Author's note:

Sorry about the typos. Although you have to admit, the image of billions of Romulans stuffing their laundry in a really really big dryer is amusing. I'll correct it. (That was an important plot point too, now I feel stupid. :)

Katharina-B: Okay, if that's what you want, perhaps I can oblige you. As far as Section 31 succeeding...well, we'll have to see!

JadziaKathryn: Yes, I did have to do that. Stay tuned; there's more to come. Good catch on the typos; that's part of what happens when you write late at night.

Worker72: No, I'm not using any novels as canon. Just the series, which never indicated Janeway had any knowledge of Section 31.

The readyroom of USS Grambyo was authentically worn and abused. It didn't bother Kilbourne. He'd run operations in worse places.

He looked up silently as Ransom entered. The urge to refrain from speaking was strong. After all, he had done something he hadn't before: he had come onto his fake Equinox while Marla Gilmore was awake. Obviously she couldn't hear him; she was down in Engineering, and the readyroom was off the bridge. Even so, he didn't speak. One never knew.

Ransom smiled and took a seat.

"She's broken, sir."

"Good," Kilbourne said. "I have engineers on standby once she's done. They're going to fit the vessel with a cloaking device. We also need to modify the atmospheric sampling unit to deploy the virus."

Ransom nodded. "I thought that's what Project Stone was about."

Kilbourne nodded. "Yes. Project Sling was about the mutagenic drive; Project Stone was about the virus." He steepled his fingers.

"Just think," he said thoughtfully. "As soon as she finishes that drive, we'll be ready to go. Three days for the rest of the work. Then we'll strike a blow for the Federation that will guarantee peace for the next hundred years." He chuckled. "Ever think you'd be part of assuring the freedom of your great-grandchildren?"

Ransom smiled tightly. "Took long enough to break her," he said. "We used some of the old standbys. It would've been easier if we used psychotropics. But this worked. We kept her on the usual medication, plus added others to make her feel weak and dizzy and nauseous." He smiled humorlessly.

Kilbourne nodded. Section 31 had always been far better at interrogation than its rival intelligence services. The Klingon idea of interrogation was to growl at someone and punch them until they talked; the Cardassians could be decent, but the idea of abusing prisoners was too culturally ingrained in them. The Rommies, now, the Rommies knew their stuff pretty well. But Section 31 had cracked Cardassians, Klingons, Jem-Hadar, all of them. Physical torture didn't work. Instead, you manipulated someone's reality, with appropriate drug backup, until they spilled what you wanted. Control their reality, and eventually you would control their mind.

Kilbourne sat still, smiled, and felt satisfied. He'd been worried for a bit; Marla Gilmore had indeed proved to be a tougher nut to crack than he had thought. If Kathryn Janeway ever spared a thought for her errant crewman in her smile-'n-wave tour of the Federation, she ought to be proud. Even light-years away, even in a carefully simulated Equinox, Gilmore had tried to stick to the path Janeway had taught her rather than Ransom's dark path. It had taken a lot more meticulous abuse than originally planned to get her to cave.

Yet, finally, they had success. She would build it. In a month's time, the Romulan Empire would be a shadow of its former self. He closed his eyes and thought of it. The Klingons and Cardassians were already crippled. The Dominion would remain confined to the Gamma Quadrant. With the Romulans down, the Federation would reign triumphant over the Alpha and Beta quadrants. With enough time, their superiority would be unassailable.

Kilbourne closed his eyes and tried to think of what the future might bring. Would these crippled foes eventually join the Federation? He doubted it. Instead, they would become dependent on Federation handouts. The Klingons were already getting a lot of help, the better to make them dependent. The Romulans had always been a more dangerous threat. Now, after centuries, that threat might be lifted once and for all. There would be no more Romulan sword pointing at the Federation's heart; instead, there would be a few terrified, weakened survivors who would be relegated to the bottom of the ladder and do the menial tasks in exchange for their lives.

It was poetic in a way. Marla Gilmore would help him make the Romulans the Equinox Five of the entire quadrant. He wondered if Kathryn Janeway had ever realized she was setting the tone for the next century of galactic relations when she took the five survivors and broke them to helots. He doubted it.

