commanded by Robert April. Of course he never had any pretty, young, yeomen that ever knocked him off his feet. Serena, unfortunately, was different. When she first saw Chakotay, he made her heart race, her head light, and her stomach filled with butterflies. Never mind that he was already in a relationship, it was just one of those irrational and unpredictable things that the human heart was capable of unleashing upon it's captive host. And yet, there was something else that damped her enthusiasm. When Serena could think clearly about Chakotay, she knew he wasn't going anywhere. The /Witz/ was almost certainly a dead-end for him. It had made him disaffected and a little stand-offish to the crew. But now, now he had displayed a mettle that even Serena knew she lacked. He had apparently succeeded in getting the Galactic Empire to back off their threat to hold and interrogate the crew of the /Witz,/ and even more surprisingly, had the Empire actually consider working with the Federation! Now, not only was Serena sure that she didn't have his mettle, but now she not so sure she could restrain that dark little voice in the back of her head that kept urging her closer. Chakotay watched as the atmospheric pressure between the /Athena's/ airlock, the docking tube, and the /Witz's/ airlock, equalized. For him, it was good to be back to the place he considered home . . . even if for a short while. It would be good to consult his Guide, even though he knew that there were many things he had to attend to. For example, the process of selecting volunteers to stay with him in this galaxy, and the preparations to get everybody else, and the /Witz,/ if possible, back to the Alpha Quadrant. The technician manning the console looked down, watching the locks cycle. When he was satisfied, he looked up at Chakotay. "We're equalized, sir. You may cross over at your leisure." Chakotay nodded. "Thank you, technician," he said as the other man flipped a lever. The airlock door slid back into the wall with the speed he was coming to expect out of all Imperial-manufacture doors. Federation doors, in comparison, moved in slow-motion. Without further delay, he stepped into the docking tube, quickly crossing the last few meters separating him and the /Witz./ Immediately, he saw Serena walking up to him, a smile on her face. "Welcome back, Chakotay! It's good to see you again." Chakotay nodded, stepping up to her. "It's good to be back," he replied, smiling. "I told you we would return." Serena laughed lightly. "You did, Chakotay. And you did it in such style! Aboard an Imperial cruiser, no less." "That's right," Chakotay replied. "And I come with good news. Our friends have a way to get the /Witz/ back to the Alpha Quadrant. They've apparently got cargo haulers that could easily carry the ship back to the Artifact." Quickly, he looked back over at Serena. "Walk with me, Serena. We have a lot of things to discuss." Serena nodded and smiled, falling to step next to Chakotay. "I imagine we have a lot to do. Good thing too, the Imperials have been keeping us firmly under their thumb." "That reminds me, Serena. Starfleet Command has asked me to come up with a list of volunteers from the ship to stay with me here in Imperial Space. Could you possibly pass the word along to anybody who might be interested? I will make an announcement in a few hours, but I don't want it to come as a surprise." "I'll do that, Chakotay," Serena replied with another smile. "If you'll allow me, I'd like to head that list of volunteers," she said, raising an eyebrow. Chakotay abruptly came to a halt. "Actually," he started. Immediately, Serena's face fell. "I was going to tell you . . . that you are now in command of the /Witz./ The crew needs you back home." Serena narrowed her eyes, her hands becoming fists. "And you, Chakotay?" She said, trembling a little. "Serena," Chakotay started as Serena turned away. "We'll talk later . . . sir," she replied, walking away. Interlude #1: The Chessmaster. The Star Destroyer /Unstoppable/ slid quietly into the densest part of the local system's asteroid fields. Within moments, all that any passive sensor nets would be able to detect would be just another pile of rocks. As a further bonus, the cluster of rocks the ship had powered down in was full of light-absorbing, infrared-emitting dust. The only way anyone would detect the /Unstoppable/ would be by direct visual observation. That was exactly the way Admiral Phong Nguyen wanted it. In less than a minute, he would take his new guest and board a shuttle bound for the /Predator,/ a Nebulon-B frigate that had been around since at least the Battle of Hoth. The /Unstoppable/ was the ship Admiral Nguyen used to conduct his business as the Director of Imperial Intelligence. However, he preferred something less flashy when he was attending to his other business. The kind of business he and his guest were about to embark upon. "Admiral, the /Predator/ is now in position," said an apparently young officer stepping up behind Admiral Nguyen. "Excellent," he replied, his telepathic fingers automatically scanning the surface of the officer's mind. "Something else on your mind?" "Yes sir. I've been asked to tell you that the Project signals people estimate that there is a ninety-seven percent probability that Lieutenant Kynes' transmission to you was intercepted." Admiral Nguyen nodded. "When you must deal with events of this scope, it isn't always possible to control all the leaks. Any idea who?" "Afraid not, Admiral. We'll keep you posted." "Sufficient," Nguyen said. "However, I get the feeling that you may soon be called upon to explain my absence from the /Unstoppable./" "Already covered, Admiral." "Very well, is our guest aboard the shuttle?" "She was put aboard as we spoke." Phong smiled faintly. "Very good, Savurra. In that case, you will forgive me if I choose not to waste any more time." Thelea followed behind Admiral Nguyen as he stepped out onto the /Predator's/ command deck. None of the ship's crew paid any attention to either herself or Admiral Nguyen. And, much like the /Unstoppable,/ many of the crew of this ship also seemed to work directly for Admiral Nguyen. From her limited time spent with the Admiral, she had already learned quite a bit about his organization. They were clearly a shadow organization within what remained of the Galactic Empire, which Thelea now knew was only a shadow of it's former self. They apparently controlled a fair number of resources and could deploy them without worry or harassment. And, they only answered to themselves. In those respects, they were much like the Tal Shi'ar back home. Unfortunately, it was also clear that whatever similarities there were between the Tal Shi'ar and Admiral Nguyen's organization were strictly superficial. For one thing, it was clear that many of them, or at least Admiral Nguyen and those with him, were telepathic. Powerful telepaths too, by the looks of it. Clearly more telepathic than the Vulcans or Betazoids back home. And, for the moment at least, more powerful than she was. That told her a little more about herself . . . it was increasingly clear that she had been trained as a telepath by the Tal Shi'ar. Likely well-trained too, for in those moments before the Admiral had destroyed that Romulan Warbird, she had been powerful enough to surprise him . . . even if only for a moment. It gave her optimism, for if she could only access all of her memories, she could do something about her situation! For now, though, the best she could do was wait and recover. With enough effort, her memories would return, and hopefully with her memories, her skills would return as well. Eventually, the time would be right for her to strike, but not today. "Everything is secure?" Admiral Nguyen asked an officer. "Yes sir, we may enter hyperspace at your leisure." "Very good, take us out of here," he replied, turning to Thelea. "Come, won't you join me? I've always found the jump to hyperspace to be simply fascinating." Thelea stepped up to Phong's side. "I have been wondering about something," she said. "Indeed?" Phong replied, testing her mind. Immediately he was met by the faintest of mental barriers. For now, he would just wait for her to say what was on her mind. "I know that we have left your . . . Star Destroyer for this ship. A ship that is clearly older and less well-armed. Why is that?" Phong smiled briefly. "A Star Destroyer is a very notorious ship. Symbols of the Empire they were. Each one capable of turning the crust of a habitable planet to molten slag. There were once 25,000 of them. Now, the number stands at less than a thousand. The /Unstoppable/ is ideal for official Imperial operations, but she would be far too visible where we are going." "And where would that be," Thelea asked. "We are leaving Imperial Space, for a while, at least. I have a group of operatives in the Morishim system that I need to check on. And Morishim happens to lie under the jurisdiction of the New Republic. Soon, you will know more, infinitely more, about the current state of affairs in this galaxy than your Tal Shi'ar did," Phong replied, turning his attention to the viewscreen just in time to watch the ship slip into hyperspace. Chapter Two: The Murky Deep. Commander Harry Kim watched the viewscreen with barely contained excitement. The moment he and Ensign Rhys were told that the Federation and the Empire were now bound together by treaty, he had wasted no time in getting his newest project started. The technologies the Imperials took for granted were mind-bogglingly advanced. Fortunately for him, they had a few things that at least looked familiar. For example, the Star Destroyer's basic comm array was just a simple subspace comm with a range of a hundred light-years. He and Ensign Rhys had even managed to convince the /Kordoza's/ engineering department to release some of the components to them. The biggest challenge Harry had was convincing the Imperial engineering people that one could apply the /Kordoza's/ communications equipment to the purpose that he wanted to use it for. Already he could see that they were so familiar with their technology that they tended to lack the imagination necessary to come up with new and creative uses for it. And the purpose he wanted to apply it to was a gate remote sensor. Already, Harry knew that the Artifacts had to "know" that something was about to hit them. And he recalled that his shuttle's sensors registered a blast of subspace noise before they entered the Artifact. So, Harry guessed that the Artifact was surrounded by a low-power subspace field. And from that, he surmised that it might be possible to "see" what was on the other side of the gate if one stroked that subspace field appropriately. It was the thing that was on his mind back when the Imperials considered him a prisoner, rather than a guest. When Captain Joors had informed him that the Empire and the Federation now had a treaty of some sort in the works, he had released Harry and Ensign Rhys and given them access to the information that his people had gathered on the Artifact in this system. It had all been tactical information, but it was enough to let Harry see that his idea would work. Today, he would be able to test that theory. "Are you ready?" Commander Sullas Skyfighter, the ship's communications engineer, prompted from behind him. "I am very sure that the /Kordoza's/ communications array was not designed to be used in this manner. I wish to keep this test short." "I understand your concern, sir," Harry replied. "But if this works, then we can see what's on the other side of the Artifact without risking any more ships." "I understand that," Skyfighter replied tersely. "However, a Star Destroyer must deal with enormous quantities of comms traffic. Losing the short-range comms array would be more than merely inconvenient!" "Alright, we'll keep this short," Harry replied, the exasperation clear in his voice. "Krista, are we ready," he said, looking over at Ensign Rhys. "Yes, Commander. We've got as much power as they're willing to spare us," Ensign Rhys replied. "Shouldn't need that much," Harry said. "Activate the arrays, Commander," he said to Commander Skyfighter. "Alright, Commander Kim," Skyfighter replied, flipping the appropriate switches. Within moments, numbers scrolled on his tricorder, as well as the screen of the Imperial communications console. Harry stared hard at his tricorder. "This isn't right," he muttered. "I'm getting a lot of data here, and none of it makes sense." "What isn't right," an voice said from behind him. Harry turned with a start, his eyes looking into those of Captain Raytheon Joors, the commander of the /Kordoza,/ and up to a very short time ago, his jailer. "Erm . . . these results, sir," Harry replied, gathering his thoughts. "From your 'inverse-resonant subspace field' experiment, I gather?" Captain Joors asked, looking down at the console. "That's right, sir." "It doesn't work," Commander Skyfighter said darkly. "Just as I expected. We're crazy to work with these . . . primitives." Raytheon shot Skyfighter a stern glance. "If I were you, I'd hold my tongue." He inspected the numbers on the communications console closely. "What sort of data is this supposed to be, Commander?" "Distance data," Harry replied with a sigh. "The gates are surrounded by a subspace field. And this subspace field is affected by