Tiffany's First Adventure

Chapter Three

The neutral zone seemed innocuous enough. Just another empty region of space. It could have been any old sector, had it not been for the warbirds uncloaking. On the screen, they wavered greens and blues as they became increasingly solid and roared up to a sufficiently intimidating distance to stop.

Worf was impatient to sound red alert. He stared hard at Picard, waiting for a sign, any sign, and frustratingly getting nothing. "Captain, should we raise shields?"

"What is the status of the warbirds?"

"Shields down. Weapons systems on stand-by."

"Maintain our status. No shields, no weapons. Open a channel."

"Open, Sir," Worf said with thinly masked disappointment.

"This is Captain Picard of the Enterprise--" But Picard was driven to silence as violent interference on the screen was accompanied by interference over the channel. Picard looked back to Worf, who was working on it to no apparent avail. The channel whined and hissed as the images on the screen blinked into static and then back. To hear the Romulan com voice, you wouldn't have known that anything was amiss. They talked right through the interference, never breaking their stride. There was something about addressing us, "Enterprise," and about holding for positive identification. Picard and Riker exchanged alook.

"Positive identification," Riker repeated "They can't scan us?"

"Our sensors are being affected by the interference," Data reported. "It is entirely possible that the Romulans are experiencing the same difficulty."

"What," Picard asked, "is this interference? Where is it coming from?"

"I cannot locate a source. The interference appears to be simply permeating the system. We may not be sufficiently close to the source to identify it as such."

As the interference calmed, the Romulan com voice returned, reassuring us that we had been positively identified. They sounded as if we should have been grateful. "Please allow our ships to escort you into Romulan space."

They spoke with sickening nonaggressiveness, adding a polite reminder that for our own protection, we should not stray from the course set by our escort vessels. Great.

On the screen, one warbird veered about and headed back in the direction from which they had come, into Romulan space. The other sat as if waiting for us to fall in line. Picard waved back, without taking his eyes off of it, to Worf, and we did just that, following the lead ship right into the thick of it. Romulan space.

At first it was just the neutral zone. With no one else around, it could have been any old piece of space. But when it began to open up in front of you, the Empire, there were more of them around than you had ever thought you'd see, or had ever wanted to. Space became busier the nearer we got to Romulus and Remus. Romulus was stunning in its immensity; not just the planet, but the network that surrounded it. Scaffolds and stations and orbiters were so thick in spots it was difficult to tell where the biosphere ended and the technology began. The planet seemed to be reaching out to its sister-world, trying to form some bridge between them, to create some new form of life. The thought was frightening. Behind me was silence. I would have loved to have stolen a look back, to see if Riker and Picard felt quite a suitably impressed, as suitably humbled, as I did. The Romulans could put on one hell of a show. But what impresses and humbles officers is none of your business, Ensign, I reminded myself. Maybe it was better that I didn't know.

Scouts and freighters went whizzing by. The warbird behind us cloaked. I'd have reported it except that things were happening so fast, changing, and it didn't seem relevant in any case. This was their space. They could cloak when they wanted to, right?

The warbird in front was leading us on out of the system, as if we had only passed through it so that they would have a chance to suitably impress us by the time we reached the actual place we needed to be. The farther we strayed from Romulus and Remus, the farther into Romulan space we got, the more debilitating the interference. The image on the screen of our accompanying warbird danced and flickered, at times seeming to be somewhere just off course, just where you didn't expect to see it, and then it would shift back. The helm was taking an inordinate amount of time to respond to command. I mentioned this as subtly as I could to Data, who nodded to me that he was having difficulty also. Thank God and the Prophets. His theory that the interference in this space was causing the computers to have to gather more information in order to, essentially, figure out where they really were, would prove to be the understatement of the century. But for now, it was good enough.

Eventually, the warbird slowed and held its position. Again, I wanted to look back, to see if the command crew thought this was a little strange. Surely, I was in the process of trying to convince myself, they have everything under control. And then it came, Riker's voice, shattering the dream.

"Why do you think we're stopping here?"

Data reported that the heading was consistent with the course taken by the Romulan ship reported as destroyed. "Moving any closer to the site would necessitate our moving further into the sphere of influence of whatever is generating this interference. That would seriously limit the proper functioning of all navigation, sensor, and communication systems."

