Despite all the excitement he had crammed into this very long day–or perhaps because of it–Trip now found himself sitting on a hard bench in a smelly alcove, on the point of dozing off. With Wungki’s crew manning all the shipboard stations, he had essentially nothing to do other than sit in an alcove, waiting. He had no reports to read, and he was stuck among a crew that wasn’t about to give him access to their computer system, even to look for entertainment.

He awoke with a start when someone shoved him.

“We’re within range of your contact,” one of the more grotesque‑looking mercenaries said. “We’ll be beaming you over as soon as he gives us the signal.”

“Oh, thanks,” Trip said, shaking his head to clear the fog away.

Minutes later, after a barely acknowledged good‑bye to the mercenaries, he felt a transporter beam shimmer around him for the second time in one day. For an instant, he was amazed at how nonchalantly some people seemed to be using transporters these days; even Enterprise’s crew had come a long way toward trusting the devices over the past four years, when at first they had been used mostly to move parts, tools, or other inanimate material on and off the ship.

He materialized on a small pad in what appeared to be a vessel barely larger than a Starfleet shuttlepod.

A lithe woman, her long black hair pulled back into a ponytail behind her, sat at what appeared to be the ship’s helm, which was crammed into a small cockpit area. Trip’s mind flashed on Malcolm’s warning about women for a moment, until she turned around.

It was not a woman but a man, apparently of Southeast Asian descent. The man stood and approached Trip, moving with an almost sinuous grace.

“Hello,” he said, his voice a deep basso. “I’m Tinh Hoc Phuong, field operations, currently assigned to the Romulan theater of operations. Glad to finally meet you.” He held out his hand. “Welcome aboard the Branson.”

Trip shook the other man’s hand. “Charles Tucker, uh, Commander, Starfleet. But most people just call me Trip.”

Phuong smiled. “Not anymore they don’t.”

Trip was a bit taken aback, but he tried his best to maintain his composure. “Yeah, well, I haven’t quite gotten used to being dead just yet.”

“I disappeared off the sensor grid three years ago,” Phuong said. He gestured to a small alcove to Trip’s right. “You want some coffee, or something to eat? We’ve got a long flight ahead of us.”

“Sure,” Trip said, moving over to the alcove, where he saw shelves bearing various prepackaged foodstuffs, all arranged in an efficient manner. There was also a tiny kitchen area, with a small sink, and a few nozzles and buttons built into the counter area.

“The green button on the left is for coffee,” Phuong said as he crossed back his ship’s flight controls.

“So, where’s our first stop?” Trip asked. It struck him then that this voyage could take him to a nearly infinite list of possible destinations, virtually all of which would probably be completely unknown to him.

“Adigeon Prime. Not very far from territory claimed by the Romulans.”

Trip didn’t immediately see any cream or sugar in the kitchen alcove as he picked up one of Phuong’s cups and filled it from the spigot under the green button. Guess I’ll just have it black,he thought as he carried his beverage to the forward section. He sat in the copilot’s chair next to Phuong’s seat, and found it comfortable.

“We meeting someone there?” he asked, gratified that he had at least heard of Adigeon Prime prior to today.

“No other bureau operatives, if that’s what you mean. Just the people–or whatever they are–who’ve been hired to help us get our mission fully under way.”

“So, if you don’t mind my asking, you said you disappeared three years ago. Is that how long you’ve been working for Section 31?”

Phuong looked at him inquisitively. “Section 31?”

Trip felt a cannonball of dread drop into his stomach. Had he somehow been tricked and kidnapped by someone other than Harris’s spy organization?

Almost instantly, the other man nodded. “Oh, you mean the bureau. I get it. Article Fourteen, Section Thirty‑one of the Starfleet Charter. Catchy name.”

Trip relaxed slightly. “Bureau of what?” This was definitely something that Malcolm hadn’t briefed him about.

“Of nothing. Even though we’re authorized to operate by the Starfleet Charter, we don’t exist–at least not officially. So, it’s just ‘the bureau.”’

Trip looked down into the nut‑brown depths of his coffee, feeling decidedly uneasy about his radically changed circumstances. Although life aboard Enterprisehad always had its dangers, the interstellar espionage business seemed a good deal more hazardous by comparison. He couldn’t forget what had happened to Malcolm last year when the Klingons had kidnapped Phlox. Malcolm, acting on Section 31’s orders, had sabotaged Enterpriseto slow down Captain Archer’s rescue efforts. The incident might well have ended Malcolm’s career but for Archer’s decision to protect his armory officer rather than having him court‑martialed.

Now Trip was growing concerned that the cloak‑anddagger bureau might just bury him as well and as thoroughly as it had buried Phuong. After all, Phuong had apparently been operating undercover for three years already. Remaining “dead” for such a long stretch of time didn’t appeal to Trip.

“Having second thoughts?” Phuong asked, looking over at him. “Everyone does.”

“Mmmm,” Trip grunted noncommittally.

Phuong let out a heavy sigh. “I understand. I was a diplomat, in another life. Not top‑level, so you’d never see me at the really world‑shaking interstellar functions, but close enough to the top to know who all the players were. I guess that’s why they recruited me.”

Trip looked sideways at the man in the pilot’s seat. “This is my first…assignment.”

The other man smiled again. “Oh, I know. I’ve read your file. I probably know more about you than some of your friends do.” He grabbed a padd that had been sitting to the immediate left of his instruments, and handed it to Trip. “Read this, then we’ll be even. It’s my whole boring life story, up to and including what I’ve done for the last three years.”

And I wonder how much of it is true?Trip thought. He wasn’t sure he trusted Phuong, but the man seemed disarmingly honest. An odd trait for a spy.

“Before you get too far into it, I just wanted to say that I read your reports on the Romulans’ use of cloaking technology,” Phuong said. “Actually, I’ve read allyour reports on the Romulans and their technology. I can even quote them back to you if you want.” He put a finger to his temple. “Near‑photographic memory. Comes in handy when circumstances in the field force you to purge your data to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Anyhow, I was impressed. The analysis you wrote about the Romulans’ telepath‑driven droneship program was fine, meticulous work. I volunteered for this mission because I wanted to work with you.”

“Thanks,” was all Trip could think of to say.

But Phuong apparently wasn’t yet finished dispensing praise. “Having you along on this assignment–a trained engineer who’s already seen Romulan tech up close–makes me think we stand a real chance of putting the Romulans’ warp seven program out of business. Or maybe even of grabbing it for the Coalition.”

Despite himself, Trip felt a small smile break across his lips. Whether Phuong’s words were mere flattery or were sincere, the fact that Section 31 had paid so much attention to his warnings reassured him that they did indeed take the Romulan threat seriously–unlike Admiral Gardner, who couldn’t even be bothered to lock his own back door against the coming hordes.

Maybe sometimes the powers that be really do need somebody guarding that back door for them,he thought. Whether they know about it or not.