A/N: Yes! It's here at last, the finale to Yield Point! Huge thanks to my friend DrZevil who provided his character for this storyline, and the contributions of our joint friend Kretolus cannot be dismissed either. Both of them helped me make this ending one of the best things I've put to paper, and I hope you all enjoy it!


Admiral Zevil was not in a good mood.

To begin with, he was walking down a very long hallway and his body was screaming at him to stop. Thanks to a sudden and ill-advised collision with a tree on his last assignment, the end result being bruised bones and a sudden coma, the young Valixian admiral was cautioned against over-exerting himself and forced to use a cane to go anywhere.

The second cause for his ill mood, which was causing all personnel to give him a wide berth as he approached, could be summed up in one name: Lydana. More accurately, Admiral Kassai Lydana of Starfleet Intelligence, who Zevil usually thought of with fondness and exasperation, but not today.

Manipulating me is one thing- a very annoying and reprehensible thing, but I'm used to that by now, Zevil thought bitterly, giving his head a shake when he felt his eye start to twitch as it did when Lydana was involved. But usurping an Admiral's authority- my authority? Uprooting an officer and then sending her in blind to face her personal hell? No, this time she's gone too far.

Zevil was on his way to have it out with the petite admiral, to find out why she had done this - because she always had a reason, good or bad, and to see what action he should take against her, beyond his poaching of Captain Pezhal. Zevil wasn't exactly proud of that, but he knew that if he didn't scoop the Trill captain up now, it wouldn't be long before Lydana got her claws into her.

Zevil soon found himself at the other Admirals door and pressed the override button, but nothing happened. "Computer, open this door."

"Unable to comply. Access to Admiral Kassai's office is off limits to all lower ranked and non Intelligence Admirals." Came the monotone reply, to which Zevil slapped his hand to his face and slowly dragged it down in frustration.

"Fine. Plan B it is." He said out loud before mashing the door chime over and over again nonstop. It lacked the gravitas of just barging into her office, but you work with what you have.

"WHAT?!" Lydana snapped over the intercom. "The door is closed for a reason, what is it that's so bloody urgent?"

" Open this door, right now, or I'll disintegrate it with my phaser." Zevil seethed as he pressed the reply button with more force than was strictly necessary. "And you know damn well what this is about."

There was a sigh from the intercom, before it finally clicked off and the door hissed open.

Aa Zevil entered, he nearly fell over when he saw the tall Romulan sat on the edge of Lydana's desk.

The fact that she was Romulan wasn't the issue - the uniform which bore a striking resemblance to the Tal Shiar's was. It was only the certainty that Lydana would never associate with those terrorists that prevented Zevil from shooting her outright.

"What is it Xavius? I'm in the middle of a meeting," the small Bajoran asked tersely, still sitting behind her desk.

The Romulan, for her part, stayed silent, a playful smirk on her lips, her blue eyes twinkling mischievously. The right side of her head was shaved, the rest of her thick, white hair swept over the left and styled in tight curls, the tips dyed a pale purple. She clearly held high rank, as well, as the segmented shoulder guards and dark purple drapery hanging down her back marked her as a Subadmiral.

"Consider it over Lydana, because we have issues we need to clear up and that trump's whatever new machination this is." Zevil said, just as tersely, waving a dismissing hand towards the Romulan. "Unless you'd like an audience as we discuss the suicide mission you broke several protocols to send a former dock worker on?" He added with a raised eyebrow that did not belay the fury in his voice or eyes.

Lydana sighed, kneading her temple in irritation, then looked at her Romulan guest.

"Perhaps you'd better go, Ishi, this could take a while."

"Oh, but you haven't even introduced me to your handsome friend," the Romulan purred, sliding off the desk with feline grace.

"Urgh, fine. Xavius Vexius Zevil, allow me to introduce Ish'iraya S'vae, my sister."

"By marriage," Ish'iraya stressed, and Lydana looked at her.

"That doesn't matter and you know it, after all we've gone through."

"Fair enough. Anyway," Ishi stated, pulling a PADD out of her jacket, "a little gift from your friend Tal'Mera. Do tell her to stop making me her personal errand runner, I do have my own work to do, after all."

Lydana took the PADD, setting it on her desk.

"I'll pass it on," she told the Romulan, who gave Zevil a sultry wink. "I'll call you soon, okay?"

"Of course, sweetie," Ishi said, heading for the door. "And call Commander Pirayz! She waited by the comm all night waiting for you to call her."

"Wha- I never said I would call her!"

"I said you'd call her," Ishi said with a grin. "You wouldn't want to make a liar of me now, would you?"

"But-"

The door hissed closed behind Ishi, and Lydana scowled at it.

"You are a liar," she muttered to herself, then looked back at Zevil. "Now then, what are you throwing a tantrum about?"

While Zevil desperately wanted to ask about the whole 'sister-in-law' thing, he kept to his focus on his displeasure at his friend.

"I'm willing to overlook a lot of flaws in your character, Lydana, and even help you with your schemes, because I genuinely believe you have the greater good of the Federation at heart, but this time?" Zevil said, his tone filled with simmering anger as he counted out his grievances on his fingers.

