Chapter 4

"Roj Blake, by all the stars, I didn't think you were going to make it," Docholli said rising to his feet to greet the bigger man warmly.

"I almost didn't," Blake responded. "I'm glad to see you survived too."

"Like you it was touch and go more times than I care to think of. But sit down, Alyssa get something strong for this man, I'll have another too, while you're there."

The chosen rendezvous was a small tavern just outside Epheron's second largest city of Lenca. The Angel Falls was a well-known smugglers haunt, if you knew how to get into the back room of the public house that is. Entrance was by an electronic token and 7-digit passcode.

Sitting down on a bar stool across the table from Docholli and another man Blake didn't automatically recognise, Blake tucked his token back into his shirt out of sight. It never paid to be too careful.

"You've heard of Deva of course?" Docholli said introducing the other man, He was clean cut and middle aged with an intense gaze that now rested thoughtfully on Blake.

"I've not had the pleasure until now," Blake said with a nod. "So what's the news?"

"You've not heard?"

Blake indicated his left arm, which was still bound in a sling. "I've been a little busy," he offered with a shrug.

"Haven't we all, in the battle?" Docholli queried.

Alyssa arrived with a tray of drinks and sat down on the vacant stool beside Blake.

"This is Alyssa, she is considered one of the Federations top communications experts, and one of our best undercover agents," Docholli said nodding in her direction.

Blake took a sip of his drink. "I mean no offence but…"

"We understand. I can vouch for them both, and have with my life, several times over. There is not a coded message sent that Alyssa can't decipher, and when it comes to the logistics of moving people, supplies and ships around, you can't ask better than Diva."

Blake nodded. "Then that's good enough for me."

"So, tell me about your arm, in the battle?"

Blake laughed shortly. "No, would you believe Travis shot me... twice… and still couldn't aim straight!"

Docholli, Deva, and Alyssa all laughed.

"And Travis?" Deva asked. "I always thought he was more than a little unhinged after his courts marshal."

"A little?" Blake queried, and took another sip of his drink, turning sober. "Travis is dead," he said with a finality that left no doubt in its wake.

"You?"

Blake indicated his arm. "No, that was Avon. Shot him in the chest, dead centre, causing Travis to nose dive into StarOne's reactor."

"That would do it all right." Docholli agreed.

"Speaking of which, have you heard anything of my crew or ship? I don't remember much, but I was put into a life pod, so the Liberator must have been badly damaged."

Deva shook his head.

Blake looked towards Alyssa. "Anything?"

"No, nothing, sorry; but I can tell you, that you're not alone in losing or misplacing your ship. There are many abandoned, displaced, or lost crews and ships out there. I'll keep an ear out, but I've not heard anything about Liberator specifically, but the losses on both sides have been tremendous."

"Did we win?"

"If by we, you mean mankind, then yes, there's not much doubt the aliens were virtually wiped out, there have been a few pockets of resistance of course, where they've gone to ground in a couple of smaller outlying colonies."

"They'll be routed soon enough; the price we paid was too high to give them a chance to regroup," Deva remarked dourly, "We lost a lot of good people, on both sides in the battle and by that I mean the Rebellion and Federation alike, and it's not over yet..."'

"What's left of the Federation fleet, which isn't much, is scattered halfway across the galaxy." Alyssa nodded.

"I'd say the Federation's in a lot of trouble." Docholli agreed.

"I'll drink to that," Blake said raising his glass in a toast. "That's why I'm here of course. As Avon would say "it's difficult to sustain a military dictatorship when you've lost most of the military"."

Everyone at the table laughed again.

Deva produced several pieces of paper and plastics from the satchel sitting on the table by his side. "Our group is scheduled to meet up with Avalon's in two days time. You'll come with us of course. As Alyssa has said, the Federation is on its knees. It's new President has gone missing, and…"

"A new President?" Blake queried. "Where has that come from? What happened to the last one?"

"What always happens when someone gets too ambitious?"

"Surely we can use that to our advantage?"

"Yes, that's what Avalon is counting on. Chaos reigns nearly everywhere."

"There's a lot of infighting too between various factions." Deva agreed.

"So the time to strike is now," Docholli said firmly.

"Agreed. But with the casualties from the battle, how many ships and personal will we have?"

Deva sorted through a couple of the plastics in front of him and slid one of them across to Blake who gave a low whistle. "Right then, we'd best get a move on hadn't we?

"Are you feeling any better now?" Donna asked Vila sitting down beside him, and handing him a mug of tea.

