Chekov waited until the bridge doors were fully open before stepping through with the heavily laden breakfast tray. One thing he was *still* fairly sure of: his mother hadn't encouraged him through years of study so that he could end up doing commissary work.

Brecht was sitting in the centre chair. "Commodore! I've been worried about you..."

Chekov glanced round for a clear surface. He finally settled for the deck by Brecht's feet.

"Am I remembering wrong, Admiral, or didn't you used to be a lot more talkative?" Brecht leaned down and helped himself to a mug and a plate. Chekov silently took a mug over to a vacant seat by the navigation console.

"Must've been my imagination," Brecht concluded.

Alleyn smiled broadly at Chekov as she collected a mug for herself and handed one up to Sulu. Despite Chekov's own bad mood, the atmosphere on the bridge generally seemed much more relaxed than it had the previous evening.

Scott looked up from his work. "Hm. About time too. What took you so long?"

"I fed the prisoners. Lieutenant Sulu told me to."

"Right." Scott didn't sound particularly interested. He lined up the tools he'd been using, closed the panel and turned to face everyone. "Bring me a coffee, lad. Now, you listen to this, because we're going to be navigating without charts, based on what Brecht can tell us about where the Orion houses had their bases at this time. I think I've got the viewscreen and some of the sensors working, so you should be able to get us up a display of all this."

Chekov grudgingly delivered the coffee to his superior. Scott had indeed performed his usual miracles. The main viewscreen shimmered briefly, and then revealed a schematic of the systems around them. Although nothing was labelled, the basic positions of each system were not discernibly different from their familiar 23rd century layout. If Brecht hadn't stood up and started naming them, Chekov could have done it for himself.

"That's Currimin, and there's Plaor. They're a good week apart using the fastest ships available in this time, but..."

"Thirty three hours at warp 4," Chekov filled in. The ancient heart of Orion territory was unusually densely packed with type G stars. None of the worlds was very far from its neighbours.

"We can do it all in less than ten days," Scott said with some satisfaction.

"All what?" Chekov was persuading the ship's computer to use sensor data for navigation, rather than any of the charts it had on file. It wasn't too happy with the idea, insisting that the sensors were currently operating below minimal efficiency levels. Chekov shrugged sympathetically. He was pretty sure he was operating that way himself.

"Get the dilithium we need to bring this lady back up to speed." Scott swigged the coffee and sighed appreciatively.

Brecht caught Chekov's eye and winked.

"I know it's crazy, but I always felt I had some kind of connection with the Orlan Du," Sulu said. He laughed. "Now I know why."

"So you're a pirate at heart, Mister Sulu?" Brecht said easily.

"No... I..."

"Of course he's not. Right, I've done everything I can do here for the moment. We'll head over to your ship, Mister Sulu, and see if there's any more hardware we can use to put the spark back in this lady's performance."

It was Alleyn's turn to wink at Chekov. He scowled at her.

"Scotty, wouldn't it make more sense to leave the Shonagon in one piece and abandon this wreck?" Alleyn asked.

"Certainly not!" The engineer seemed scandalised at the idea of admitting defeat. "The yacht's engines are not big enough to power the device. For that matter, the accommodation would be a mite cramped."

Chekov plucked up the courage to express his own objections to Scott's plans. "I think before we do anything else, we should discuss our strategy if we encounter any Orions, Mister Scott. We might change history..."

"Hmph. Orion history. It could stand to be changed a little," Scott said impatiently. "Bring that tool kit, Chekov."

"What if you change it so the Orions are stronger, or so they make an alliance with the Klingons, or the Romulans?"

Scott shook his head. "We could argue this every which way from now until Christmas, Mister Chekov. Whatever we do, or don't do, we might make a mistake. At the end of the day, it's my decision and my responsibility..."

"Yes, sir. I know that, but I think you should define a clear set of parameters for us..."

"I've had enough of hearing what you think to last me a lifetime," Scott snapped back. "Now pick up that tool kit."

Chekov clenched his fists. "No."

Scott turned back from the lift and looked at him. "Am I imagining things?"

"No. You heard me. I am refusing to obey your orders. I..."

"Chekov," Sulu warned.

"And you," Chekov said recklessly. "I will not obey your orders either. And I will not listen to either of these bandits." He glared at Brecht and Alleyn.

"Mother of God." Scott looked dangerously impatient. He flicked a quick look between Sulu and Brecht. "If I had one more warm body on board that I could trust, Chekov, I'd put you in irons. I don't know what I've done to deserve this, but I need your cooperation to pull this off ..."

"If you want him on your side, all you have to do is promise to keep Moray Morgain off his case." Brecht slid out of the command chair and took a step backwards, removing himself from the line of fire, should it come to that.