"You mean this is as close as we can get. But what are we supposed to learn here?"

Picard stood. "There's only one way to find out."

Between Ruisi having his nose shoved into a PADD on transporter specs, and Tiffany having hers shoved into whatever it was she stared into on those things, the three of us rushing down the corridor could have been a scene from the Mikado: Me and my blushing maids hiding their faces behind their fans. I could have smiled at the thought, could have used it against them, somehow, if only I hadn't been so angry.

I stole glances back at Tiffany as we hurried, knowing it would get me nowhere. She only understood the obvious. So I gave it to her.

"I can't believe you would do that." She stared at me. "I can't believe you would just stab me in the back like that."

Not obvious enough.

"Back there," I said. And she actually turned and looked back.

"In Ten Forward," I said, "with the captain. You need damn good people. That was a perfectly good suck-up line, and it was mine, and you stole it from me, right there in front of everyone."

When we entered the transporter room I went straight to the machine, to set it, and to leave room between me and Tiffany's.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about." She never knew.

Ruisi squeezed past her on his way to me. "You're not from around here, are you?" he said to Tiffany.

Tiffany stayed back while we worked. She stayed back when the door opened, as Picard, Troi, Riker, La Forge, and Worf entered and headed for the pads. She nearly stayed back when Picard motioned for her to jointhem.

"Coordinates set for the warbird, Ensign?" Riker asked me."Yes, Sir.""Energize."

You had just enough time, standing on the warbird's transporter pad, to begin to decide that you weren't going to like it there when they came for you. Security entered with their commander half a step behind. She came right up and greeted Picard, offering a solid, firm hand.

"Commander Geneta Mana," she introduced herself. "Welcome aboard the Imperial warbird Tammuz. I am sorry to have been detained. We've lost contact with another of our ships."

There was a fidgeting from her security, but whether it was because of the fact or because she had admitted it so freely, it was impossible to tell.

"Interference due to the spatial anomaly," Picard suggested.

"Perhaps it's simply a communications failure."

"The vent is in a remitted stage. Our systems are not currently being affected, not significantly. If they were, you would not have been able to transport."

Mana turned, directing everyone away from the transporter and toward the corridor down which she had come. La Forge stepped up beside her as they entered the corridor so he could ask her why they referred to the spatial anomaly as a vent. She replied that it was because it seemed to be about the best analogy. It was, she said, like a tiny hole in space from which vast amounts of pure energy were being spewed into the system.

"From where," Riker asked.

"Well, that would be the big question, wouldn't it," was all Mana could say.

Tiffany offered, almost off-hand, that "It could be from the center of the galaxy. From where stars were born. There's a vast quantity of raw energy there. And I've read of theories to the effect that vents can open up where subspace is particularly weak because of some configurations I don't understand. Anyway, it's like pores in the skin, dissipating heat from the interior of the body."

Mana, while not quite breaking her step, began to slow to take this in, to show an interest in Tiffany that turned to a vague recognition. "Well," she said, "if it isn't our engineering med tech at work again."

Mana turned them down a corridor that didn't seem any more likely to lead them anywhere than had the one they had left. In fact, it seemed a little darker. A little more difficult here to distinguish just what exactly was what, you found yourself less and less looking at objective exterior surfaces for direction, and more and more to the person who was leading you. You followed them, and hoped for the best. You were being successively blinded. "In any case," he said, "any evidence concerning the presence of the Jem' Hadar in this quadrant will be in the region of the vent. We've established that. The next logical step would be for us to proceed to where you lost your ship as soon as possible."

"Then you'll have to convince me to let you do it."

Everyone turned at the unexpected, nearly unfamiliar voice. Picard turned and was openly startled see Admiral Nechayev approaching from inside the room with Chitin and another Romulan who would introduce himself later as Taposs. Nechayev came close to Picard, and the two of them exchanged a long and not altogether friendly stare. La Forge leaned in to Worf, saying very low "No wonder they know the Captain's standing orders." The not altogether friendly stare was rapidly disintegrating into utter disrespect.

"There's a proper chain of command, Picard," Nechayev said.

