Bartholomew Faulwell had been sitting outside Commander DuVall’s office for two hours. He had kept himself occupied by reading one of the books he had loaded onto his padd—it was what he intended to use to read himself to sleep that night, of course, but he could always get his hands on another one. And it was a good read—a historical novel about twenty-first-century space travel by a very talented woman named Almira Van Der Weir. Bart had also read many straight histories about so-called “boomers” in the days before the Federation’s founding, and Van Der Weir was one of the few fiction writers who captured the essence that Bart had found in the histories. Portraying the frontier spirit was easy enough—pretty much every halfway decent novel set in that time period managed that—but few were able to leaven it with the very real hardships they endured. Then again, in our replicator age, hardship’s a tough one to handle—though I suspect the last couple of years have cured us of that little bit of complacency.

Of course, Bart would rather have been doing something productive with his time. Since the start of the war with the Dominion, Bart had been applying his skills as a cryptographer to cracking Dominion and Cardassian codes. With the entry of the Breen into the war, he assumed that his sudden reassignment to Starbase 92 had to do with their codes.

So he’d hopped the first runabout he could get on and reported to the station commander immediately upon his arrival at the large top-shaped station that orbited Calufrax IV.

And then he waited.

Finally, the doors parted and a very short, balding, round human came out. He didn’t so much walk as waddle.

“You must be Faulwell. Come in.” Then he turned and went back into his office, obviously expecting Bart to follow him.

No apologies, no pleasantries, just ordering him in. This is gonna be fun, Bart thought with a sigh as he got up, turned the display of his padd off, and followed the commander into his domain.

Said domain was fairly utilitarian. Usually Starfleet officers tended toward a minimum of décor—enough to show that there was a person occupying the space, but not enough to scream out their personality through interior decorating. It was the enlisted folk like Bart himself who tended to make their working spaces over into their own image.

DuVall, however, took the former to an extreme. There was nothing here that didn’t belong: the standard-issue desk with equally standard-issue viewscreen/computer on it, the two guest chairs, the computer display on the wall, and damn little else. No pictures, no personal effects, no wall hangings, nothing.

“Have a seat,” DuVall said, even as he fell more than sat into his own chair.

“My orders,” Bart said, “were to report here right away, but not why.”

“Of course not,” DuVall said after snorting derisively. “I won’t kid you, Mr. Faulwell. There’s a war on.”

Bart bit back a sarcastic response. It didn’t do to antagonize one’s commanding officer within five minutes of meeting him.

DuVall continued. “You probably don’t know this—and once you leave this room, I expect you to continue not to know this—but the war’s going pretty badly for our side.”

In fact, this was common knowledge, but again, Bart refrained from comment.

“With the Breen’s damned energy-dampener keeping us and the Romulans out of the battle, we have to rely on the Klingons to hold the border. Now, between you, me, and the viewport, there’s nobody I want next to me in a fight more than a pissed-off Klingon, but I want’em backing me up, not going out in front. No discipline, if you know what I mean. And the numbers just don’t add up.”

He leaned forward, hitting Bart with what might have been a penetrating glare on a face that wasn’t so—there was no other word for it—chubby. “That’s where you come in, Mr. Faulwell. Now, more than ever, we have to rely on knowing where the Dominion is going to attack. Unfortunately, they’ve upgraded their code, and we can’t figure it out. Your job is to crack it.”

Bart nodded. “Of course, sir.”

“Don’t give me that, ‘of course, sir,’ crapola, mister. Look, I know your type.”

“Type?”

“Yeah, you noncommissioned academic types. I read your file. You enlisted seventeen years ago to go on one of those long-term exploratory missions. Probably figured you’d meet lots of nice little alien life-forms that you could make friends with.”

In fact, the seven-year mission of the U.S.S. Pisces was meant to do exactly that, and they made several first contacts, at least one of which was on its way to Federation membership. Bart had joined Starfleet specifically for that mission, serving as the ship’s linguist, but he found he enjoyed the challenges Starfleet had to offer, and reenlisted when his term was up.

“Well, this is the other side of the coin, Mr. Faulwell. This is the real deal. The Federation’s counting on you to come through, are we clear?”