"Promises are no longer sufficient." Chekov was beginning to wonder if Khwaja had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. Surely it couldn't take this long to initiate a minor breach in a coolant line.

Like an answer to prayer, an alarm shrilled. Scott cursed and turned to the engineering station.

Sulu pushed past Brecht to get to Chekov's side. "Pavel, what the hell is the matter with you?"

"The starboard anti-matter injector is overheating," Scott announced. "We must have a coolant escape. Brecht, Jessie, we'll need breathing equipment. Sulu, stay here and talk some sense into this damn fool."

As the lift doors slid shut behind Scott and his emergency repair squad, Sulu sighed and sat down in the central chair. When he swung it around to look at Chekov, he was staring into the mouth of the phaser he'd given him earlier. He grinned uncertainly. "Did you mean to point that at me?"

Chekov nodded.

"Look, he's under a great deal of pressure. And you're not helping."

"I am not trying to help Mister Scott."

"Right. Then who exactly are you trying to help? However annoyed you are with Scotty, he's the only hope you have of getting home again."

"No. This is Goudchaux's ship. He is an engineer. He must be able to fix the engines. And Brecht has his own ship too. With my assistance, either of them is very probably capable of repairing the warp drive."

"Brecht seems happy to throw in his lot with us for the moment," Sulu pointed out. "And as for Goudchaux, from what the investigators on Bidoah were saying after you and Scotty disappeared..."

"He is a notorious criminal?"

Sulu nodded seriously. "If you had any idea what's in his record..."

"Believe me, I have a very adequate grasp of his character and history." Chekov considered pointing out that Montgomery Scott, by his own admission, possessed an overlapping file in the Federation judicial archives, but bit his tongue just in time. He was no longer in the business of trying to persuade Sulu to take him seriously. He was holding the weapon now.

"Look, put that phaser away. You know I'm not going to hurt you."

"Not once you put these on." Chekov pulled a pair of cuffs out of his belt and slid them across the deck to Sulu's feet.

"You're joking!"

"Do it!"

Sulu's hitherto friendly expression gave way to a disgusted grimace. "Look, if you want... I don't know... an apology for..."

"Or I'll stun you and do it myself."

"Okay! But you're insane." The cuffs snapped tight round the lieutenant's wrists.

Chekov pulled the little control unit out of his pocket and checked the display. He adjusted one or two of the settings and watched as the cuffs overcame Sulu's resistance and mated with a satisfying clunk.

"Now what?" Sulu asked, regarding his bonds with forced amusement. "Is this where you hand me over to the one-eyed pirate queen?"

"Why? Do you think that would be pleasant?" Chekov jerked the muzzle of the phaser upwards. "Stand up and rest your hands against the bulkhead, there." He gestured at the blank rear wall of the bridge. "While I ask Miss Morgain if she is entertaining visitors..."

"I was joking, Chekov," Sulu said quickly, obeying the latest order with commendable speed. He placed his hands against the wall at shoulder height. "Like this?"

"Yes."

The cuffs separated, only to stick to the wall. "You know, this is going to get pretty uncomfortable pretty quickly," Sulu complained.

"That is too bad," Chekov said, moving to review the various newly repaired panels. He was aware of Sulu twisting to watch his progress. The Nell was still in a surprisingly poor condition, even making allowances for Scott having to work more or less singlehanded to put her straight. The automatic diagnostics, when Chekov activated them, were falling over themselves to report their own shortcomings and not much else. Weapons were failing to show any life. Long range sensors were operating at a miserable ten percent of normal efficiency. Life support reported significant variations from optimal and communications were sublight only: not, Chekov reflected sourly, that there was anyone around he cared to communicate with. Internal security scrolled page after page of error codes. The warp engines were off line still. Only the ship's impulse drive was available.

Chekov shook his head slowly. He wouldn't know where to begin, putting all this right. He just hoped Khwaja's Starfleet Intelligence training included some advanced engineering. Otherwise, the agent would be looking elsewhere for help. He might have to do that anyway. Scotty thought he needed five people to run the ship and impersonate the Orlan Du. Khwaja was planning to recruit Brecht, but that still left two places unfilled on the agent's team. Morgain and Goudchaux, Chekov suspected, would be the ones with engineering expertise to offer. The ensign considered this scenario. The easiest way of diverting Khwaja from offering them their freedom in return for assistance might simply be to kill them now. He hefted the phaser in his hand and wondered whether ruthless self-interest was something you could learn, or if you had to be born with it.

"Pavel..." Chekov looked up at Sulu. The helmsman nodded at the screen. "Someone's noticed us."

There was a new bright dot on the viewscreen. Chekov increased magnification and interrogated the sensors. They performed the digital equivalent of shrugged shoulders.

