Before long, the only way to tell the groups of armored jellies apart visually was by their behavior—whether they fired or not, whether they defended or menaced the injured, unarmored member. “Is their armor protecting them?” Riker asked as he studied the one-sided battle.

“Only some,” Jaza said. “In fact, the armor’s composition seems to be in flux…like they’re improving their defense against the plasma stings as they go.” A pause. “But the Pa’haquel are adjusting the stings to compensate, upping their intensity.” And they clearly knew the most vulnerable points to strike—apparently along the meridional seams in the armor. Riker and the crew watched helplessly as several hunter ships focused their blasts along a single seam in one jelly’s armor until it split, spilling a roseate cloud of plasma.

Deanna and Chamish both gasped at that moment, and Deanna sagged against him. “Dead?” Riker asked with sympathy.

“Yes. I’m…doing my best to block out the pain…but there are hundreds of jellies in the system, and they wantme to share in it. They want us to do something, to tell them what we know so they can see these attacks coming and get away in time. They don’t understand why we won’t help them. They’re begging us, Will.” Her voice was rough despite her best efforts to block out the emotional onslaught.

But Riker realized something, and turned to Chamish. “Lieutenant, you feel it too?”

The Kazarite widened his dark eyes, and spoke in a gentle voice that belied his somewhat feral, simian appearance. “Yes, sir. Perhaps the inhibitor is less effective on my species.”

“Or maybe it just isn’t strong enough.” He turned to Vale. “Commander, contact all the telepaths on board, find out if they’re being affected too.”

“I’ve already gotten calls from Savalek and Orilly, confirming it. Sickbay reports T’Pel is reacting too.”

“How bad is it?” Riker asked Chamish.

“Not severe yet…but they are pressing… aah!”On the viewer, another jelly’s armor shell cracked open. With the defense formation scattered, enough shots got through to finish the defenseless jelly as well. “Please, Captain…they want me to… Iwant to help them…I advise you to relieve me of duty, sir.”

Riker turned to the security station. “Mr. Keru, I want escorts on all psi-sensitive crew members. I don’t want any of them getting access to that warp-signature data.”

“Aye, sir. Does that include Commander Troi?”

Riker exchanged a look with her. “I think it should,” Deanna said, “just in case.”

“All right. Commander, Mr. Chamish,” Keru went on, “I’d like to ask you to leave the bridge, please. You’ll be met when you leave the turbolift and escorted to your quarters.”

“Of course, sir. Thank you.” The soft-spoken ecologist turned to Riker. “But please, Captain, if there is a way you can help them…”

Riker nodded at him reassuringly, and the Kazarite smiled and meekly left the bridge, Deanna just behind him. Not that I have the slightest idea how to stop this massacre,Riker admitted to himself. “Rager, try hailing again. Damm it, isn’t three enough?” The attack showed no sign of stopping.

Jaza’s voice was subdued. “The injured one, the unarmored one…it seems it was hit too many times. It lost too much structural integrity…I guess it’s past salvaging.”

“Sir!” Keru spoke with some alarm. Riker looked up sharply.

“What is it?”

“Security reports…they can’t find Mr. Tuvok, sir.”

Tuvok had to make the anguish stop. Nothing else mattered.

No—he knew that other things still mattered. He knew that what he was about to do was unethical and immoral, that it violated his duty as an officer and his principles as a Vulcan, and would probably end his Starfleet career. He just didn’t care. The pain, the grief—feeling the jellies die, feeling the agony of losing a loved one multiplied a thousand times over—it was too much to control, too much to wantto control. The sheer need to feel it, to act on it, overrode everything else. If it were T’Pel, if it were his children dying out there, would not even a Vulcan throw discipline to the winds before seeing them slaughtered? And right now, as far as he was concerned, it washis family dying out there. He felt it as they felt it. He loved them, and had to give them what they needed to save themselves.

And yet even now, even in the throes of uncontrollable emotion, somehow he retained his intellect, his cunning. Vulcan philosophy taught that emotion clouded the judgment, left one in a fog of animal impulses. Yet now his perceptions, his decisions seemed clearer than they had ever been in his life. The confusion came from fighting against emotion—and right now he had no wish to fight it. So there was no doubt, no ambiguity. He knew exactly what he needed to do, and was preternaturally alert to anything that could stand in his way. He remembered every detail of Titan’s Jefferies-tube network, of the patterns of its security forces. He recalled exactly how to reprogram a tricorder to mask his life signs from the sensors. He knew it all because he hadto know it. Far from hampering him, the passion inspired him, guided him.

It had been this way before, he knew. In the prison on Romulus. Seven weeks of torture, starvation, and degradation. Feigning death to escape, a healing trance. Awakened in time to hear the guard preparing to scan him, risking exposure. There had been only one option left to him by his circumstances, his need to survive, his sheer rage. He had chosen, then as now, to set everything else aside, to save his shame and disgust for later and do what he had to do. He had killed four Romulans and mortally wounded another, forced himself into the fifth man’s mind before he died. He had abandoned Surak, given into rage and hate and killing, and he had chosen not to care until afterward.

But he couldn’t think about that now. He couldn’t care about that now. He was here—the science department. Someone here would have the access codes to the warp-signature data. His were blocked. He had tried a backdoor access already, but wasn’t familiar enough with these computers, with the cybersecurity protocols which Commander Jaza had devised based on principles from the Bajoran underground. He had recognized similarities to Maquis protocols, could have cracked the codes in time, but he had no such time. He needed viable codes now.And he needed an authorized voice to speak them.

The main, general-use lab space was cluttered as such spaces tended to be, full of components and consoles and tables that got shoved around at the whims of whatever inspirations struck the scientists who shared it. This was deficient from a security standpoint, since the Jefferies-tube access panel was hidden from ready view.

Tuvok slipped out through the panel soundlessly and peered around the portable holotank that someone had placed in the middle of the floor. Few were present in the common lab right now; that was fortunate. One was a security guard, a large, dark human named Okafor. He was escorting Cadet Orilly toward the exit. Tuvok could see that Orilly was agitated, feeling the jellies’ deaths as he did, feeling their urgings for help; yet she went along meekly with the guard. Her head turned toward him, as though she knew just where to look. Her eyes locked with his, yet she said nothing to the guard.

But there—on the other side of the lab, conversing with K’chak’!’op, was Melora Pazlar. Tuvok felt a thrill of pent-up irritation at the tiresome Elaysian. She was irreverent, rude, arrogant. Yet he knew she would have the codes he needed. How perfect.

Tuvok leapt at her, was on her in a second. She fell to the ground under his momentum. He heard several snaps of bone, heard her cry out. He didn’t care. His hands went to her temples.

Strong, slick tentacles entangled him, pulled him back. K’chak’!’op. He struggled against them. “Please stop, little one,” came the sound of the Pak’shree’s voder. “You’re so fragile, I don’t want to risk hurting you!” But Pazlar was writhing on the floor, trying to back away, but helpless. Perhaps her motor-assist armature had shorted out. It was perfect, but he had to get free, get to her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Okafor with phaser drawn, trying to get a clear shot. He fought harder, but more tentacles now entangled him.