It only took one ration to fill up each person, and once they were full, they laid on three of the cots. None of them wanted to sleep (for they had been doing too much of that lately), so they began talking.

"What in the world is going on?" Jorge griped. "One minute I'm recalibrating the long-range sensors on the outpost, the next I'm running for my life trying to get off a dying planet, probably destroyed by an enemy we didn't even know was there. Then, I'm carted through space against my will, taken to a prison on an alien planet, interrogated by one of its inhabitants—who just HAPPENS to speak perfect English—and now I'm here, on some cot in some hut in some cave that houses some rebel faction. And they just HAPPEN to have Starfleet rations."

"It's confusing, Jorge, I know," said the Captain, "but we just need to wait it out. I have a sneaky suspicion the answers are just around the corner."

And they were. As soon as he said that, the door swung open and in walked a group of Suundel dressed in browns and dark reds, and walking with them, dressed in a brightly colored robe, was a man—a human man. But when the Captain looked closely at his eyes, he saw the trademark blackness of Betazoid eyes. At the very least, here was someone who could understand them. "But what's a Betazoid man . . . never mind, I'm not asking any more of those questions right now," he thought.

The Betazoid sat down on the cot next to the Captain, and began to address all three humans. "I am Tam Elbrun. I am a Betazoid."

Jorge jumped up in surprise. "I've read about you! You were on the Enterprise-D when it made first contact with that living spaceship . . . Gomtuu!"

"Yes. Unfortunately Gomtuu was destroyed almost a year ago when we wandered into Suundel space. I can still hear his cries in my head . . . " Tam began staring wide-eyed at the floor, then shook his head when he remembered what he was doing. "At any rate, these rebels rescued me from the prisons and I was able to understand their thoughts. Since then, I've been their translator."

"And you're here to tell us what's going on," said the Captain.

"Yes, Captain. A rogue sect has overthrown the government on Saanth."

"Yes, we got that part already."

"Okay, but what you didn't get is that the Suundel are a very introverted people, and this whole thing would never have happened if an outside force had not instigated it."

"You're saying there's a non-Suundel force behind all of this? Another race? A person?"

"I don't know exactly, Captain, but I do know that there are many thoughts from the leadership of the rogue sect that aren't Suundel. That's all I can ever get."

"Why were we abducted and brought here?"

"I'm not entirely sure about the reasoning behind it, but the most reasonable conclusion given the thoughts I've heard is that you were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's no clear reason that any of you were kidnapped, but the general feeling I get is revenge."

"From that alien force?"

"It seems that way, Captain. For some reason the Suundel have a thought structure that . . . "blurs" telepathically, and it's only by being in close proximity to one that I can pick out thoughts. The thoughts of the alien force are simply blocked most of the time. Human thoughts, however, gush forward with no restraint, and I'm hearing the thoughts of many more humans than the prisoners."

"So others must have been kidnapped before," said Jorge.

"No, these are not coming from the planet. I have good reason to believe there's at least one Federation vessel in orbit. Probably more."

The Captain's heart jumped. "But how could they be in orbit when this planet is under such heavy guard?" he thought. He had to find out. "Can you contact any of them, Tam?"

"I cannot, Captain. There are none among them who can hear me."

"Then we need to retrieve our gear from the prison. That's our first priority."

Tam turned to one of the Suundel with him and stared into his eyes, then turned back to the Captain. "He tells me that they have one of your communicator pins."

"With that, I can contact any Federation ships in orbit! Ask him if I can have it."

Tam turned back to the Suundel, who then reached into his pocket and produced a communicator pin.

"Oh, Tam, I want to ask you: do you know where the Starfleet rations came from? And that communicator pin?"

Tam sighed and looked down. "As far as I know they were stolen from the Federation ships the rogue sect encountered. They have entire stores of them on their planetary bases. These rebels managed to steal a few over time, which is what you were just eating."

"Why were the planets attacked in the first place?"