the objects around it. I had hoped to resonate the gate's subspace field and build a map based on the counter-resonances we scanned back." "And," Raytheon said, still inspecting the data. "It works . . . to a point," Harry replied, settling back in his chair. "I can filter out the resonances caused by the objects surrounding this gate, but I can't make any sense out of the remaining data." "I might," Raytheon said. "Back when I had graduated the Imperial Academy, I had been trained in hyperspace navigation. If these 'counter-resonances' are caused by hyperspace mass-shadows, then I can tell you that at least some of this data appears to come from the area around Tatooine. Granted there is considerable distortion, but the numbers are unmistakable." "Tatooine?" Harry asked, confused. "Yes, a system on the other side of the galaxy. A den of criminal scum and Rebel treachery. One of the worst I have ever seen," Raytheon replied, narrowing his eyes. "Hold on, did you say 'the other side of the galaxy'?" Harry interrupted. "That's right. Tatooine is directly across the Core from the center of Imperial Space." "Do you have an accurate map of the galaxy that I can see?" "Accurate starcharts are essential for hyperspace navigation, Commander Kim," Raytheon replied. "Why do you ask?" He said, just as it hit him. "Hold on . . . I think I understand. Come to think of it, a few more of these numbers seem to be familiar as well. But, if I can see these, then that must mean," Raytheon said, trailing off. "That there are more gates," Harry finished for him. Chakotay stood outside of Serena's quarters. It had been almost two days since he told her of his decision to give her command of the /Witz./ It had been almost two days since she stormed off in reaction to that news. Chakotay suspected that she might not react well, but he didn't expect her to react that strongly. And Chakotay had very good reasons for not inviting her to stay on with him. As he told her, the /Witz/ needed a captain. And what better captain than the ship's experienced executive officer? And, he knew it was time she had her own command. He knew the history of the Durst family. He learned the lessons he had been taught over the last seven years. He now knew better than to completely trust the crewers serving under him. Of course, there was a third reason. A reason that had little basis in rational thought. Chakotay knew that Serena was attracted to him. It never bothered him before, but the dynamic between the two of them changed when the /Witz/ was flung sixty million lightyears from home. It became tenser, more charged. She was drawing closer, having more of an effect on him. And that did disturb him. It disturbed him alot. Especially since Seven was still missing. He couldn't just put that all aside! So, no matter what he felt for Serena, he simply couldn't take the risk of it going any further. With this thought, and a little trepidation, Chakotay reached out and touched the comm-panel by Serena's door. "Who is it," Serena's voice replied quietly over the comm. "Serena, it's me," Chakotay replied. After a moment, the door slid open, letting Chakotay in. As he stepped in, he noticed Serena sitting by her bed. She looked up at him. "Serena," Chakotay started, as Serena stood up. "Save your breath, sir," Serena replied. "Listen, I shouldn't have stormed off like that. It was irresponsible of me, and I'm sorry." "I should be the one to apologize," Chakotay said, as Serena held up her hand. "I've reconsidered my position, sir," she said quietly. "I will accompany the /Witz/ back to the Alpha Quadrant." "If you don't want to, you don't have to," Chakotay replied, just as quietly. Suddenly Serena's expression changed to one of anger. "Stop that, sir! You always do that!" "Do what, Serena?" "You're always bending over backwards to accommodate your crew, even if it's something you don't want to do," Serena replied, looking up at Chakotay. "I don't want to trouble you any further." "Listen," Chakotay started. Hesitantly, he put his hand on Serena's shoulder. "It's . . . it's not any trouble at all," he said, looking directly into her eyes. "What . . . what are you saying, sir?" Serena asked, looking back. "Listen, I've had a lot of time to think, over the last couple of days," Chakotay said. Suddenly, his comm-unit crackled to life. "Captain Paulsen to Captain Chakotay!" Björn's voice crackled over the comm. Chakotay withdrew his hand from Serena's shoulder, the air of professionalism settling over him. He pulled out his Imperial comm-unit, bringing it to his lips. "Chakotay here. Go ahead, Captain." "We've just received a priority transmission from the /Kordoza,/ Captain." "The /Kordoza/," Chakotay said. That was the ship he had left Harry on. "That's right," Björn replied. "It seems they've made quite a discovery over there." "What sort of discovery," Chakotay asked, turning toward the door. "I don't think I could explain it if I tried," Björn said. "Alright, we're coming over," Chakotay acknowledged, putting the comm away. He turned to look at Serena again. "Come on, Serena, let's see what this is about." Admiral Phong Nguyen watched as the mottled sky of hyperspace became a stretched tunnel of streaks. The hyperspace growl resonated through his ship as those streaks resolved into a myriad of stars. Briefly, he reached out with his telepathic tendrils and touched the minds of the all the /Predator's/ crewmen. For an instant, he heard several hundred voices. Those voices confirmed what he suspected, the /Predator's/ hyperdrive was getting out of tune. Phong mentally shrugged. Morishim was a fairly busy system. There would undoubtedly be somebody who would be capable of performing the hyperdrive tune-up. He felt the tickle of a particular mental voice coming up behind him. "So glad you could join us, Commander Thelea," he said, not bothering to look over his shoulder. "Why thank you," Thelea replied evenly. Admiral Nguyen's telepathic shenanigans had long ceased to unsettle her. "The /Predator/ will be making low orbit in approximately six hours. However, we will be taking a transport down to the surface in less than one," Phong announced, matter-of- factly. "You seem to be in a hurry," Thelea remarked, trying to probe the older man's mind. Phong smiled faintly. "That's right . . . you do know that I feel that, right?" "I can always hope otherwise," Thelea replied with a smirk. "Hope, yes. Actually witness, not a chance," Phong said, turning away from the viewscreen. "Walk with me, Commander. It is time you learned something about what I do here. Your curiosity batters me like an ice-storm on Hoth." Thelea cursed herself . . . and she had thought her mental shields were getting stronger. "You simply don't remember how to deploy them correctly," Phong remarked casually as they walked toward the turbolift. Thelea cursed herself again. She knew that Admiral Nguyen was trying to keep her unbalanced. As yet, she wasn't sure why. "You were going to tell me about your work," she said pointedly. "That's right," Phong replied. "First, you should understand something about the history of this galaxy. Quite a while back, some dissidents had gotten it in their minds to leave this galaxy. They created an Outbound Flight project in order to accomplish this goal. A large ship capable of intergalactic flight, complete with stasis chambers and cloning cylinders." "They failed, I take it," Thelea said, a bit of a smirk on her face. "Oh yes, but not in the way you're thinking. My Outbound Flight Project . . . *the* Outbound Flight Project, formed at about the same time. We shadowed the other project's effort, siphoning money away from their efforts. It was our first successful infiltration, really," Phong reminisced. "We supplied the Supreme Chancellor with the ship's exact course. And he dispatched an elite taskforce of fifteen ships to deal with them." Thelea recoiled from the sudden emotional intensity from the older man. It was a feeling of incredible revulsion, possibly even raw hatred. "Why did you take that sort of action against them," she asked. Phong narrowed his eyes, looking down at Thelea. "Because they were Jedi," he said, spitting the last word out. "And they died because of that?" Thelea asked. Inwardly she smiled, now Phong was off-balance. "It is a *very* good reason," Phong replied darkly. "As you will learn later," he said. Within moments, his demeanor changed again. Again, he was calm, cool, and collected. "Come, Commander," he said cordially, "we're here. Our transport awaits us." Chapter Three: Dangerous Games. Captain Raytheon Joors was sitting at a computer terminal, trying to access some very sensitive information. In the day since he and the Federation commander discovered the possible existence of other hypergates, the /Kordoza/ had been buzzing with renewed activity as they raced to complete the new modular station to house the research. The /Kordoza/ was not a research ship, and Raytheon was determined to keep it that way. Of course, that wouldn't stop him from pursuing his own research. The issue of what had happened to Commander Thelea still disturbed him. Granted, all he could remember was that she was aboard, he wasn't even sure how or when she left. And this bothered him most of all. Raytheon took pride in running a tight ship and he knew that the little discrepancies were often the most important. This was why he was inspecting the ship's records. He knew that they weren't his concern; that was what Kynes was for. However, Raytheon never trusted the man . . . and he had been assigned to overseeing the completion of the research station. Hopefully, this would give Raytheon the time he needed to complete his research. A battered Corellian YT1300 slipped into the streams of traffic inbound to Morishim. It's pilot was quite good, slipping between a larger Action IV and an ancient, lumbering old dungeon ship. With a roll, it slipped into it's slot ahead of a pair of some fringe merchant's shuttles, cobbled together out of a /Lambda's/ fuselage and a pair of TIE- Interceptor wings. It was just like any of the other seven or eight YT1300s visiting Morishim that day, except that it carried two special passengers, and had far more illegal modifications than even the legendary /Millennium Falcon./ The transport, the /Spectre of the Past,/ was the transport Phong preferred using when he had private business to attend to. It was registered to a man who had actually been dead since Palpatine took on the mantle of Emperor of the Galaxy. That suited Phong just fine, it afforded him complete anonymity. And if that wasn't enough, it had enough Imperial MILSPEC equipment integrated aboard that it could come up with complex hyperdrive calculations in mere seconds, and slice into many civilian networks across the galaxy. Not that Phong himself was a slicer. Granted he had been trained as one, a very good one. He just hated doing it, with a passion. Phong looked over at Thelea, who seemed to be watching the landscape race by with more than just a little unease. Clearly she was unused to the kind of flying Phong had just shown her. It was a good thing, really. Less chance she actually had what was needed for her to pull off an escape. "We're landing in a matter of minutes," he said, catching her attention. "Ah, yes," Thelea replied, clearly caught off guard. Phong smiled at her, and her expression quickly changed to that of the stoic Romulan commander. Phong chuckled to himself . . . in time she would learn, and in time she would be useful . . . very useful. Chakotay sat quietly in his quarters aboard the /Athena./ Spread out before him were the contents of his medicine bundle. All the artifacts were laid out in the manner most conducive to his meditation. Unfortunately, calm and spiritual inner-peace would not be his today. His mind was in too much turmoil for him to hear the faint call of his Spirit Guide. And the cause, his First Officer. Or, more accurately, what he found himself saying to her just twenty-four hours ago. The smart thing to do would've been to let her go back to the Alpha Quadrant with the /Witz./ And yet, he had invited her to stay with him, even though he had originally told her that he wanted her back in the Alpha Quadrant. What was happening to him? Of course, Chakotay already knew the answer. He didn't really need to consult a Spirit Guide to tell him that. Serena was finally getting to him. Granted, it was really his fault. He did absolutely nothing to stop it when he had the chance. And now, he was starting to feel something more than professional friendship. Why? He had Seven, didn't he? Didn't she matter, or did she? Chakotay wasn't even sure he'd ever see her again. Starfleet Command had worked diligently, and aggressively, to keep him out of the loop. Every time he brought up the matter of Seven; he had been told, usually politely, to go away and keep his mouth shut. It had been a situation similar to this that had driven Chakotay out of Starfleet all those years ago. He stood up quickly, it was time to have an uninterrupted talk with Serena. Meanwhile . . . on Morishim: Saevir Khirennis surveyed the passing crowds from his secluded seat in the outdoor tapcafe. It had been an interesting life for the one Romulan operative who had ever succeeded in infiltrating the new galaxy. He had been the only man in his twenty man crew to succeed in