"I'm here to make damn good and sure you don't forget that this time."

"This time?"

"Cooperate, Picard. You have a chance to redeem yourself here. There's very little left of our fleet and the most significant threat to it that we could have imagined is out here, now. We have to survive this, whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. Can you understand that? After losing 39 ships, 11,000 crew--"

"You don't have to quote statistics to me, Admiral."

"Good. I'm glad to hear it."And they stood.

Mana, being close to Picard, reached out to touch his arm to guide the party into the room. "This is going to work out fine," she was saying.

"If you'll just come this way."

Inside was a huge oval underlit conference table, and from a screen at one end projected a nearly three-dimensional graphic display of the vent. Not completely realistic, it was apparent that it was the best they could construct, having had severe difficulty, Taposs was admitting, gathering data on such a dynamic phenomenon. The display was impressive in any case. The waves of energy, the way they were depicted as being squeezed through the aperture and dissipating out into the room to the edge of the display, where they simply disappeared into your imagination, were almost hypnotic. Either the Romulans were simply immune from having seen it for so long, or they were completely unmoved by the implications of it--Chitin simply could no longer contain himself.

"We've been waiting for it, and here it is." The edge in his voice jolted Picard away from the vent display. "All this time, we've known that eventually the Dominion would attempt to expand into this quadrant. How can you seem so unprepared? We must defend ourselves!"

Picard looked back to the display, taking Chitin's words the way you take buying a house, being careful not to show too much interest too soon. "What exactly are you proposing?"

"Hit them hard," Mana said, "with everything we have, right now while they're not expecting it."

Chitin rushed in at the end of Mana's words. "From the vent vast amounts of energy are being released into the space here, being lost. Our studies have indicated that it might be possible to harness this energy and direct it at will. This would represent a qualitatively new resource. If it could be used as a weapon--"

But Mana smilingly slowed down her enthusiastic comrade. "Perhaps we should take this all a little more slowly, give our Federation comrades a chance to realize just the position they are in." And it was the way she said the last part out at Picard, gesturing as if it were some sort of offering, that made your skin crawl. "To appreciate this opportunity to promote a deeper understanding between our peoples."

Picard could only stare at her, incredulous. It was the way she had said it that stopped you in your tracks. It built up in you the need to relieve the tension of having no idea exactly why she had said it that way. It was what compelled Worf to lean aside to La Forge and sneer, "A deeper understanding of Romulans. That's what I've always wanted," and compelled La Forge to smile despite himself as all of Picard's attention was now off of the display and planted squarely on Mana.

"On the contrary," Picard said to Mana when he found his voice. "Full speed ahead. You seem to have this all worked out."

"We've had a lot of time to sit around and think about it waiting to see if you would help us, Starfleet! We are asking for your help--" and she flung a gesture back to Worf, "--and you are laughing at us!" forcing Picard to glare down Worf and La Forge.

"No one is laughing at any of this," Picard said.

A distinctly Romulan-disciplined voice came over the com, summoning Mana to the bridge. With distinct agitation at the timing, Mana slapped at the compad on the table and demanded to know what was so urgent. As if in response, the lights flickered. The vent display labored to maintain its integrity, and then disappeared. The stark empty reality of the roomsettled in.

"The vent becoming active again," La Forge hypothesized, "beginning to affect ship's systems."

But he was countered by the com voice informing Mana of unidentified ships approaching from the region of the vent.

"Diverting power to shields."

"The Jem' Hadar," Chitin breathed.

Mana decisively shuffled everyone out into the corridor, reporting over the com that she was on her way, and she began to hurry. They didn't make it very far before the ship was hit with fire, knocking everyone out of step.

Mana hit her combadge, shouting orders as she broke into a run to reach the bridge. "Weapons forward, shields power forward--They'll try to run their ships into us," she was ordering.

Racing onto the bridge, the first siege seemed to have already ended. On the screen, Jem' Hadar ships were pulling back away from the Tammuz. Or that was the perception your brain put together from the badly degraded segments of flickering and distorted image that were all the information you had. Mana headed straight to her tactical officer, trying not to trip in the light.

"Report."

He informed her that damage was minor.