"We think it was done as a diversion. One of the officers who defected said that only five Suundel battlecruisers have the planetary weapon, and that the real goal is Earth."

"Earth? We have to get out of here. Hand me the communicator please." Shawn held out his hand and Tam placed the delta-shaped pin in his palm. Shawn tapped it gently. "Attention. Any Federation vessels who can hear me, please respond." He waited. "If you can hear me, I am Captain Shawn Thornburg of the Federation Starship Tomcat."

Immediately a voice sounded over the communicator. "Captain Thornburg, how many to beam up?"

It took a second for it to sink in, but when the Captain realized someone had just asked him a question, he answered, "Oh, um," he stammered. He looked at Tam again. "Are you coming with us?"

"I'm staying down here. I still can't handle the constant chatter of other minds. The Suundel are comforting because it's all a blur."

"Three to beam up. Thank you, Tam. We'll be in touch." Shawn, Catherine, and Jorge stood up and walked away from the rest of the group, then disappeared in a blue light, leaving Tam and the Suundel guards alone in the hut.

"Did we get them?" said a man clothed in an all black Starfleet-looking uniform with a red collar.

"There's some interference, but they're coming through now, sir." A gruff man responded to the question. He stood at the controls in a transporter room. As he spoke, three figures materialized on the transporter pad in front of him.

The man with the red collar said, "Welcome, Captain. I am Commander Jason Konrad. Please follow me." He walked toward the door of the transporter room.

Shawn looked at his companions and said, "Well, I suppose we better follow him." They stepped off of the transporter pad, staring hard at the almost alien interiors of the ship, and the dark colors that covered them. They followed the Commander through the dark hallways toward a turbolift. Every LCARS panel they passed was dark blue, and many of them detailed the weapons systems of this ship. One of them had a picture of the ship, and Shawn noticed that it had three nacelles and a completely unconventional, alien-influenced design. He knew they were on a war ship. The U.S.S. Enchanter. Diablo class. Another panel displayed a triangular crest with one word written inside of it: Epsilon.

When they stepped off the turbolift, they were on the bridge, which was almost completely dark except for the light of the viewscreen; one man stood up and said in a grave tone, "Welcome to the U.S.S. Enchanter, Captain. I am Captain Mark Gerding, and I see you've already met my Number One. Excuse the lights. We're running in low-power mode."

"Thank you, Captain." Shawn looked at the viewscreen. Directly off the port bow—not 500 meters away—was a menacing ship, which Shawn guessed was of Suundel design. Behind the ship was a planet, mostly green, with patches of blue here and there. Shawn knew in an instant they were still in orbit of Saanth. He looked around the bridge of the Enchanter, and realized there was no one except Captain Gerding and Commander Konrad operating the vessel. "Captain, I have a slew of questions for you."

"You may ask, Captain, but you may not get an answer to some," warned Mark.

"Are you out here alone? Are you cloaked? How long have you been out here? Do you know about the rest of the prisoners on the planet, and how are we going to rescue them? Why were we brought—"

"Hold on, Captain. I'll try to answer these first. No, we're not out here alone, and in this situation I'm allowed to divulge who else is here. There are four ships total in orbit of Saanth, and we're each shadowing a Suundel battlecruiser—and yes, we're cloaked: the U.S.S. Alton, under the command of Captain Cal Martinez, the U.S.S. Sol, under Captain Algar DeHoll, and the U.S.S. Indiana, under Captain Ivan Wilson. We've been out here for about three days. Yes, we know about the rest of the prisoners on the planet, and we've been formulating a plan to rescue them."

"Why did the Suundel bring us here in the first place? How are you cloaked when it's illegal by Federation law? What is Epsilon? What is the alien force controlling the rogue sect?"

"You're just full of questions."

"I said I had a slew."

"I don't know why the Suundel brought you here. I can't divulge information about our cloaking device, except that we have it. Neither can I divulge information about Epsilon beyond the fact that we don't exist and you never saw us. I don't know anything about the alien force controlling the rogue—"

"You don't exist? What do you mean you don't exist?"

