TRAVIS CAUGHT a few hours of sleep and went to relieve Westerberg at the helm. It was ship’s night—normally, a quiet time on the bridge. A time when stations were manned by a minimal crew complement—helm, sensors, auxiliary control…. Even with the ship under Denari command, there were usually only a few additional soldiers on duty.

Tonight was different, though.

He entered the bridge to the sounds of an argument in progress between Cooney and several Denari crowded around the auxiliary engineering station. Peranda was in the captain’s chair, still on duty—a shock to Travis, who had never seen the man on this late before—looking every bit as angry as he had down in the crew’s mess. All stations—communications, sensors, weapons—were occupied, and the tension on the bridge was so thick that he could have cut it with a knife.

“—not sure what waiting around is going to gain us, Chief Cooney,” one of the Denari was saying. “It seems to me we should begin a thorough check—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Cooney interrupted. “Do you know what an intermittent problem is?”

“I know what an intermittent problem is, yes.”

“It doesn’t happen on a schedule,” Cooney continued, as if the man hadn’t spoken. “You can’t plan for it, you just have to be ready to diagnose it when it happens. And we’ve just spent the last few hours getting ready.” He spread his arms wide to indicate the increased crew presence on the bridge. “The next time the power fluctuates, we’ll know what’s happening. And why.”

“We’ve waited five hours for that next time to occur, Chief. How much longer are we supposed to wait?”

Cooney laughed. “You’re an idiot. Do you know what intermittent means?”

“Enough.” Peranda leaned forward in his chair. “We’ll wait. One more hour, Chief Cooney. If the problem does not manifest itself again, however, we will begin a full systems check.”

“It’s your time,” Cooney said. “Waste it if you want to.”

Travis walked past, as unobstrusively as he could, and stopped next to the helm.

Westerberg looked up at him and rolled his eyes.

“Good luck,” he said, standing. “I’ll see you in eight hours.”

“Anything I need to know?” Travis asked, taking his station.

“Stay alert,” the older man said. “That power fluctuation they’re talking about? When it happens—bam!” The man slapped his hands together. “Engine speed drops like that. You have to be on it, or the ship starts wobbling like a top.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Oh,” Westerberg smiled, “believe me, it’s all fun.”

Travis knew he was referring to more than the engine cut-out.

He settled himself at the helm and ran a quick systems check. They were halfway between Kota and Denari, he saw. That meant that sometime tomorrow, they’d be hitting the Belt. He and Westerberg had talked about it this morning, on the previous shift change. The course Peranda had laid in called for them to go through the asteroid field, rather than around it. That was not going to be fun at all.

In the same way, Travis suspected, that the rest of this shift was not going to be fun either.

“Colonel.” Travis turned and saw it was the Denari soldier at the communications console who’d spoken. “General Elson.”

Peranda stood up. “In there,” he said, nodding to Archer’s ready room. He strode quickly across the deck, then paused at its entrance and turned back to the group of engineers.

“Notify me if the fluctuations start again.”

Cooney looked up from his console. “Believe me, if they start happening, you’ll know.”

“Notify me,” Peranda snapped, and entered the ready room.

Cooney shook his head and turned back to work. Travis spun around in his chair and did the same.

Time passed. Peranda strode out of the ready room. Travis looked up quickly and, just as quickly, back down.

Peranda was ashen-faced and angry. Whatever this General Elson had said had clearly upset him, and Travis knew Peranda well enough to know that when the colonel was upset, the best thing to do was stay out of his way.

Peranda went to the communications console.

“The general wishes to speak to our passengers,” he said.

“I’ll set that up, sir,” the com officer said.

“Yes. You do that.” The colonel spoke slowly, as if afraid that speaking more than one word at a time would cause him to explode.

Travis wondered what “passengers” he was talking about.

He heard Peranda take the center seat—Captain Archer’s seat—again. “Nothing on those power fluctuations?”

“Not yet.” Even Cooney sounded subdued—seemed like he knew Peranda’s moods as well.

“Link is established, sir,” the com officer said.

“Good.”

All at once, the lights dimmed.

The ship lurched. Travis was on the controls in an instant. He boosted power to the aft thrusters, stabilizing the ship, and at the same instant cut their forward motion in half, to match the reduction in speed.

“There it is!” Cooney shouted triumphantly. “What did I tell you, there it is!”

Travis was too busy to turn around, but he heard the frenzy of activity the fluctuation had started. Every one of the Denari who had been, up until that instant, standing around waiting sounded like they were now in motion.