"A little," Vila agreed cautiously. "I really could do with a little something extra added to this though, if you know what I mean?" he said holding out the mug of tea he'd just been given.

Donna smiled, and reached out to put a careful arm around Vila, being cautious of his arm now in a sling. A scan ran in the medical section on the Tardis had shown a simple break of the thief's left ulnar. The Doctor had, not unsympathetically rotated it back into position, causing Vila to faint and while Vila he had been out of it, the Doctor had sprayed some instant foam over and around his arm, causing a rock hard cast in seconds.

Vila had come round pretty quickly and not wanting to be left alone, was sitting on the metal steps of the Tardis watching the Doctor tinker with something to the left and somewhat below him.

Donna smiled at Vila. "Yes I do know what you mean," she agreed. "And it's because I know, that I'm not going to do it."

"Eh?"

"The Doctor has given me a couple of tablets for you to take with a drink," Donna explained carefully, "Hold out your hand…."

Vila did so.

Donna tipped two purple pills the size of a garden pea onto his palm. "Take them with this," she instructed pointing to the tea once more.

"Muffph… mhay… mook... moo, mall… to do any good," Vila complained taking the pills then a sip of tea and swallowing.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you that good things come in little packages?" Donna queried.

"Eh… no, at least I don't think so."

"Well, they do. The Doctor says they're rather powerful, so you should expect to feel rather sleepy soon. We can make you up a spare bed."

"I can stay then?" Vila said, not sure if he should be glad about that or not.

"For now," The Doctor said poking his head out from underneath one of the panels on the Tardis. "Just until we can determine just whatever caused this and allowed you to enter the Tardis when we were in the middle of the Time Vortex… and no longer. Donna, don't get too attached, he's not some kind of puppy!" The Time Lord finished before sliding back underneath the Tardis console once more.

"Don't worry, he's always like this," Donna confided.

"Oi! I can hear you perfectly well you know," the Doctor stated.

"Then you shouldn't have such big ears!" Donna retorted.

Already beginning to feel the effects of the medication he'd been given, Vila moved to peer down at the Doctor to see if his ears were really big.

"What are you doing?" Donna asked confused by Vila's attempts to turn his head upside-down.

"They look the normal size to me," he said to Donna in all seriousness. "They're not big or… or green or pointy or anything…"

It took Donna a few moments to place the comment, and then she laughed. "Spaceman, Vila's just checking to see if your ears are green and pointy like Spocks…"

The Doctors head appeared from below once more. "I do not look like Spock," he said firmly. "How many of those pills did you give him Donna?"

"Only two, just like you said."

The Doctor sighed. "I said one pill, and if he was still in pain two hours later, then give him the other, not both of them at once!"

"Well Vila said he was in a lot of pain," Donna explained.

"And now he's going to be as high as a kite for hours and hours."

Donna sighed. "Are they dangerous or anything?"

Vila started to sign happily to himself, a song about a green-eared alien with big ears who went flying without permission.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "No. Those pills have a half life of twelve hours, so it's going to get worse before it gets better."

Vila's voice rose in octave, out of tune and off key.

"Is there nothing you can do?" Donna said putting her hands over her own ears. "No timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly stuff?"

The Doctor sighed. "Nope! I can't go back in time and tell you not to give him the pills. We're stuck with him until the medication wears off. If you want to help, you could hand me the No 16 spanner over there. I haven't found anything in the automatic defence mechanism, the ADM that points to a malfunction. Something as serious as dropping out of the time vortex, landing on an unknown planet and letting in a complete stranger is… is more than impossible, and yet it happened. The Banshee circuits are working correctly, the safety precaution selector is also functioning normally, yet the Hostile Action Displacement System (HADS) did not kick in, nor did the Early warning system, our defensive shields, or the Tardis Telepathic Circuits.

"In other words, the moment we dropped out of the time vortex, the Cloister Bells should have wrong and the Temporal Grace Circuits should have worked to to 'paralyse' or 'freeze' any intruder whose bio-rhythms don't correspond to a pre-programmed list of 'friends.'

"He," the Doctor said pointing towards Vila "should be trapped in a spare dimensional stasis field, which can only be deactivated from the Control Console, by me. It's simply not possible to by pass every lock on this ship, open the doors, whilst she's travelling between dimensions and ask for help."

"But isn't helping what you do Doctor?" Donna asked carefully, trying to calm an obviously frustrated Doctor. "You help people."

