“And the Houseborn samples?”

“Medical records? Or we could take some ourselves from their drinking glasses—”

“Tonight! At dinner!” She jumped off her chair, clapping her hands.

Kremoroh scratched his head. “Excuse me? But I think I’ve missed something.”

“You’d better come up with a new project for next winter, because I have a feeling that what Thirishar accomplishes with your data could change things—for all of us!” Keren beamed.

The cumulative datafiles were stored several farms over—a quick stop as they set out to return to the Sagan.Keren carried the bulk of the chips in her pack. Shar wanted to make the best use of his time so he planned on working as they walked, relying on Keren to prevent him from stumbling into trees. He reached for his tricorder, planning on formulating a few basic equations as he tried to frame the parameters of the statistical sampling.

“Ensign ch’Thane!”

Shar turned, and saw Kremoroh moving toward them from the farm. He had a youngling with him. And not just any youngling, Shar saw, but one of the ones he’d encountered earlier, who had shared berries with him and Keren. “Is something wrong?” he asked as Kremoroh caught up with them.

Kremoroh nudged the youngling forward. “Do it,” he said sternly.

The youngling looked unhappy, but at Kremoroh’s urging stretched out his arm, holding up Shar’s combadge.

Shar’s eyes widened. He accepted the combadge with a sincere word of thanks. “Where did you find it?”

“Tell him,” Kremoroh told the youngling.

“I took it while we were playing with you,” the child admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“I accept your apology,” Shar said kindly. Idiot!he chastised himself. How could you not realize it was missing?

“My apologies as well, Ensign ch’Thane,” Kremoroh said. “Oh, and I feel I should tell you: a voice was coming from the device earlier; that was how I became aware that Cosho here had it. Whoever it was sounded angry, but it’s since stopped.”

Oh, no…“Thank you, Kremoroh. I’m very grateful to you.” Kremoroh and the youngling departed, and with Keren looking on in concern, Shar steeled himself and pressed his combadge. “Ch’Thane to Dax.”

“Shar, where the hell are you? Why haven’t you answered until now?”

“I apologize, Lieutenant. I had a bit of a mishap involving my combadge—”

“Where are you?”Dax repeated.

Shar swallowed, recalling that he hadn’t explicitly asked for Lieutenant Dax’s permission to come planetside. “I’m with Delegate Keren, sir,” he said evasively.

“But where? Someone appropriated the computer terminal in our office and used it to send an illegal communication to the surface. That wouldn’t happen to have been you?”

“No sir. Actually, I’m here, planetside. On the Hebshu Peninsula. Part of my fact-finding, Lieutenant.”

“I assume you have theSagan with you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get airborne immediately and lock onto my signal. I want you to fly over my position and be prepared to pick up the away team.”

“Understood, sir. I’m on my way.” Shar swore and established contact with Sagan’s onboard computer. “Ch’Thane to Sagan,two to beam back on this signal. Energize.”

*  *  *

“He’s just not being reasonable!” Nog growled. Frustrated, he threw the padd down on the floor. He fisted his hands and kicked the broken tablet aside.

Rahim, Gordimer and M’Nok, who were sharing ration packs from Defiant,stopped talking when the padd skidded across the floor and crashed into M’Nok’s shoes. Huddled in the corner, Shavoh, Tlaral and Ensign Senkowski halted their review of conduit repair specs when Nog spoke. The three engineers exchanged concerned glances. One by one, every person in the room looked up from what they’d been doing to see what might have prompted Nog’s uncharacteristic entrance.

Realizing he had the room’s attention, Nog scooted off to sit on his sleeping bag, dropping down cross-legged, making a deliberate point of sitting with his back to the group.

Chief Chao’s fork, loaded with pasta primavera, paused midway between mouth and pack. “Excuse me, sir?” she said. “Is everything all right?”

Though he felt Chao’s placid gaze on him, Nog kept his back turned. “Commander Vaughn! He isn’t taking the threat of the Cheka weapon seriously enough. He wants to leave without a working defense against the web weapon! And we just don’t have the resources or the manpower to handle repairs like this again, especially if we’re stranded in the middle of nowhere.”

Mikaela Leishman, the shift commander in Nog’s absence, went over to talk to Nog; the two Yrythny engineers joined her. She squatted down to his eye level. “Lieutenant, is there something we should know before we return to Defiant?”

Throwing his head back, Nog laughed, a bitter sound that startled everyone within hearing. “Something you should know? How about we’re killing ourselves trying to put the Defiantback together but our ever-dutiful CO refuses to let me have the tools I need to ensure our safety.”

“I don’t think you should be talking that way—” Leishman paused when Nog glared at her. “Sir?”

“We didn’t get the load, Mikaela,” Nog spat. “No load, no metal. No metal, no femtobots. No femtobots, we’re ripe to be picked off like a targrunning from a Klingon blood hunt.”

“Commander Vaughn isn’t one to make a decision like that lightly,” Chao reasoned, twirling her pasta with her fork. “He wouldn’t leave us virtually defenseless if he didn’t think it was the only way. He must have an another plan.”

“But there was a way to make this plan work, Chief,” Nog said, scrambling to his feet and stalking over to Chao. “That’s what’s so pointless about all this! If he’d given the Cheka trader what he wanted, we’d be starting to manufacture the femtobots next shift.”

“Do I dare ask what he wanted?” Senkowski said.

“The cloak. The Cheka wanted the cloaking device.”

A few pairs of Starfleet eyebrows shot up, but Tlaral gasped. “You can’t give it to them! We’d never be able to defend ourselves if they could cloak their ships!”

“Or worse, their weapons platforms,” Shavoh added.

“Practically speaking, Lieutenant,” Chao said, “the commander can’t give technology like that away. It’s not Federation property, just a loan from the Romulan Empire. Besides that, what about Prime Directive issues? Cloaking tech would radically impact the balance of power in this region. I’m with the commander on this one. Sorry.”

“Me, too,” Senkowski added, returning to study conduit repair specs.

Permenter rolled over on her stomach and looked up at Nog with sorrowful eyes. “I know I’ve been complaining as much as anyone, but I’d rather play by the rules. You want some candy? A little chocolate might make you feel better.” She held out the bag to him.

Nog slapped it away, got up, and stormed out of the room, growling, “This attitude is gonna get us all killed.”

The aquaculture village burned.

Collapsing into the ocean from their derricks, the flaming houses and outbuildings outshone the setting sun. Filtered through the acrid smoke, the last rays of light burned brilliant fuschia and tangerine; descending darkness gradually defeated the day. Greasy, rainbow chemicals glazed the sea’s surface as unrecycled wastes spilled into the water. Dead fish and sea life bobbed along with rising and falling waves.

Ezri stood on the observation deck, Jeshoh beside her, gazing out over the waters, trying to avoid looking behind her where the Yrythny military had lined up all the Wanderer servants working on the hydrofoil and prepared to interrogate them. Despite their claim that her workstation had been utilized to carry out the terrorist act, the soldiers seemed less interested in talking to the Defiantpeople than in rounding up every Wanderer on board. She couldn’t bear to watch. Even with her back turned to them, blocking out the soldiers’ shouted accusations and servants’ protestations of innocence proved difficult. Ezri understood the troops had a job to do, and she knew that maybe one among those servants might have a connection to the attacks, but certainly not all. Why did so many people have to suffer?