Disclaimer: Star Trek and all associated characters and situations are the property of CBS studios. Star Trek Online is the creation of Cryptic and Perfect World. Tomb Raider and the situations therein are the property of Square Enix. All are here used by myself for entertainment purposes only, without permission or intent to profit. Stardates were calculated with the help of the TNG Stardate Calculator available on TrekGuide .com and may be slightly out of sync with those used in the game's lore.

Epilogue

Later that evening, a viewer in one of the senior officer's quarters suddenly went blank, and a man's voice emerged from it. "Is this channel secure," he asked.

"You have asked that question 47 times in our working relationship. On every occasion, my answer has been yes," said the owner of the quarters, cocking her eyebrow at the viewer. "Have I given you any occasion to expect differently?"

The screen lit up then with the image of a blond-haired young human man with a puckered scar running across the right side of his face. He wore a uniform of midnight black. "My apologies," he said. "Force of habit you know."

"Indeed," said she.

"I received your report," said the man. "I approve of your letting Atria and her pet Commander go. They're too low in the food chain to be useful to the Federation as intelligence sources or bargaining chips, but freed they're potential allies. You never know when you'll need one of those on the other side of the lines in this war."

"Indeed," said the room's owner again. "However, it was not I who freed them. It was the new Lieutenant—Samantha Hayashi—who fulfilled that role."

"Lieutenant Hayashi? Interesting," said the man. "We'll have to keep an eye on her. What about Drel? I hear they put...her back in a command position—first officer."

"That is correct, however it is probable that her attitude toward us will remain much the same as the previous host," said she. "I will continue to take precautions to insure she does not become aware that we are tracking her."

"Always a shame when one of your best agents develops a soft spot for regulations," the man muttered.

"Section 31 will find others, Franklin Drake," she reminded him. "It always has."

"True," Drake said with a smile. "We did manage to find you, T'Paie, though you didn't make it easy."

The Vulcan woman regarded him coldly.

"Right," said Drake. "Well, unless there's anything else, keep working on the data from the nebula. If there's anything that the whole Yamatai incident confirms it's that polaric ion energy can never be made safe...but we might be able to fool someone else into thinking otherwise. According to the reports, the Tal'Shiar showed great interest in the Dominion research station there—and they certainly never told us about it. That looks suspicious to me."

T'Paie nodded. "It is probable their interest was in duplicating the Dominion research and thus obtaining an advantage over the other powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants after the termination of the Dominion War."

"If they didn't want something like that then, they surely want it now," said Drake. "They're causing trouble wherever they go, and they're becoming more active. I'd be nice if we could give them something that'll blow up in their faces, to take them down a notch."

"I am modifying our data on the Sun Queen entity with subtle errors," said T'Paie. "I will transmit it to you when complete. Should the Tal'Shiar ever attempt to duplicate the stable polaric ions of the entity from our data, the result will be...unexpected, for them at least."

"I look forward to seeing it," said Drake. "Keep up the good work. Section 31 out."

Author's Note: Mirroring the epilogue from "The Best Revenge," this one features an agent of Section 31, the clandestine Starfleet agency responsible for various black-ops in the series. In DS9, Section 31 is pretty consistently portrayed as evil, participating in complex schemes that are morally reprehensible at best. However, in STO, Section 31 (represented by the NPC Franklin Drake) is much more benign, participating in and giving much more legitimate covert operations to players. They could even be seen as good guys—not just in the Federation, but also in the Klingon Empire (where they prevent a Romulan-backed attack on the House of Martok). While I'm trying to portray that side of them, they are certainly not without their sins: this story takes place in a shared universe with TheSonicGamers' "Justice: Vengeance" which displays a number of their sins, much to the ire of So'Gam.

More is revealed, though, including clandestine ties to Drel's past (and present) possible interest in Sam, and T'Paie as a confirmed Section 31 agent! We'll see what comes of these details in further stories.

This story, however, is over. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! I will return to tell more stories of the USS Nautilus. In the meantime, readers who've enjoyed this might also like my original science fiction novel Future History available for sale on Amazon (in ebook right now, but with paperback expected to come out this week). I encourage you to check it out! You can also hop over to The Secret World section of the Fan Fiction .net's game-based stories, where my story Lit Major Shoots Lighting is up for a sequel: Lit Major Shoots Zombies.

Up next here: "Becoming Klingon"

Born a slave in a society that hates what she represents, Human/Orion hybrid Nita d'Blae is given a chance to prove her worth as a warrior when a major battle goes disastrously awry. Set in the Klingon Empire, 2400-2407: introducing Nita, daugther of Morath.