AN: Salutations and bienvenue! I always forget this bit, but I didn't want to ruin the beginning of the first chapter:

Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Gene Rodenberry and Star Trek Online is the property of Cryptic Studios and Arc Games, there for I own exactly bupkis of what is there's. What I do own is the characters I created in the games officer creator and in the warped nexus of screams and coffee-soaked nightmares I call my mind.


'Are you sure?' asked Vex as they made their way to the turbolift that would take them to the conference room. She didn't want to believe her friend was lying to her, but she trusted her number one, so she put that disbelief and shock in a box to unpack and deal with later. 'And when did he lie?'

'Yes, Captain, I'm sure.' Zasva told her, her voice in Vex's head sounding very sure as they entered the turbolift, 'It was when he said he was going to brief us on the particulars. It was faint, but I could definitely feel deception coming from the Admiral.'

'Is he just keeping some information from us until it's necessary? He's an Admiral and they tend to do that kind of thing.' Vex asked, giving a subtle hand signal to Toros to distract Zevil. She didn't want to worry about two conversations being mixed up. 'Do you think Tyufia knows? She didn't react when Zevil lied.'

'I doubt she's in on it.' Zasva answered her Captain, 'Zevil was suppressing the lie very well. Valixians are powerful psychics and even a full Betazoid wouldn't pick up on thoughts or emotions that a Valixian wanted to hide, but Aenar are stronger, so I still picked it up.'

'Well that's something at least.' Vex said sardonically as the turbolift's doors opened and they made their way to the conference room, 'but maybe she knows something that might lead us to the truth. We're coming to the conference room; we'll discuss this and plan on what to do later.'

"-nd then she kissed him!" Said Tyufia with a laugh as Vex finally tuned back into the conversation. She wondered what the conversation had been about, but from that last bit, Tyufia's mirth and Zevil's clear annoyance, she figured it had to do with a certain KDF Brigadier General. She was also curious as to what Toros had said to get them on that story.

"Do you have to tell that story to everyone we see?" Zevil asked exasperated, "It's bad enough that I had to live it, I don't want to relive every time you open your mouth."

"Not to mention it does not paint our Captain in a dignified light, Commander." Six said, speaking for the first time. It was then that Vex noticed that there was something different about the former Borg Drone. Her hair was now much longer then the last time she had seen her and tied in a pony tail that she had draped over her right shoulder.

As interesting as that was, and she desperately wanted to know what that was all about, Vex decided to set that oddity aside for now. "While I always like to see Xavius squirm, why don't we get down to business?" She asked the room at large as she took her seat at the head of the conference table.

"By the Night Cloak, yes please." Zevil said as he remained standing at one side of the table as the others took their seats on the other side. When they were all seated, he began the briefing, "As I said before, the Ambassadors ship and his escort was attacked when he was on his way back from a good will mission to New Romulus. He was on his way to Earth to speak with Ambassador Sugihara about working towards an Alliance agreement. Unfortunately, on the way three Chel Grett Cruisers ambushed them."

"How did three Breen battle cruisers get past our boarders without notice?" Asked Vex, with a touch of anger coloring her voice. She remembered from Thaxci's memories the destruction that the Breen caused to Earth during the Dominion War and all the good officers that were lost too.

"They skirted our boarder from the Alpha Quadrant, came through the Klingon's territory once they entered the Beta Quadrant, and waited in the Neutral Zone for the Ambassadors ship." Zevil told her, using the screen behind him to illustrate his words, before turning back to them with a concerned frown, "The lengths they went through to not be detected instead of barging in like they usually do is troubling to say the least."

"Which is why you put our name forward to escort the Ambassador and you." Said Vex with a smirk, "You want us to look into this attack and the increased Breen activity and find out what's causing it."

"Exactly." Zevil answered with a nod, "The Federation has wanted an alliance with the Deferi for years and Command does not want that alliance put into jeopardy because the Breen killed the Deferi Ambassador, so since I was the one the Ambassador contacted, Command asked me for recommendations on another ship to take them, I couldn't think of another better suited for this task."

"And the fact that you guys submitted like a bagillion new assignment requests, definitely helped Xavius's decision." Commented Tyufia with a grin from her seat next to Tynizi.

"Yes, quite," Zevil said with an eye roll, "That did help Commander Burgess's and my decision to put you on this mission."

"If I may ask, Admiral Zevil," Said Zasva, speaking for the first time since the meeting began, "but why exactly are you joining us and not one of our ambassadors?" Vex silently applauded her First Officer's initiative on getting their secret investigation moving.

"Ambassador Surah asked for me personally and given that this is the first sign that the Deferi are interested in an alliance, Ambassador Sugihara thought it was best if we went with the Deferi's first choice." Zevil said smoothly with a shrug of his shoulders, "Apparently Surah was impressed with the way I handled the planning and coordination of the Borg Conference, despite how it went rather pear shaped with the Dominion's missing fleet appearing."

