“A prison?”

Sonya Gomez wandered through one of the lower corridors, between a hydroponics bay and the auxiliary generator that provided power to what remained of the functioning operations equipment. She was beginning to see a great deal more insidiousness in the welded doors and the carbon scoring that marred the walls everywhere she went. “All of this to lock up a group of political dissidents?”

“Dissidents!” S’eth shook his head. “We were free thinkers. Progressive diplomats, teachers, and engineers. The Council quaked in their nests when our eggs hatched.”

Corsi, Vinx, and Konya had taken up sentry positions, guarding the small S.C.E. team as they continued their survey of the station. They held off all Resaurians except for S’eth. Corsi shook her head. “Why not space you? A whole lot easier.”

S’eth recoiled as if bitten. “Resaurians have a long life span. To shorten it would be an inconceivable crime. Not that other races haven’t shown a tendency to do just that.” He had already told Sonya of the Klingon oppression of his race nine hundred years ago. “After experiencing that kind of brutality, we were more devoted than ever to the tradition of the sanctity of life.”

“And warming to the concept of cruel and unusual punishment.” Sonya adjusted her tricorder, fighting against the dampening field that limited its range to mere meters. Power fluctuations on the deck below. Thermal signatures in the next room—more Resaurians standing posts in the auxiliary power room, most likely. “A life of confinement, spent inside a black hole?”

“Technically, we might never die.” S’eth shrugged. “And the station had every possible convenience. With holographic technology, we might pretend that life was fairly normal.”

“A silk prison,” Fabian said. Everyone looked at him. “Old Earth history. Feudal Japan. Carol was telling me about it after that mission to the Kursican orbiting prison. You create a palacelike prison, as a show of respect for your prisoners.”

Pattie shook her antennae in a negative way. “The Resaurian definition of ‘palace’ leaves a great deal to be desired.”

S’eth slithered along next to Sonya, ducking his head in repeated apology. “It was a grand station, originally. But the…century of wear and use have stripped it down to the most basic elements. A large metal cage thrown into the darkest pit around.”

Trust was going to be a long time in returning, Sonya knew. If the S.C.E. team didn’t need S’eth in order to complete their survey and find a way to reestablish comms with the da Vinci…She pointed out some welded doors, and the weld scorches that slashed the walls nearby. “Looks more like vandalism to me. Or damage from some of your ad hoc weapons.”

“Most of that kind of damage is what is still left over from the riots. The early years were not easy ones on the twelve hundred who were cast away. We became our own small world, with factions and struggles and even a dictator who was prepared to risk everything—all of our lives—for a mad chance at freedom.”

Lense hugged her arms, shivered. “I think I might have agreed with him.”

“Es’a, the nest-breaker, was insane,” S’eth said adamantly. “Even among the progressives, his thoughts were too radical. We looked for a saner method of escape, or of rescue.”

A century, and meanwhile nearly eight hundred years had passed outside of the Demon. The conversion of Resaurian cycles to Federation years wasn’t hard once they had the common Klingon calendar as a frame of reference between them. And it was just as easy for Sonya to calculate the time dilation (assuming a fairly constant standard) between the away team and the da Vinci. One hour on the station. Eight hours aboard ship. The captain must be tearing out what was left of his hair by the handfuls, if he hadn’t already ripped his clothes and buried them.

No. Not David Gold. He wouldn’t give up hope until he saw cold bodies. Maybe not even then.

Sonya slowed, dropping back for a moment to speak with Rennan Konya. The Betazoid security officer held on to every word spoken by S’eth. It was starting to unnerve her. “Everything okay?” she asked, perhaps a bit louder than required. She didn’t want S’eth worried about the S.C.E. team. They still needed allies.

Rennan nodded slowly. “This is one of the rare times I wish I had a greater gift for telepathy. S’eth believes what he is saying. And I don’t sense any immediate danger. But there is still something he’s not telling us.” He shook his head. “Like why they still have so many weapons if these riots took place so long ago.”

“We’ve seen one hydroponics bay that might feed a tenth of the population he claims still lives on this station.” Sonya glanced at some more scoring along the walls. “There is quite a bit our host isn’t telling us.” She drifted back forward, smiling as if Rennan had just given her good news.

“Don’t worry,” she said to the security guard. “We’ll get out of here yet.”

“Are you certain there is a chance to contact your ship?” S’eth asked.

Fabian glanced up from his own tricorder screen. “If we can find the transmitter array being used for your distress call, yes. With luck, we can modify the system and alert the da Vinci of our status.”

“And without luck?” Lense asked.

Without luck, it would be ninety-three years before their change in the message worked its way up out of the black hole. Everyone knew the answer. Vinx simply shrugged. “I can create a fizzbin deck and teach you to play. It’s good for passing time.”

Sonya smiled. Not much got the da Vinci crew down for long. “I’d rather believe in a universe that contains luck,” she said, paraphrasing James T. Kirk.

“Then you will convince your Captain Gold to climb down the anchor and, how did you say, ‘bump shields’ with us? That will let you transport everyone off the station?”

“It may take a few trips, but yes. We can manage that, I believe.”

S’eth shook his head, pouching his neck muscles in what might have been a shrug of exasperation, or defeat. “I think it sounds like you are asking for the impossible as well.”

She bristled, but it was Pattie who came to her rescue against S’eth’s pessimism. “We’re the S.C.E.,” the Nasat said. “ ‘Impossible’ is our stock-in-trade.”

Taken right off the lips of the S.C.E.’s overall commander, Captain Montgomery Scott, but Sonya couldn’t have said it better herself.

Fabian could. Smiling, he walked over to a nearby wall hatch. Pulling his phaser, he didn’t bother with the niceties of dismantling the hatch but instead sliced through the hinges. It fell into the corridor with a metallic clang. Behind the panel, an energy conduit pulsed with a modulated energy wave.

He snapped his tricorder off.

“Impossible takes an extra ten minutes,” he said.