“Reactor output is at nominal,” one called out.

“Power grid stable.”

“Conduit integrity verified.”

“Got it,” Cooney said. “You tricky little bastard.”

“What?” Peranda snapped. “What is it?”

“Plasma flow,” Cooney said. “We’re losing energy through the exhaust manifold.” Travis could hear the note of puzzlement in his voice. “Sensors show the manifold is clear, though. I don’t—”

The lights came on, full intensity.

“Flow is back to normal,” Cooney said. “Huh.”

Travis had full power at the helm again. He pushed their speed up to full impulse.

A problem with the plasma exhaust. That sounded familiar to him, for some reason.

“Now that we know what the difficulty is, what do we do about it?” Peranda asked.

“We still have to figure out why it’s happening,” Cooney said. “Give us a minute to correlate all the data.”

“Colonel.” It was the communications officer again.

“Yes?”

“General Elson again.”

“Very well.” Peranda started back toward the ready room.

“Sir,” the com officer said, “he says now. Sir.”

Peranda sighed. “Very well.”

The star field on the main viewscreen cleared. A man took its place.

An older man—early sixties, Travis guessed—dressed in a simple black tunic, with a wave of silver-white hair that fell across his forehead. He looked exactly the way a general was supposed to look, and yet, there was a light in his eyes that struck Travis the wrong way. Calculation? Cruelty?

He couldn’t say what, but it filled him with an instant, instinctive dislike for the man.

Peranda moved to the center of the bridge and spoke.

“General Elson.”

“Colonel Peranda. Tell me you’ve solved the problem.”

“No, sir, not yet. But as you can see”—Peranda gestured toward the knot of engineers at the back of the bridge—“we’re working on it.”

“Work toward being here tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll check back in four hours. If it’s necessary to send another ship to fetch them”—Elson smiled—“we’ll have time to do that then.”

“Yes, sir. I don’t think it will be.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

The screen went dark.

Peranda sighed again and sat back down in his chair.

Travis tried to make sense of what he’d just heard.

Elson was pushing to have “them” there by tomorrow morning. Clearly, it was the reason why Peranda had been so worked up about first the warp engines, and now this problem they were having with the power fluctuating. The “them” the general had referred to was just as clearly—at least as Travis saw it—these passengers Elson had asked to speak with before. Passengers whose identity Travis had no idea of.

But he was certainly going to find out more about them.

The engineers returned, talking quietly among themselves. Peranda continued to sit and fume.

A problem with the plasma exhaust, Travis thought again. And again, that struck a chord with him. Why?

Well, if he couldn’t remember, maybe the computer could.

Travis checked space ahead of them—a few rocks, a comet on a very erratic orbit around Kota that had already passed as close to them as it was going to get…Nothing large enough to merit concern, or his attention, for that matter. All he had to be worried about was another power fluctuation cropping up.

He’d take the chance it wouldn’t in the next few minutes.

He set the helm to autopilot and, working casually, accessed the main computer.

The computer acknowledged his request.

As it worked, Travis wondered, suddenly, if this wasn’t Lieutenant Reed’s work again—another little piece of sabotage to keep the Denari busy.

The lieutenant’s smiling face flashed before Travis’s eyes, and he couldn’t help but smile too.

“Something funny, Ensign?” Peranda asked.

Travis was all at once aware that the colonel had risen from his seat and was standing over his shoulder, watching.

“No, sir.”

“What are you doing? That’s not the helm console.”

Peranda wasn’t as thick as he seemed, Travis realized. He thought quickly.

“Well, we passed a comet a little ways back. In our solar system, they tend to bunch up—travel in groups—Oort clouds, we call them—so I thought it would be worth cross-checking the database to see if—”

Peranda held up a hand. “Enough. Is it a danger to us?”

“Doesn’t seem to be, no.” Travis made a show of frowning and clearing the console, as if he were dissatisfied with what he saw there.

“Very well.” Peranda turned on his heel. “Cooney, how are we doing?”

“We’re busy.”

“Busy?” Peranda sounded ready to explode. Travis turned in his seat and saw that Cooney looked just as frustrated as the colonel. He was, in fact, glaring right at him, as if daring him to say something else.

One of the Denari engineers saw the same thing, and moved to head off any possible confrontation.

“We do know a few things, Colonel,” the engineer said. “Even if we have yet to reach any conclusions.”