"Yes, but… but…. Gah!" The Doctor said exasperated.

Vila paused in his rendition of the Ballard of Green Ear. "I'm good with locks," he said with a friendly grin. "I can open anything as I always tell Avon, not that he listens to me of course. Would you like to hear of the time I rescued us all from certain death at the System's hand with nothing more than a bobby pin I'd borrowed from Jenna?"

The Doctor and Donna shared a look.

Donna picked up the tea Vila had put down. "Try some more tea, Vila it'll make you feel better."

"But I feel better already."

"Then the tea will work really well won't it?"

"It might," Vila conceded, searching in his tunic pocket for something. He brought out a crumpled paper bag and offered it to Donna. "Go on, try one. I'm not sure what they are, but they're yummy," he explained.

Gingerly putting her hand in the bag Donna exchanged another look with the Doctor as she pulled out one his jelly babies.

"What?" The Doctor spluttered.

"Come," Picard, said in answer to the chiming of the doors to his Ready Room. He'd reached a natural break in the reports he'd been reading, so had just decided to fetch himself a drink from the replicator, and had just finished ordering his usual hot Earl Grey tea when Data stepped into the room, or at least tried to. The doors whooshed open, only to close again a second later, open once more, then try to close before seizing up completely, half open.

Giving the door a perplexed look, Data shuffled in sideways. "The glitches in the Enterprises electrical systems appear to be getting worse," he offered.

Next to Picard, the replicator in the wall offered a coughing splutter and spat out a dark blue sludge into the bottom of the Captain's usual clear glass cup.

"I wonder what gave it away!" Picard said dryly, putting both the cup and its contents into the recycling bin. "Let's try that again shall we? Is Mr La Forge any closer to fixing these glitches?"

"I do not believe so Captain," Data said calmly. "Although I know he has several teams of engineers working on the problems as they arise. Just a moment ago the automatic watering system in hydroponic bay four decided that it was monsoon season and caused a fair amount of damage to the substrate the plants need in order to grow; additionally the over abundance of water in that area have caused several small leaks to appear in the storage facility below."

"I trust the clean up crews are already on site?"

"Yes sir."

"Could the anomaly be the cause of these faults? How soon before the preliminary report from sciences will be ready?"

"I estimate another 26 minutes, 43 seconds sir, but I do not believe the energy output from the phenomenon is the cause of our ship wide computer malfunctions. Whist it is true that we are still in the process of an external and internal system-wide sensor sweep and diagnostic scan, in order to locate the true cause, early indications suggest that the fault lies internally although from an external source."

Picard frowned. "An internal external source? You do realise Mr Data that you have just appeared to contradict yourself?"

"Yes sir. It is a puzzle that we are still working on."

"Very well, I expect a report in due course… Merde! What has this damn machine given me now?" Picard said looking at the milky brown liquid in a new glass cup.

Data took a step forward and sniffed the air carefully. "I do believe it is coffee sir. Black Ivory, with milk. Some purists say that coffee should be drunk unadulterated without milk and any added sweetener such as honey, sugar, or fructose. They also believe that for a truly exceptional cup, one should roast and grind your own beans for the ultimate in freshness and flavour. For rarity value there is an animal native to Earth called the Palm Civet or Civet Cat. These animals ingest the coffee beans themselves but most of the bean survives intact through the creature's digestive system. It is then collected and turned into coffee called Kopi Luwak. The Tellarites have a similar collection method with one their aquatic mammals the largely nocturnal…"

"Thank you Mr Data, that's quite enough on coffee," Picard said eyeing his beverage with disfavour. He decided to take a cautious sip. "Hmm, not tea obviously," he said with evident distaste.

"No sir. As your replicator is malfunctioning, you could always send down to Ten Forward for your tea."

"And have Guinan lecture me on drinking too much of the stuff? Thank you Data, I suppose this will have to do. It's better than the blue stuff at any rate."

"Yes sir," Data agreed. "Although are you aware that if you do imbed too much tea that the caffeine it contains can lead to both mild or to serious side effects. These include, but are not limited to headaches, nervousness, sleep dysfunctions', vomiting, diarrhoea, irritability, irregular heart…"

"Transporter Room Three to Captain Picard."

"Picard here," the Captain said tapping his combadge to open the channel and cutting across the start of Data's lecture on tea.

"Ensign Peterson sir, I don't quite know how to say this but we've just lost contact with Lt Commander Worf and his security detail."

