XII

When Kathryn Janeway finally opened her eyes, four days after being shot on the now-dead Romulan Warbird Qeh, she saw a familiar sight that had greeted her far too often over the years-The Doctor, her former Voyager EMH, smiling over her. Smirking was more like it, as he had once again pulled her proverbial chestnuts out of the fire.

"Welcome back, Admiral", he said kindly enough, although Kathryn could swear there was that tiny smirk that made her want to roll her eyes. "Back among the living once again, thanks to my great skill."

"I think Dr. Quantro had a little to do with it", she said with a raspy voice, "and you helped get me into this mess."

That brought him up a little short, with Kathryn giving a small, weak smile in triumph. "Well, yes, although we were never to determine why we didn't get beamed over. And Dr. Quantro deserves a lot of the credit, you are correct."

Kathryn weakly looked around. "Where are we? We're not on Voyager."

"Starfleet Medical", he said, keeping his voice low. "We beamed you down here about thirty-six hours ago. I kept you under sedation a little longer than planned, simply to let your body heal some more. You had a lot of damage done to your right shoulder and chest."

"Been there, done that", she said, with a small cough. The Doctor looked over at someone, and in a moment, a bottle with a straw was in front of her, the Hologram giving her a much-needed drink of water. "Thank you, Doctor. Where are the others?"

"They're at McKinley Station, and should be shuttling down to Headquarters shortly to meet with the brass for debrief. They all want to visit you when they're finished."

"The Romulans?"

"It was destroyed after we disabled it", he said with some sadness. Even when it involved an enemy, The Doctor believed in his code of "do no harm", but did understand that at times, such things were necessary. "As far as we can tell, there were no survivors."

"I won't shed a tear", Kathryn said tersely. "Lord knows they could have treated me worse, but it was bad enough. And to see Commander Sela..."

That stopped The Doctor cold. "The Commander Sela? The one Picard spoke about?"

"The very one, Doctor." Kathryn indicated she needed another drink. After she was done, she looked like she would fall back to sleep.

"Well, I'll have to add that to my own notes, Admiral. But for now, you're going back to sleep. I don't want to give you any more sedatives for the time being. From the look on your face", he smiled down at her, "I think you're going to drift off on your own."

"Anything to keep you from giving me a hypospray, old friend", she said with her own smirk. And The Doctor was correct-within five minutes, Kathryn Janeway was sound asleep again.

Benjamin Maxwell was having second thoughts. He knew he had joined Sloan to get back at The Federation for upending his career. He had felt vindicated in his beliefs about the Cardassians when the Dominion War broke out, and he had held a grudge against San Francisco ever since. He was even willing to put in with a known enemy of The Federation, in Commander Sela, to tweak the nose of The Federation. He was even willing to go so far as to hunt down and kill this former Borg drone, Seven of Nine.

But going in, guns blazing, into Federation Headquarters and Starfleet Command? He wasn't into suicide. He also knew that Sloan would take as many down with him as he could not caring what the damage was.

One thing he did not know, or understand, was Sloan's history, and why he had thrown in with Sela, or how he had co-opted the Romulan into this crazy scheme. Maxwell felt that, now, this was need-to-know information, and he asked Sela to meet him in his quarters.

When she arrived, she was impatient as usual. "What's so important that you need to talk to me, Maxwell?"

"Have a drink, Commander?" Before Sela could give a sarcastic comment, he cut her off. "No, this is not a social call, Commander, but it is polite to ask a guest if they would like a drink."

"Very well", she said more calmly, "I'll take a whiskey neat."

Maxwell replicated one for her, and handed it to her.

"As I said, Commander, this isn't a social invitation. With things as they are, I believe I need some information, and I believe you have that information."

"You don't give orders to me, Captain." She emphasized the last word.

"I'm not giving you orders, Commander, but you are going to tell me what I want to know."

She was surprised at the force behind his words, which gave her pause. She'd play along. "What do you want to know?"

"Two things, at least to start", Maxwell informed her, leaning forward in his chair. "One, what do you know about Sloan's background, and two, how the hell did he rope you into this little adventure?"

Sela thought carefully before answering. She could deny his request, but at this juncture, she would be extracting herself from this entire predicament, and she was quite sure she would never see these two humans again.

She went into all the details she knew about Sloan: the story of the Enterprise-C; his birth on Romulus, born around the same time she was; his training in the Tal Shiar; the original mission to have him as a Romulan plant on Earth; the fact that Sloan out-ranked her, merely by his association with the Tal Shiar, and that she was duty-bound to help him.

To say that Benjamin Maxwell was floored when she finished would be a monumental understatement. He had finished his drink, and had staggered to his feet when getting another one. Once her replicated it, he pounded it down in one gulp.

"Jesus Christ", he breathed, sitting back down. "He's a megalomaniac! He's in it for the personal power, isn't he."

Sela nodded. "In the end, that's it. Even though the Romulan Empire is no more, believe me when I tell you there is a pecking order and a chain-of-command that still exists. Sloan, because of his...unique nature...is very influential and powerful within Romulan circles."

A light went on in Maxwell's mind. "His original mission was to usurp The Federation from the inside, making it a Romulan puppet." That was a statement, not a question.