"Manipulation of two starfleet admirals to uproot a capable dock worker, sending said dock worker blind into her personal hell that resulted in a massive loss of life and damage to a Starfleet vessel, usurping and bypassing the authority of an entire cross faction task force, and slew of other ethical complaints I haven't even had time to look into." He paused to take a breath as his anger seemed to subside for a moment as his shoulders sagged and he asked, a sour expression on his face, "By the Night Cloak, Lydana, what were you thinking?"

"First of all, I never manipulated anyone," Lydana answered. "You agreed that we needed officers like Pezhal back out there, not stuck on the docks. Secondly, I had no idea what was out there. I may act like I know everything, but I'm not psychic. And I felt that if she did indeed encounter something hostile - whatever it was - she deserved to have an edge. Antiproton weapons are not common, so neither are defences against them. It was pragmatism, nothing more."

Lydana sat back in her chair, taking a jumja stick from a small dish on her desk and chewing on it.

"Any further questions, or do you want to shout at me some more?"

"I do have one question, actually." He replied as he hobbled his way over to her desk, placing both hands on it to properly loom over her, his voice going cold. "How stupid do you think I am?"

Before she could do more then give him a perplexed look, Zevil continued. "It might have been a coincidence that we would arrive at space dock around the same time, but it was clearly not when you came by as I was talking to Pezhal. You further manipulated me into pressuring Quinn into forcing her back into the chair.

"Now on that score, I agree that she's needed on the front lines, but as to not knowing about the Borg?" He asked, his face a sneer and voice skeptical. "That statement was so full of deception, I didn't even need to concentrate to feel it. I know for a fact that Starfleet, the Republic, and K.D.F. have Intel ships and probes in that area, so while you didn't know for sure what was out there, you had a damn good idea of the hell you were sending Pezhal into, Lydana."

Lydana continued watching Xavius through his outburst, her expression unchanged. Once he finished his newest tirade, Lydana raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well, you are paranoid today, aren't you? Do I need to check your meds?" When Zevil did nothing but glare at her, she carried on regardless. "No? Fine. Okay, I will first reiterate, I did not manipulate you. I explained to you Pezhal should be out there, and you agreed with me. Do not try and make me responsible for the guilt you so clearly suffer."

She rose at last, mimicking his stance as she met his eyes mere inches away.

"And as for what you say I 'knew', yes there were security forces in the area. Once. But do you know what 'lost contact' means? Or the kind of effects the Borg have on sensors? Do you need a refresher course? Because when I told Captain Pezhal we had lost contact with Intel services in the area, that was what I meant. I. Heard. Nothing. So I sent her as an enforced scout, armed to the teeth to deal with whatever she found."

She sat down again, looking away from Xavius at last.

"Now if you're quite finished, I have work to do. I assume you can see yourself out."

Zevil closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm himself to speak. "You're right, I do feel guilty." He finally said, surprisingly calm. "But what's concerning is that you don't. I understand that as part of the chain of Command, we send men and women to possibly face their deaths, but we have a duty of care to those men and women to thoroughly vet a situation by going over all the data available.

"Commander Burgess let me look over the sensor logs you would have access to." Zevil took another deep breath, knowing he might be crossing a line, but he had to know for sure. "They're identical to one other Borg attack… Vega Colony." She looked at him sharply but he kept going. "So either you ignored those signs or you're just incompetent, either way, you'll be standing in front of a disciplinary and ethics tribunal after I send in my report to Quinn."

Lydana paused in her work and typed something into her desktop terminal, waiting as an audiofile played.

"Please state the nature of the Delta emergency...I would surmise you have questions."

"I'm sure many of our superiors would be interested to know about a Delta Recruit running around, pissing in the timeline, don't you?"

Before Zevil could respond, Lydana was carrying on her own tirade.

"And one other thing. If you ever threaten me like that ever again, I will personally ensure you spend your days working on the most obscure, pointless backwater world I can find, before I eventually come and carve out your heart.

"Now get the fuck out of my office."

Zevil was silent for a moment, before a change came over him like a waterfall flowing down an iceberg. "I didn't come here to threaten you Admiral Kassai." He said in a dead calm voice and it didn't go unnoticed that he uses her formal title instead of her name. "I wanted to know why you've done what you've done, and your actions have given me my answer."

He leaned in and Lydana looked up into his eyes and saw, not his usual exasperation or kindness, but coldness that froze her and burned her at the sametime. "Do what you like with that information. I won't be blackmailed or coerced. It didn't work when Sela tried it, it won't work for you." He growled, a touch of hate filling his voice before turning and walking away from her.

As he reached the door, he left one final parting comment.

"I hope Section 31 appreciates all the free work you're doing for them."

As the doors hissed shut behind him, Lydana scoffed.

"Whoever said it was free?"

Lydana sighed and picked up the PADD her sister had brought, looking over it more as a distraction than anything else.

Until suddenly, she read something that made her sit upright.

She read it again, to make sure she wasn't mistaken.

"Shit," she said softly, then slammed the PADD down and hurriedly typed some instructions into her desk terminal, ordering her office's security systems deactivated as she did. Once that was finished she stood up quickly, slipping the PADD into her jacket, and heading towards the door.

"Computer, execute Damnation Protocol, authorisation Alpha-Six-Six-Six-Omega."

As the door hissed open to let her out, Lydana vanished in a haze of teleporter energy, as all of the technology in her office overloaded and exploded violently.