“Well?” Peranda folded his arms across his chest. “Go ahead.”

“The exhaust is not venting properly,” the Denari replied. “As the instruments show.”

Another Denari spoke. “We need to go EVA and clear the blockage.”

“There is no blockage,” Cooney said. “The sensors show that as well.”

“The sensors must be wrong,” the Denari said.

“Then why is all the other data we’re picking up from them checking out?”

“I don’t know, but—”

“Cooney, would we benefit from physically examining the manifold?” Peranda put in.

“Sure,” Cooney said.

“Then I suggest we do just that.”

“Fine.” Cooney threw up his hands. “Give the order. I’ll tell engineering to start preparing to shut down.”

“Shut down?”

“To send someone out to examine the manifold, we’ll have to turn off the reactor.”

“What?” Peranda turned to the Denari engineer who had spoken. “Is this true?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of course it’s true,” Cooney said. “That exhaust is coming out of there at about a hundred million degrees Kelvin. No one in an EVA suit can get within a mile of it.” He smiled. “I don’t think your General Elson would be too happy about us stopping dead in space for the six hours it would take for that surface to cool down.”

Peranda did not look happy. “Is there no other way to see what’s happening in that manifold?”

“No,” Cooney said. Then, “Well, give me a minute.”

Travis was thinking too. All of this was seeming familiar to him now—a problem with the plasma exhaust, looking for a way to find out what that problem was without going EVA…

He sat up straight in his chair.

This exact same thing had happened before. Not more than a couple weeks after they’d started out from Earth. They’d found a ship—a cloaked ship—hiding in the trail of their plasma exhaust. Using it to recharge their own depleted engines. Causing unexplained power fluctuations aboard Enterprise.

A cloaked ship, belonging to a race called the Xyrillians.

His mind raced. Could they be back again? Not likely. Not this far out. And wouldn’t they just hail Enterprise this time? So not the Xyrillians.

Could it be another cloaked ship? Someone else who knew their trick of siphoning off energy from a starship? Who, then? The Klingons? The Xyrillians had done the same thing to them, after all. Except this was too far out from Klingon space. And the Klingons didn’t use cloaked ships.

But the Suliban did. Except they were so far ahead of Starfleet technologically, why would they—

The answer hit him like a ton of bricks.

He suddenly knew, without a doubt, that there was a ship out there. And he knew, just as certainly, who was aboard it.

“I might have an idea,” Cooney said slowly. “What if…”

All at once, a chill went down Travis’s spine. He didn’t like the thoughtful tone that had crept into the engineer’s voice. It made him wonder if Cooney had reasoned out the problem the same way Enterprise’s crew had, those many months ago.

He couldn’t take that chance.

Acting on pure instinct, Travis abruptly cut Enterprise’s speed in half.

The ship’s inertial dampers, try as hard as they might, couldn’t compensate entirely.

Everyone on the bridge who hadn’t been firmly seated went flying forward. Travis heard the sound of bodies hitting the deck, grunts of pain, shouts of surprise and anger.

“Mayweather! What the hell!” He heard feet tromping toward him.

He looked up and saw Cooney, face beet-red with anger, leaning over him.

“Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Travis said, trying to sound as frantic as possible. “It happened again. Look.”

He pointed at his console.

Cooney responded even as he was looking down.

“I almost cracked my skull wide open because of that little stunt of yours, so—”

To the man’s credit, when he saw the message Travis had put up on his console, he didn’t freeze up. His eyes widened only slightly as he took it in—

—and then continued talking, as if nothing at all had changed.

“—I’d like an explanation for what you think you’re doing.”

“And I’m telling you,” Travis said, putting an edge on his own voice, and at the same time wiping the message off his screen, “if you look right here, you’ll see we had another fluctuation.”

Cooney bent over the console, as if studying it.

“We didn’t pick up anything back here,” one of the Denari engineers said.

Travis sensed someone else coming up behind him—Peranda.

“Well, Cooney?” the colonel asked.

“Seems like something went through the circuit here, all right,” Cooney said, straightening. “Seems like Mayweather here overreacted a bit as well, though.”

Travis almost smiled, the man sounded so convincing. Instead, he said angrily, “Anytime you want to take the helm, be my guest.”

Cooney chuckled in response, and went back to his station.

“Now then, Cooney,” Peranda said. “You were going to suggest?”

“Ah.” Cooney made a disgusted noise in his throat. “It’s not going to work.”

“What?”