Picard exchanged a look with Data. "What do you mean we've lost contact?" he asked.

"Ensign you were supposed to keep a transporter lock on the Away Tea at all times. Do you mean to say you've lost that too? Data added.

"Yes Commander and I can't seem to raise them at all Captain. I've tried and tried, and double, triple checked my settings and the controls. I have no explanation, but they were there one moment and gone the next…"

Picard drew a breath. "Stay right were you are Ensign, do not touch anything further, we'll be with you in a moment." The Captain said then tapped his combadge to close the channel. "Glitches aside, two transporter malfunctions depriving this ship of both her First Officer and Security Chief, in the presence of an as yet undetermined anomaly is too much of a coincidence for my taste.

"We need to get to the bottom of this quickly. Mr Data, you're with me," he instructed putting down his drink and exiting his Ready Room by squeezing sideways through the door as Data had done. "Mr Walker," he said addressing the junior Lieutenant operating Worf's customary station at tactical. "Kindly see if you can raise Commander Worf and/or his on the planet below please."

"Yes sir."

Picard forced himself to stand still, his eyes dawn to the purple/blue/white spinning haze that was the anomaly, just visible on the bottom left of the viewscreen, whilst the main view which half filled it, was of the planet below. Both seemed quiet and innocuous.

Data moved to confer briefly with the officer currently filling in for him at his ops station. The atmosphere on the bridge was tense but professional, while everyone waited to hear if Walker could raise Worf. Picard sent Troi a silent look, which she replied with a quick shake of her head. She couldn't sense anything unusual.

A full minute passed while the Lieutenant jg attempted to raise the Enterprise's Chief of Security or anyone on the Away Team and failed.

"I can't seem to manage it sir," the junior officer finally admitted.

Picard nodded, keeping his worry hidden. "Thank you Mr Walker, as you were. Commander Lenko, you have the Comm, Mr Data, if you'd be so good as to come with me?" the captain said gesturing for Data to walk ahead of him to the turbolift at the back of the bridge. "I'll be back in a short while, but in the meantime can someone get my blasted door fixed, oh and see to the replicator too. I do not drink coffee!"

Picard waited until he and Data were in the turbolift before he said anything. "Deck 6," the Captain ordered curtly before turning to his Second Officer. "Thoughts Mr Data? I was hoping that the little test on the bridge should rule out the same electrical malfunction that's currently playing havoc in Transporter Room Three," he confided. "Or indeed, if that is the case."

Data tilted his head fractionally to one side processing the Captains words at lightning speed. "An interesting hypothesis sir," he concluded. "However if the glitch in the system has lead to a ship wide communication failure then we would not be any the wiser; both instances would produce identical results, just as we've now seen."

The Captain frowned "You're saying this goes further than just a couple of isolated incidents? You think this is all connected somehow? To what? The anomaly or something more we haven't seen as yet?"

"I do not know Sir, that is what the engineering and science departments are trying to ascertain," Data said softly. "An anomaly is, by its very definition, unknown."

Picard frowned. "You're quite right of course," he agreed and tapped his combadge. "Commander La Forge, how is the diagnostic on Transporter One progressing."

"La Forge here, slowly Captain. Commander Data was going to brief you on the additional system wide disturbances we've been experiencing."

"I am here with the Captain Geordi," Data confirmed. "I believe he's been well versed in some of the malfunctions, to whit the door to his Ready Room and the room's replicator system."

"When I can spare a team, I'll send them up, but there is not much more I am able to tell you Captain, other than the fact that we have yet to find any cause for either in these new glitches or the cause of the original transporter malfunction."

"Understood Mr La Forge, at your convenience perhaps you'd care to meet the Mr Data and myself in room 2054."

"Transporter Room Three?" La Forge queried.

"Yes Geordi, the malfunctions have spread further than we anticipated. We seem to have… misplaced more crew…"

Cally was nearly insensate by the time her escape pod finally came to rest, bouncing across the dry dessert sand, flipping upwards every now and then when it hit a small rock or bolder. The escape pods booster rocket had started to fail several hours ago, causing the escape pod to limp along at ½ the speed of light as well limiting the supply of oxygen in the capsule.

With a final couple of bounces, the life pod came to a juddering halt.

All was quiet except for the hiss of metal as it started to cool.

Minutes passed under the blazing hot sun of the planet. The hissing stopped to be replaced first by a soft drip; drip, dripping and then a softer swoosh. Moments later the first wispy tendrils of smoke appeared.

