Captain/Admiral Kirk was starting to understand. It made a lot of sense from this perspective. He had to be honest with himself- it wasn't like he'd given it much thought before. Oh sure, he had heard the arguments all the way up from his Academy days. Even on his ship, he'd sat in for impromptu debates on a topic he'd long thought to be a non-issue. Now he was finally seeing the light.

Bones was right. Transporters just might be evil.

His jacket had been forcefully flung in the corner of the little meeting room. He paced up and down the side of the room like he was aiming to run a marathon in here, just to see if he could. It had been exactly three hours, forty-seven minutes since three members of his crew and six passengers had vanished from Sickbay. They were nowhere near an answer.

The transporter beam that had been used to take them had been looked into. Scotty was the one that came up with the explanation all the while bemoaning the fact that Spock wasn't there to pick and piece at it with him.

"Twas a one-in-a-million shot, Admiral." He had said. "The conditions were perfect due to the waning energy field and our proximity to the station. I doubt they could do it again if they tried."

One in a million. Kirk couldn't accept the fact that this had been a great chance the kidnappers had taken. No, this smacked of design. The Sickbay had been targeted on the heels of a medical crisis, right at the point their shields had been lowered to get the preliminary orbital approval procedures underway.

Now Bones, Spock, Nurse Conway, the entire Trievan delegation, two C'Fungam delegates, and Tezin Zh'shelret, an Andorian translator, had disappeared without a trace. There was not even a transporter signal to track. Scotty believed this to be a mixed blessing. His theory went so far as to say the beam had been designed for single-use, or else unstable enough to prevent any repeat performances. It made Sickbay feel a lot safer even under Chapel's iron fist. Kirk couldn't rest easy.

The ship was essentially on lockdown anyway. Canopis Station had understood- they were being more than cooperative in regards to shifting things around to accommodate the emergency. Unfortunately there wasn't much else they could do. Kirk's quick debrief with the Station's commander had gone well, but it made him angry nonetheless.

Couldn't they go a few minutes without some kind of disaster? Was it too much to ask for a milk run now and again? You wanted to be back in the thick of it, Kirk thought, Well, it doesn't get thicker than this.

Eventually, he would have to be the Captain/Admiral again. With a sigh, he retrieved his uniform jacket and put himself back together. There wasn't time to waste, and without two-thirds of his sounding board, he had to do a lot of mulling-over by himself. The obvious places to look were Canopis Station and Tonbos Terre itself, but until they had more data these were just shots in the dark.

Kirk returned to the Bridge.

The little dog-alien did not take that outburst well. It stiffened, growled, and all-over took on a fighting stance. McCoy was more flummoxed than afraid, but things were already in a downward spiral. Why wouldn't they get worse?

"You prisoner you, dare insult I, Inquisitor Mi'q? Insolence from beetles! You, Captain Thondin you, teach the worm a lesson!"

Captain Thodin was exactly what McCoy had been afraid of when Rhaelam had said 'like Spock but not like Spock'. He was Romulan, and in full scouting uniform. It looked a little like he'd dressed for the part of running around with 'Inquisitor Mi'q'. The extra spit-and-polish helped with the intimidation factor too.

"The officers were with the other one, high Inquisitor." Thodin said, pulling his shoulders back. "I am reasonably sure your ideas for these two will not impede our mission in the slightest. What punishment befits insults of someone of their station?"

It was a heck of an eye opener as well as a shock. That put two and two and made 27 for the amount of leaps in information. In so few words, the captain had confirmed some sort of unholy alliance between the Romulans and whoever in the world this was. Too bad it looked like they wouldn't be around long to benefit from it.

"Our station?" Rhaelam squeaked. It wasn't so bold a sound but she got a lot of volume out of it. Thodin's eyebrows went up a fraction and the gal ran with it. " Our station? One has already grievously misjudged our station by allowing us to be housed in such a manner!" She lifted a head flick straight from Mumidran's books and managed to raise her nose and look down at the Inquisitor all at once.

"I will speak with none lower than your Head of Security. To think that such accommodations are meant for me is an insult- no, an outrage!"

It was a stellar delivery, McCoy could say that much. So close, he could see the kid shaking from nose to tail, but the Inquisitor seemed taken aback. It seemed they had all been blindsided by Rhaelam's ability to command a scene. But, the Inquisitor's snarl was starting to pull back again, and Captain Thodin didn't look like he was taking this at face value. Nothing else for it…

"Now, your majesty, there's no need for you to speak to anyone." Rhaelam shot him a panicked look and McCoy took it like one would a glare. "What I mean to say is I can handle discussion on your behalf until we're… reacquainted with your entourage."

Rhaelam didn't say anything to that, but he took the frustrated ear flick as a go-ahead. McCoy nodded, sat up to his full height, and stared down Inquisitor Mi'q.

"If you would be so kind as to get your Head of Security or your lead Ambassador, I'm sure we can spare Her Majesty any more… frustration. We wouldn't want that to open up our first contact, would we?"

He pointedly ignored the Romulan as he lied through his teeth. There were so many irons in the fire right now he wasn't sure which one to pull. All they had for the time being was one whopper of a fib whipped up by a teenage board-treader. They could make do. The only missing ingredient was a miracle.

Inquisitor Mi'q lowered her hackles somewhat and straightened up. "She the Queen requires an Ambassador ours, yes?" Mi'q looked from Rhaelam to McCoy and then turned to the Romulan. "He your Commander assured me these were not ranking personnel." The last was more of a growl as Mi'q stalked out of the tent. Captain Thodin gave them a frown and followed.

McCoy could just make out his voice on the other side of the tent flap. "Stay at your post. They are not to leave."

He sank back on the ground and rested his elbows on his knees. "Miss Rhaelam, I don't know where you pulled that from, but we're in a whole heap of trouble if you don't have more material."

Rhaelam made a whining noise. "I'm sorry Doctor. That Captain Thodin looked like… He was going to hurt us. He was going to shoot us or take us somewhere and I just did the first thing I could think of to make him not do it and-" She lowered her head. "I loved the story of Empress Veruma as a child… I think they always let me play her in the Harvest tellings because I was so loud."

McCoy sighed. They'd opened this can of worms, and now they had to lie in it.