"Status of the Enterprise and the Admiral's ship, the Integrity."

"Undamaged," tactical reported. "The Enterprise has not been fired on. The Integrity has remained cloaked and appears to have been undetected. The Jem' Hadar are not turning back to come at us again."

"That one is." Mana looked briefly into the darkness of the bridge to see who had spoken before refocusing her attention on the screen. Just a fragment of ship was visible, if it were anything at all, but it was definitely coming.

"Evasive maneuvers!"The Tammuz was jolted with fire."Phasers!" Mana shouted.

"Are being dispersed by the vent! Insufficient energy on target! No damage!"

"Can you get a tractor beam on it, then?"

"Locked on, but they're fighting it. If vent activity increases and disrupts the lock, they'll be gone."

"Crush the ship and bring its remains to Hold Fourteen."

Picard acted like he would protest, to which Mana promptly responded. "Don't you want to see it for yourself? Or should we vaporize it? Or, should we do the humanitarian thing and let this poor lost soldier return home to its own kind?"

Nechayev stepped up, waiting for Picard to speak so that she could countermand whatever he said. Picard spoke through his teeth. "I want to see it."

Mana returned her attention to tactical, nodding. He returned to his station, acknowledging his carrying out of Mana's order with a concise

"Hold Fourteen." Picard turned to exit the bridge without looking at what was happening on the screen, at the ship being crushed and dragged in.

"Your Admiral is right, Captain," Mana said to him.

"Compassion is one of the heavier of lofty ideals. Sometimes you have to set it down while you save yourself."

Coming aboard the Tammuz was like going back in time. Or rather, it was like going back in mind. Going back into the mind of beings who had evolved in a different context than your own, but not so different that you could avoid understanding the terror that such a context could produce, made you walk softly. Almost respectfully, I padded from the transporter down the corridor to which I was directed. The cracks showed through. In the ways the corridor panels were laid out, the lighting panels, even the seams between the walls and the floor; the seeming haphazard nature of it in the middle of knowing that to it had been given the utmost thought and care, you could tell that something had to give in these peoples' minds. It was like a scream for help. Tiffany wouldn't like it here, I thought. She wouldn't be able to say why, but she would say that the way things were laid out made it difficult to walk. I wouldn't be able to explain why, but I would say to her that it was because there was too much here to feel. I checked the designations as I went, until I found the correct one. Hold Fourteen.I was about to enter, when padding footsteps behind me got my attention. Under the watchful eye of a Romulan security guard, La Forge and Data were approaching. I stood away from the door to let them enter.

La Forge gave me a short "ensign," and gestured there by the door where the Romulan had stopped.

"Yes, Sir," I said and let the door close, and stood there opposite my new buddy. Each of us kept one good eye on the other and tried like hell not to show it.

"Play poker," I asked.

"No."

"Figures."

I thought over what I'd seen through the door, but it only made my gut sink. An order of business might have been to notice all that could be noticed through an opening door, but being that close to the remnants of Jem' Hadar made me want to believe that ignorance just might, after all, be bliss. Mentally, I shuffled my cards. And I waited. Inside, La Forge began an immediate visual examination of the ship.

"I bet it wasn't easy to get the Romulans to let us in here."

"Actually, they seemed quite eager for us to make an independent analysis."

"That's interesting."

"But appropriate, for the context. We, after all, do not trust them, and they are desperate." La Forge looked up and thought it over. Arguing with that assessment wasn't the problem. There was, after all, no room to. It was just not being able to decide whether knowing that made you feel better or worse that kept you preoccupied with it. In the direction La Forge was looking, and catching his attention and then Data's, the door opened. They both looked as Tiffany entered.

"Speaking of context," La Forge said, "shouldn't you be in sickbay?"

"I was ordered here."

Tiffany came over to the fragments. La Forge walked all around the ship's remains, turning his head this way and that to see it all, like an owl spotting prey. "These energy signatures. They're so dynamic, and they permeate the fabric of the metal. It's incredible."

"What can you tell about them?" Tiffany asked.

But La Forge had to look away. "Too much. Nothing."

Tiffany went to the computer, addressed it, and it signaled readiness. She stretched her fingers as if she were ready to begin her piano solo. "Now, let me see what he's seeing."