It was the smoke that dragged Cally closer towards consciousness. The Auron forced her eyes open and coughed in the tainted air. It felt unbearably hot in the escape pod, Cally shivered aware she was going into shock. Using the last of her strength, she struggled to push open the escape hatch, and half fell outside.

With Towson sent back the way he'd come to meet up with Portman and D'Son and advise them of the situation, Worf spent a few minutes fastening and then testing the restraints around Kleggs wrists. The Klingon making doubly sure the Section Leader was secured to an integral part of the ships structure, rather than a chair or desk, ensuring he wouldn't be able to free himself. Straightening he stumbled slightly as the deck appeared to move beneath him. "Did you feel that?" he asked Tarrant who was still tying up the second trooper.

"Indeed," Tarrant agreed, fastening the last handcuff in place. "I would imagine we have probably changed course or more likely increased speed again. The Liberator has been doing that off and on for several hours."

"Collecting more rebel scum no doubt," Klegg said spitting on the floor.

Both Worf and Tarrant ignored him. "The… Liberator is presumably using fixed points as navigational aids," Worf suggested.

"Yes, that was my first thought as well," Tarrant agreed. "Are you a pilot?"

"No, I am Chief of Security aboard the Enterprise. However all Command Officers are required to have basic flight training and navigation skills. Compared to a true pilot I have rudimentary knowledge at best." A thought struck Worf. "Are you aware of our current location? For example the Enterprise was on a course of 009 mark 672 holding a high orbit round planet RK2579. The planet had an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere able to support carbon life. RK2579 is classified as a Db3 planet, which means it that any inhabitants are unlikely to have developed space travel."

"An interesting and concise hypothesis," Tarrant said approvingly. "However I've not heard of RK2579, so can't comment on its classification."

"Thank you, but not entirely unexpected," Worf acknowledged as both he and Tarrant exited the room where they'd detained Klegg and two of his troopers. They watched the door slide shut behind them.

"I wish we could properly secure the room," Tarrant said staring at the unfamiliar keypad of the door release mechanism.

Worf aimed his phaser at the lock and fired a short burst at it, melting, and fusing the circuitry.

Tarrant grinned. "Simple, yet effective," he approved.

"I would have preferred to secure them in the Brig," Worf grumbled.

"Ah, I have yet to find that particular section as yet," Tarrant, admitted. "However to get back to your question, I have to admit I don't know precisely where we are either. I was caught up in fighting what I know as the intergalactic war, with the inhabitants of the Andromedian Galaxy, the closest tours. They seem to be a rather hostile and hellishly blood thirsty bunch. They don't tend to have any use for prisoners, rather adopt a shoot first, second and third before going in with their knives and laser pistol things type of people. I was several clicks away from Altern V, a Federation stronghold and a fall back position for us to regroup when my ship the Talisman went down."

"They sound like men who know little of Honour," Wolf stated with disgust. "However I do not know of an Altern V, or have a frame of reference for your Andromedian Galaxy."

"Not entirely unexpected now, but a bit of a blow nonetheless. I foresee it could be somewhat tricky to find a common frame of reference, if you don't recognise either Altern V or Andromeda, and I don't recognise RH2579. Still it'll keep us on our toes that's for sure. In the mean time, we still have two of Kleggs men to find, and we need to establish where the Liberator is heading, and if anything on its screen looks familiar to either of us."

"You are not able to access this ships navigation system?"

"No, not at all, ever since Klegg and his men, and then I boarded her, we're just been along for the ride. It appears to be acting on a predetermined set of instructions, presumably to locate this ships original crew and recover them."

Worf nodded. "That would be logical," he agreed. "However perhaps my tricorder might serve as an interface and give us access to some of the ships functions."

"A tricorder? I've never heard of one of those," Tarrant admitted curious. "What is it and what does it do?"

Worf unclipped the pouch containing his tricorder and showed it to Tarrant, though he didn't offer to let him touch it, and carefully returned it to its carrier. "It is a handheld device which combines sensors, atmospheric analysis, proximity checks, communications, and a universal translator. This is a model TR-580 mark 7. I am hoping it will be of some assistance to us now. Let us get to the bridge and establish a base of operations before we decide how to proceed."

"Yes of course, I was thinking the flight deck might be a good place to start, unless you'd rather stay in the teleport facility? If the ship is about to pick up any of its crew, I think that's where they'll appear, rather than docking with the ship now she's in flight mode."

