“I’d rather not say,” Vaughn said with mock gravity.

An alarm went off on the console. “We’ve lost long-range sensors and about ninety percent of visual. Short-range sensors are—dodgy,” Troi said, not finding a better word for it.

“Shields inoperative,” Garrett added, looking at her own console.

Then the shuttle shook rather violently. Troi instinctively glanced down to make sure he was securely strapped into his seat, a precaution he had suggested when they first disembarked from the Carthage,and which Garrett had wholeheartedly endorsed.

“That shouldn’t have happened so fast.” Troi started scanning the region. “Damn—the concentration of charged particles is through the roof.”

“More than expected?”

“Much more.” Troi examined the scan results. “Based on all the previous scans of the nebula, the concentration should be about a quarter of—”

He was cut off by the Hopliteshaking once again.

“The hull can’t take too much of this,” Garrett said. “We may have to abort.”

“No,” Vaughn said sharply. “We need to investigate this further.”

Garrett turned to look sharply at the lieutenant. “Ifwe do abort this mission, it will be on my order, Lieutenant, is that clear?”

With a conciliatory nod, Vaughn said, “Of course, Commander, but there’s only one reason why there’d be a concentration of charged particles of this magnitude. If there—”

“—are ships in the nebula, yes, I’m aware of that, Mr. Vaughn,” Garrett finished.

“Well, actually,” Troi said, “it only really indicates the presence of large electrically conductive objects—a ship, or several ships, is simply the most likely such object to move into the nebula.”

“You’re being pedantic again, Mr. Troi.” Garrett looked back at Vaughn. “Besides, there was a fleet of nine ships in this very nebula three weeks ago. It’s possible that that’s what stirred up this hornet’s nest of electrons.”

The Hopliteshook again. “Structural integrity field holding at ninety percent,” Troi said, then turned to his first officer. “The concentration wouldn’t still be this high after three weeks, Commander. I think we need to investigate further.”

Garrett thought for several seconds. Please trust my judgment,Troi found himself thinking, wishing he were telepathic like Lwaxana so he could convey with his mind what words were obviously failing to do: that he knewthere were ships in the nebula, knew it from the moment he saw the odd reading. From the sounds of it, Vaughn felt the same—or, perhaps more accurately, Vaughn was worriedthat it was true. Either way, they needed to verify it.

Finally, Garrett came to a decision, just as more particles slammed into the shuttle. “All right. But I’m going to keep a close eye on the rate at which the SIF is deteriorating, how far we go into the nebula, what our maximum safe speed is, and how they all compare to each other. The minute those numbers add up to something approaching our inability to make it out in one piece, I’m turning this thing around and heading home no matter what we’ve found, understood?”

“Aye, sir,” Troi said.

“Yes, Commander,” Vaughn added.

Garrett’s proviso made perfect sense to Troi. After all, it didn’t do any good to find something and not be able to report it. “Proceeding forward.”

The ship shook again, and this time a console exploded.

“Damn,” Troi said. “Damage control response systems are offline.” That meant that, if there was a hull breach, force fields would not engage to seal the breach until it could be physically repaired. “And we’ve got a plasma leak back there.”

“I’ve got it,” Vaughn said, unstrapping himself from his seat and moving for the emergency toolkit.

“Be careful back there, Lieutenant,” Garrett said, still looking down at her console. “I don’t want— braking thrusters, now! All stop!”

Troi’s hands moved to stop the Hoplite’s forward motion before his brain registered Garrett’s sudden order. Even as he fired the braking thrusters, he discovered the reason for the order: the proximity detector had picked up a huge mass only a few kilometers away. Had Troi not applied the thrusters when he did, there was a very good chance that the Hoplitewould by now be flattened across the surface of that mass.

“Can you get a decent scan of that, Mr. Troi?”

“Working on it, sir,” Troi said as he tried to coax some kind of reading out of the sensors and the proximity detector. He managed to get an image of at least part of the shape—the mass extended beyond the range of either scanning device—and ran it through the computer for analysis. When it gave him an answer, he swallowed. I was sure I was right, but I don’t think I really wanted to be,he thought. “According to what we can detect, there’s a sixty-five percent chance that we almost crashed into a Cardassian Akril-class vessel.”

From the aft, even as he operated the tools necessary to seal the plasma leak, Vaughn said, “Dammit. Commander, this is exactly what I thought we’d find in here, and fulfills the very fears that led Starfleet to send me along. The Cardassians have no more interest in negotiating in good faith here than they did on Vulcan last year—they’re just trying to find ways to improve their own position, in this case probably by gathering additional intelligence on us and the Klingons before they strike.”

“Unless, of course, there’s only the one ship,” Garrett said.

Vaughn continued to focus on the leak. “Unlikely. Cardassians are like wolves, Commander—they often travel in packs.”

“Either way, I don’t want to be anywhere near them.” Garrett gazed down at her console. “SIF is down to forty percent. Bring us about, Mr. Troi, and set course back for the Carthage.”

“Yes, sir.”

Even as Troi entered the course change into the Hoplite’s navigation computer, the shuttle shook again. “You okay back there, Elias?” he asked as he turned the Hoplitearound and engaged the new course.

“Just fine, thanks, Ian,” came Vaughn’s steady voice from the aft compartment. “Leak is sealed and I’ve bypassed the fried circuitry on the damage control systems. You should be able to reactivate them.”

Troi checked his status board, and saw that the power flow was uninterrupted. He moved to activate the system—

—just as the hull-breach alarm rang out. The noise of the alarm was loud enough that Troi could feel it in his rib cage, but that wasn’t the worst sensation. His ears popped from the sudden change in pressure even as his chair lurched backward, the explosive decompression trying to pull Troi and his chair toward the hole that had opened in the aft section of the Hoplite.

Garrett grabbed his wrist before he could activate the damage-control system. Troi turned around. Vaughn had apparently been standing very close to where the charged particles had torn through the Hoplitehull and was now literally hanging on for life. Each of his hands gripped the ragged edges of the breach, and that tenuous hold was all that kept Elias Vaughn from a rather unpleasant death. Unfortunately, most of his body was outside the perimeter of the hull, so if Troi did activate the damage control systems, the force field would slice through Vaughn’s arms at the wrists and consign his handless body to a quick grave.

Of course, if Troi didn’t seal the breach, they’d all die in about a minute when the air was gone.

The shuttle carried very little excess material, and it was all secure, so there was, at least, little danger of something hitting Vaughn on its way to being blown into space. That still left them with minimal options.

Either him or Garrett unstrapping themselves to try to physically retrieve the lieutenant wasn’t possible, since that would most likely result in Vaughn’s would-be rescuer suffering the same fate.