"Specify parameters," the computer came back.

"Thank you," Tiffany said, "that was rhetorical."

Not only did the configuration of the consoles give Tiffany a headache, it was the same situation as in the conference room, with the vent display. There simply wasn't enough information to reconstruct an adequate model of the situation, and what information there was often turned out to be nonvalid, nonpossible. In the midst of constructing a three-dimensional representation of the destroyed Romulan ship and its alleged maneuvers, the display would suddenly collapse on itself as if it were a souffle and someone had just slammed the oven door.

"Soot," Tiffany cursed.

La Forge peered at the simulation as she began to rebuild it. He seemed suitably humbled by the immensity of her task. "You were ordered to do this? I don't even know that it can be done. Are you qualified for this kind of work?"

"Irrelevant," Tiffany said. "When the Captain says jump..."

Tiffany didn't finish, as La Forge's face signaled understanding even before he began to speak."Ah," he said. "I see. You were ordered here as penance for calling him half-crazy."

"How did you--"

"Small ship. No one calls the captain half-crazy and gets away with it."

The simulation froze. "Dynamic input array size exceeded," the computer complained. "Dynamic memory buffer limit exceeded."

Tiffany cursed.

"No, Ensign," La Forge said, "tell us what you really think."

"Computer," Tiffany ignored him, "increase dynamic memory buffer limit."

As the computer began to recalibrate, Data sidled over.

"You called the captain half-crazy?" he ventured.

"I did not call the captain half-crazy."

The computer beeped. "Dynamic memory buffer increased."

"Okay," Tiffany said to Data, "I did. But I never would have said it if I'd thought he was going to hear me."

Beep. "Input array size exceeded. Dynamic memory buffer limitexceeded."

"Increase buffer by rerouting into adjoining systems. Reconfigure open space to be used as temporary memory buffer."

"Unable to comply due to system limit safeguards."

"Remove buffer limit safeguards."

"Authorization--" but Tiffany was already punching in a code. The computer accepted, for a moment.

"Dynamic memory buffer increased. Output array size exceeded."

Tiffany was becoming increasingly agitated. "Increase output--"

But so, it seemed, was the computer. "Dynamic visual display limit exceeded. Limits--"

"Remove all working memory buffer limits and leave me alone!" The holographic display vanished. Tiffany slumped in defeat onto the console.

La Forge smiled at her. "It only did what you told it."

"But it wasn't what I meant."

"It's a machine. It doesn't care what you meant. It just knows what you said to it, and it did the best it could with that information."

Tiffany gestured to where the holographic image had been. "It left me alone."

La Forge came around to offer solace. "You're trying to work with a computer here. If you want to get along with it, you'd better learn to think like it, because it isn't going to learn to think like you."

"How am I supposed to know how a machine thinks?"

"Look, relax. Take this one piece of information at a time, the way it does. Take the first piece of input relevant to the task, and do what you can do with it." La Forge gestured to the remains of the Jem' Hadar ship. "What do you see?"

"I see the Dominion. I see a fight we can't possibly win," Tiffany said.

"Do you know what the machine sees? A chunk of burned up metal. Put the rest of it away, Tiffany. All that emotional baggage won't get you any closer to getting your job done. Now," he started over, "what do you see?"

"The Admiral? You should have seen her coming aboard," I leaned there as far from the entrance as I dared get and said to my relief, "What's the matter with you people, she kept yelling. Can't you see what's right in front of you? I'll tell you, all I could see was well-fed fear and smiling Romulans. And I don't think that's such a good mix."

I stood at exaggerated attention at the abject look of terror on the face of my relief, looking past me to where Captain Picard was nearing and seeming to take notice of my words. When he turned to enter the Hold and was gone, I heaved a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. The Romulan guard standing opposite us laughed at me.

Picard entered the hold, coming around to Data and taking a good look at the mangled ship. Only one word escaped him. "Report."

"It is as it appears," Data said. "The Jem' Hadar."

Picard stood, thinking it over. Perhaps there had been something he'd been about to say, but as Nechayev was entering with Riker, Mana, Taposs, Chitin, and a Cardassian woman, Kaleus, he hesitated.