Worf thought about it. "Yes I agree. I can get a couple of my men to cover the transporter area. You and I will head to the bridge," he said firmly.

"As you wish," Tarrant agreed.

Worf was silent for several minutes as they made their way through the oddly shaped hexagonal corridors lit on four sides and the ceiling by elongated light panels. "The centre of the Federation is Sol III or Terra in Sector 001 of the Alpha quadrant," he offered finally.

"Ah, for us Terran is one of the main languages of Earth," Tarrant, "and is in the 9th Sector, our mapping system radiates out from Earth, the founding planet of the Federation, we don't work on quadrants."

"I believe Earth is another name for Sol III." Worf agreed. "Though our intergalactic travel contains four sectors in the United Federation of Planets, then we have the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the Cardassian Union, The Tholian Assembly, the Naberrite Alliance and at least two or three dozen other minor systems or unallied planets."

Tarrant whistled. "Well, I hate to say it, but you're bigger than us, especially after the routing we've just had with the Andromedans. When we have the time, we'll have to sit down and have a proper show and tell, but right now I think we may have a few more pressing problems," he said having spotted the silhouette of one of Kleggs troopers apparently holding two of Worf's security guards.

Ducking back down the corridor, Tarrant pulled Worf with him, or at least he tried to, surprised by the body mass of his new friend. "We need to come up with a plan," he hastily whispered to Worf, finally getting the Klingon to move back out of sight with him. "Give me your gun, I'll walk you up to Marv at supposed gunpoint, and while he's distracted you can bop him one."

"Agreed," Worf, said with a nod, through narrowed eyes. It was a good plan, as long as Tarrant didn't play him false. However, Tarrant had already helped him take out two of the troopers and Klegg himself, and this other man had captured two of his men, which gave them a 4:2 ratio. Therefore, the odds were on Worf's side regardless of Tarrant's intentions.

"I found this one hanging around the teleport bay," Tarrant said strolling onto the flight deck with his gun planted visibly in Worf's side. "I see you've managed to capture another two of our guests as well. Well done Yarrow."

"Thank you sir, Phillips said he wanted to finish checking the ships storage facilities in cargo bay one, then he'll be right up."

"Excellent, you have done well," Tarrant said warmly, deliberately indicating with his gun that Worf should cross in front of Yarrow to join the rest of his security team.

Yarrow, still basking in Tarrant's praise and unconsciously relaxing due to Tarrant's own calm attitude, lowered his own weapon to let Worf pass between them, and didn't have time to react before Worf struck with lightning efficiency and dealt him a knock-out blow to his chin, felling him instantly.

Portman and D'Son were surprised, unable to comprehend what had just happened until Worf barked at D'Son to hand him his cuffs.

"I'm sorry sir, he just seemed to come at us out of nowhere," D'Son apologised handing over the restraints.

"I will hear your full report at a later date," Worf said firmly.

Tarrant stepped in. "To be fair, the troopers have been on this ship for three days already, they had to search it thoroughly from the start in order to claim it her prize money."

Worf gave Tarrant a look. "Officers are not supposed to be captured so easily. They will be dealt with a later time. For now however, we need to remove this individual from the bridge and prepare a plan to capture the remaining trooper before he discovers what has happened."

"Yarrow said Phillips is in cargo bay one, I will simply walk up to him and ask him if he's seen the others, he won't suspect a thing. I'll even take one of your men with me if you like?"

Jean-Luc Picard strode into Sickbay, irritated and worried in equal measure. He walked straight into Crushers office. "Doctor, it is now imperative that I speak with your patient," he said firmly.

"I'm sorry Captain, he did regain consciousness, albeit briefly, but the trauma he sustained was too much for him and he lost it very soon afterwards."

"Did you get a chance to ask him anything?"

"Only his name."

"And?"

Beverley shook her head.

"Then you need to wake him again Doctor."

"He needs to rest."

"And I need to speak with him. We have lost four more of this ship's crew. We are in uncharted space, with some kind of anomaly breathing down our necks and odd malfunctions popping up in various areas. If he has any idea how any of this has happened…"

"You surely can't hold him responsible for the disappearance of the crew?

"No, I am not suggesting that, however the fact remains that Commander Riker, Will, went down to rescue him, and Worf and his men vanished while he was here in sickbay." Picard said firmly. "Ergo I need to speak with him."