He could taste victory. He could see Romulus buried under a mountain of corpses. Of course, there were those in Starfleet who would be pansies about it and insist that they had an obligation to help, but what was there to help? The virus was a lot better than the first attempt against the Founders. This one acted quickly and brought on death within a few days. By the time the Romulans even realized that the problem was beyond their control, much less admitted it, it would be too late for even the most dewy-eyed alien-hugging idealist in the Federation to stem the flow of the dying. Conveniently, the disease affected Vulcans too, which would keep a healthy chunk of the Federation's best medical and scientific minds away from Romulus.

He thought about ordering a Romulan to mow his lawn, and found the thought pleased him immensely.

He gestured at the LCARS panel. "Pull her up on the viewscreen. I want to see it."

Ransom nodded, went to the panel, and tapped out a few commands. Grambyo had been redesigned to not only be Marla Gilmore's environment, but her prison. There was no place she could go where she couldn't be monitored. The warp core appeared on the screen, with a lone, small figure bent over a strange device in front of it. Ransom zoomed in. Her back was to the camera, but Kilbourne could see her shoulders quaking and could hear faint sobbing over the audio.

"She doesn't seem very happy," Kilbourne observed coolly.

Ransom shrugged. "She isn't. People do that when they're broken. They're twitching, stuttering wrecks, but they do what they're told. It isn't pretty, but it works." He tilted his head. "What's going to happen to her when this is done?"

Kilbourne shrugged. "I haven't decided," he said delicately. "Obviously, she'll remain in our custody for the short term. If we need her, we'll keep her around. Otherwise, we'll just eliminate her."

Ransom seemed troubled at that, but said nothing.

"It'll be painless, I assure you," Kilbourne said. "You're not feeling sorry for her, are you?"

It was Ransom's turn to shrug. "You can't be a good interrogator if you don't like people," he observed. "Funny but true. Your modifications to the EMH, for example – he's a useful tool, but he'd never make an interrogator himself. He's too sadistic."

Kilbourne chuckled. "We'll have to tone that down. He did turn into quite a sadistic little weasel, didn't he?"

Ransom nodded. "He'll have his uses," he said. "Still...yes, I guess I do feel for her a little."

Kilbourne made a dismissive gesture. "Operational necessity," he said. The fate of Marla Gilmore didn't mean a thing to him. As long as she was useful he would keep her alive. Otherwise...well, what was the point? Section 31 was not a homeless shelter.

His communicator beeped. He took it off his belt and lifted it. It was the officer currently commanding the X5573. Had Benning reported in?

"Sir," the voice said urgently. "You need to return to the ship immediately. We have a starship coming in at high warp."

Kilbourne tensed. "There isn't supposed to be any Starfleet traffic through this part of space for the next few months," he said.

"There is now, sir. They've located Grambyo. They're on an intercept course." The voice waited a moment more. "Sir...it's Voyager."

Benning had not checked in. That meant he was either no longer on Voyager, or captured. Somehow, Janeway had found their location. How? Had Bashir coughed up something? He'd pay for that. Kilbourne could have him slowly skinned alive in a Section 31 detention center. Perhaps the good doctor could experience the Emergency Interrogation Hologram firsthand. It would be interesting to see what happened when no one restrained the new sadism modules they'd designed.

Not a trace of his thoughts escaped his face or voice. He'd learned to conceal what emotions he had.

"Very well. Stand by."

Kilbourne rose. "Dammit," he said. "Starship captains. Never can predict them."

Ransom looked about ready to lunge over the desk. "What are we supposed to do?"

Kilbourne eyed him bloodlessly. "Stay in command on the ship," he said. "I'll head back to my ship and provide some support."

Ransom looked panicked. "You can't leave us here," he said. "We can't possibly win a fight with Voyager!"

Kilbourne sighed. "You won't have to," he said. "By the time Voyager gets in range, we'll be cloaked. Relax. Just try to buy some time. You can't win a fight with Voyager, that's true. Do you think Janeway can win a fight with a vessel that can fire while cloaked?"

He smiled coldly. Ransom still seemed unsure.

"You've been acting as Captain Ransom this far. Play the role out. If Janeway boards you, let her. Just make sure Gilmore doesn't go anywhere and everything will be fine."

