I feel Sten’s pain as the blade of my lirpa takes three of his fingertips.

Meters fell away under her long strides. Sten’s attacks came more quickly than they ever had before.

A kick to my solar plexus leaves me begging for air.

I hear Sten’s teeth crack as my knee slams his jaw shut.

Rising through the middle of the expansive, circular park that occupied the interior volume of the station’s upper primary hull, the broad cylindrical core of the starbase was all that T’Prynn could focus on. One labored step after another, she marched herself toward the bank of turbolifts where the core met the enclosure’s lowest level.

He buries the blunt end of his lirpa in my abdomen. My dagger slashes the tendon above his knee.

She didn’t know how or why Sten’s mental battery had become suddenly so emboldened, particularly when she was playing music that normally kept his katra at bay. She stumbled into an empty turbolift car and grasped its control handle. Her mind flashed for one brief moment on the image of Sandesjo flirting with the man in the cabaret; the memory vanished in a flurry of psionic jabs that coaxed a low whimper from her throat.

Sten’s demand echoed in her deepest thoughts as it had for fifty-three horrible, strife-ridden years: Submit!

Her answer was as it had ever been: Never.

6

Lieutenant Ming Xiong grinned as he jogged down the passageway with his overstuffed duffel bouncing on his back, in a hurry to reach the gangway to the Sagittarius.

It had been more than two months since he had last set foot on the Archer-class scout vessel. He had served on several ships during his twelve years in Starfleet, but this small outrider, with its close quarters and tight-knit crew, was his favorite. On his last visit, Captain Nassir had given him a going-away gift: a green utility jumpsuit like the ones worn by the crew, with his name stenciled on its chest flap. As simple as it had appeared to be, its presentation had marked him as an honorary member of their spacefaring family. He was one of them. Wearing it now, he felt freer than he had in months.

As he neared the bay four gangway, he peered out an observation window into the cavernous docking bay. The tiny starship was concealed inside a metallic cocoon, within which transpired a flurry of activity. Robotic crane arms were swapping out modular sensor packages from its primary hull. Technicians in environment suits moved across the ship’s gleaming exterior, repairing minor bits of wear and tear. An auxiliary gangway had been extended from Vanguard’s maintenance complex, which ringed the core of the station. Xiong knew, from the mission profile that he had helped write, that several pieces of brand-new classified equipment designed by him and the rest of the researchers in the Vault—the station’s secret research facility—were even now being hurried aboard the diminutive vessel.

He nodded to the Vanguard security detail guarding the gangway entrance and paused briefly to identify himself. The deck officer in charge verified Xiong’s credentials with ops and waved him past, down the gangway to the Sagittarius. As soon as the trim young anthropology-and-archaeology officer turned a bend in the gangway and was out of the guards’ sight, he resumed jogging, eager to reach his destination.

Seconds later he stepped through the ship’s sole airlock hatch, which was located on the port side of its primary hull. Both its inner and outer doors were open, as was routine for ships docked in the main bay. Then he was inside, on the main deck. The Sagittarius had only three decks. Its lowest level, along the belly of the primary hull, was the cargo deck. Most of it had a ceiling so low that the taller members of the crew had to duck to move around; the rest was crawlspace, for storing a variety of gear, tools, and spare parts.

The main deck was the heart of the ship. It housed the bridge in a heavily shielded forward compartment. On either side of the bridge were quarters for the captain and the first officer, the only two members of the crew who had the honor of private accommodations. By privilege of rank, the captain’s berthing was the one closer to the ship’s only head and shower, which everyone onboard shared. Four crew compartments—two to starboard, two to port, all recently reconfigured—housed the other twelve members of the ship’s complement. At the broad aft curve of the slightly pointed oval were the common galley and the sickbay. Next to the XO’s quarters was the ship’s lab.

The crew spaces on the main deck ringed its outer edge. The core was completely packed with computer mainframes, sensor hardware, and a hefty complement of miniaturized probes.

Engineering and a little-used transporter bay occupied most of the space on the top deck. There also were a few access points to a number of tight crawlways used for making emergency repairs on such systems as the sensors and the ship’s two phaser emitters. A self-contained probe-launching apparatus dominated the forward portion of the deck. Forward of the transporter bay was a hatch for descending into the ship’s computer core for hands-on repairs.

Because the ship was too small to require a turbolift system, movement between the decks was achieved by traversing steep, wide-planked metal ladders. Passages between the cargo deck and the main deck were made amidships either to port or to starboard; traffic between the main deck and the top deck was limited to a single aft ladder, which terminated in the transporter bay.

And, just as Xiong had remembered, the entire ship looked immaculate and smelled sweetly, antiseptically clean. I guess Dr. Babitz’s war with germs marches on, he mused.

His attention was drawn momentarily aft by the sounds of metal crashing against metal, followed by a string of bellowed profanities and vulgarities in several languages. Sounds like a bad time to drop in on the master chief.

A feminine voice came from close behind him: “Welcome back, Ming.”

Xiong turned to face Lieutenant Commander McLellan, the second officer. He smiled and set down his duffel. “Bridy Mac!”

The raven-haired woman gave him a brief but friendly hug. “You’re early,” she said.

“I wanted to get settled before the briefing,” he said.

She reached out, pinched a loose bit of his jumpsuit’s sleeve, and smiled. “Looks like you’re already blending in.”

“Captain Nassir did tell me to wear it the next time I came back,” Xiong said. “Is everybody back onboard already?”

McLellan replied, “We’re in full scramble, trying to load up before we ship out.” She motioned for him to follow her. “Come on, you can bunk with Ilucci again.” He picked up his duffel and followed her aft. She moved with swift and graceful strides befitting her experience as a marathon runner. As he caught up to her, she said in a confidential hush, “I went below and took a look at the new toys you sent us. Crazy stuff.”

“Hot off the workbench,” he said. “All prototypes.”

“Experimental gear? Classified briefings? We’re gettin’ into something interesting, aren’t we?”

Xiong couldn’t help but chuckle ruefully. “Trust me, Bridy Mac—you have no idea.”

“All right,” Captain Nassir said to his gathered crew, “everyone settle. We’ve got a lot to cover and not much time.”

Even though the galley of the Sagittarius doubled as its conference room, it was barely large enough to accommodate the entire crew at once. Xiong waited patiently while the group came to order. It still pleased him to see that everyone wore the same style of olive-drab coverall with simple insignia. No one’s uniforms had special markings, not even the captain’s.

Xiong stood in front of the compartment’s one wall monitor. Standing to his left were Nassir and Commander Terrell. Vanessa Theriault and Bridy Mac stood together to Xiong’s right, along with a comely young Andorian zhen, the ship’s helm officer and navigator, Lieutenant Celerasayna zh’Firro.