All hell broke loose.

The bridge crew of the USS Enterprise were rocked and ricocheted by an ear-splitting explosion; several spilled out of their seats, others grasped hard at hteir consoles. Red-white ribbons of streaming flame spurted against the viewscreen. The klaxon wailed.

"Damage report Liuetenant!" Scotty barked, even as his mind registered dimly: Romulans. Damn them, eyes searching the screen for the hard predatory lines of the enemy vessel. They must've unlcoaked to fire that, they must've-

"Hard hit, sir! Severe damage to aft thruster one, casualties on decks six and seven! Hull plating torn open, explosions in several sectors –"
A second blast rocked the ship.

"Ve cannot take another hit like dat sir!" Chekov was manning Spock's station.

"Do we have warp?" Scott demanded.

"Aye sir, engineering reports they can give us warp one – faltering though –" Scott's heart wrenched for his engines.

"We have the Romulan cruiser on sensors sir –"
"Fire photon torpedoes! Short blast! Don't lose the warp drive, for God's sake –" 'We'll have to get out of here.' Scott's mind flashed momentarily to the landing party on the surface – his captain, his commander – but if he didn't preserve the Enterprise, he'd be no good to any of them.

"Lieutenant, can we hail the Captain?"
"No sir, the channel is down."

"Retreat," Scotty snapped. "Any heading."
"Sir-"
"Do it, helm!"

"Aye sir."

'All we can do now is back off and assess the damage.' They could attempt to send a message back to Federation HQ, obviously, but the challenge of packagaing a signal discreetly enough to bypass the Romulans, and yet be discerned by a Federation this far into deep space were very slim. As usual, the Enterprise was reliant on herself and on her crew. 'We'll be back for the others,' Scotty promised himself. 'Soon.''

"We have not come to this decision lightly. Desperate times call for desperate measures." Marat was standing in front of a diagram of the Halls of Governance. Underground had been right. The rebels, in fact, met deep below the earth in an abandoned storage area. Passages led from the Halls, through the earth, to emerge in this dismal haven. Convenient, Kirk noted, as many of the rebels seemed to hold office for the Leviathan – Leni was here, as were several other blue-robed Rythanians. Kirk counted twenty in all, although Makat assured him there were more, not every comrade could practically be present at any gathering. Now Makat was outlining their plan in a calm, clear voice.

The plan was tyrannicide.

"Well?" Leni demanded of the visitors when the talk was finished. "What do you think? Myself, I would vote for slow poison. Less suspect."
"But more time to be discovered," said another dissident.

"And of course, there's the problem of succession," a third said – Kirk recognised the black-haired woman from the Leviathan's dining table. "We have, at present, no way of assuring our leader is good, just, or worthy. This is simply emergency strategy."
"Do you feel no revulsion upon breaking the most sacred of your laws?" asked Spock with genuine curiosity. "The Book would surely condemn this act most ruthlessly."
"The Book has been abused," said Leni bitterly. "This is not the way. Makat sees far and deeply – he is the greatest of all of us," she shot their leader a look of admiration.

"We haven't agreed to help you," Kirk cautioned.

"But you would not betray us either."
Kirk glanced at his friends: "No. We wouldn't. That would accomplish nothing."

"And there will be no need for you to," came a sudden voice, obscured by the crackle of static. Colour drained simultaneously from twenty Rythonian faces. Makat went rigid as board. All eyes were turned to the source of the sound – a small radio transmitter, Kirk realised, concealed in the brick of the wall. Following the sound, he ran his hand along the surface till he found the crack, and levered the stone out of place. Leni sat down hard.

"Nobody move!" the transmitter barked. "We have you surrounded. Resistance will be met with instant death." The cellar door opened. A group of armed guards burst in through the doorway like a mechanised spurt of energy: the landing party drew their phasers automatically. Several rebels produced electronic weapons, and few bursts of fire were exchanged. But the guards were elite – in split seconds, the dissidents and landing party each felt the barrel of a weapon pressed to his temple, and surrendered their weapons.

"Search them," the iron voice said, and Kirk's eyes were drawn to the doorway. There stood Tethan, tall and powerful and smiling – cruel lights in his pale eyes flicked over the room. His guards dealt out indiscriminate kicks and punches. Tethan smiled.

"Scum," he addressed them and spat on the floor. Kirk's phaser and communicator were taken. Tethan gestured for the prisoners to be escorted out. As the landing party passed, his eyes flicked over them and his mouth moved in a sneer of disdain.

"Arrogance," he said.

Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Leni and another rebel named Shaltan sat and waited in the confines of their cell. If surface Rython was cold, the underground was a good ten degrees colder, and the flagstone floor, lack of lights and persistant drips did nothing to alleviate the atmosphere.

"Interesting. It appears that the methods of punishment favoured by the Rythonians take their precedent from the same era as their sacred text."
"Must you, Spock?"
Makat was gone.

"They won't kill us at once," said Leni. "They will torture us first." Her voice had turned hollow, and hse gripped the bars, staring dejectedly up the corridor. "They will want to know who the others are. And we'll tell them. We'll talk."
Guards parolled intermittently, this corridor and another. All the rebels had been taken and confined, and far away, Kirk believed he could hear the grind of machinery. Then the screams began. The Rythonians shivered, the guards turned in the direction of the sound – and in the moment of their distraction, McCoy gestured to Kirk and Spock to bend close and watch. He glanced once at the guard's back – still turned –

- then handed Kirk his communicator.

"Bones you're a genius!" Kirk exclaimed quietly. "How did you….?"
"Didn't do anything, Jim. Looks like the guard assigned to search me was a dissident himself. He let me keep this, and my phaser and tricorder – though I can't think what good those'll be…if that's not evidence for the existence of dumb luck, Mr. Spock, then I don't know what is."

Meanwhile, Kirk had flipped open the communicator and was attempting to tune it.
"Scotty, come in. Kirk to Enterprise."
"Captain, let me try." Spock took the communicator and fiddled with the controls. Then he frowned. "The channel is open. They are not receiving us."
"Why not!" Kirk exclaimed futilely, but their conversation was cut off. The guards were in motion – dragging the limp forms of prisoners back to their cells – amongst them was Makat.

The Rythonian bore all the signs of brutal, primitive torture. Semiconscious, bleeding heavily from wounds to head and limbs and torso, two guards supported him into the cell and then dropped him, locking the door behind them. McCoy bent over the fallen man, and, once the guards had passed, he set his tricorder to mute and scanned the Rythonian's body.

"Oh my God," he said.

"What?" Kirk demanded. During their years in space the doctor had seen, treated and lost patients to injuries more hideous than the Captain could've imagined. Internal bleeding, broken bones should come as no shock to him.

"Oh my God," said McCoy again, still staring at the screen.

"What?"

"That's impossible."

"Bones, what?"

The surgeon turned and addressed his captain, a strange look in his eyes. "Jim, Makat has more layers than we realised. Not that that's even his name."
"What are you talking about?"
"This isn't a Rythonian, Jim. It's a Romulan spy."