"What are you going to do?" Ransom asked.

Kilbourne smiled tightly. "I'm going to win the first ship-to-ship battle between Section 31 and Starfleet," he said. Then he spoke into his communicator. "Beam me aboard." The familiar sparkle of the transporter claimed him.

His own ship was in far better shape than Grambyo. Calmly, he strode from the transporter room to the bridge. It was smaller than Voyager's bridge, and his bridge crew were much closer together. Still, it would do.

Ransom was being a pansy, he thought. Psyops agents rarely had the guts for any real blood to be shed. He made a pretty good starship commander himself. He was not afraid. And he had the same edge on Voyager that Voyager had over Grambyo.

"Sir, Voyager is coming in at high warp. They're charging weapons," his tactical agent said.

Kilbourne nodded. "Engage cloak. Raise shields. Scan them and see if we can determine their shield frequency. Back us off to five hundred kilometers from Grambyo. That's our bait."

"Aye."

"When they get close enough, lock weapons and fire a full spread of torpedoes," he said. "The story will have to be that Voyager experienced a catastrophic loss of warp core containment. There were no survivors."

His crew paused; they weren't Starfleet automatons trained to obey. They'd have to deal. This was too close to be taken from him. Gilmore could be taken back into custody, the project could be set up somewhere else. But he'd be damned if he was going to let some starship captain with her head full of gooey ideals take away everything he'd planned for. He took a deep breath.

"All agents....battle stations."

Ransom was nervous. He was not the real Rudy Ransom; he was a Psyops agent. He'd never served in Starfleet, let alone commanded a ship. Kilbourne might be sure of himself, but he could afford to be. He was on a ship that had quantum torpedoes and a cloaking device. Ransom had a crippled Nova-class vessel that was crewed by two other Psyops agents, a bunch of holograms, and an engineer who he'd carefully reduced to an emotional wreck.

He'd been in Psyops long enough to know that his ship was being used as bait. He could tell from the sensors that X5573 had already cloaked. He knew that once Voyager got close enough, Kilbourne would be able to pummel the ship into submission. That didn't mean the sight of the rapidly approaching ship didn't scare the hell out of him, though. His job was to back other people into corners; he didn't much like it himself.

Burke was at Tactical, hunched over the console. Dammit, why didn't anything on this ship work? The darker-haired man shot him a glance.

"Are the holograms going to stay stable?" he asked. "Can holograms even fight?"

Ransom shrugged. "They're still here," he said. "They're being projected from the spyship. We don't have control of them. Kilbourne does."

"What about Gilmore?" Lessing asked.

Ransom tried to think. "There's a holoemitter in Engineering," he said. "Bring the doctor on-line and have him incapacitate her."

"Is that safe?" Burke asked, his fingers flying over the console. "He's not the stablest guy in the world."

"He'll have to do," Ransom answered. "All right. Go to Red Alert. All hands...battle stations."

It was hard to make out the enhanced warp device. She was working on it, yes. All the same, she couldn't stop crying, and the image of the hellish device kept blurring under her tears. Her nose ran. She was sobbing openly. She didn't want to do this. She'd tried so hard to avoid it.

What was worse was the knowledge that she didn't have to do this. Rudy and Max were on the bridge. But if they came down and saw her doing anything else, it would just start again. Building the thing was tearing her apart, but not building it would simply delay the inevitable.

Red lights flashed. Her head jolted around. She took a moment to wipe her nose and mouth and try to act something like a Starfleet officer. It took a few minutes. Turning her back on the evil device helped. She didn't want to look at it.

Finally she sniffled, wiped blobs of things she didn't want to think about from her mouth, and tapped her combadge.

"Gilmore to bridge," she said, and her voice sounded empty and papery in the dank room.

"Bridge here," came Rudy's clipped reply.

"Why are we at Red Alert?" A thousand questions lurked behind that one. Is Voyager coming? Are they going to kill us? Are you going to surrender?

"Stand by," was his only response.

"But, Rudy--,"

"Stand by, I said." He sounded angry, and Marla quailed. She looked over at the enhanced warp device. It reminded her of a modern cannibal's pot, hungry and waiting to be filled with corpses. The sight of it reminded her of her own pusillanimity and cowardice. She started to cry again weakly, the heels of her hands screwed into her eyes.