Unable to resist, Bart said, “So clear I can see right through you, sir.”

“Excellent,” DuVall said with conviction. “That’s what I want to hear. You’ll be heading up a team of crypto specialists. I understand you’ve worked with some of them before. Your liaison to me will be Lt. Commander Anthony Mark. In fact, he should be here.” He stabbed angrily at a control on his desk. “DuVall to Mark.”

“Mark here.”

“Why the hell aren’t you in my office, mister?”

A pause. Then, slowly: “I’ve received no orders to report to your office, sir.”

“Well, you do now. Get your posterior over here, Commander, and I mean now. Our crypto spook is here.”

Spook? Bart thought, but didn’t pursue it. He just hoped Mark arrived soon.

When he did, about a minute later, Bart tried to keep his jaw from falling open.

Since he was a teenager, Bart had always had a physical ideal in his head for the perfect mate. In the forty years since, he had yet to find anyone even close to that ideal—which, he supposed, accounted for his appalling lack of success with any kind of long-term relationship in those years.

The person who walked into Commander DuVall’s office fit most of the criteria of the ideal he had created in his head at the age of fifteen: tall, but not too tall; curly blond hair, but not too curly; hazel eyes; long fingers. The only thing missing was a beard, but looking at Lt. Commander Mark’s face, Bart saw that a beard wouldn’t work right on that face. (As opposed to Bart’s own. He had no appreciable chin, which his slightly scraggly brown beard nicely covered up.)

If he likes swimming and Van Der Weir’s historicals, I’m going to start believing in fate….

“About time,” DuVall said, though Bart couldn’t imagine, on a station this size, that Mark could possibly have arrived any sooner. “This is Faulwell—he’s the new head of the crypto project.”

“So you indicated, sir,” Mark said in a deep voice. “I’ll escort him to his quarters and call a meeting of the staff for 1900 hours.”

“Can’t be at 1900. I have a meeting with Admiral Koike at 1900, and he’ll want a progress report. Make it 1700.”

“Sir, it’s 1705 now.”

DuVall blinked. “It is?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dammit, where the hell did the day go?”

“And sir,” Mark added, “Novac and Throckmorton won’t be back from Starbase 375 with the updated files until 1830.”

Bart frowned, wondering why files had to be brought by hand. Then he realized that it was probably for security reasons. Subspace communication wasn’t always safe. If it was, Bart mused with a small smile, I’d be out of a job.

He also, as DuVall had indicated, knew at least one of those names, assuming it was Roxana Novac to whom Mark referred. Until the war, she had been on the staff of the Tamarian liaison’s office, trying to further contact with the Children of Tamar, a race who spoke purely in historical metaphor. She had done some excellent work in determining how the Tamarians developed their singularly peculiar form of communication, and Bart was grateful to have her on the team.

DuVall pounded the desk with his fist and stood up. “Dammit, what the hell kind of chicken outfit are we running here?”

“Sir, you can tell the admiral that everything’s under control, that our team is together, and that they will work hard to crack the code as soon as possible.”

“We need it sooner than that, mister, if we’re going to win this thing.” He sat back down. “All right, have the damn meeting without me, if you think it’ll do any good. But I expect a full report and transcript, and I want progress reports from both of you twice a day, understood?”

Bart stood up, taking the phrasing as a dismissal. “You’ll have those reports, Commander, I promise.”

“I’d better. Dismissed.”

“If you’ll come this way, Mr. Faulwell,” Mark said, indicating the door to DuVall’s office with his hand.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Bart said, “Let me guess, you deliberately set the meeting for 1900 because you knew he had that meeting?”

Mark sputtered a laugh. “Was I that obvious?”

“No, but he was.”

“Yeah, well. He’s not as bad as he seems.” Mark chuckled. “In fact, he couldn’t be as bad as he seems. But he’s a very good administrator, and he’s run this place phenomenally well for the last ten years. It’s just—”

“What?” Bart prompted.