escaping from one of Admiral Phong Nguyen's "informal information gathering" sessions. His crewmates, and the crews of at least four other scouts had ended up being captured by the Imperials. Captured, interrogated, then shot in the back of the head. Saevir thought the Cardassians had more class than these Imperials. They sure got what was coming to them, though. The only way Saevir survived in this galaxy was by joining the Rebel Alliance. He offered his skills as an agent of sabotage and espionage to the Rebels, and quickly acquired a reputation as a spy far better than any Bothan. He was even on Coruscant when the remaining Imperials were forced to flee in the face of New Republic forces . . . he had helped bring to Coruscant. It wasn't much, but at least he had his revenge on Phong Nguyen. Though the man vanished, even before the Battle of Endor, Saevir could only hope that he had gotten what was coming to him. To that end, he had been working very hard. For the last decade, he had worked to root out and destroy Phong Nguyen's secret organization. Sometimes with New Republic Intelligence, but mostly alone . . . he owed the Rebels too much to drag them into this. Admiral Nguyen had made the mistake of talking about his work to his doomed Romulan captives. Now Saevir would ensure that he payed for that mistake. Especially since he knew that Admiral Nguyen was still alive. A droid rolled up to Saevir, offering him another cup of the local equivalent of coffee. Saevir annoyedly waved the droid off, who rolled away after making a very annoyed- sounding grunt. Saevir shrugged and went back to thinking. Saevir had been the one to neutralize the Outbound Flight cell operating at Morishim. He knew they were all telepaths, yet they died quickly at his hand. He was quite pleased that Tal Shi'ar interrogation techniques worked just as well on those Humans as it did the Humans from Starfleet. Before the chief operative had died, Saevir learned that the cell at Morishim was one of Admiral Nguyen's important cells. Very important, in fact. The Romulan allowed himself a rare smile, the cell was important enough to warrant a visit from Nguyen himself. And several weeks of carefully faked comm traffic would ensure that he would come running with maybe a small team of investigators. And today, he knew Phong Nguyen would be on Morishim. Saevir's hand went to the comforting shape of the disruptor carefully concealed on his hip. It would be poetic justice. Nguyen would know death by a Romulan disruptor, from the one Romulan who got away. Saevir knew that the disruptor's beam would have local security on him in moments, but that was alright, he didn't intend to be alive any longer than it took to see the look on Phong's face as his life slipped away from him. Saevir knew that neither the Tal Shi'ar, nor anybody else in the Alpha Quadrant were ready for even the most feeble opponents this galaxy had to offer . . . For an instant, Saevir's danger sense went to high alert. Immediately, Saevir's casual surveys turned into an intense search, his eyes peering out from under his hood. Just as suddenly, his heart skipped a beat as he spotted a single man along the edge of the crowd. "It can't be!" Saevir swore to himself. He closed one eye and peered at the man with the other. If there was anything good about this galaxy, it was their prosthetics skills. He had an artificial eye that allowed him to see things magnified up to eight times. And that was the skill he employed now. He zoomed in on the man . . . indeed it was who he thought it was. It was Phong Nguyen! Just as Saevir had expected, yet still, it came as a complete surprise. Saevir then noticed his companion. Walking with him was young woman, but not just any young woman. She was clearly half-Romulan, her ears and her forehead betraying her ancestry. What was she doing with Phong? Suddenly, Phong Nguyen looked in Saevir's direction. Immediately, the Romulan operative felt an icy chill travel down his spine as fingers of dread dug into his gut. Saevir was positive that he was unrecognizable at that distance in his current outfit, yet it seemed that Phong Nguyen knew he was there. Immediately, Saevir knew he was in terrible danger. All thoughts of gunning Phong down vanished from his mind. Especially since now Phong had another Romulan with him. Why was that girl with Nguyen? Saevir resolved to solve that last mystery before he killed Phong. "Not today, my old nemesis," Saevir said softly, his hand going instead for a blaster on his other hip. "You won't taste death today. But rest assured, you will, you will," Phong and Thelea made their way through the crowd, toward the center of the city. Phong took a moment to touch Thelea's mind. He smiled grimly as he got back a sense of naked wonder. After being passed from one set of cramped Imperial quarters to another, Phong gambled on the fact she'd be too distracted by the radical change of scenery to watch him. And Phong didn't want Thelea to watch him, because it wouldn't do to let her see him so disturbed. One of his oldest operatives, Major Khoral Tlodes, was here. And Major Tlodes ran a tight operation, which was why he was on Morishim. Yet, Phong had received some unusual messages from him, indicating that there was an urgent breach of security that only Phong, or one of his most potent operatives, could solve. So, Phong decided to come to Morishim himself. Immediately, he knew something was wrong, none of his attempts to reach Major Tlodes had met with any success. So, he decided to 'casually stroll' by the Gormak Tapcafe, which was the agreed-upon meeting place, should the cell have gone into hiding. As Phong looked at the tapcafe, he couldn't see, or feel anybody who might've belonged to the cell, but he did feel something else . . . something dangerous. Suddenly, there was a very bright flash, followed by a very loud bang. Phong was already in motion, knocking Thelea down, his hand going for his blaster. Around him, people were screaming and running in chaos as smoke filled the square. Already, New Republic civil guardsmen were rushing into the square, their blasters drawn. "What's going on," Phong asked tersely, pulling a guard aside. "I can't say," the man replied. "Stay down, sir." Thelea was walking with Phong, watching the alien cityscape around her. Already, she felt better. As strange as this world was, it was better than being held prisoner aboard an Imperial starship. The next thing she knew, she had been knocked to the ground by Admiral Nguyen, who was now scanning the square for danger. Immediately, Thelea's own danger sense went into high gear. As Nguyen took one of the patrolmen aside, Thelea focused on a figure who was quickly, and purposefully making his way out of the square. For an instant their eyes met, and Thelea blinked. She looked again, and couldn't believe her eyes. The man she was looking at was a full-blooded Romulan! For several moments, the Romulan looked back at her, his expression cool and calculating. Then the Romulan was gone, blending into the panicked throngs. Immediately Thelea forced the brief bloom of hope as deep into herself as possible. Though Phong was distracted, she did not doubt that he was still watching her. If there was another Romulan agent here . . . then perhaps she would still have a chance to turn the tables on Admiral Phong Nguyen. Interlude #2: Leaks. Lieutenant Liet Kynes sat alone in his quarters aboard the new Imperial research station. He always thought of himself as a thoughtful and careful man. Many times, things were better understood when they could be readily quantified and controlled. Of course, Kynes had reason to be thoughtful. His new assignment kept him busy, and away from the /Kordoza./ And, the longer he was away from the /Kordoza,/ the greater the odds that Captain Joors would do something drastic. It was Phong's charge to Kynes, keep Raytheon Joors out of trouble. Raytheon Joors was old enough to remember the glory days of the Empire, and still just young enough to do something about it. At the time, the Plan indicated that the Empire had to fall completely, it's officers and talent dispersed into the New Republic. Phong believed that it would ultimately be the best way to restore the New Order and bring Outbound Flight to it's successful conclusion. Of course, that was all in the past. Before the strangers from the strange galaxy intruded, and mucked up their carefully laid out Plan. Worse still, Raytheon was now suspicious. It was increasingly clear to Kynes that Phong had been too distracted to properly adjust Raytheon's mind. Now there was a leak, a potentially dangerous one. One that had to be addressed. It was why Kynes was now in his quarters, composing the encrypted message telling Phong this. Kynes wasn't trained enough to pull off a full mental adjustment. It would have to be Phong, or one of the other Level One telepaths. Hopefully the message would reach him before it was too late. Two hours later . . . on Bastion . . . Moff Disra stepped into his receiving room, more than a little annoyed. Not five minutes ago, he had been roused from bed by an urgent message from his Imperial Intelligence slices. They told him it was a matter of the utmost importance, and requested his personal presence. Disra stepped up to the Intelligence officer, a portly older man with ruddy jowls and close-cropped gray hair. "You had a matter of 'utmost importance,' I believe?" Disra said coolly to the officer. The officer merely nodded. "Yes, Your Excellency. You ordered us to flag any encrypted communications sent from either the /Kordoza,/ or any other Imperial assets near her." Disra was fully awake now. "And?" "We intercepted such a message thirty minutes ago. It was very hard to trace it . . . the sender clearly knew what he or she was doing." "But you did trace it," Disra asked, working to keep the impatience from his voice. "Yes, Your Excellency. It was definitely transmitted from the /Kordoza,/ sir." Disra nodded. "Excellent. Notify me the instant you have it decrypted." Chapter Four: Discovery. MESSAGE.Header(): Apparently from: comstat-01-77.22.Kordoza.IDN.net Actual Origin: deskstat-13-02.11.IFRS1.IDN.net Apparently to: Protocol: HE-Net113.077.SEC.1024 MESSAGE.Header(END); MESSAGE.Data(): BEGIN MESSAGE: >MAYOR AT KORDOZA REQ ADDITIONAL HOUSEKEEPING. >WILLING TO PAY LEVEL THREE OR BETTER. >APPLY WITHIN ONE WEEK. END MESSAGE: MESSAGE.Data(END): Moff Disra looked up from the datapad at the face of the Intelligence cypher. Very slowly, he nodded, his face pale in the morning sun. "This is the entire message?" "Yes, Your Excellency," replied Lieutenant Kathyr Elennis, one of Disra's brighter slicers. "We were very lucky just to catch the message at all." "Indeed you were," Disra replied. "Those we are going up against have considerable slicing skills. Your team will have my commendations." The young woman flushed, stepping back. Praise from any Moff, especially Disra, was rare. "Thank you, Your Excellency." Disra nodded. "Of course, Lieutenant Elennis. However, can you tell me what it means?" Lieutenant Elennis pursed her lips, the color draining from her face. "We haven't gotten that far yet, Your Excellency." "Quite understandable, Lieutenant," Kathyr heard. However, the voice doing the speaking wasn't Disra's. Instantly, her Imperial training took over and she snapped her head over to one side, focusing on the source. From a door, shadowed from the morning sunlight, a tall man in a crisp white Grand Admiral's uniform stood. As he stepped into the sunlight, Kathyr blanched further. She knew the man from her history texts, his jet-black hair, his angular, masculine face. Yet, the man was an alien, his skin blue, and his eyes a fiery red. Then, the moment was over as the man spoke again. "To know what the message means, you need to know the context from which the message was taken, Lieutenant," the man said, stepping purposefully over to Disra's side. "Admiral Thrawn," Disra said, sounding a little surprised. "I wasn't aware that you were coming in so early." "Things are always in motion. The galaxy never sleeps, Your Excellency," Thrawn replied. "If I may have a look at your datapad?" Disra nodded, handing Thrawn his datapad. For a moment, the other man looked it over. When Thrawn spoke again, his attention was on Lieutenant Elennis. "This is clearly a message requesting assistance. The sender believed that Captain Joors is an immediate danger to the operation he is carrying out," he said, fixing his gaze on Lieutenant Elennis. "Clearly, the sender knows that assistance is close at hand." Thrawn tilted his head a little. "Your team deserves recognition, Lieutenant. The /Kordoza/ is deep inside Imperial Space. Any assistance the sender of this message is expecting, will come from within." Lieutenant Elennis raised her eyebrow. "You mean that there is a traitor within the Empire?" Thrawn nodded, ever so slightly. "You are most observant, Lieutenant. We will need people like you in the coming weeks and months," he said, then looking over to Disra. "Your Excellency, I request that Lieutenant Elennis be immediately promoted . . . to Major." Disra nodded. "I agree, Admiral Thrawn. Major Elennis, you and your team are to watch all the comm traffic going to the /Kordoza./ The traitor's compatriots will not move without letting him know." "Yes, Your Excellency," now-Major Elennis