"Ms. Gilmore. If you could stop blubbering and turn around, please?"

The voice was prissy and sourly amused. Marla turned around and stared blankly at what she saw. The EMH stood before her, holding a hypospray in one hand, a nasty smile on his face. All she could do was gawp.

"How...how are you out of sickbay?" she asked in sheer befuddlement..

"Captain Ransom asked me to visit you," the EMH replied, and stepped forward, wielding the hypospray. She flinched away from him, trying to get to her feet. He grabbed her arm and pulled her viciously forward, spilling her onto the floor. She gasped; his grip was iron, and she'd never seen him been so rough before.

"It's been a while since I got to play with you last," the doctor leered, and straddled her. One hand snagged in her hair and pulled her head back. "I'm supposed to incapacitate you. Can't have you escaping, can we?"

She tried to twist away, but couldn't. He was a lot stronger than she remembered. The hypospray hissed as it touched her neck, and she grabbed at it a second too late. The doctor grabbed her wrist with his other hand and smirked. It hurt. That grip was like an icy shackle.

"Why?" she asked, staring up at him in shock.

"Ethical subroutines aren't the only things that can be deleted, you know," he said smugly. "Compassion and empathy subroutines...gone, gone, gone." He let her go and put his hands together, linking his thumbs and fluttering his fingers to mimic a flying dove. "Life is much more amusing when you enjoy causing pain." As if to emphasize, he bent her wrist back, seeming pleased with the agonized groan he elicited.

"A standard general anesthetic would be so very boring," he said, and grinned horribly. "So I came up with my own concoction. A nice little hallucinogen. Just the thing to let those inner demons come out and play, hmmmmm? You've got a few minutes before it kicks in, Miss Gilmore. Enjoy them while you can. It'll slow you down enough for Captain Ransom."

"What the hell is going on?" she pleaded. "Why are you doing this to me?"

The doctor stepped forward, driving his holographic foot into her ribcage. An explosion of pain echoed in her side and she gasped for air and tried to roll away. Those strong, cruel hands grabbed her again and flipped her onto her back as neatly as a mother preparing to change her baby's diaper.

The doctor straddled her, grabbing a handful of her uniform shirt and pulling her up to face him. "You took too long. Voyager is attacking. Congratulations, you've signed everyone's death warrants. How's that?" He favored her with another sadistic smile and watched her face intently. His image blurred as her pupils began to dilate. He hovered over her for a long moment or two and let her go, watching her fall back to the deck of Engineering with muted interest.

"Have a nice trip," he said lightly, and took himself off-line. Marla didn't see him vanish.

"Confirmed. The vessel is Nova-class. There are no Nova-class vessels stationed in this area. This vessel has no business being here."

Seven had announced that several minutes before, once her Astrometrics scanners had detected the presence of a small vessel hanging in the middle of space. It had been in the right place; at warp four, just a few hours from Deep Space Nine. Far enough away that sensors on the station wouldn't detect it easily; close enough that it could resupply the ship if necessary.

Janeway felt action approaching. A wire twisted around her gut. Colonel Kira and Dr. Bashir were on the bridge with her and her command crew. Kira had offered to man a station, but Janeway had demurred. It wasn't that she didn't trust the other woman; she did, somehow. She didn't think Kira would try to command the bridge; the Bajoran gave no sign of wanting to take over. It was something deeper; the desire to stand or fall with her own people. Bashir and Kira were useful as observers and sources of information, but ultimately, this was a mission for Voyager.

It said something about Kira Nerys, Janeway found herself thinking, that she didn't object; she found herself a place near Harry to stand and kept her mouth shut.

"If it's the one we supplied a few weeks ago, it'll be USS Epinoxa," Kira said, her eyes intent on the viewscreen.

Janeway frowned. She had sifted through Starfleet databases searching for the ship. "There's no such ship in the fleet," she said. "Trust me. I looked them all up."

Kira let out a breath between her teeth.

Seeing the ship was grimly satisfying. She had been right. It wasn't much; just a little ship shaped like a spoon with warp nacelles. As the ship drew closer, she realized how badly damaged it was and hissed. She'd only ever seen a ship damaged that badly before.