“He’s got Starfleet in the blood. Mother was Starfleet, grandfather was Starfleet, all four great-grandparents were Starfleet—all the way back to’61.” Mark didn’t need to explain which year ending in “61” he meant—everyone knew that was shorthand for 2161, the year the Federation was founded. “But they all had pretty impressive careers—ship captains, war heroes, historic first contacts, that sort of thing. All he’s done is distinguish himself as a bureaucrat. And then a war hits, and he finds himself on entirely the wrong end of it.”

Bart nodded as they entered a turbolift. Starbase 92 was about as far from the front as possible, which was why so much important crypto work was being done here, away from the fighting.

“Habitat level.” The turbolift started to move horizontally. “So he makes up for it by doing the tough-guy military act. We all make sure he feels properly appreciated as the last line of defense against the Dominion, and everyone’s happy. Things actually run pretty smoothly here.”

The lift started to move downward. “So who all is on the team? I assume Novac is Roxana Novac?”

Mark nodded. “Terence Throckmorton is her partner—they’ve been working together since the war started.” He grinned, a bright smile that seemed to light up the turbolift. “I also think that she’s going to ask him to marry her, if he doesn’t beat her to it.”

Bart returned the grin. Always good to know some of the gossip going in—

“The others are T’Lura of Vulcan—”

“Good.” Bart had never met the woman, but her work on translating the notoriously difficult Breen language had been invaluable.

“—Ganris Phrebington—”

A Gnalish, his knowledge of sibilants in particular might be useful in this sort of work. Bart had met Phrebington a few times, and found him off-putting, and not nearly as talented as he himself thought he was.

“—and Janíce Kerasus.”

Blinking, Bart said, “Kerasus? She’s still alive?”

Again, Mark grinned. “If you’re very nice to me, I won’t tell her you said that. Yeah, she’s still alive. A hundred and sixty-five, and still going—well, not strong, exactly. She spends more time in the infirmary than any other single place, but her mind’s still as sharp as ever, even if her body’s breaking down on her.”

The lift came to a stop and the doors parted. “So what’s the problem with this new code?”

“Hell if I know,” Mark said with a shrug. “I’m just the liaison officer. All I know about language is that my universal translator mostly works.”

“Fair enough.”

“Here we are, Mr. Faulwell.”

“Please, it’s Bart. Hell, if you want to be formal, it’s ‘Dr. Faulwell,’ but that just makes me feel like a stuffy old academic.” He grinned. “Of course, I am a stuffy old academic, but that doesn’t mean I want everyone to think I am.”

“Bart it is, then. And I’m Lieutenant Commander Mark. Or ‘sir.’” He held the straight face for about a second. “Or ‘hey you.’ I answer to all three.”

“Hey you, it is. Where is this meeting at 1900?”

“The wardroom. The computer can direct you.”

“Great. Thanks, Commander Hey You.”

Mark shook his head. “You’re welcome, Bart.”

Three weeks later, Bart Faulwell and his team were no closer to a solution than they were when they started.

The meeting on Bart’s first day hadn’t taken too terribly long. Everyone introduced or reintroduced themselves to their newest boss. Novac and Throckmorton were truly a pair, finishing each other’s sentences and talking over each other. T’Lura said very little, but her few comments were incisive. This was in direct contrast to Phrebington, who had several dozen ideas, only some of them worthwhile. And then there was Janíce Kerasus, a frail old human woman who looked like she would keel over at any second.

Bart was sitting in his quarters, going over the latest samples Starfleet Intelligence had provided, these from the few Klingon ships that had survived the attack on Avinall VII. They’d been working for days on end with no progress. Bart hadn’t realized that running this team would mostly consist of playing den mother to a bunch of opinionated specialists. Bart had always enjoyed the research for its own sake and for the intellectual rewards you generally got at the end. This group, though, was more interested in justifying their own preexisting theories. Phrebington mostly expounded on his own ideas about everything, whether or not they related to reality; Kerasus spent most of her time poking holes in Phrebington’s theories (not a difficult task, as Bart had encountered Swiss cheese with fewer holes than the Gnalish’s ideas about cryptography, but Kerasus applied herself to that particular task with special glee), and Novac and Throckmorton were in their own world and had to be repeatedly reminded that there were four other people involved. T’Lura was the only one who had been easy to work with, as she shared with Bart the love of research for its own sake—though, naturally, she didn’t express it as overtly as Bart did.