said, sharply saluting Thrawn as she turned to leave. When she was gone, the expression on Disra's face turned venomous. "You were supposed to come in after I had talked to that woman," he said sharply to Thrawn. "I got the message shortly before you did," Thrawn replied. "I decided it was best to explain it myself. Kathyr Elennis is the kind of person that keeps a conman fed. She's bright, yet she's idealistic, and exceptionally superstitious." "I'm not concerned about that!" Disra exclaimed. "You can't go exposing yourself so casually!" "It is the sort of thing Thrawn would've done, Your Excellency. We're dealing with two things at once here. Thrawn would've worked hard to secure those crucial loyalties and get the best people into the positions to be able to do something useful." "Just remember you are *not* really Thrawn!" Disra snapped. "Your a con artist I picked up from the Rim! Remember that, Flim," "Unfortunately, he is also necessary to do what we need to do," another voice said from the doorway. Disra looked over in annoyance as Major Grodin Tierce stepped in. He knew that Tierce was actually one of the Emperor's old elite guardsmen. When Disra confronted him with this, the other man took it very well. This was very good for Disra, especially given that one usually wound up dead when an elite Guardsmen didn't take something well. "Did you tell him what to say to *Major* Elennis?" He asked, slumping into his chair. "No, I did that myself," Flim, the blue-faced conman replied. "That message was written in old smuggler's code." "Smuggler's code?" Disra sniffed. "Yes," the would-be Admiral replied. "If something needed to be taken care out on the Rim, a smuggler or pirate captain would take out a public ad, requesting . . . say, housekeeping services. In reality, it would be a call to any bounty hunter who was crazy enough to take the job and, how shall we say this, remove the smuggler's problem." Disra nodded. "Of course." "He is right, Your Excellency," Tierce said. "We are dealing with two things at once. Our work against the Rebels, and your obsession with finding out what Admiral Nguyen is up to. Three things at once, really, if you recall our new allies, the Federation." "Of course," Disra repeated. "My principle concern is Admiral Nguyen and his real intentions. All our work will be for naught if we have an unknown running around the Empire, possibly trying their hardest to bring it all crashing down." "Then I suggest we pay Captain Raytheon Joors a visit, Your Excellency," Tierce replied. "We can count on his loyalty, and we can surprise Admiral Nguyen's inside man." Flim shook his head. "If you come aboard, anyone who might reply to that message is going to go to ground and wait for you to leave. I'd suggest we let Major Elennis do her work. If someone responds and heads over to the /Kordoza,/ we will come in and surprise whoever comes to investigate that message." Chakotay and Serena looked at each other, over a table inside one of the /Athena's/ recreation centers. On the table, was a basic chess set with all the pieces laid out. It had been a bit of a challenge convincing the Imperials to replicate a chess set. Most of them were a little more interested in trying to show them a game called "sabbac." But, they had politely declined, and had gotten their chess set. Even now, as they played, a few of the off-duty Imperial crewmen were watching Chakotay and Serena with casual interest. Not that either of them cared, of course. A couple of days before, they had finally talked to each other in earnest. In the end, neither was really ready for an actual relationship. In the end, they decided to be open with each other. No more of the awkward pauses and insinuations that had characterized their relationship before. Now, Chakotay saw his former First Officer in a new light. She was really alright, she understood him in a way that nobody outside of his friends on /Voyager/ had. It was something he had sorely missed since /Voyager/ returned to the Alpha Quadrant, and Seven had been whisked off to Starfleet Command. "You're in check, Chakotay," Serena said with a smile as she took her fingers off her knight. For a moment, Chakotay's eyes lingered on hers before he looked down at the chessboard. Immediately, he could see he was finished. No matter which way he moved, Serena's queen would be able to move in and box in his king. Sighing, Chakotay smiled and tipped his king over. "You win, Commander," he said. "Oh?" Serena replied. "I only said you were in check," she said with a soft laugh. "Serena, I've learned to see when I've been beaten. And I'm seeing that right now." He offered her his hand. "Good game." "Thank you, Chakotay," Serena replied, shaking his hand. As she slowly released it, they both heard, and felt the deep rumble that indicated that the /Athena/ was leaving hyperspace. Immediately, Chakotay's communicator buzzed. Slowly, he picked it up. "Chakotay here," he said. "We've just dropped out of hyperspace, Captain. We will be rendezvousing with the /Kordoza/ and the station within the hour." "Station?" Chakotay said, puzzled. "That's right, sir. The Empire has been quite busy in your absence," the Imperial officer replied, his amusement plain in his voice. "Alright," Chakotay replied. "Chakotay out." Several hours later . . . "Charting the contour anomalies in the Artifact's subspace field, we've managed to track the possible locations of several more devices just like the four we know of now," Harry said to the gathered officers and staff. With Chakotay and Serena were Ensign Rhys, Commander Zeiken of Astrometrics, and three other Starfleet officers. There were a number of Imperials in the room as well. Captain Joors and Lieutenant Kynes were off to one side, with Captain Paulsen hovering near Chakotay. Several Imperial technicians Harry didn't know were scattered around the room. Across the room from Harry were two shimmering, holographic figures, representing Admiral Ulstead, and a man Harry was told was one of the Empire's civilian administrators. He hesitantly entered a few commands into his Imperial datapad, and a map of the Imperial galaxy appeared, floating in the space before them. On it were fifteen points, including three shining in bright blue. "Good work, Harry," Chakotay said, inspecting the map. "You've made great progress." "I will agree with your commanding officer, Commander," Admiral Ulstead said, his face a stony mask. "All this time, those hypergates have been sitting under our noses. And yet, we've just discovered them now." "Or rediscovered them, sir," Commander Zeiken said, his voice deep and booming. "True," Ulstead replied. "We can see them, but can we access them?" "It's theoretically possible, sir," Harry replied. "If the devices were matched in pairs, then all we'd see is the space around the other device. As it is, we can see the entire network, so the devices must be interconnected somehow. The question is finding it." "Not at the moment," interrupted the second spectral figure, the Imperial administrator. Harry had been told the man's name before the start of the briefing, Moff Raas Vered. "A fair number of those points lie within the territory of the New Republic. If they even /suspected/ we had that kind of back door into their territory, they would come down on us with extreme force and prejudice." "Agreed," Raytheon said. "What I'm interested in is what you've found out about the trap located at the gate closest to the Rim." "Indeed, that would be our most pressing concern," Moff Vered contributed. Harry nodded in response. "Yes, it took Ensign Rhys and myself several hours of work to filter the harmonics induced by the other gates. When we compensated for the distortion, we came up with this map." The holographic map of the galaxy rippled, changing into a map of a solar system. At the edge was a orange-yellow dwarf, and a planet which would've been at the distance of Mercury, had it been located in Sol System. And then, after a belt of asteroids was a giant swarm of other objects. Harry heard a quick gasp from the clustered Imperial technicians. "I recognize that!" Said the man. He wasn't actually an Imperial technician, he was an Imperial pilot, Lieutenant Kaz Shimazaki, who had been the first to enter the system. "That swarm," "Is comprised of masses no larger than a shuttlepod to masses at least an order of magnitude greater than this destroyer," Harry replied. "What is the scale of that map?" Commander Zeiken asked, stroking his chin. "About two billion kilometers from edge to edge," Harry replied. "That would make the swarm of trapped vessels extremely large," Raytheon said, the awe clear in his voice. "And some of those ships might have been trapped since this starship trap went into place. It would be like a gigantic orbital museum," Serena remarked, stepping closer to the hologram. "Good work, Harry," Chakotay said, stepping closer himself, "I want a copy of your report ready to send to Starfleet as soon as possible." "Already done, Captain," Harry replied as Raytheon interrupted. "Indeed, Commander. Very good work. However, has your research suggested a way of disabling those devices? The potential of what you and your team have discovered is indeed tremendous, however, there may be things of greater significance waiting in that system." Harry shook his head. "I'm afraid not. At this point, all I can tell you is that they're there, and where they come from. We couldn't tell you more unless we had one of those devices to study." "The Empire has a considerable amount of resources and expertise to draw upon, Commander Kim," Moff Vered said, clasping his hands together. "I am as intrigued about what lies in that system as those in my Sector Fleet. For the moment, the Empire considers probing the gate system a secondary goal to investigating the starship trap. Indeed, I hope the Federation is willing to put it's knowledge toward that effort as well." Chakotay nodded toward the hologram. "I believe the Federation is willing to focus on this as well," he said, turning to Harry. "Harry, take the volunteers from the /Athena/ and come up with a way to bring one of those devices back here safely." "Aye, Captain," Harry replied, starting to turn away. "Should we consider the briefing over then?" "Not quite yet," Lieutenant Shimazaki interrupted. "You're going to need an experienced pilot, and only I know how those devices react. Besides, I'm just as curious as you are to find out just how vulnerable those devices really are." Chapter Five: Exposition. Phong Nguyen and Thelea cruised along in a rented hovercar, making their way up to the building-top skylane. After the blast that rocked the square, Phong thought it wise to wait until rush-hour to rent the hovercar and head out to the part of the city closest to the New Republic's starfighter base. At the moment, he didn't feel the need to explain his exact motives to Thelea. At the moment, there was no point. She couldn't be trusted, not yet. And the reason Phong was so unnerved . . . relative to his usual calm? Right before the blast, Phong got the distinct impression he was being watched by somebody who harbored great ill-will toward him. Granted, it was just as an impression, but Phong's years as an Intelligence operative, and later a telepath, taught him that impressions could not be ignored. Things weren't adding up on Morishim. And Phong was getting increasingly curious, in spite of his misgivings. He would know more as soon as he reached the arranged rendezvous point. When Major Tlodes' cell first infiltrated Morishim, they set up a pre-arranged meeting place should the worst happen and the survivors required extraction. "You are very preoccupied," Thelea remarked, looking over at Phong. He blinked, then he cursed himself. He had to remind himself that Thelea was getting stronger every day, in spite of his best efforts to keep her distracted. "Yes, I am." Phong replied. For another moment, he looked ahead thoughtfully. Then he looked back at her. "Commander, it is time you learned a little more about our organization." "Yes," Thelea replied dryly. Phong nodded appreciatively. He could tell that Thelea's feelings on the matter were being kept closely guar1ded. "So be it. The purpose behind Outbound Flight is simple. We seek nothing more than an end to the influence of those who call themselves the Jedi." "The Jedi?" Thelea replied, looking thoughtful. "Don't bother searching your memories," Phong replied pleasantly. "None of the agents before you ever had the chance to meet a living Jedi." "Then who are the Jedi?" Thelea then asked, not missing a step. "At times, they've been a constructive influence in the galaxy. On many other occasions, they've been a destructive influence, controlling others for their benefit." Thelea narrowed her eyes as the first bit of information sank in. Phong had more to say though. "The Jedi, and all Force users are an abberation, the result of an ancient war so old that even the most complete records assembled by the Republic and the Empire are little more than fragmented myths," "War?" Thelea asked, looking expectantly at Phong. Phong narrowed his eyebrows. "Another time. For now, it is sufficient to say that Force use serves to limit the potential of beings in this galaxy." "It sounds like you are fighting something big here." Thelea said, her voice becoming carefully