Beverly Crusher looked at Picard. She understood and shared his concern for their missing crewmembers; however, her adherence to the Hippocratic Oath remained strong. Reluctantly she stood. "Very well, two minutes Captain, no more, it won't do to overtire him."

Avon was situated in ITU, and had the suite to himself.

Raising the level of the light by 20%, Dr Crusher crossed the room to stare thoughtfully at the biofunction screen above Avon for several moments before picking up a hypospray and giving him a small shot of stimulant.

It worked almost immediately.

Avon drew a breath, doing his best not to wince at the immediate stabbing pain his chest. Groaning slightly as he came round he realised quickly that he had one hell of a headache; in fact, he ached all over, feeling as if he'd gone several rounds with Travis and almost didn't win.

Another breath, which he wished he hadn't taken.

"Hello, I'm hoping you're back with us again. I'm not sure how much you remember. We found you in your life pod on the planet below." Beverly Crusher said carefully, watching Avon's vital signs closely.

Drawing a shallower breath, one that didn't hurt so much, Avon opened his eyes. Despite the continued headache, his vision was clear this time, enabling him to see the unfamiliar tiled ceiling of the Enterprise's surgical unit.

"Hello again," Crusher tried as Avon's dark eyes fixed unblinkingly upon her. His expression was completely blank, giving nothing away as he struggled to make sense his surroundings.

"My name is Beverly Crusher. You were injured. We brought you back to our ship to treat your injuries. You're safe now," Beverly continued. "You had a few fairly serious injuries and at least a couple of bumps on your head; you may have concussion, so don't be alarmed if you can't remember. But do you know what caused you to abandon your ship?"

Avon said nothing, taking shallow breaths, as he attempted to piece together what had happened.

Crusher frowned, noticing Avon's obvious breathing difficulties. "I can give you something that will help with that," she suggested, dialling a strong analgesic into the hypospray and injecting Avon with it.

Avon had held perfectly still, and continued to look at the doctor as his pain eased.

Crusher turned to Picard. "I really don't think he's going to be able to help us at the moment," she said firmly. "I've just had to give him 5cc's Terakine and Hydrocortilene to ease his pain."

"Noted doctor," Picard said with a nod stepping round Beverly to take her place besides Avon's bedside. "I don't intend to keep you for long, I'm aware that you've been in a shuttle accident," Picard told Avon carefully. The Captain had moderated his tone somewhat to take account of the fact that Avon was obviously unwell.

Avon looked at Picard. His mind felt distinctly woolly, and as the redhead had suggested there were gaps in his memory. He had no recollection of leaving the Liberator, crash-landing on any planet, or any rescue afterwards. The clothing the man and woman were wearing were unfamiliar to him, as was what little design of the ship he could see.

Frustrated Picard looked at Crusher, who returned his gaze with an 'I told you so' one of her own. Nevertheless, the Captain tried again. "My name is Jean-Luc Picard, I'm the Captain of the USS Enterprise, we're a Federation star ship, and we consider you our guest aboard this ship. Now, is there anything you can tell us? Anything you can remember about how you came to be in your life pod? What happened to your ship? Did it have something to do with the anomaly?"

Avon wasn't really thinking clearly, but he heard the word "Federation" with startling clarity. The bald headed man talking to him wasn't wearing the standard Federation uniform and the ships design was unfamiliar to him; which lead him to come to the logical conclusion that he was aboard an experimental vessel. Was this how they'd defeated the aliens?

Avon stopped appalled as a new thought took hold. If he were aboard a Federation ship, he would be in enough trouble. He knew all too well how the Federation treated their guests. Now he was awake, it wouldn't be long before he was thrown into a cell.

However what if they hadn't defeated the aliens? Or at least some of them had survived? Despite the pounding in his head, and gaps in his memory, Avon remembered how the aliens he'd seen on Star One had appeared human until he'd shot a couple of them. Had they lost the battle then and he was aboard an Alien ship? Was this some kind of elaborate trap?

"We don't have much by way of a first aid kit, just the usual disinfectant, dressings, bandages, wipes, clips, scissors, lint and some quick set foam, left over from when Iesha broke her arm once, some energy tablets and some plasters, I think." Dayna said, still sounding a bit miffed as she escorted Riker down the spiral steps to her underground home, helping him carry the strange woman they'd found with great reluctance.

There had been no one on the beach when they'd finally made it down to the shoreline, whereupon Will had been more than a little surprised when Dayna stopped after they'd only walked a dozen or so metres before dropping to the sand, and starting to dig. He was even more surprised to see the glint of a polished metal surface reflect back in the dying suns rays after a couple of moments.