“Mark to Faulwell.”

Only when he almost fell out of his chair, startled, did Bart even realize that he had fallen asleep at his desk. Bart had always preferred to work at his own pace and simply catch naps where he could, but Commander DuVall insisted on a more rigid schedule, and the rest of the team was already locked into it, so Bart was stuck with it as well. It was playing merry hell with his admittedly eccentric circadian rhythm.

“Faulwell here. What can I do for you, Hey You?”

“Bart, no offense, but that joke stopped being funny the first eight hundred times.”

The next words came out of Bart’s mouth unplanned. “Tell you what—meet me for dinner tonight and I’ll stop.”

“All right, then, it’s a date.”

Bart blinked. Then he blinked again. My God, he said yes. He was already in shock at himself for asking in the first place—which he chalked up to exhaustion lowering his resistance—but Mark actually said yes.

“Bart, you there?”

“Uh, yeah. What say we meet at that Trill restaurant at, ah—” he checked the chronometer on his desk “—1930?”

“Will do.”

“Great.”

“That’s not why I called.”

“No, you called to remind me that DuVall wants my evening report in ten minutes and I better get it to him before he gives me the evil eye.”

“His eye isn’t evil, it’s just misguided. Even so, I’d rather it wasn’t guided at you.”

“Not to worry, Commander Hey You, he’ll have it on time. I even made sure I spelled all the words right this time.”

“You said you’d stop that if I met you for dinner.” Mark’s voice sounded mock-petulant.

“You haven’t actually met me for dinner yet. I know you officer types, always making promises to us enlisted folk. I want proof.”

Mark laughed. “Fine. I’ll see you at 1930.”

“The problem,” Bart said between mouthfuls of the yellow-leaf salad the Trills called grakizh, “is that there isn’t anything to work from. Anytime you’ve got a code, there’s some kind of base for it. Something to build off of. Every Dominion code up until now has had similar algorithms at the root. Or at least similar enough that we could extrapolate something. Sometimes we’ve been lucky enough to stumble into things, and sometimes they’ve been careless. But this latest one—it just doesn’t match anything—no mathematical or linguistic pattern we’ve seen before, from the Dominion, from the Breen, from the Cardassians. It’s a big mess.”

“Sounds it,” Mark said, leaning back in his chair, having long since finished his meal by dint of not being able to get a word in edgewise.

“I’m sorry,” Bart said sheepishly. “I’ve been talking shop all night.”

Mark grinned. “That’s all right—I would’ve just spent the whole meal bitching and moaning about Commander DuVall. This is a nice reminder that other people have problems, too.”

“Yeah.” Bart took a bite of his grakizh.

“Maybe the Dominion’s come up with an unbreakable code.”

“No such thing—remember, if there’s no way to decode it, there’s no way the other side gets the message. Of course, it could just be something straightforward and simple and we’re overthinking it.” Bart chuckled. “Overthinking is definitely an occupational hazard with this bunch.”

“Well, I hope for my sake you come up with something soon. DuVall got a very terse communiqué from Admiral Ross today and—well, let’s just say that the abused tend to kick downward.”

Bart gave Mark a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, Commander, but—”

Mark laughed.

“What?”

“‘Commander’?”

“Well, I can’t call you ‘hey you’ anymore. I promised.”

Mark nodded. “Fair enough. Anthony will do, I think.”

“Fine, Anthony.” Bart speared the last of his grakizh with his fork. “Actually, one of the more famous ‘unbreakable code’ stories was from Earth—the Second World War. One side’s code kept being broken by the other side, so instead of an actual code, they transmitted everything in an obscure language by a people they’d conquered over a century earlier. That ‘code’ was never broken during the hostili—” Bart cut himself off. “My stars and garters, I think that’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“We’re complete and total idiots.” He got up. “I’ve got to go. I may have stumbled onto the right track.”

Mark grinned. “Then we both have to go.” He tapped his combadge. “Cryptography team, please report to the wardroom immediately.”

