01 Picard groaned loudly, it was his first realization that the ion effect had worn off. He slowly raised his head and blinked his eyes. It had bothered him nearly to the point of madness how dry his eyes had become from being closed for hours. He did not know where he was save that it was dark and quiet. He assumed he was still in the shuttle's hold. Slowly he unfurled from his curled up position and groaned again as his muscles protested their abuse by his rigid position for the last few hours. He did a few stretching exercises and tried to surmise where he was. He had not heard a single sound since being placed in here by the soldiers. No one had come to speak to him or gloat or interrogate. It was all rather odd. The door he did not know existed slid open and the lights to his chamber simultaneously lit up. He was in a small cell, one metal bed and a wash area. A single clean mirror hung on the unadorned wall. Two soldiers walked in followed by Arix Tracey. Arix smiled at Picard and one of the soldiers calmly placed a dark blue jumpsuit uniform on the bed. "Put that on. You have a meeting with someone anxious to meet you." Arix ordered and turned to walk away. "Where am I, Tracey?" Arix looked over her shoulder and smiled. "You will find out soon. I'm giving you precisely 5 minutes to get dressed and cleaned up. A man's time is not to be wasted, particularly when your life is on the line." "You still expect me to believe that nonsense?" Picard replied hotly. "No, Picard, I expect you to be dressed in 5 minutes." Tracey replied and walked out. Picard reluctantly dressed, finished well before his 5 minute deadline and waited. Arix stood at the entrance and motioned Picard to follow. Picard left his cell and was immediately flanked by two soldiers. Arix then led them through winding sterile corridors. Picard was still clueless about where he might be. Arix led them into a turbolift which they stood in for a long moment. When he stepped off the turbolift he quickly decided that they were on a facility, he simply could not hear the usual soft hum of the warp core running through the deck plates. Arix nodded to a guard sitting at a desk outside of a large office. "Guard, is Commander Bolen in?" she asked. "Yes, Ms. Tracey, he has been waiting." "Good, let's not keep him waiting any longer." Arix stated and motioned for Picard to follow. The door opened and she turned to the two soldiers. "Wait here men." Tracey said. The soldier's nodded and each stood on the opposite sides of the doors. She then led him into the office. Picard quickly examined his surroundings. It was a standard sized office, large and spacious, there were sparse decorations, . There was a hologram of a strange symbol floating above the desk. The desk itself was covered by neat piles of actual paper and a scaled model of a class of a starship he had never seen before. It looked like a massive arrowhead, but black and much bigger The man behind the desk was older aged and slim. His sharp, gray eyes certainly never missed much. His outfit was not like the other soldiers he had seen around. "Captain Picard! It is a good thing you decided to come." The man exclaimed and stood up. "Take have a seat." He magnanimously waved Picard over to one of two seats opposite his desk. Arix took her place next to the desk. "I've never seen that starship before." Picard said, pointing at the model. Bolen smiled proudly. "That is the Eclipse-class Super Star Destroyer, she is the Emperors personal flagship and first of it's type." "There's no such ship." Bolen shook his head. "On that point, you are quite wrong. This ship exists and so does her her sister ship under construction at the Kuat shipyards. "I'm at a loss." Picard admitted. He fell silent for a moment. "How is this possible? Where do you get the materials? Where do you get the funding?" Another thought struck him. "What, and where is this Kuat?" "There are advantages to being a commander in the largest Empire in the galaxy, my friend." He replied and paced back and forth, hands clasped behind his back. "But seriously, the materials are easy to explain. We have a mining operation set up on Fondor, which provides all the building resources we need." He paused for a second. "You really don't know about Kuat?" "This is a shadow Starfleet and you expect me to be happy about it? This is a crime, this is treason, and it goes against every ideal that the Federation stands for." Picard protested bitterly. The magnitude of this place was slowly sinking in. "Picard, you and Federation has no idea what is going on, do you? "You fight secret wars then?" Picard accused. "Let us say that we are coming to this galaxy with weapons and technology that you've never seen before."