"Precisely, Captain Maxwell", Sela smiled blithely at him, giving him credit for figuring it out. "But he's failed in all that, mostly, I might add, because of events beyond his control. But the minute I drop you two off on Earth, I'm washing my hands of this whole affair."

"I don't blame you, Commander", Maxwell said, his mind now going a billion miles an hour, knowing if he didn't change things for himself, he'd end up dead.

Malaga, Spain

"Will, can you get ready any slower?" Deanna Troi was tapping her foot like an impatient school girl. "The Maldonado's asked us to meet them at the restaurant in fifteen minutes."

Troi head a little rustling, then suddenly her husband, Retired Admiral Will Riker opened the door, with a wry grin on his face. "Sorry about that, Imzadi, but believe it or not, I couldn't figure out what to wear."

Troi laughed. "Isn't that my line, Mr. Riker?" She playfully slapped him on the arm. "If we leave now, we can be there on time."

"They we'll leave now, my dear", he said with his signature grin.

Earth still had wheeled, ground vehicles for short distances, and the Riker's hopped into theirs for the short ten minute jaunt to the restaurant in question. As they were driving along-as the vehicle was driving them, that is-there was an alert for an incoming call.

It was Admiral Patterson.

"Admiral", Will said pleasantly, "what can I do for you this evening?"

"Catch you two in the middle of something?" His visage was visible to both Troi and Will, Mike Patterson able to see both of them. "Hello Deanna."

"Hello Mike", she said with a broad smile. "How are you, my friend?"

"Not too bad for an old man, thank you." Deanna laughed at the remark. "Will, I'm gonna need you to head to San Francisco as soon as possible. I've got some...interesting news...involving Voyager's encounter with Sloan and Maxwell." He saw that Will and Deanna were dressed nicely, and quickly amended his statement. "Heading out on the town?"

Will shook his head. "We're having dinner with friends of ours in a few minutes."

Patterson nodded. "Well, you go through with those dinner plans. This isn't something that needs attending to right this minute, but it is damn important."

"Tell you what, Mike", Will informed the C-in-C of Starfleet, "I will contact you when Deanna and I get home, and then I'll beam to San Francisco. Fair enough?"

"That would be fine, Will", the man agreed. "I'm also having Jellico, Paris, and Picard coming in as well."

Will's eyebrows arched. "The heavy-hitters meet again."

Patterson chuckled. "So to speak, my friend. Very well, enjoy your dinner, and please, get back to me when you're done."

"Will do, Admiral."

"Thanks Will, Patterson out."

Deanna glanced over at her husband. "He looked calm and collected, but I can tell something pretty big is going on."

"I'm not even empathic, and I got that feeling as well", Will said with a frown. "But it can wait until dinner is over. Let's go have a wonderful evening with our friends."

Four Hours Later, San Francisco

The three active Admirals, and the two retired Admirals were ensconced in Admiral Mike Patterson's office. He hadn't rushed his confidants in for this news, as he didn't think it warranted it, but he wanted to update them on the ongoing crisis.

"Thanks for getting here, everyone. This won't take long, but I wanted to tell you about what has happened, face-to-face. I think you're all aware we have Admiral Janeway back, but I think you'll find some of what we know...interesting.

Patterson recounted, via the different reports from Shelby, Seven, Janeway, and the others about the Romulan Warbird, and who was on the ship. He went over the operation that retrieved Janeway, and the destruction of the Qeh.

Everyone looked to Jean-Luc Picard to speak first. Before he spoke, he took a large breath, obvious surprised by the news.

"What are the odds that Commander Sela ends up with Sloan and Maxwell for this operation?" He looked at them with a wry grin. "It's...it's beyond belief almost. But then again, Sela's very existence is still beyond belief to me."

"Welcome to the 24th Century, Jean-Luc", Patterson said sardonically, "where anything is possible. To know Sloan had contacts and some pull within what's left of the Romulan state is disturbing, and certainly corroborates what he told you, Jean-Luc, and what he told Seven."

"How is Janeway?"

Patterson turned to Riker. "She's gonna be OK, Will. Fortunately the Centurions that entered her 'guest quarters', as she put it, didn't give a clean shot at her, else she'd have been killed. The others have been going through debrief. It looks like the worst of it is over."

"Mike has tasked me to start investigations on how that barbaric facility at Ganymede got approved, and how Federation personnel were able to staff it", Ed Jellico informed the others. "There's still some unknowns there, and I think once we delve deeper into it, we're going to find some more unsavory characters-maybe not as bad as Sloan, but bad enough."

"One thing I'm planning to do in the near future", Admiral Patterson added, is to go to Fenris and smooth things over with Prime Minister Sladek. Necheyav put him in an impossible situation. If it hadn't been for the work Ambassador Kurn put in, that might have been a major tragedy."

"I might just go to Q'onoS and visit the Chancellor and Ambassador", Picard said with a grin. "No doubt they've made good allies this year."

"I think a commendation for Kurn might be in order", Patterson observed. "He really did prevent a major war."

The five men went over some minor business, but Patterson didn't want to keep them very long. He had felt duty-bound to update them all personally, since all of them had done so much to keep the situation, which had turned out bad enough, from becoming something a hundred times worse.

He didn't know it, but they'd all be back soon enough.