“So you’re saying—what are you saying?” Phrebington said. The lizardlike Gnalish was standing in one corner of the wardroom, pointedly positioning himself as far from Kerasus as possible. The elderly human, for her part, sat placidly at the head of the wardroom table, with Throckmorton and Novac sitting to her left, T’Lura on her right. Anthony stood leaning against a rear bulkhead, with Bart sitting at the other head of the table.

Bart leaned forward. “I’m saying that we need to try investigating a language from the Dominion that’s as obscure to us as the Navajo language was to the Axis powers in World War Two on Earth.”

“Ah, yes, because, after all, we’ve had such tremendous cultural exchanges with them,” Phrebington said with a snort.

“Mr. Phrebington’s sarcasm notwithstanding,” T’Lura said, “he is right. Our cultural information on the Dominion is limited.”

“We know about their language, though,” Kerasus said in a voice that was at once paper-thin and rich with authority. Bart had spent the last several weeks wondering if he’d be able to pull that off when he was that old.

“What do we possibly know about their language?” Phrebington asked sharply.

Her tone now withering, Kerasus said, “Quite a bit, if you actually have paid attention to the recorded conversations and discussions involving the Founders, the Vorta, and other Dominion members. Untranslated, of course.”

“What good would that do?” Novac asked, sounding confused.

Throckmorton added, “It’s not like they’d use a language we’re familiar with for their code.”

“If they had, we’d have found it weeks ago,” Phrebington said, “and I’d be back on Gnala where it’s safe.”

Bart smiled a small smile. “If you give Janíce a chance, I’m sure she’ll elaborate.”

Kerasus smiled right back. “Thank you, Bartholomew.” Bart generally hated being called by his full first name, but he couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed when Kerasus did it. “My point is that it can’t be anything relating to the Founders or the Vorta in any case, because their actual language is too simplistic. The Founders didn’t even have a concept of vocal speech until they encountered solids. They communicate with each other through that Great Link of theirs, and only use a very basic spoken language—it’s the one they programmed into the Vorta and the Jem’Hadar as well. It makes them very easy to translate, which can be useful in diplomatic circumstances, though it makes for wretched poetry.”

Bart laughed. So did Novac and Throckmorton and Anthony. Phrebington didn’t. (Neither did T’Lura, but that was to be expected.)

“In any event,” Kerasus said, “that would explain why they haven’t used a purely linguistic base for their codes prior to this. The people running this war have only the simplest of linguistics to go on. It makes sense that only now, when we’ve done such a fine job of breaking through their codes, that they’re trying more esoteric methods.” The old woman’s breathing became more labored as she finished. “If we’re going to try this solution, we—we need to look to another—another member of the Dominion.”

“Hadn’t we already established that?” Phrebington asked snidely.

Anthony, meanwhile, walked over to where Kerasus was sitting. “Are you all right?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit—a bit too much there.”

“As I suspected,” Phrebington said, “talking too much will get the best of her.”

Bart sighed. “The problem is, we don’t have any kind of cultural database on the Dominion member worlds. We can try to compare it to the ones we do have some records on from trips that ships made to the Gamma Quadrant, but I can’t imagine they’d have used anyone that was visited by an allied ship in the past.”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t investigate those languages,” Novac said.

“Just to rule it out,” Throckmorton added.

Nodding, Bart said, “You two handle that, then. I think Deep Space 9 has complete records of all the Gamma Quadrant worlds that have been visited since the wormhole was discovered.”

“It’s a waste of time.” Phrebington started to walk toward the door. “This is an utter waste of time.”

Anthony moved to block the door. “You haven’t been dismissed yet, Mr. Phrebington.”

“Commander, it’s late, I’m tired, and I’m not in the mood for tiresome—”

“I’m not terribly interested in what you’re ‘in the mood for,’ Mr. Phrebington.” Anthony spoke in a moderate tone, the picture of calm. “We’ve all got a job to do here, and it’s an important one. Lives depend on what this team accomplishes here. And by putting that uniform on, you have already committed to doing whatever is necessary to keep those lost lives to a minimum. So what you’re in the mood for really doesn’t enter into it. Now, you’re not leaving until Mr. Faulwell or I dismiss you. Is that clear, Mr. Phrebington?”