“What I was going to suggest.” He sounded frustrated. “I need a break.”

“We do not have time for breaks,” Peranda said icily. “We have a schedule to keep.”

“I need a break,” Cooney repeated. “I’m not doing anyone any good up here.”

Travis had turned just enough in his chair to see Cooney nod to one of the other engineers, ignoring the colonel entirely. “Keep working,” he said to them. Then he looked up at Peranda.

“Colonel, I’m going to get something to eat, and I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Then, without waiting for a response, he left the bridge.

 

Travis, though, was stuck.

He had six more hours to go on his shift, and there was no way he could do anything now until that time was up. And what if he was wrong, anyway? What if he’d just taken considerable risks with his own safety and Cooney’s for nothing?

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He’d been so absorbed in thought he hadn’t heard their approach.

He looked up and saw Westerberg.

The man smiled.

“You want to break early?” he asked. “I had too much coffee.”

Their eyes locked. Travis felt like he could read the man’s mind.

Cooney had sent him.

“Yeah. Sure,” Travis said, standing. “Getting hungry anyway.”

Westerberg settled into the helm chair. “See you in a few.”

Travis turned to go.

Peranda was standing in front of him.

“Mayweather, is there a problem?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned,” Travis said. He forced himself to smile. “Westerberg’s doing me a favor.”

“A shift change. It’s early for that, I believe, isn’t it?”

“Like I said—he’s doing me a favor,” Travis said.

“Out of the kindness of his heart?”

“Out of my inability to sleep,” Westerberg said. “Not that big a favor. You’ll cover the next one for me Travis—right?”

“We’ll talk about it,” Travis said.

Still, Peranda didn’t move. He eyed the two of them—Travis and Westerberg—for a moment longer. Finally, the colonel nodded. “All right. Go.”

Travis moved to the turbolift.

Footsteps fell into place beside him. One of the Denari soldiers.

The two stepped inside the turbolift together. Travis’s last sight of the bridge was Peranda, spun all the way around in Captain Archer’s chair to watch him leave.

He nodded to the soldier next to Travis, who nodded back in return.

Not a good sign, Travis thought. The colonel suspects something.

They rode the lift down to E-deck in silence. The soldier followed him out, heading toward the mess. Another bad omen. They had soldiers with them all the time—heck, the ship was crawling with them—but this one was following him, specifically. To see what he did.

Which meant he couldn’t go straight to Cooney. Peranda would know something was up then. But he didn’t have time to waste. Cooney had told Peranda he’d be back in half an hour, and a big chunk of that time was gone already. And even assuming Travis was right about who was out there, he still didn’t know how to go about contacting them, much less trying to get them back aboard Enterprise. That would require a miracle of sorts. Or at the very least, a remarkably good sleight-of-hand. A magic trick.

The old saw—Arthur C. Clarke’s maxim about any sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic—popped into his head.

All at once, Travis had an idea. The beginnings of one, at least.

He refined it as he entered the mess. The soldier stopped at the door, joining the other guards there.

Cooney was seated by himself, at a table near the observation window. Ryan and Yee were the only other ones in the room, seated next to the kitchen entrance.

Travis walked past them and joined Daedalus’s engineer.

“You know,” Cooney said as Travis pulled out a chair, “that guard is watching you.”

“I know. Peranda told him to.”

“You know?” Cooney’s eyes went wide. “Then why did you sit here? He’s going to think we’re up to something.”

“We are.”

“And you don’t mind if he tells the colonel about it?”

“Not at all.”

“Not at all.” Cooney looked at him in disbelief again, then shook his head. “You just put my neck in a noose, you know. Mind telling me what’s going on? Why you pulled that little stunt back there, with the engines?”

“To stop you from finding out what’s really causing the power fluctuations.”

“Why?”

Travis told him.

Cooney frowned. “That’s a lot of supposition.”

“Maybe. I have a way to test my theory.”

“Go on.”

“I need your help.”

“I gathered that.”

“It’s going to be risky.”

“I’ve been in Denari prisons before. They don’t scare me. Only thing is”—he nodded toward the guard—“how are we going to do anything with him watching us?”

Travis smiled. “We’ll bring him along.”

“Bring him along?”

“That’s right. We don’t want to keep the colonel in the dark, do we?”

Cooney shook his head. “You lost me now, kid.”

Travis leaned forward. “All right. Here’s what I propose we do.”

He took a deep breath then, and laid out his plan.