"You told me earlier that Tyufia was coming with us while Six was staying to keep the repairs to the Hades on schedule, has that changed?" Asked Vex as she gave a quizzical glance to the liberated Drone.

"No," Zevil said quickly, a little too quickly, "Lieutenant Commander Six and I have a few more things to discuss and go over before we depart from Earth Space Dock." He continued to say and Vex was sure that his cheeks were now a darker shade of purple.

'Nooo,' Vex thought to herself as her eyes darted from the Valixian Admiral and the former Drone, 'They didn't…did they?' Vex's gaze went back to Six's suddenly new hair style. 'They did!' One of the things that she knew about Zevil's tastes in women, was that he loved women with long hair.

"Well, unless anyone else has anything to add or ask?" Zevil asked, again a little too quickly, and when no one else spoke up, he nodded, "Then this meeting is over. Vex, if you could call me to let me know when we are about to take off, I would appreciate it."

"Of course, Xavius," Vex said as she and the others stood up. She turned to her Second officer, "Toros, can you please escort the Admiral and Lieutenant Commander Six to his quarters, please?"

"Yes, Captain," Toros said to Vex before looking to Zevil, "Right this way Admiral, Lieutenant Commander."

Before they left, Vex said to Six, "I love what you've done with your hair, Six. It looks very nice."

To her credit, and probably her Borg-like nature, Six didn't bat in eye. "Thank you, Captain." She said, and then made her way with Zevil and Toros to the Admiral's quarters.

"It's so cute how they think we don't know, isn't it?" Said Tyufia as she walked up beside her other best friend.

"To their credit, they are being very discreet about it." Commented Vex with a smile, "When did you figure it out?"

"When J'Vasa laid a big wet one on Zevil after we got out of Fluidic Space." Tyufia chuckled, "Jealousy and anger were just pouring off Six, it was hilarious! Plus the hair was a dead give away."

"Wait, why would Six be jealous of the Brigadier General?" Asked Tynizi, confused as to what her captain and girlfriend were talking about.

"I'll tell you later, Tiny." Tyufia told her gentle, yet oblivious, giantess as she took her hand in hers and pulled her towards the door. "Why don't you take me to your quarters for a 'debrief' of our own."

"But we just had a-Ooohh!" Tynizi started to say, before she comprehended what the Betazoid was really saying. She then switched places with Tyufia, she now being the one pulling Tyufia, toward her quarters.

Vex smiled at the young couple wistfully. She had been in love and even married many times throughout her lives and it was always bittersweet to witness young love blossoming before her eyes. She quickly shook her head and got back on task as she turned to her First Officer. "Did you pick up anything? Was he still hiding something?"

"Yes, and he lied about why he was here on this mission." The Aenar woman told her captain. "I could sense that he was being truthful about Sugihara wanting him to do the peace talks, but he was not telling us why he's really here."

"Maybe it's something that only Admirals can know about." Reasoned Vex as she started to pace the room. "Which pisses me off, but I could understand that."

"To quote Toros and every other Vulcan, 'that would be illogical'." Zasva said with a small smirk, before her face went back to being serious. "If it was something like that, then wouldn't Admiral Zevil have called Admiral Kassai? While not as experienced as us, she's of a higher security level then we are and the Shadow of Bajor has the same capabilities as the Quinzel."

"That's a good point," Vex replied as she stopped in her tracks to look her number one in her unseeing eyes, "plus Lydana's only helping with the colonization of New Romulus, unlike us who were on an (arguably) important observation mission in the Star Empire."

Talking about the diminutive Admiral brought up memories, both Jicsi's and Thaxci's, of teaching and studying with the young Bajoran. She had been a little spit fire even then and the part of her that was still and would always be Thaxci was proud of how far she had come.

"I hate to suggest it," Zasva said, breaking the Trill out of her reverie, "But is it possible that the Admiral's goals are… not exactly in line with Starfleet's or even legal?" She said this in a pained voice, her face contorting in distaste.

"No." Vex told her resolutely, not even thinking about her words, "I know Xavius Vexius Zevil and he would never sacrifice or sell out the Federation or Starfleet. He believes in Starfleet and our mission too much to betray it."

"I don't want to believe that either, Captain," Zasva told Vex, her tone apologetic but firm, "but we have to keep that possibility open…there is one more possibility and while it's more palatable, it is no less worrisome." She looked directly at her captain with a frown. "He was just in Fluidic Space."

Vex's blood ran cold. "You think he might be an Undine?" She asked, voice strong even as she held fear in her eyes. If Zevil was actually an Undine infiltrator, it would have catastrophic repercussions for Starfleet and possibly the galaxy.