In direct contrast to the barking tones with which DuVall had asked that last question three weeks earlier, Anthony was downright conversational, giving the words no more weight than if he were asking Phrebington for a cup of coffee. Yet it was much more effective, as the Gnalish turned tail (literally) and went back to where he’d been standing against the bulkhead.

“There is a possibility we have not considered,” T’Lura said.

“What’s that?” Bart asked, grateful to the Vulcan woman for changing the subject—or, rather, getting back to the original subject.

“It is true that the Federation has had comparatively limited contact with the Dominion, and that Romulan and Klingon contact has been even less. However, there are other nations in the Alpha Quadrant.”

Novac chuckled. “It’s not like the Cardassians or the Breen are going to share their cultural databases with us.”

T’Lura steepled her hands together, elbows resting on the wardroom table. “I was referring to the Ferengi.”

That got everyone’s attention. Bart noted that Anthony had a particularly wide-eyed look, as if he were disappointed in himself for not thinking of it first.

Phrebington, of course, sounded more disappointed in T’Lura. “The Ferengi? If you were anyone else, I’d say you were joking.”

“Insults are not necessary, Mr. Phrebington,” T’Lura said primly. “First contact with the Dominion was, in fact, made by the Ferengi Alliance, and they have made numerous trade agreements with a variety of Dominion races. It is quite possible that there are those in the Alliance who have the information we need.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Phrebington said. “Is this what we’ve come to? Relying on the Ferengi?”

Grinning, Bart said, “Oh, the Ferengi can be damn reliable. You just have to know how to acquire the information.”

Throckmorton frowned. “I don’t think Commander DuVall would be able to requisition gold-pressed latinum for this.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Anthony said. Bart couldn’t help but notice the mischievous smile on his face. “I think I can find what we need. I’ll need a couple of days to track down the DaiMon I’m thinking of.”

Novac shrugged. “We’ll need that long to go through what we have on the Dominion in any case.”

“At least,” Throckmorton said.

“All right, let’s pursue this,” Bart said. “Meantime, the rest of us keep doing what we’ve been doing. Just because this is a possibility doesn’t mean it’s the only one. We may get lucky. Dismissed.”

Phrebington muttered, “Lucky—that would be a first.”

“War’s full of firsts, Mr. Phrebington,” Anthony said with a grin. “I’d say we’re due for one.”

The next week was chock full of activity.

Novac and Throckmorton went over the known data about Dominion linguistics, paltry as it was, and concluded, unsurprisingly, that there was no connection between it and the new code.

Bart, T’Lura, and Phrebington continued to search for more ways to crack the code, with the same lack of success they’d been having since Bart’s arrival.

Kerasus, unfortunately, spent the week in the infirmary, her inability to catch her breath during the meeting turning out to be a symptom of some lung trouble. The starbase doctor assured everyone that it was routine for someone of her advanced age, and she’d be released in a few days, “if not sooner.” The last was added in an exasperated tone that suggested to Bart that the older woman didn’t appreciate being bedridden when there was work to be done.

As for Bart and Anthony, they had dinner at the Trill restaurant the following night to “finish off” the previous dinner. Then they met again the next night. Soon, it became a nightly ritual. After five days, Bart accompanied Anthony back to the latter’s quarters after the restaurant closed, since they weren’t finished with their spirited discussion (Bart was having far too much fun, and they were being far too civil, for it to be categorized as an argument) about literature. Anthony didn’t like anything written since around 2350 or so, preferring the neo-Gothic books of the earlier part of the century. At the end of the night, Anthony promised to read Van Der Weir, though Bart suspected it was mostly just to shut Bart up about how excellent her work was.

The morning that the Ferengi DaiMon finally arrived, Bart had spent the night in Anthony’s quarters, his happiness with his private life now in inverse proportion to his frustration with the lack of results in the crypto project.

DuVall, Anthony, and Bart met with the Ferengi, a short, rotund man named Bikk. The DaiMon sat his portly form at the foot of the wardroom table, opposite DuVall.