"Epsilon is not an officially recognized body. That's all you need to know." He sighed. "By being on this ship, you are bound to secrecy. If you do not agree to this, well . . ."

Commander Konrad moved from behind his workstation and stared gravely at Captain Thornburg, one hand on his weapon.

"Fine. We all agree. It's not like we have much of a choice. But my ship probably thinks I'm dead. Can we send a message to them?"

"Captain, any long-distance transmission would certainly be intercepted by the Suundel and they would find our location quickly. Besides, we're deep in the Gamma Quadrant; any subspace message we sent would take about six years to reach the Federation border. Our ship travels faster than that at transwarp, so it would be better to deliver the message yourself."

"You have transwarp, too?"

"Captain, I don't mean to be rude, but we're about ready to get the remaining prisoners and get out of here. We've installed all of the countermeasures we came to install, so now is the time to act."

"Countermeasures? Nevermind. I don't want to know any more. Well, what's the plan? Why can't we just beam them out of there?"

"There's a jamming field around the military base. We'll need a special comm badge with a booster signal, to beam them out successfully. Commander Konrad will take it to them and we'll beam them and a few Suundel out as prisoners for interrogation later."

"You're going to take prisoners?"

"Do you have a question for every single thing I say?"

"I do when the things you say are so spectacular. Since everything else you do is illegal, I'll ignore the fact that taking prisoners is inhuman, but how is Commander Konrad going to get into the base without being gunned down by the hundreds of Suundel officers roaming the base? Do you have personal cloaking devices, too?"

Captain Gerding waved to Jason, who approached the Captains, but said, "Captain, are you sure it's okay to reveal this much to norms?" Captain Gerding just stared at Jason, who then slowly pressed a button on a device on his belt. He immediately disappeared.

"Oh, so the answer is yes," said Captain Thornburg, incredulous.

When Commander Konrad reappeared, he tapped another button and nodded to Captain Gerding. Mark withdrew his weapon and fired right at Jason, causing Shawn, Catherine, and Jorge to jump to their feet; but the beam was simply absorbed by a force field around Jason that looked just like the personal force fields the Borg used in their first encounters with the Federation.

Shawn's mouth dropped open. "I can't believe I'm seeing this. Everything ideal the Federation has stood upon for two centuries is being ignored in favor of tactical advantage! How many different species have you stolen technology from? I see Borg and Romulan so far. Do you have Breen? Ferengi? Dominion? I mean, you've threatened to kill us if we talk about your existence. How can you be—"

Commander Konrad approached Captain Thornburg quickly and growled, "Captain, this line of questioning is unacceptable."

"None of this is useful right now," said Mark. "Jason, just get to the transporter room and I'll give the word."

"Aye, Captain," he conceded, bowing. He left the bridge, and as soon as he did, Captain Gerding punched a few buttons on his chair's command console. Three faces popped up on the viewscreen.

"Cal, Algar, Ivan. It's time," said Mark. The three faces nodded and the viewscreen switched back to the battlecruiser and the planet. The Enchanter began moving away from the Suundel battlecruiser and approaching the planet, almost entering its atmosphere. Mark called over the comm system, "Commander Konrad, we're in position." Then they waited. Half an hour went by, and in that time Captain Gerding and Captain Thornburg had as much conversation as their positions would allow, but Shawn managed to gather that Mark was Zatien, a race whose empire lay near the Typhon Expanse, and that he really didn't want to be as secretive as he had to be. In that half an hour, Shawn and Mark gained enormous respect for each other. But it was soon over, and Shawn, Catherine, and Jorge were led to the transporter room by Commander Konrad, who had returned from the rescue unscathed. After they greeted everyone who was beamed aboard, and after the two Suundel guards (whom Jason managed to capture during the rescue) were taken to the brig, Shawn returned to the bridge and took a seat. Soon, the stars disappeared into a blue tunnel, and he knew they were travelling at transwarp. They were on their way home.