SHOCKINGLY LOUD REPETITIVE BEEPING shrilled from the door chime on the other side of Nelino Quafina’s private residence. Groggy and disoriented, the Antedean intelligence secretary rolled over in his bed. He blinked his bulbous eyes to clear away the glaze of sleep. It was just past 0345 local time.

A gurgling groan rattled inside his throat. His webbed feet hit the plush-carpeted floor as he awkwardly flung aside his bed covers. Plodding through the living room and into the foyer, he checked the security monitor screen. The seething face of Koll Azernal stared back at him like a demented gargoyle.

Quafina opened the door. Azernal pushed past him into the room. Beefy and broad-shouldered, the Zakdorn moved with the heavy, opaque manner of a man accustomed to getting his own way. “Shut the door,” he said.

“Please, come in,” Quafina said. He closed the door.

“Shut up, we’ve got a situation,” Azernal said.

“No need to apologize for waking me,” Quafina said.

“Picard just issued a general impound warrant for an Orion Syndicate merchantman called the Caedera.”

Quafina’s eyes, which had been recessed into narrowly slitted boredom, now bulged as his attention became engaged. “The Caedera?”

“He seized contraband that they smuggled onto Tezwa. All three of his support ships left the system to hunt down the Caedera, and Ambassador Lagan just suspended the S.C.E.’s work orders on Tezwa…. Quafina, you miserable bastard, tell me you didn’t use the Orion Syndicate to move our cargo to Tezwa.”

“You wanted discretion,” he said. “Criminals excel at being circumspect.”

“No, they excel at being caught,” Azernal said. “Don’t tell me whether you hired that ship. But if you did, make it vanish before Starfleet finds it. And when I say vanish”—he punctuated his thought by jabbing his forefinger against Quafina’s chest—“I mean permanently.”