"Go to Yellow Alert," she said tersely.

"A ship like that can't fight us," Chakotay observed, and from his strained tone of voice she could tell that he was remembering the same thing she was.

She gritted her teeth. This time they wouldn't fight. This time she'd have to keep herself checkreined. It wasn't easy; she was easily as angry at the men who had brought this into being as she had been with Captain Ransom. This was worse, when you came down to it.

"Maybe they can't. But I want the men who did this." She turned and gave Chakotay a hard look. "I'm not going to stand for this, either."

The small ship drew ever closer. Why weren't they doing anything? It just seemed to be sitting there. Was the damn thing crewed? It looked like it had power; most of what should be glowing was.

Then it was close enough that she could read the name emblazoned on the saucer.

U.S.S. EQUINOX NCC-72381

Janeway let out a hiss of surprise and anger.

"I told Noah Lessing we all make our own hell," she murmured. "It seems Section 31 made hers."

Chakotay didn't say anything, but she felt a reassuring hand on her arm. She smiled humorlessly. He meant well, but it didn't help. It couldn't be this easy. Section 31 had not put in all this effort just to hand over Marla Gilmore with a sheepish apology.

"That's not the only ship out there," Dr. Bashir said from behind her somewhere. "I'm positive of it. It's not Section 31's style."

Janeway nodded slowly, her eyes locked on the viewscreen. "Scan for any signs of a cloaked vessel," she ordered. "Plasma venting. Heat signatures. Anything we can find."

In response, she could hear Harry's fingers zipping over the controls. "No sign," he said tightly.

"Go to Red Alert. Lock weapons but don't fire until I give the order," Janeway said. "Hail them. They get one chance to surrender and once chance only."

"Channel open," Harry said.

Janeway cleared her throat. "Attention, stolen vessel. This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager. You are under a false name and registry. Lower your shields and prepare to be boarded. If you attempt to flee, I'll open fire if I have to."

She waited for the ship to do something. Seconds ticked by like hours. The ship should be turning to face her, charging weapons, raising shields. Yet it didn't. It just sat there. It was unnerving. She could feel her palms begin to sweat and locked her hands behind her back. The urge to pace the bridge was strong and she had to force herself to stand in front of her chair.

"Maybe it's abandoned," Paris said. "Or maybe they just have a few people on it."

Janeway's eyes scanned the viewscreen, seeking out what she knew had to be there.

"Too easy," she said.

"Captain," Chakotay said delicately, "we may not need to fight. Let's see if we can beam aboard a security detail. This isn't a rematch with Ransom. We're here to get our crewman. That's all."

Janeway considered. She was determined not to let the rift between herself and Chakotay develop again. All the same, her gut said the same thing Dr. Bashir had. They were out there...somewhere.

"They're raising shields," Harry said suddenly.

She turned and looked at Chakotay. He was right, after a fashion; the entire idea was rescuing a member of her crew. But that wasn't all it was. Not anymore. There were plenty of old pains the sight of a ship called Equinox brought up, but she had to go with her own instincts.

Other than raising shields, the science vessel did nothing. The tension grew oppressive. Do something! She wanted to scream at the ship. What did Section 31 have in mind? What game were they playing now?

"Have that security team on standby in transporter room one," Janeway ordered.

On the screen, slowly, Equinox began to turn ponderously, as if a cadet was at the helm for the first time.

"Captain," Chakotay said gently, "maybe they don't know what they're doing."

She eyed him for a moment, not wanting to dress him down on the bridge. Perhaps he was right and she was just being paranoid. Whoever was conning that ship was so damned placid. Slowly, she shook her head.

"Sorry, Commander, but it doesn't feel right," she said, and strove to make her voice gentle to pad the blow. "These people are professionals. There's something more than meets the eye here."

Was Equinox just bait? Was all this a false front? Bashir had described how Section 31 had created labyrinthine plots before. Was this just a clever decoy that she'd been meant to find? Was Marla Gilmore being held somewhere on the other side of the quadrant?

She bit her lip and gave the order. Maybe it was right, maybe it was wrong. Maybe it was overkill. Maybe it wouldn't be enough. But she had to act.

"Prepare to fire on my mark. All hands to battle stations."