“So,” the commander said, “Mr. Mark tells me that you’re something of an expert on the Dominion.”

“Something like that,” Bikk said with a toothy smile that made Bart want to run to his quarters and make sure all his possessions were still there. “I spent a year living in the Gamma Quadrant, supervising Ferengi interests on the behalf of Grand Nagus Zek.”

Anthony nodded in appreciation. “That must’ve required a hefty bribe.”

“Several dozen, actually, but those have been recouped a thousandfold. The Tulaberry wine business is quite profitable on that side of the wormhole. Not only that, but the person I had to give the most kickbacks to was later stripped of his standing by the Ferengi Commerce Authority, so now I keep even more profits. It’s quite a tidy arrangement.”

“Especially since you’ve been selling information about the Dominion to allied powers,” Mark said. “Not to mention arranging the talks between Gul Dukat and the Vorta that led to Cardassia joining the Dominion.”

Bart swallowed. He hadn’t known this. Based on the sputter that came from the head of the table, neither did DuVall.

“You mean to tell me that you’re responsible—”

“Now now, Commander,” Bikk said, not at all flustered by this revelation. “Don’t give me your superior, self-righteous Federation posturing. Outrage that a Ferengi will sell out to the highest bidder is a waste of your time and mine. If you didn’t think I could be bought, I wouldn’t be here.”

“I ought to haul you up on charges right now, DaiMon.”

“In which court, Commander?” Bikk stood up. “I see no reason to listen to this. Mr. Mark, I was under the impression that a serious business offer was being made.”

“It is,” Anthony said with a glare at his CO. “We’re looking for a complete linguistic database of all the Dominion member races.”

Bikk threw his bulbous head back and laughed before sitting back down. “And what makes you think I have such a thing?”

“Because you’re you, Bikk. Because you lived in the Gamma Quadrant for a year making huge profits—yet your personal bank balance when you left was almost exactly the same as when you arrived. To me, that means that you spent your profits. And again, because you’re you, you probably spent that money on amassing information that you could sell on this side of the wormhole.”

Face darkening, voice deepening, Bikk asked slowly, “How did you learn what my personal bank balance was?”

Anthony just grinned in response. Bart had to hold back a grin of his own. Starfleet Intelligence had impressive resources when they put their minds to it, and a Ferengi who lived in the Gamma Quadrant for a year was definitely going to be a very large reading on SI’s sensors.

“Never you mind how we got it,” DuVall said quickly. “The point is, we know what you’ve been up to, DaiMon.”

Realizing that he wasn’t going to get a straight answer, Bikk leaned back in his chair. “Assuming I have such esoteric information, what would you be prepared to offer me in exchange for it?”

Anthony leaned forward. “You’re familiar with the Breen energy-draining weapon, yes?”

“Of course. And only the Klingons can defend against it, which is, by the way, a sad commentary on the state of this little war you’re fighting. You’d have been better off entering a trade agreement like we did.”

“We’re not profiteers, mister,” DuVall said.

Bikk shrugged. “Your loss, our gain.”

“Your gain, anyhow.” Anthony smiled. “We’re developing a countermeasure against the Breen weapon. You can have access to all our research—”

“As if I’d need it. We’re not at war, Mr. Mark.”

“—and to the method for countering the weapon once we have it.” Anthony continued as if the Ferengi hadn’t spoken.

DuVall stood up and fixed a furious gaze on his adjutant. “Are you out of your mind?”

Without looking at DuVall, Anthony said, “Starfleet Command has already signed off on this, sir.”

“Dammit, we shouldn’t be giving these big-eared cretins access to our military secrets.”

Bikk smiled that unctuous smile again. “Your commander has a point. Besides—”

“Don’t kid yourself into thinking that the Dominion will stop with the allies. If we lose this war, Ferengi independence won’t be long for this galaxy. And you never know when you might need a defense against a Breen ship.”

A pudgy hand ran thoughtfully over the edge of Bikk’s right ear. “Perhaps.” He stood up. “I will consult my copious files and see what I can provide.”

As soon as the Ferengi left, Anthony let out a long breath. “That went better than expected.”