neutral. "We are," Phong replied. "However . . . I will explain more to you when the time is right," he said, pushing the hovercar into a dive. "For now, there still is work to be done." Captain Raytheon Joors slept fitfully. For the last two nights, his sleep had been plagued with dreams. Very unusual dreams, such as the one he was having now . . . "Do you know what is going on here?" Raytheon asked. Kynes merely shook his head. "Not at all, Captain," he said. Raytheon looked around, clearly he was in the /Kordoza's/ hangar. But what was he doing here, and why was Kynes with him? A noise drew both his attention and the dream- Raytheon's attention. A Lambda-class shuttle bearing Imperial markings was entering the hangar. Very quickly, it landed. Almost as soon as the shuttle landed, it's boarding ramp began to descend. Raytheon intently watched the shuttle, his body clearly tense. Gratification wouldn't come soon, though. The ramp remained vacant for almost half a minute. Finally, somebody began to descend the ramp. A single man, dressed in a crisp Imperial uniform. The insignia on the front of his uniform indicated that he was a full Admiral. That was backed by everything the man did, his bearing, and his expression. Everything about him shouted "Power!" As the man stepped off the ramp, he wasted no more time, striding up to Raytheon and Kynes. "Good day to you both. I am . . . " the man started to say, when the dream abruptly ended. Raytheon awoke with a start, sitting up straight in his bed. "Kriff!" He swore, gritting his teeth. "Why do these kriffing dreams always end like this?" Raytheon frowned, swinging over to the side of the bed. He had the inescapable feeling that what he was seeing in his dreams had really happened to him. Yet if it did, why couldn't he remember it by the usual means? He rubbed his temples, stalking over to his computer terminal. Before, he had discretely questioned some of his crewmen, but that had been fruitless. So had talking to Kynes . . . though Raytheon suspected he may have had something to do with it. He also suspected that it may have had something to do with his memories of a Commander Thelea, a person that Raytheon swore had once been aboard the /Kordoza./ Quickly shaking his head, Raytheon pulled up all the security records for the /Kordoza's/ hangar deck. As he scrolled through the files, he soon noticed something very odd about several of them . . . Their checksums didn't look quite right. One of the things all senior Imperial officers had to learn were the basics of computer security. Stormtroopers in the computer rooms could not protect against slicers employed by the New Republic. The first people who would notice that something was amiss were a ship's senior officers. And something was definitely amiss with the /Kordoza's/ security files. Raytheon knew that the files had a checksum which helped verify their integrity. The checksum included a sum of every 16,384th bit in the file, and date the file was created. Raytheon also knew that at at 2350 every single day, the /Kordoza's/ computers gathered all the security logs and surveillance footage and compiled them into a handful of large records. Therein was the problem. On several of the recent security records, there was a checksum error . . . the actual date of creation was almost twenty minutes later than the date of creation recorded on the security record. Clearly it would be more than enough time for somebody to alter or delete some of the record's contents. Raytheon knew he needed to see inside those records. Unfortunately, the only ones who could access the records were members of Imperial Intelligence . . . and he wasn't quite willing to trust them yet. Failing that, a slicer with a good deal of time on his or her hands could get him in. Immediately, he knew what he had to do. Meanwhile: On Morishim . . . Phong Nguyen looked around the room with a mixture of disgust and sadness. He was upset because it was obvious that his cell on Morishim had been completely neutralized. Out of the fifteen Outbound Flight agents that had been on the planet, none had survived. And what was worse, it seemed that right after whoever had done this had neutralized Phong's cell, they had gone through the room with astonishing thoroughness. Even from his cursory inspection, he could see the work of a professional. He almost dreaded looking through their computers . . . he knew he'd find the same thing. It wasn't as if he would have the time to. The local authorities had already recorded the murder of three men, all of whom were Outbound Flight's top operatives, at this apartment. They had immediately concluded it was a glitterstim deal gone horribly wrong . . . traces of the highly addictive narcotic had been found all over the place. For a moment, Phong's mind clouded with anger. Not only was he dealing with a simple professional, but he was dealing with a professional who knew where to hit where it counted. Imperial officers were intolerant of things like drugs and contraband. And to have his agents even implicated in a crime like that brought Phong's blood to a boil. He quickly pushed that from his mind. Phong knew he was dealing with a very dangerous being. Not only had whoever it was taken on and killed three of Phong's best-trained telepaths at the same time, he had managed to infiltrate their comms and send a very well-crafted, but phony, message to Phong. Whoever it was had to be taken down, and quickly. He wondered how he'd do this. The three men, Major Khoral Tlodes, Lieutenant Jumani Sadavi, and Sergeant Major Kovolo Nudavi, had combined telepathic strength almost equal to Phong's own. And he wasn't even sure if the assailant was still on-planet . . . though his instinct told him that was the case . . . the message was clearly constructed to lure more Outbound Flight agents to Morishim. Phong turned around with a start, immediately fixing his glare on Thelea, who gave him a slight nod and a smirk. He cursed himself . . . he was so distracted that Thelea had managed to sneak in behind him. "I ordered you to remain outside, Commander," Phong said darkly, narrowing his eyes at Thelea. "I felt strong emotion in here," she replied with a smirk. "I was afraid something may have befallen you." Phong intensified his glare. As he did do, he had a thought. He knew that Thelea was once a tool of the Romulan Empire . . . a very powerful tool. They had placed in her mind a potent block that kept her abilities bottled up. It had been designed to degrade on it's own, but Phong's own mental tampering had ensured that it would remain in place longer. Perhaps it was time Phong wielded this tool for himself. His mysterious assailant may have been able to neutralize the best agents the Empire and Outbound Flight had to offer . . . but was he, or she, ready for the combined efforts of two galaxies? Phong's glare turned to a sly smile. Immediately, Thelea's smirk vanished. It was a smile she had not seen from the man before. It was a very chilling smile. She involuntarily took a step back, unconsciously realizing that things were about to get much more interesting. Commander Harry Kim, Ensign Krista Rhys, three other Starfleet engineers, Major Shimazaka, and two Imperial technicians clustered around a holographic display. On one portion of the display was the map of the starship trap. On another portion was a scan of one of the devices that had almost caught Kaz's fighter. In the center of the display were the technical readouts of a standard Imperial shuttle. They had been trying to figure out how to best equip an Imperial shuttle to capture one of the devices and bring it back . . . hopefully without getting caught in the starship trap, and becoming one of the thousands and thousands of ships trapped for what was apparently, all of eternity. "I'm telling you, it can't be done," Kaz growled. "I was in an /Avenger/ and I barely outran those devices! You're going to need something faster than a shuttle." "But the point is to bring something back," Lieutenant Pete Romero, the assistant chief engineer of the /Witz/, growled in return. "For that, we need something big, like a shuttle." "What for?" Asked one of the Imperial technicians, Sergeant Mather Deric. "Our fighters can be equipped with tractor beams. We can simply have a formation of /Avengers/ drag one of those devices back through the gate . . . just like those devices do." "But one of those is enough to drain the power from a snubfighter," Kaz said irritably. "It could just switch from fighter to fighter until we were forced to let it go." "He's right," Harry said. "We need a shuttle, or we need three fighters equipped with stasis fields. And I don't much like the idea of fighters flying around in formation, trying to hold one of the devices in stasis, while trying not to wind up in a stasis field themselves." "But shuttles are too *slow*!" Kaz said, his tone the one might use to explain what should be a simple concept to small children. "I've seen the specs. One of our shuttles has ten times the acceleration of one of yours," Pete interjected. "It's no Imperial fighter, but it might do the trick." "Please," Kaz sniffed. "Your shuttles barely have a tenth of the hull strength of any of our shuttles. Even your shields are practically nonexistent." "But we don't need a strong hull, Major," Harry replied. "And I'm willing to bet that those devices are optimised against the shield systems found in this galaxy. They may have to adjust to Federation shields, and that may give us the time we need." "How do you plan to get it aboard then?" Sergeant Deric asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "Magic? No tractor beam reacts fast enough for you to pull the device aboard, then put up a stasis field fast enough to stop it from killing your shuttle." Harry fell silent. He immediately realized that this could lead to trouble. He was leaning towards using a shuttle's transporters to try to beam one of the devices right into a stasis container. However, Chakotay had sternly warned them about giving away *any* advantage the Federation might have over the Empire. And he seemed to emphasize transporter techology. Chakotay had told them that it was very clear to him that the Empire didn't have it . . . and from Harry had seen, he was inclined to agree. Yet, he didn't want to look like he was too suspicious of the Imperials. Unfortunately, transporters seemed to be the only feasible way to accomplish what the Federation and the Empire had set out to do. All the other options were far too risky. He could see it in the eyes of his fellow crewmembers. He could even see it in the eyes of the Imperials. They seemed just as reluctant to needlessly sacrifice lives. "Well?" Sergeant Deric prompted expectantly, narrowing his gaze on Harry. Harry involuntarily drew back. He wasn't sure what was "right," but he knew what had to be done. And if his time on /Voyager/ had taught him anything, it was that sometimes doing what had to be done overrode what some would consider to be "right." At length, Harry Kim smiled nervously. "You . . . could call it that," he replied. Interlude #3: The Hunt Begins. A pair of purple multi-faceted eyes watched as Admiral Phong Nguyen and Commander Thelea quickly left the apartment they had broken into. Very quickly, they had jumped into a rented hovercar and had taken off for the skylanes. The Rodian had been paid very well by a green-skinned man with pointed ears to watch the apartment after the local law- enforcement had sealed the place up. His orders were to let whoever dropped by the apartment do what they wanted, but to report back whenever they left. They were very strange orders. The Rodian had been employed in this sort of work before. Usually the employer was a smuggler or a gangster who wanted a mark tagged, then washed and waxed. In simpler terms, it meant that the target would be carefully monitored (the tag.) Then they'd be accosted, interrogated (the washing,) and then dumped in an alley somewhere, their throat cut by a vibroblade, or with a blaster burn through their skull (and the waxing.) His current employer wasn't even interested in having any sort of tracking device installed on whatever vehicles the marks happened to be using. The Rodian gave a very human shrug . . . credits were credits, after all. He keyed in the appropriate comm frequency and made his report. After a few moments, his employer responded in accented, but passable Basic. "Excellent. It's what I expected. The remainder of your payment will be transferred to your account by morning. You've done very well." Saevir Khirennis looked up as the transmission cut off. He believed in thoroughly preparing for all contingencies . . . including those contingencies that called for him being alive when he should've been dead. Such as the one he was faced with now. He had been banking on Nguyen and maybe a few other Outbound Flight agents showing up on Morishim. He would've killed Nguyen at that cafe and had been done with it. But he had planned for Nguyen having cold feet. That was what the Rodian was for. The alien came highly-recommended, and commanded a very high price. Khirennis had planned to keep an eye on the apartment where he killed the last three Outbound Flight agents. If any more of them, who were not Phong Nguyen, had shown up, he would kill them . . . and eventually Nguyen would've been forced