"Captain, please," Mana said. "If you have something to say, say it. How can we learn to trust each other if we're afraid to express our opinions?"

"Data," Picard obliged, "could these ship fragments have been manufactured?"

"Faked? No, Sir. Aside from the fact that the Romulans would not have had access to the elements composing Jem' Hadar ships, manufacturing and manning entire ships would be technologically impractical."

"Fragments of Borg ships have been traded on the black market for years. Other Jem' Hadar ships have been destroyed both here and in the Gamma Quadrant. Fragments of those could have escaped onto the black market. The Romulans could have obtained these anywhere. Correct?"

"No, Sir. These fragments are saturated with energy from the spatial vent. Had they been obtained elsewhere and brought here, they would not have been exposed to the vent energy in such quantities. They have been in the region of the vent for some time."

"There," Mana slumped exaggeratedly. "The air feels clearer already."

Nechayev nodded to Kaleus, saying to everyone else that "This is Kaleus, an engineer aboard the Integrity. I want her to have a good look at these fragments."

Kaleus returned the nod and moved closer to the ship.

"This is a little irregular," Picard said to Nechayev. "The Federation hasn't even established normal diplomatic relations with Cardassia."

"The Cardassians know more about the Jem'Hadar than practically anyone."

"Practically anyone. Besides the Romulans. And the Cardassians only know so much from the Romulan-Cardassian invasion of the Gamma Quadrant that could very well have provoked this."

"You don't intend to make this easy, do you? I'll be honest with you, Picard. I don't like the position I'm in. I don't enjoy telling you what to do. I am especially not going to enjoy being on your bridge telling you what to do, if it comes to that. It isn't appropriate. It isn't the way it should be. But, my God, Man, if the Dominion move into this quadrant because we were too weak to defend it, I'll have you drawn and quartered!"

Nechayev turned quickly away and stared into the bulkhead as if she would put a foot through it. Then she turned to the exit as abruptly as she had entered--turned to where Mana, Taposs, and Chitin were waiting.

"That," Picard said, "was understood, as well, Admiral."

"It only makes sense," Riker stepped up, "using whatever means are at our disposal to get through this. We have no choice. It's as simple as that. "

"Survival."

"Exactly."

"This doesn't seem a little bloodthirsty to you, a little cold, this--" and he gestured back to the crushed ship.

"It seems a little necessary to me," Riker continued without looking back at the ship. "Besides, it's no more than they've done to us already."

"And that makes it alright? It's almost as if we're praying on them, to ensure our own survival. Are we that certain of ourselves? Do we have a right to do this? No, Will, the Admiral isn't thinking clearly. She's scared."

"We're all scared," Riker said coldly. "We have a right to be."

And he almost shoved Picard out of the way to get out of there. Glancing back at Riker as he caught up to them, Mana smiled to her colleagues.

Captain's log. The Jem' Hadar are here. Finally. After an intensive sweep of the area in which the Romulans claimed to have lost contact with another of their ships, we have detected indeterminate wreckage. There were no warnings, no distress calls. The ships were so deep inside Romulan space that the Jem' Hadar could not have traveled there directly from the Gamma Quadrant. Which leaves us with the only viable alternative, that they have established a base of operations on our side of the wormhole, a base undetected because of the vent. If the Dominion have developed technology which allows them to navigate through the interference of the spatial vent, it gives them a tremendous advantage. I have left a team aboard the Tammuz studying the Jem' Hadar ship that was brought aboard, to see if they can discover the nature of any such technology the Dominion might possess. A seemingly impossible task.

Picard entered the bridge of the Enterprise from the turbolift. Nothing but interference flashed and sputtered on the viewscreen. It was that light again, that interference light, that made you want to shield your eyes. Picard would have, except that Riker turned to him then. Neither of them spoke as Picard came down, slowly, gradually.

It was the kind of light you could lose your balance in. Captain's log, supplemental. The Federation have offered their full cooperation to the Romulan Empire in the resolution of this matter. As the animosity between ourselves and our Romulan companions is chipped away by circumstance, however, I can't help but feel that it isn't disappearing as much as it is simply shifting focus, turning within, turning on itself.