"Your family really like trap doors don't you," he'd said watching Dayna in amazement. "I know you said you lived in the sea, but I thought you meant you had an entrance way near a tidal cave or something."

"Oh we do, there's another entrance to our home about 600 metres off in that direction, but this is closer and I didn't want to take the chance of being seen. I told you, you wouldn't get your feet wet remember?" Dayna had said using a magnetic passkey to unlock the airlock. Now she looked at Riker with wary reluctance as they reached the bottom of the staircase.

The staircase opened up the last few feet to give a view of the open planned interior of the big main room. The walls, ceiling and floor were all some kind of silvered metal, and while their were several cream coloured couches and other homely touches about the place, the cylindrical support struts and venting systems; interface panels and hatches for service ducts gave away the nature of Dayna's home immediately.

"We're inside a space ship," Riker said looking round him in amazement.

"A fixed orbit station, but to be fair you were close," Dayna said, thawing slightly. "My father flew her here and then beached her just over twenty years ago."

"Some feet of engineering, to get her down intact. How did he do it I wonder? The heat of re-entry alone would have put an enormous strain on her outer hull."

"You can ask him about that in a minute when you meet him. In the meantime we need to decide what to do about her."

"She needs medical attention."

"Well yes, as I've said before we only have very limited supplies, so we don't have much. There's a spare bed in my room, I suppose we aught to put her there, this way."

Once more carrying Servalan by himself, Riker obediently followed Dayna down a corridor off to his right from the staircase. "What do you do if you get sick?"

"Me, I never get sick. I don't believe in it, and I've always been in the best of health. As I said before Iesha broke her arm once, and we had to send for some first aid bits with our regular supply run."

"I thought you said you and your family lived alone?"

"We do, but we're not primitives. We design and build security systems and have a small but loyal client bass. Once every month we have supplies we could not attain otherwise brought here."

"So you have a way off this planet?"

"Yes and no. This is my room, you can put her down here, she can have this bed," Dayna directed Riker. "We don't have a ship ourselves, but our supplies are brought in by a Mark 58 planet hopper. The next one is scheduled in 29 days, as it last came 2 days ago."

"Well, I can't wait that long in any case. I really need to contact my ship as soon as possible. If you're able to arrange for the shipment of supplies you must have a communication system."

"We do. I'll ask my father to take you there. But first, we need to deal with her. See if you can wake her while I fetch my father and let him know we have guests."

Riker watched Dayna leave the room, taking with her several unanswered questions, before he forced himself to push them aside for the time being and concentrate on the problem at hand.

The unconscious woman felt cold to the touch, her skin quite clammy. Being very circumspect about her body, Riker quickly removed the damp sandy, formally white evening dress she'd been wearing and slipped her between the sheets of the bed, just leaving her injured leg above the covers.

Unsure of what he would find, Riker padded the ruined dress up under the leg to act as a towel and protection for the bed, before he untied the cloth about Servalan's leg. He had been right to do so, as the wound was deep, a piece of metal deeply imbedded in the thigh just above the knee. It immediately began bleeding profusely once the pressure of the bandage was removed.

Dayna hadn't yet supplied Riker with the first aid kit that she'd spoken of, so there was little Riker could do for the moment other than retie the cloth Servalan had used as a temporary bandage anyway. He felt her wince as he did so.

"Sorry, I was just taking a look to see how bad it is," he explained, eventually looking up.

Deep green eyes regarded him narrowly. "And?"

"There's a foreign object which appears to be imbedded in your thigh which needs to be removed."

"Yes, I thought as much myself. Are you a doctor?"

"No, a Starfleet Officer, but I've had medical training." Riker said carefully, greatly surprised that the unknown woman seemed completely composed and quite lucid. She had to be in a lot of pain, yet it didn't show from her demeanour.

"How fortunate for me."

Riker offered his patient a smile. "Someone has gone to fetch a medical kit," Riker continued.

"Again I am most grateful." Servalan said carefully. She was in a fair amount of discomfort, but quite determined not to let it show, or demonstrate any kind of weakness until she had worked out exactly where she was. She didn't recognise Rikers uniform and had certainly never heard of Starfleet. "So, who do I thank for my timely rescue? You must have a name?" she said offering Riker a smile of her own.

Riker grinned in response. "It's Will," he offered. "Do you have a name as well?"

Servalan drew a breath. "You can call me Sleer," she suggested.