to come. The circumstances now were very much outside of what even Saevir had planned for. Like the half-Romulan woman that was with Nguyen. And yet . . . even then, Saevir's planning had come in handy. The last hunt of his life was just beginning. Saevir would have his answers, and he would kill Phong Nguyen. Chapter Six: Shadows of Twilight. "You did what!" Chakotay said incredulously. Standing across from him was Harry Kim . . . who looked just a little sheepish. "I discussed transporter technology with the Imperials, Chakotay," he replied quickly. Chakotay narrowed his brows. "Of all the technologies, why transporter technology?" "Sir, it is the only way we could get our plan to work. We've done this sort of thing before, back on Voyager," Harry started as Chakotay cut him off. "These aren't the Hirogen, Harry. They aren't even the Borg! These are Imperials. I saw them destroy a Romulan warbird in less than three shots! We have to be careful with what we say to them." "That's my point, Chakotay," Harry snapped in reply. "It's better they found out about this now, rather than later." "When we don't know all that they're capable of?" Chakotay said, raising his voice a little. "Yes!" Harry said. "Better to put them at ease now while we're still at arms-length." Chakotay slumped in his chair a little, a thoughtful look on his face. "Perhaps you're right, Harry. But I want to be consulted before you ever try something like that again. We need to at least put on the appearance of a strong, united front." At length, Harry nodded. "Aye sir." Chakotay sighed. "How did they take it?" "I think they took it fairly well. They didn't seem to like the idea of 'killing people for the purpose of sending them somewhere else.'" Chakotay nodded. "There are some on Earth who would understand that sentiment, Harry. Will this really help us?" "I'm sure of it, sir," Harry replied quickly. "If we use transporters, we can transport one of those devices aboard and get it into a stasis field before it can do anything." "Alright," Chakotay said pensively. "But we use one of our shuttles for this operation." "I'll try to float that idea with our pilot . . . but I can't guarantee he'll go along with it," Harry replied, sighing. Commander Sullas Skyfighter watched as Chakotay and Harry talked. No matter who was using it now, the ship they were currently on was first, and foremost an Imperial ship. As a result, it had been easy to install listening devices everywhere aboard the ship. Too easy, in fact . . . none of those Federation types had even noticed. Not that Skyfighter was surprised. Even the New Republic had yet to clear out *all* the listening devices Imperial agents had left over the years. But still, it made his job a lot easier. All the upper brass of the Empire, from Pellaeon down, were interested in learning more about those enigmatic Federation humans . . . using any means necessary. "Commander," a familiar voice said behind him. Sullas quickly turned around to face Captain Joors. "Yes sir?" "Observing our new allies, are you?" Raytheon asked with a smirk. "As ordered, sir," Sullas replied. "What are they saying?" "Apparently sir, their chief representative isn't too happy that they had to reveal the existence of their teleportation technology to us so early," Sullas replied quickly. Excellent memory, paired with the ability to make quick and concise summaries were desirable characteristics in a communications and intelligence officer. "Understandable, I suppose. They're in a position of extreme disadvantage, technologically, at least," Raytheon mused, leaning closer to watch the console. "Were I them, I'd be very careful about what I'd say and not say. There are still a few in the Empire who long for the old glory days of Palpatine. And from what I've seen, the Federation would give them the perfect opportunity to live out those dreams." "Just don't tell them that, sir," Sullas said after a moment. "I don't want to have to replace our listening devices." Raytheon smiled. "Of course not, Commander. That's not why I'm here though." "Sir?" Sullas said neutrally. "I have a task that is uniquely suited to your talents and training, Commander." Sullas regarded Raytheon with a frosty smile. "Doctoring records is treason, sir," he said. "I am well aware of that," Raytheon replied calmly. "That is why I am enlisting your assistance." "Sir?" Sullas said, a puzzled look finding it's way to his face. "Somebody has been tampering with the security records of the /Kordoza./" Raytheon said quietly. "Impossible sir! We're too far out in the backwaters for the Republic or anybody else to even *care* about what goes on aboard the /Kordoza./" "Not impossible, Commander," Raytheon reprimanded. "I have reason to believe that it was an inside job. I want you to find out who it is." "An inside job, you say?" Sullas said. "You realize this narrows down the list of suspects substantially. A list that would include you, Kynes, and myself." "I am aware of that, Commander. Graduating from the Imperial Academy has given me more than officer's bars you know," Raytheon said, a dark look on his face. "Strange things are going on, Commander. I don't like it. If you're not willing to help, I will understand." Sullas sat thoughtfully. "Very well sir, I'll see what I can do." Raytheon nodded in response. "Very good, Commander. Keep me posted. If we do discover a traitor in our midst, I will not stand by and permit them to run rampant." Lieutenant Kaz Shimazaki, pilot for the Imperial Navy, looked at the boxy Federation shuttle with something resembling acute distaste. Commander Kim and the other Federation types had convinced him to go *back* to the system with the stasis traps. They had even convinced him to trust their teleportation technology . . . especially after repeated assurances they weren't going to use it on any people. Now they were trying to convince him to use one of their shuttles while doing it. Needless to say, he wasn't terribly impressed. Nothing about the shuttle shouted "performance" at him. Not to mention he distinctly remembered running one down with a big, sluggish, Imperial assault transport. Of course, to be perfectly fair, that was only because a wing of TIE fighters had kept it busy enough to let Kaz catch up, so he had yet to see one of them hit maximum acceleration. Of course, then again, Kaz had almost lost a very expensive Avenger trying to outrun the stasis devices. "Lieutenant!" He heard a familiar voice say. He quickly looked over, seeing Commander Kim emerge from the shuttle. "Good day sir," Kaz replied, briefly coming to attention. Old habits die hard, and Harry Kim outranked him. "I see this is a larger vessel than the one we originally brought aboard the /Kordoza./" "Yes," Harry replied, briefly falling silent. "What you brought in was a standard short-range shuttle. This one is equipped with a small warp drive." "Warp drive?" Kaz replied, narrowing his eyes. "That's right," Harry said. "We need the extra power for the transporter and the stasis rig we plan to set up. I'd rather have a runabout or even the /Delta Flyer/ here, but this is what we've got." Kaz nodded sympathetically, after all, he would've preferred Imperial equipment on this operation. "Let's see how you fly this thing." "Fair enough. If you will just follow me," Harry said, motioning toward the shuttle's open hatch. Kaz followed Harry into the shuttle, taking a few moments to look around. Upon his first glance, he mentally snorted. It was just as bad as he remembered. Federation shuttles, like every other Federation vessel he'd been aboard to date, had wall-to-wall carpeting. It had to have been at least a major pain to clean up after any serious work. "And here is the cockpit," he heard Harry say. Immediately he looked down. And, much to his horror, looking back up at him was a set of consoles. And worse, they were *Federation* consoles! "You call this a cockpit!" Kaz blurted out. Moff Disra glared at Major Tierce. In spite of the other's confidence, things had yet to materialize in the way Disra had hoped. There was no indication that *anybody* had so much as looked in the /Kordoza's/ direction. And there was still the little problem of Admiral Nguyen. He was still missing. And worse, he had very good cover. The Imperial Intelligence office had done an excellent job of stonewalling Disra and his people. As far as Imperial Intelligence was concerned, Admiral Nguyen was firmly ensconced in his office, protecting the Empire from the scum of the galaxy. And, furthermore, Disra really shouldn't be disturbing him unless he had something useful to bring to the Admiral's attention. "Sir," Tierce said, interrupting Disra's train of thought. As soon as he was sure he had Disra's attention, he pressed forward. "There are greater concerns in this galaxy than Admiral Phong Nguyen. For instance, the Rebels have gained a dangerous reprieve while our attentions have been focused on Nguyen. If our plans have any hope of succeeding, the Republic must be kept under continuous pressure!" "And what if Nguyen turns out to be working for them, Major?" Disra snapped. "What of our plans then?" "I warn you sir," Tierce said with exaggerated patience. "Do not let your paranoia get the best of you. If Admiral Nguyen makes you feel that uncomfortable, then we should not waste time waiting for him to act. We should be the ones to force him into action." "But Flim said," Disra started to say as Tierce cut him off. "Remember what Flim is, sir," Tierce replied mildly. "This isn't some dark alley on Nal Shadda. We can't afford to wait for Nguyen to act. If, indeed he is a threat, then he must be dealt with *now*!" "But how?" Disra said, struggling to control his patience. "I've been stonewalled for the best part of a week by his goons in Intelligence." "Remember, sir, that this isn't the old Empire. Unlike those days, Imperial Intelligence is no longer free to shoot dissenters in job lots. The Moffs wield quite a bit of power now. Perhaps it's time that you use it." "What do you think I have been doing, Major? Sitting here with my thumbs jammed up the seat of my trousers?" "What you have been doing is exactly what they want you to do. Accepting their excuses and meekly acquiescing when they warn you off," Tierce replied darkly, his patience starting to wear thin. "Admiral Nguyen's absence is a legitimate matter of Imperial security. He is the one of our highest ranking officers after Pellaeon. Sufficient noise from the Moffs as a whole will have Intelligence scrambling to produce him." "But how do I convince the other Moffs to do this 'clamoring,' without giving us away?" Disra asked in consternation. "Sir," Tierce said, almost sighing, "politics is your field of expertise. Thus, it is your responsibility to get the other Moffs on the case. I will figure out how to deal with Nguyen when he does turn up." Admiral Phong Nguyen had other things to deal with. For example, the band of lowlifes that had gotten the jump on him and Thelea as they were investigating another Outbound Flight drop-box. From his initial survey, he found he was facing a pair of Rodians, three Humans and some sort of sentient he'd never seen before. And they were all armed with vibroblades, which explained their current set of mob tactics. The look of desperation in their eyes probably had something to do with it as well. "Okay you two, against the wall!" One of the humans, a portly individual with more than a few days of stubble said. His voice was almost level. "Yeah, against the wall and nobody gets hurt," one of the others said, waving his knife in what he apparently thought was a threatening fashion. "And why should we do this?" Phong replied calmly. "Afraid we can somehow hurt you when we're clearly unarmed?" "Shut up!" The third human growled. He turned to the first man. "I told ya we should've just knifed 'em and robbed 'em!" "Look at both of 'em. Nice clothes on 'em. Especially the lady," the first man said, eyeing Thelea. "They've got accounts, trust me." "Is it worth it though," Phong said casually, shooting a mental warning to Thelea. "By now, even an imbecile would've memorized your faces. If you were going to rob us, you should've at least rendered us unconscious." "You've got some mouth on you, old man," the first man said. "Now, up against the wall before my men do something rash!" "I think not," Phong replied calmly. "You've already botched this so-called robbery attempt so very badly. Your only logical option is to kill us. And it's much easier to do that when we're up against a wall, isn't it?" The first man gritted his teeth. "Oh yeah," he said, the airy attitude leaving his voice. "You wanna die? We're happy to oblige," he snarled as he and his goons advanced on Phong and Thelea. Yet Phong didn't hear what he said. He was already reaching out, pushing his way into the mind of one of the humans. Forcing his way through the other's mental storm, Phong quickly found what he was looking for. With a jerk, the human furthest away from Phong and Thelea halted his advance. With all the grace of a poorly controlled puppet, he swung backwards, his vibroblade catching one of the Rodians in the chest. The blade effortlessly parted skin, tissue, and bone. The Rodian went down with a scream, blood jetting from his chest. The man next jerked his knife in the direction of the other alien. Had the alien been laid