"It's a very remote possibility." Zasva tempered, holding her hands up to ward off the fear and worry she could feel coming off her captain, "We still need to investigate."

"Your right," Vex said, taking in and then releasing a breath to try and calm herself, "I'll look into SI's intel reports on covertly uncovering an Undine infiltrator, but for now monitor his movements, his system usage, and all his off-ship communique's. I don't want to spy on my friend, but if there's something that we need to know about this mission that he's not telling us, I want to know about it."


A short time later found Zevil in his temporary quarters on the Quinzel, sitting down in one of the armchairs in the room with Six sitting in his lap and they were not, in fact, discussing anything. Ship repairs, Starfleet paper work, or otherwise.

After Toros had showed them to the room, Six had wasted no time pushing Zevil down into the chair, straddled his hips, and started kissing him senseless. While surprised at the impulsive behavior from the normally subdued officer, he was not that he was complaining.

After a very…exciting first date on DS9, they had told one another how they truly felt, and now they would be separated for the longest time since they started their relationship, or even from when they first met, and Six was not going to waste any time she had with the man that she loved.

"She knows." Zevil said as he broke the kiss, a little desperate for air. Six was about to go for his neck but stopped and looked at him confused. "Vex," Zevil clarified, gesturing at the both of them, "she knows about us."

"Are you sure? What is your reasoning?" asked the former Drone, sitting back a little to look into her love's eyes, reassured that she wouldn't fall back with one of his hands on her lower back and the other threaded in her hair, her hair tie being lost long ago during this impromptu make out session.

"She was feeling pretty smug after she asked about your presence here and then she commented on your hair." Zevil said as he lightly scratched Six's scalp, causing her to hum contentedly as she wrapped her arms around his neck

"That is not clear evidence that she does, in fact, know Xavius." Six told him, raising her brow in skepticism.

"You haven't known Jicsi as long as I have, my dear." Zevil said bemusedly, "She is very perceptive and if she so much as smells something odd, she will not be happy until she has found out what it is."

"Will that be a problem?" Six asked him, concern coming through her voice as looked back to the coffee table where a model of the U.S.S. Voyager sat. While suspicus that he would bring it with him, Zevil had no other way to hide the Tesseract device that was better than the telekinetic/voice phrase lock he had installed in the model.

"I don't think so." Zevil told her, trying to reassure not only Six, but himself, "Even so, my hands are tied, there was no one else that could do this mission and we don't have time to find someone else to ferry the Ambassador, Tyufia, and I to Defera."

"Given her suspected ties to the 31st Century, wouldn't Admiral Kassai be the better option?" Six asked.

"I tried to suggest that to my…handlers in the Time Agency and they did not like the thought of Lydana anywhere near this assignment." Zevil said with a low chuckle as he remembered the shocked and horrified looks on Cray and Daniels faces when he brought up the Bajorans name.

"Then you will have to be vigilant, Xavius." Six told him seriously. "If Captain Vex finds out that you have been using foreknowledge and technology from the 31st century, there is a strong possibility that she will not react favorably."

"Yes, because I was going to just going to let the whole ship know my secrets." Zevil said flippantly, earning a slap on the arm and an unamused glare from the former drone. Zevil chuckled as he pulled her to him, her arms wrapping around his neck and her chin resting on his shoulder. "I promise I'll be careful, Six, and that I will come back to you in one piece." He whispered in her ear; his tone serious but soothing.

"I know you will, Xavius, but I will still worry." Six whispered back, her voice strained with barely understood emotion. She had only just reawakened her emotions enough to give her heart to this man, she was not ready to go through the emotions attached to losing him.


An hour had passed since the Quinzel had docked at Earth Space Dock, they had finished refueling and replenishing their supplies, and they were getting ready to leave when Vex stepped out of her ready room at the same time Zevil was stepping out of the bridge. Vex had made sure to tell Vic to inform the Admiral when they ready to take off.

"Admiral on deck!" Vex shouted and every one of the bridge crew stood to attention and faced the young Admiral.

"As you were." Zevil told them with a bemused smile as he moved toward the command seats.

"Six get off the ship okay?" Vex asked as she took her seat, Zasva vacating it in favor of her own.

"She did and thank you for letting me be here for takeoff." Zevil told her, waving Toros off as he attempted to get out of his seat so Zevil could take it, "It would feel odd waiting in my quarters when the ship did so." He chuckled as he looked out the view screen at the star filled sky, "Its odd not being the one to give the orders, if I'm being honest."

"I know how you feel," Vex told him, a wistful smile on her lips, "I remember being on a ship right after I joined with my fourth host, Makon, and I was on a ship and tried to get onto the bridge to stat barking orders to the crew like I did when I was Captain Jaziod, my third host, before I remembered that it wasn't my ship and that I wasn't a captain anymore." She chuckled then, "I was restless the entire trip."