Data turned to report. "By backtracking the course of the Jem' Hadar ships we encountered, we have been able to determine that they originated from a point well inside the perimeter of the vent's disruptions, as predicted. The energy from the vent makes scanning the area extremely difficult. However, we have been able to determine that there is something there."

"Something there?" Picard stopped trying to walk in the light while he spoke. "Is that the best you can do?"

"Under present conditions, yes, Sir."

No amount of straining at the viewscreen could make an image appear. No amount of working could make normal black space appear. Picard would have gone the rest of the way to his chair, but it seemed right now too precarious a journey. And Riker was watching him closely.

"Ensign," Picard growled, "can't you get that cleaned up?"

"Yes, Sir." Guire worked diligently at the helm station, to no avail. When the panel sounded, it was difficult to identify the source.

"Captain--" Guire said, "there's--" but he stopped, shook his head. "Maybe it's nothing."

"Ensign?"

"A ship?" Guire shook his attention from the viewscreen to the panel, back and forth.

"I don't see any ship."

Guire gave up with the station. "No, maybe--"

"Sir," Worf reported suddenly, "there's a warp signature. Erratic."

Picard turned to him, reaching out for the railing and trying not to show it. "In these energy waves, could it be a reflection of our ownship?"

"No, Sir. The energy signatures are different. It could simply be an artifact of the vent. It is becoming active again. We are being hailed by the Tammuz."

"On screen."

Taposs appeared, looking particularly worried. Picard said simply in anticipation of his concern, "We're reading it as well."

"It's the Jem' Hadar, of course," Taposs said. "It's the way they operate. They send out a small first wave, as much to assess the standing of the enemy as to actually attack. Even if all of the first-wave ships are destroyed, they've relayed information about our status back to the rest. This will be the second wave. They'll be well prepared to meet us."

"Red alert," Picard said decisively.

And after a curt nod of agreement from Taposs, on the screen reappeared a random array of nothingness. In the midst of it Worf tried diligently to report on the Jem' Hadar's status, but never could quite being able to make up his mind where they were coming from, he eventually had to settle for pounding a fist on the panel.

"Can we lock phasers," Picard asked.

"We can try."

Picard and Riker exchanged a look. The screen cleared just enough to entice you; just enough to show that the Tammuz was failing to turn to intercept whatever it was that was bearing down on it. It was enough to make you want to rush the screen and yell look out.

"Come around to the Tammuz!" Picard ordered, "Wide phasers off her flank!"

"The Tammuz is taking fire."

"Get us around to defend her!"

When the message came from the Integrity, that the Tammuz had sustained structural damage, it all seemed too fast. The situation was changing too fast, your goals, your focus. Once you knew what you were supposed to be doing it was too late, and something else needed to be done. All the maneuvering Picard was ordering never seemed to put the ship in a position to do any good.

"The Integrity is turning to assist the Tammuz," Worf reported.

Riker looked suddenly more alarmed. "We still have people on thatship."

"Get us into transporter range," Picard ordered. "Computer, emergency transporter lock on any humans aboard the Tammuz."

But the hull integrity of the Tammuz had been compromised. Its emergency forcefields prevented such a lock, the computer told them.

Through the interference, Nechayev's voice came, barely intelligible. Something about "Will assist the Tammuz." Something about pursuing the Jem' Hadar. They were splitting into distinct groups, heading off in different directions.

"Pick one," Picard said coldly to Worf, "and go after it."

While he didn't hesitate to comply, Worf also didn't hesitate to point out what was perhaps the inevitable criticism. "Sir, pursuit of the Jem' Hadar into this space--" is rash, he would have said, a decision based on emotion and not intellect. It was a bad quest. "We will have considerable difficulty tracking a ship in this interference."

"While that is true," Data offered, "our recent encounters suggest that if we do not find them, they will find us. If contact is our primary objective, we will no doubt achieve it, whether we seek it or not."

"Proceed, Mr. Worf.""Yes, Sir."

Picard and Riker both sat and stared into the flickering light.

Riker fidgeted. "Why do I all of a sudden feel like we're bait for the Jem' Hadar?"

"Because," Picard answered, "for all intents and purposes, we are."

On to Chapter Four.