out on a more traditional body plan, the blow would've been instantly fatal, as the alien would've found itself without a head. As it was, the blow was merely fatal. Not, however, fatal enough to affect the fate of the man. The alien replied with a lightning-quick slash of it's own, gutting the man from sternum to groin. Phong grunted in pain as the man dropped wordlessly to the ground, intestines bursting from his wound. As it turned out, the second Rodian had a blaster, which he fought to clear from it's holster. As the Rodian brought it up to fire, Phong gained control of the second man. With a wet-sounding splat, the second man caught the blaster bolt meant for Phong square in the back of the head. Then, the Rodian decided he didn't quite understand what was going on. Enlightened self-preservation carried the day, and the Rodian quickly vanished into the alley. However, Phong was still shaking off the effect of having his second victim die before he was ready. And by then, the leader was upon them. Phong struggled to find a way past the man's rage, but he was still reeling. He wasn't going to make it, he reflected grimly. Suddenly, Phong felt a burst of anger and indignation. Except it wasn't his, or the man he was fighting. It was Thelea's. Phong also heard a scream of agony. And, much to his astonishment, it wasn't his own. The surviving thug screamed again, dropping to his knees. His free hand clutched at the top of his head. He barely maintained a grip on his vibroblade in his other hand. However, it was completely forgotten as the man struggled to fight back the agony that clawed at the inside of his skull. "Enough!" He heard a voice say. "We need him alive!" "Yes, alive, alive, alive," the thug whimpered as a fresh wave of agony clawed at the inside of his skull. The man clutched harder at the top of his head, fingernails digging into his scalp, drawing blood. And then, as suddenly as the pain had begun, it stopped. The thug began sobbing quietly, even as Phong pulled the blade from his nerveless hand. Phong took a moment to glance at Thelea in astonishment. Somehow, she'd broken through his carefully crafted telepathic block. And worse, she had managed to reduce the man kneeling in front of him to a heaving, sobbing wreck. And yet, she had stopped when he ordered her to. But this brought a whole new variable into play. Quickly, he shook his head. That wasn't the main concern. What should've been Phong's main concern was working rather intently at getting into a position where he could comfortably contemplate his own navel. Phong knelt beside the man, pressing the inert vibroblade against his throat. "Now tell me, who are you working for?" Phong asked quietly. When the man didn't initially respond, he pressed the tip of the knife forward, breaking skin. "I . . . I . . . don't work for nobody . . ." the man replied, jolted to his senses. "You lie," Phong said. He sent a telepathic dagger of his own into the man's mind. However, he had control where Thelea had power. The man whimpered slightly as his perception of the knife to his neck increased sharply. "Now let's try this again. Who are you working for? I've seen better robbery attempts in holodramas." "Th . . . th . . . the . . . the Rodian . . ." the man whimpered in reply. "What does the 'Rodian' want with us?" "T . . . to . . . to . . . w . . . warn you off this pl . . .planet, Imperial," the man replied, finding his voice. "Interesting. I believe he has us confused for someone else," Phong replied dangerously. "Well, you've failed, I'm afraid to say." "Never mind that, what are you freaks!" The man said, his voice now almost a hysterical shriek. "Are you referring to the fact that we defeated your party of miscreants without neither blasters, knives . . . or lightsabres?" "Y . . .y . . . yes!" The man replied quickly. Even he knew that Jedi never did this sort of thing. "Well, I'm afraid you're simply mistaken," Phong said levelly. "I am?" The man replied, suddenly calm. "Yes. If you weren't so busy whimpering from a fetal position, you would notice the dark man behind you with his intestines spilled all over the permacrete." "Forsyth?" The man said. It was more of a statement than a question. "Yes, him. You see, Mister Forsyth turned on you. He decided that it would be richer if he killed you all after you had robbed us." "Yes," the man replied, starting to recall the events as Phong told them. "Except he jumped the gun. He attacked too soon. Your quarry got away." "Yes, that bastard!" The man snarled. "He almost got you too. But you stopped him," Phong continued to speak. "Served the little kriffer right too," the man agreed angrily. "Yet," Phong said, raising the knife. "He did manage to tag you," he said, plunging the knife into the man's shoulder. "Which is why you're currently on the ground," he finished as the man screamed, grabbing at the knife. By now, he had completely forgotten about Phong. Even through his pain, he was glad that he'd gotten to Forsyth before Forsyth had gotten him. But that was no concern of Phong's. He stood up, gazing levelly at Thelea. She looked back at him, a new confidence in her eyes. He tasted her conflicting emotions. She knew she had a chance to nail Phong, but yet, she knew that she still needed him. If he died, she would have no clue where she was. She'd be right back to square one. "You just saw what I did to that man, didn't you, Commander," Phong said coldly. "Yes, yes I did. I trust you also saw what *I* did to him?" Thelea replied with a confident smirk. "Yes I did," Phong said, his voice icy. He narrowed his eyes, forcing his way past her mental barriers. He quickly pushed all the way to the very core of her being. Thelea gasped, staggering back under Phong's assault. "However, know this. You still have much to learn before you could ever hope to threaten me. You live at my sufferance, Commander. Do not forget that," he said, letting up on the pressure. Instinctively, Thelea's hand went to her temple. "Now, come along," Phong said. "We must leave before the local authorities show up, and before our friend here notices our presence again. I think you will agree, things keep getting more, and more interesting on this planet." "So he told them about transporters huh?" Commander Serena Durst said to Ambassador Chakotay. Chakotay nodded gravely. "That's right, Serena." Serena showed Chakotay a small smile. "Then why so dour, Chakotay? I say, it was bound to happen eventually. After all, we tend to take them for granted." "It would've been a nice trick up our sleeves if our relationship with the Imperials soured. Something to keep them on their toes. As it is, we have nothing that can stand toe-to-toe with even their lightest front-line units," Chakotay replied tersely. Serena clucked, placing her hand atop Chakotay's. "And it's your job to make sure that doesn't happen? Feeling inadequate," she asked, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. Chakotay cracked a smile. "It's not that. They've provided me with a bit of their history." "They have?" "That's right," Chakotay said, nodding slowly. "And I don't like what I've read one bit. These are hard people, Serena. They're experienced at war and they're not afraid of it's ugliness. Even when I fought for the Maquis, we didn't do half the things that people in this galaxy have done. They routinely do what hasn't been done on Earth in over three centuries." "What are you saying, Chakotay?" Serena asked quietly. "I'm saying that we might not be ready for this sort of contact yet." Serena laughed softly. "This coming from the man who heroically fought off bad guys from the 29th century? The man who took a no-nonsense stance with the Borg in the middle of Borg space?" "More reason you should listen to me when I tell you these things, Serena," Chakotay said warmly. "The longer I sit here in a Starfleet uniform, the more I start to believe they may have actually gotten some things right. Like the Prime Directive." "Except, in this case, we're playing the part of the hapless primitives?" Serena asked, her tone still light. "That's right," Chakotay replied. "I don't think our galaxy, as a whole, is ready for even the Empire. Imagine what would've happened if the Borg, or the Dominion, or even the Romulans encountered the Imperials first?" "It is a sobering thought," Serena agreed. She'd seen the /Enterprise/ logs. She'd seen the Romulan warbird /Strife/ cut to pieces. And she knew what Chakotay was alluding to. Had anybody more aggressive found the Empire first, undoubtedly they would've come back through the Artifact and into the Milky Way . . . and nothing would've stood in their way. For a moment, it was quiet. Serena looked to Chakotay, only to notice that he was looking back it her. She smiled, and much to her pleasure, he smiled back, his smile just as warm as hers. "Bridge to Ambassador Chakotay," a tinny voice said over the comm. Serena sighed softly as Chakotay reached over to activate his own communicator. "Chakotay here. I thought I specifically asked not to be disturbed," he said, briefly winking at Serena. "I'm aware of that, sir," the man on the other end replied. His accent and tone identified him as an Imperial officer. "However, your Starfleet comms officer passed along something to me that he thought you would find 'of the utmost importance,'" "Oh?" Chakotay responded quickly. "Yes sir. Apparently your Starfleet Command has promoted one Kathryn Janeway to Admiral. And, furthermore, she will be touring the Starfleet installation on your side of the hypergate." Chakotay seemed to pale. "How long ago was the dispatch sent?" "Approximately forty-eight hours ago, if I recall correctly." "Did they say when Admiral Janeway would be leaving Earth?" "No sir, I'm afraid they didn't. However, they did say she would arrive in approximately one week." "Thank you for letting me know," Chakotay said, reaching over to shut off the comm. Serena smiled nervously. "So, I finally get to meet the legendary officer you spent the last seven years with?" "Yes, Serena. Admiral Janeway is coming here," Chakotay said, his tone terse. "And with her, hopefully the answer to a question that has been bothering me for quite some time." Serena nodded, understanding perfectly. She understood all to well what Chakotay was alluding to. A woman she personally saw as an anchor that was holding Chakotay back, keeping him mired in the past. A woman who was once known as Annika Hansen. A woman better known as Seven of Nine. Chapter Seven: Machinations. Moff Disra did his level best not to glare at the petite secretary with the vacuous smile. The day before, he had asked to speak to Moff Vered. The other man agreed to see him, and assured him that today was a good day to find him. Yet, when Disra had entered Vered's office, he encountered the little slip of a woman that Vered called a secretary. When he demanded to know where the other man was, the secretary just smiled that disgustingly pretty smile, and proceeded to stonewall him. "You told me that Raas Vered would be available to speak to me in thirty minutes," Disra said cooly. "Unfortunately, that was over forty-five minutes ago," he continued, his tone growing steadily colder. "I'm sorry sir," the secretary replied, running a hand through her short blonde hair. "As I have told you before, Moff Vered had an emergency meeting with the agriculture ministers of the Sauran System. There was no way he could avoid it. Now please, won't you try some tea?" She asked, her expression hopeful. "No thank you," Disra replied with a sigh. Raas Vered was a pragmatic man, but also firmly in Pellaeon's camp. He was also intensely curious about the Federation and it's people. Whether the new allies of the Empire knew it or not, they walked a very fine line. It was only the curiosity of men like Vered and the basic cowardice of Pellaeon that kept the Empire's more reactionary elements from leading that fattened nerf that was the UFP to the slaughter. Disra didn't much care for the Federation. To him, they were a curiosity that was drawing resources away from what should've been the Empire's principle concern, which was, of course, the New Republic. And it was clear, to him, at least, they were mostly useless. Well, not totally useless. After all, had they arrived on this side of the hypergate, Admiral Nguyen would never have so dangerously over-exposed himself. Which was the reason Disra was allowing himself to be lead in circles by Vered's private secretary. Currently, the attention of the Imperial military and intelligence machines were focused on Vered's sector. As a result, anything that the Starfleet, or Imperial Intelligence did, was officially Vered's concern. As a result, any attempt to bring the wayward Director of Imperial Intelligence to heel had to have Vered's support. And in order to gain his support, Disra had to be on friendly terms with the man. And, it seemed, Vered seemed determined to make that as difficult as possible. Disra wondered if the man took some perverse pleasure in irritating him. He quickly narrowed his eyes at the thought, glaring at Vered's secretary. She merely smiled sweetly in reply, looking so stupidly innocent. That only irritated Disra further, who sank into his chair. As he prepared to gaze at some random spot on the ceiling, he noticed the secretary suddenly perk up, her attention focusing on a point on