"Captain," Dinah said, as she turned in her chair, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but we have received clearance from docking control to leave."

"Then take us out Lieutenant, and then set course for the Toron system, maximum warp." She told the android.

"Setting course now captain," answered Dinah as she turned back to her console and put in the commands to get them going, "but I was under the impression we were going to the Defera system."

"And we still are, but we don't want the Breen to know that, so we'll make like we're going to DS9 and then once we hit the Toron system, we'll engage the cloak and then warp to the Defera system." Explained Vex as the ship moved into position.

"An excellent plan, captain." Zevil praised, "Keeps our true destination secret while not putting too much of a strain on your ship."

"Thank you, I am quite brilliant." Vex said in a superior voice, that caused the Admiral and most of the Command staff to roll their eyes.

"We are in position and waiting for your orders, captain." Informed Dinah.

"Engage." Came the reply, not just from Vex, but Zevil as well. Both officers looked at each other surprised, before smiling at each other, silently laughing at situation. Despite the order coming from two sources, Dinah engaged the warp drive and they were soon speeding through space.

"Well, I'll leave you all to it then." Zevil said, turning toward the turbolift, "I'll be in my quarters if anyone needs me."

"Actually, Xavius," Said Vex, getting up from her chair to stop him, "can I see you in my ready room?"

"Of course, Captain." Zevil said with a happy, if a tad bewildered, smile. He followed the Trill woman into said ready room and as soon as he entered, laughed. There on her desk were two bottles of root beer. "Aren't we a little old to still be drink this stuff?"

"You are never too old for root beer, Xavius." Vex playfully admonished as she picked up the bottles and walked over to sitting at one of the seats, motioning Zevil to sit on the couch across from her. As soon as he sat down, she handed him his bottle, "Remember that time we mixed these with Andorian ale back at the Academy?"

"Unsurprisingly no, but what I do remember is waking up in the Commandants office, wearing an Earth kilt and nothing else, the next morning." Zevil said as he took the drink and twisting off the cap with a chuckle, "By the Night Cloak, I still don't know how I got out of that without being expelled. Andorian spiked root beer was a terrible idea."

"Often time the worst ideas are the best kind of ideas," Vex told him as she took the cap off her bottle, a smirk on her lips, "and I didn't hear you complaining when several of the female cadets were giving you their numbers on your little walk of shame. So, shut up and drink your root beer."

"That's 'shut up and drink your root beer, sir', Captain Vex." Zevil said imperiously, sticking his nose up in the air, "I can have you court marshaled for that kind of disrespect toward a Fleet Admiral. I have that power now." But he took a swig of the sweet human drink.

"You have been spending way too much time with Lydana." Vex said with another chuckle, all the while keeping an eye on the Valixian Admiral for any adverse effects too the beverage. She had made a special addition to Zevil's drink: nanoprobes that would attack Undine cells.

The probes were a prototype of SI's science division, and they were designed for the problem they faced of not being able to identify an Undine. The probes were of the same kind that Voyager used while in the Delta Quadrant in that fateful first encounter with the tripedal aliens, except that these won't kill them, but seek out and disrupt Undine cells.

The only problem with this is that once an Undine has been found out, they usually kill everything in sight. Luckily the science division has worked out a solution. Once the probes have found a cell and have disrupted it, they will release a sedative that would be able to knock out a full sized Mugato.

All the same, Vex kept her unoccupied hand near the secret compartment of her chair that held a wide beam phaser pistol, just in case the sedative didn't work. But Zevil drank his drink with no problems and Vex internally sighed with relief.

'Okay so either he's not an Undine, or the nanoprobes don't work…I'm going to go with the latter option.' Vex thought as she took another swig of her root beer. 'Which means my friend is defiantly keeping something important about this mission from me.'

Instead of voicing any of this, Vex decided to keep up the friendly banter. "I really liked Six's new hairdo." She said, a real smile on her lips and a teasing glint in her eye.

"Did she get a new hair cut?" Zevil said surprised, and if Vex did know any better she would say it sounded genuine, "I didn't even notice. How very thoughtless of me, but then again she is only my second officer." He continued with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Yes, very thoughtless Xavius," She said in an admonishing tone, "You'll never get a steady girlfriend with that mindset."

"I'm sorry I thought I was drinking with Captain Jicsi Vex, not Tyufia or my mother." Zevil stated and they both laughed.

'I will find out what you're hiding Xavius,' Vex thought as they continued to laugh and reminisce about their days at the Academy, 'I just hope it doesn't cost us our friendship.'


AN: That's the million latinum brick question isn't it? Readers of my STE know the answer to that mystery, of course, but it's always fun to have all the answers when someone else doesn't.

As always, please leave a review with your thoughts on this chapter! Until next time, I bid you adieu!