“Yup.”

Bart turned to look at Commander DuVall and was shocked to see that the station commander was smiling. It was a sight Bart hadn’t seen in his month on the starbase and found it more than a little disconcerting.

“Good work, Mr. Mark,” DuVall continued. “I think we’ve baited this particular fish lock, stock, and barrel.”

Wincing at the mixed metaphor, Bart said, “You mean to say—”

“Yes, it was an act, Mr. Faulwell. You don’t really think Mr. Mark here would go over my head like that, do you?”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” Bart said dryly.

Anthony chuckled. “Bikk likes the idea of being the cause of some kind of rift between Starfleet officers. Especially if I’m one of them. He and I have—well, a history. That’s how I know he’s got what we need. He’s an information pusher, and this is exactly the sort of thing he’d have access to.”

“I just hope it pans out. We’re still taking a stab in the dark with this whole idea. It could wind up being nothing.” Bart let out a long breath. “I’d hate for us to give away important military stuff for nothing.”

DuVall shrugged. “It’s not like we wouldn’t have shared the data with the Ferengi if they asked.”

“But they wouldn’t ask,” Anthony added. “They’d assume they’d have to pay for it. So we might as well oblige them.”

“Well, good work,” Bart said with a grin.

“Glad we have your approval, Mr. Faulwell,” DuVall said snidely. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have actual work to do. There’s a war on, you know.”

“I’ve heard that,” Bart said with a straight face.

DuVall ignored the crack and left the wardroom, leaving Anthony and Bart alone.

“So, what say we celebrate tonight?” Anthony said. “Maybe do dinner in my quarters instead of at the restaurant?”

Bart grinned. “Works for me.”

DaiMon Bikk returned the following day with a complete linguistic database of Gamma Quadrant aliens known to the Dominion—and known to nonaffiliated people such as the Dosai and the Wadi—and Anthony provided him with all the data from Starfleet Headquarters on their progress in combatting the Breen weapon, with the promise of more to come. The morning’s dispatches had told of a Jem’Hadar ship outfitted with the energy-dampening weapon that had been captured by rebel Cardassians and brought to Deep Space 9. Studying the weapon itself would no doubt provide the breakthrough needed. Bikk seemed very pleased with this news, though he was not as thrilled with this transaction as Bart might have expected.

“He’s just cranky because we were able to learn his personal bank balance,” Anthony said in bed that night when Bart broached the subject. “That’s the functional equivalent of peeking into his bedroom. But he’ll get over it.”

A day later, Bart sat in the starbase lounge drinking a cup of coffee, rereading an old Van Der Weir, and lamenting the starbase’s inability to do a proper French roast, when his combadge sounded with the papery voice of Janíce Kerasus, newly released from the infirmary. “Bartholomew, you need to come to the lab right now.”

Tapping his combadge, Bart said, “What is it, Janíce?”

“Paydirt.”

Grinning, Bart left his coffee unfinished and went straight for the lab, where the rest of the team was waiting.

“We’ve found our Navajo,” Kerasus said as soon as the doors closed behind Bart. “It even follows the same pattern.”

Bart frowned. “What do you mean?”

“There’s a small tribe of aboriginal types on the Karemma homeworld. They live on a small island in the middle of one of their oceans. They don’t care about technology, or—” Kerasus interrupted herself with a coughing fit.

Novac took over as Kerasus reached into her tunic to retrieve her medication. “They have a ridiculously complex language. The UT can’t make heads or tails of it, but it’s a perfect match for the new codes. All we’ve got to do is build a translation matrix.”

“All we’ve got to do?” Phrebington said irritably. “The universal translator insists that it’s random noise. I’m not completely convinced that it isn’t random noise and that Ferengi cheated us.”

“Even the UT isn’t perfect,” Throckmorton said. “Hell, it sometimes still has problems with the Klingon language.”

Phrebington made a disparaging noise. “That’s not evidence of anything. The Klingon language really is random noise—”

“Let’s get to it, people,” Bart said quickly before another argument erupted.

He and Anthony exchanged a quick glance. Finally, it looked like they were on the right track.