her desk. She nodded curtly several times, then looked up at Disra and smiled sweetly at him again. "Sir, Moff Vered says he can see you now." Disra instantly sat up. "Right now? Well, it's about time!" The secretary politely ignored Disra's tone. "Shall I show you in, sir?" "No," Disra replied, shaking his head firmly. "I know the way," he added, stalking off to Vered's office. The secretary nodded silently, watching him go. Then, she made a disgusted face. Yet, she took immense satisfaction in the reaction she envisioned that Disra would have if he knew just how much of his thoughts were open to her. For when she was just twelve years old, Meg Gdansik was discovered by a team sent by Raas Vered. Their aim was to uncover as many Force-sensitive children living in the Imperial Remnant as possible. Their primary goal was to seek out potential Jedi spies from the New Republic, and to prevent new recruits from swelling their ranks. Their secondary goal was to deliver them to Raas Vered, for he had plans of his own for them. It was common knowledge that the New Order aggressively stomped out all signs of the old Jedi Order. However, it was not common knowledge that, for reasons known only to him, the late Emperor maintained some of the old records, squirreled away deep in Imperial archives scattered around the galaxy. And in the chaos that followed Endor, Vered got his hands on some of those records. Without any living Jedi to properly interpret them, he couldn't train any actual Jedi with them. But he did use them to enhance the potential of the Force- sensitives he'd picked up . . . like Meg Gdansik. She smirked as she reached over to touch the com-panel on her desk. Disra had a lot on his mind, and she was almost certain that Raas Vered would very much like to hear all about it. With a deft movement, she stabbed a button on the com-panel. "Sir, Moff Disra is on his way to see you," she said quietly. "Thank you for stalling him Meg. See you after he leaves," Vered replied, closing the channel. Disra quickly stepped into Raas Vered's office, his face a mask of polite geniality. Long ago, he had learned that it didn't do his career as a politician any good if he let his opponents know what he was thinking. Especially if he was infuriated, which he was very close to being, thanks to Vered's insufferable secretary. "Good morning Jehud," Raas Vered said, his face expressive and friendly. Disra moved quickly to shake the other man's hand. "Likewise, Raas," he replied, nodding. "I understand you've been quite busy lately. I'm pleased you could find the time for me." "And I am equally pleased you could find the time for me," Vered replied with a grin. "Eight men ruling a thousand worlds, it's astonishing we have any time at all, eh?" "True enough," Disra replied wryly, his politely friendly expression still glued to his face, biting back the temptation to point out that the Moffs weren't really *that* busy. "Anyway, Jehud, you've got my attention now," Vered said, indicating that Disra should take a seat. "What's on your mind?" "Many things," Disra replied. "But there's only one that is of direct concern to the future of the Empire." "The Federation?" Vered said helpfully. "Not at all. They're nothing more then perhaps an odd little curiosity," Disra replied dismissively. "I am talking about our mysteriously absent Director of Imperial Intelligence." "Admiral Phong Nguyen," Vered replied after a moment, after seeming to put some effort in trying to recall the name. "That's right." "If I recall correctly, Jehud, Imperial Intelligence is a very busy organization these days. I wouldn't be surprised if Admiral Nguyen has a lot of fires he has to put out," Vered said, his tone cooling. "But at what expense?" Disra asked, deciding he'd danced around long enough. Vered narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?" "I have very good reason to suspect that Admiral Nguyen is no longer acting in the best interests of the Empire," Disra replied, deciding to abandon caution. He needed Vered on his side, or, failing that, he needed to know exactly where the other Moff stood. Vered's expression became one of mild surprise. "The man who's job it is to protect the Empire above all else?" "The same," Disra replied gravely. "This is a serious charge you make," the other Moff said. "Do you have any sort of proof?" "I have some, but not enough to openly go forward," Disra replied, a suddenly intense look in his eyes. Vered nodded very slightly. "This is where I would come in." "That's right. Admiral Nguyen has been up to no good, and he's been up to no good in your sector. If there's anyone who can find out what he's been up to, it's you." Vered pressed his fingertips together, leaning back in his chair. "Ahhh, but wouldn't Pellaeon be the better man to handle this?" A look of disgust crossed Disra's face. "I wouldn't trust the man with anything having to do with the security of the Empire. The man is a coward. He can't see that the New Republic is rotting at the seams. He's only interested in selling us out, he's of no use to us." Vered seemed to be taken back by Disra's sudden vehemence. "It seems like you're pushing in two directions at once, Jehud. You seem just as concerned about Admiral Pellaeon as you do about Admiral Nguyen." "Perhaps I am," Disra replied, distracted. "Right now, Admiral Phong Nguyen scares me. Pellaeon I can deal with. He's a coward, plain-and-simple. His motivations are as clear as space. But Nguyen, on the other hand. I don't know his motivations. And that's what makes him incredibly dangerous to the Empire." Vered nodded slowly. "I'm not going to say I believe you," he started. Then he narrowed his eyes again. "However, I will conduct my own investigation." Disra nodded, suppressing the urge to smile. "It's all I can ask you to do." Vered nodded again. "And if I find anything of interest, we will meet again." "That sounds good," Disra replied, standing quickly. "I will daresay that this meeting turned out better than I had hoped. But I am aware that we have our responsibilities that we must attend to." "Thank you, Jehud," Vered said, taking the other man's hand. "I'll be in touch. Raas Vered watched Disra go. For several minutes, he stood, watching the door. Then, sitting back down again, he grinned as Meg stepped into his office. "How did it go?" She asked quickly. "It went very well. You were right, the man has a lot on his mind. Did you find anything of interest while we were stalling him earlier?" "Yes," Meg replied. "The thoughts that flash across the surface of his mind were very clear. He's very determined about resolving this mess with Admiral Nguyen. Yet, at the same time, he's got other plans he's focused on." "Other plans?" Vered said, raising an eyebrow. "Yes. I'm fairly sure he's got his fingers in places they don't belong." Vered nodded. "That doesn't surprise me in the slightest. For example, it's his sector that's responsible for the new Preybird fighters we've been getting as of late. And yet, to the best of my knowledge, he's never quite told anybody where they come from." "Ahhh," Meg said, knowing that Vered had more to say. "That man has his sights lined up on something, Meg. I can feel it," Vered said, worriedly. Meg nodded. "Yes. Before, it was firmly on Pellaeon. But something caused it to shift to Admiral Nguyen. But, the question I should be asking is what will you do now?" "I think we have enough information that Gilead will be very interested in hearing what we have to say." Meg nodded, not surprised. Vered never told her to suppress her abilities around him. He was just as easy to read as Disra had been. "And Admiral Nguyen?" "Jehud Disra is a man with a mix of determination and cowardice. Mind you, he epitomizes the worst in every politician who has ever lived, but set him on something, and he won't back off unless he finds something to scare him, or possibly threaten him. I'll look into what the Director of Imperial Intelligence has been up to, if only to satisfy my own curiosity. And perhaps we'll find something *else* that Gilead will be interested in." Meg smiled faintly. "And what have you told him about the Federation?" Vered looked grim once more. "I mentioned it only casually. And, like most of the others, he dismissed the Federation very quickly." "Isn't that what you want?" Vered nodded. "For the moment, Meg. I'll admit, I'm no fan of the New Republic, and I'm just as convinced as the other Moffs that the whole corrupt affair will come crashing down. It was the sort of thing we'd worked so hard to prevent under the New Order." Meg's expression turned cold. "Do the excesses of the Emperor count to that 'hard work'?" she asked. Both she and Vered knew that if she had been born perhaps ten or fifteen years earlier, she would've likely ended life at the business end of an E-11. "The Emperor was a man who dealt only in full measures. And since the man is safely dead, I will admit that those measures were excessive and counterproductive. But, the order and stability his Empire brought to the galaxy are inarguable," Vered replied firmly. Meg nodded quickly, only too willing to put the topic behind them. "So you told him nothing?" "That's right," Vered said, leaning back in his chair again. "I don't like getting into the habit of agreeing with Disra too often. But the New Republic is about as stable as a tank of Tibanna gas roasting on an open fire. But I don't believe in flushing the baby down the refresher. But any scheme the man has managed to hatch would only serve to draw their attention to the Empire, and we can't afford any more attention." "Which is why we're backing Pellaeon instead of Moff Disra," Meg replied. "Yes. I'd be quite happy with the sector I have now," Vered said with a sigh. "Or I would've been, had the Federation not come along." Meg nodded with understanding. "But now, things are different." "Indeed they are," Vered replied, looking up for a moment. Finally he turned his attention back to Meg. "Contact Gilead's people. It's time he heard what we have to say." Disra had problems of his own. The moment he stepped out of Vered's offices, he noticed that Major Tierce was very quickly at his side. "Could I have a word with you sir," the other man said politely. As Disra was about to reprimand Tierce, he happened to look into the other man's eyes. And the look he saw implied that Tierce was not actually requesting that Disra speak to him. It implied that incredibly nasty things would happen to Disra if he didn't. "Very well," Disra replied, his voice projecting a calm he didn't quite feel. "Thank you, Your Excellency," Tierce said affably as he steered them into a busy walkway. "Have you abandoned all common sense?" He began harsly. Disra was shocked by the other man's tone. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about." "You know exactly what I'm talking about. You went directly to Vered. I told you that I was more than capable of digging up any information you needed to know about Admiral Nguyen." Disra's face contorted in righteous indignation. "Things work very differently in the world of politics, Major. As much as it galls us sometimes, we have to ask favors of others." "And what did you gain, sir?" Came the sharp reply. "Moff Vered assures me he will investigate the matter. I don't believe him, but he won't be able to claim innocence in the matter anymore." "And what about you, Your Excellency? You're taking needless risks for no obvious gains." Disra struggled to control his voice. "Major, I was under the distinct impression that you would leave the politics to me, and I would leave the military side to you. Don't presume to tell me how to do my job." Tierce replied with a withering look that let Disra know who really held all the cards. "It becomes my concern when your job overlaps with the military side of things. And while we are discussing the subject, you are aware that we are letting the opportunity to strike the New Republic from the face of the galaxy slip through our fingers while you pursue your personal vendetta against Admiral Nguyen?" "What good would that victory be if we had a potential traitor like Admiral Nguyen running around? Tell me that Major?" Disra snapped, starting to lose control. "I have a plan to take care of Nguyen, Your Excellency," Tierce replied. "It is time we brought out Flim again, since we are currently not utilizing him the way we had originally planned." Disra laughed sharply. "And you accuse me of abandoning caution to the wind? You propose to bring Flim out in the middle of the Empire in some grandiose showdown with Admiral Nguyen!" "In case you have forgotten, Your Excellency, we were going to introduce him to certain select members of the Imperial Starfleet." "Yes, but you claimed that would be under easily controlled circumstances." "I did say that," Tierce conceded. "At the same time, you should know that no plan survives the first five minutes of implementation. If you want to bring Admiral Nguyen, then Flim is the man for the job. We will also secure our own position in the Empire." Disra nodded mutely, suddenly feeling like he wasn't as much in control of the situation as he'd once thought. "What would you have me do then?" He asked. "You keep working the politics side, Your Excellency. And if you can keep your politics out of the tactical side, then I assure you it will all come together."