"They are..." He gave it his best guess. "...approximately four million kilometers distant."

"Headed this way?"

"Yes," Chekov admitted reluctantly. "But slowly."

"Are they armed?"

"It is impossible to tell." The ensign tried switching between different scanning patterns on the sensors, to no effect.

"We can probably outrun them," Sulu suggested. Chekov shook his head. The Orion ship was currently using some kind of impulse drive, not warp, but the Orions very definitely had been capable of low warp speeds at this point in history. For the moment, the Nell was not. Furthermore, by moving, they'd draw attention to themselves. As things stood, they could be mistaken for a lump of debris. Actually, as things stood, they practically were a lump of debris. Both men watched the point of light alter course and increase speed, heading now directly towards them.

"Admiral!"

Brecht's voice over the intercom almost caused Chekov to drop his weapon. Scowling, he leaned over and activated the pickup. "Yes?"

Brecht sighed audibly. "Do you have things under control up there?"

"Why are you asking?"

"There's been another slight change of plan. In addition to the one I think you were expecting."

"Which was?"

"Cut the crap, kitten," Khwaja interrupted. "Is your buddy holding a shooter on you, or stuck to the deck? If the second, use your pet name for me so I know you're not having your arm twisted."

"Lieutenant Sulu is immobilised, Mister Khwaja. Any more questions?"

"You might want to release him. Goudchaux's on the loose, along with your friends Chen and Moray."

Chekov felt his heart descend into his abdomen. "How did they..."

"This ship is full of little surprises. There probably isn't anywhere on board that Goudchaux couldn't escape from eventually. Are internal sensors operational?"

"Yes." Chekov blinked. The lie had sprung to his lips fully formed. "Almost entirely, sir," he qualified carefully. "Goudchaux and the other two are not showing on my screens now. There are one or two blind spots, but if they move from their present location, I will detect them immediately."

"Excellent, Pavel. You'll be aware that I've put Scotty and Cheznee in Moray's cabin then. Anything else I should know?"

Sulu was shaking his head furiously.

"Yes. We have limited external sensors. No shipping in the immediate vicinity."

"How immediate is 'immediate'?"

"Approximately seventeen parsecs."

"Better and better. Do we have weapons?"

"Yes. Mister Scott has completed repairs. We also have full shields."

Sulu was now looking at him in wide-eyed disbelief.

"Take care, kitten," Kwhaja said brightly, cutting the comm link in a blast of static that belied Chekov's positive reports.

"Are you just lying to everyone on principle?" Sulu demanded angrily, but didn't argue when Chekov released him from the bulkhead and tossed him a disrupter. He cocked his head on one side. "We're going to rescue Mister Scott?"

"Of course not. Without weapons and shields, we might as well wait until the Orions arrive and let them 'rescue' him."

Sulu blew out an ill-tempered breath. "You are seriously messing with my head, Chekov. Okay, you know more about shields than I do. I'll take weapons."

Once he had half his torso crammed into the underside of the engineering console, Chekov's faith in Mister Scott's abilities was slightly restored. The progress of repairs, while incomplete, was orderly. It was relatively easy to assess what still needed doing. Seventeen minutes, or fifteen now and falling, was still an impossible deadline. He extricated himself from the tangle of leads and half-installed circuit boards and sat down on the deck. "Sulu, how long until we have weapons?"

The helmsman's voice was muffled and impatient. "I can't guarantee anything. It's not completely impossible that we'll have a thirty second burst of phasers at fifty percent power shortly after they arrive." He craned his neck to see how Chekov was receiving this news. "Shields?" he prompted.

"I can't do it."

"That's a pity," Sulu said succinctly, tucking his head back into the housing.

"Sulu..."

"Yes?"

"You know what we should do?"

"Tell me."

"Take the device, and your ship. Set this one to self-destruct, and use your ship to..."

"But you said the device isn't compatible with the systems on my ship. And we won't all fit in my ship. It's tiny."

"So we leave some people behind."

"Chekov!"

"We have a duty to protect the timeline. If this ship falls into Orion hands at this point in history..."

"Okay, let me think. There must be escape pods somewhere on this ship. If we loaded some people into those, and came back and picked them up..."

"If people would co-operate."

"Hm. I see your point. But... it's still a little... well, cold blooded. How do you decide who to leave behind?"

"We take the people we can locate," Chekov suggested. "You, me..." He hesitated."...Mister Scott and Miss Alleyn."

Sulu climbed to his feet and brushed various scraps of insulation off the black tunic he was wearing. "I suppose I should be grateful I'm included in your list."

"So are we going to do this?"

"I don't like it." Sulu chewed on his lower lip for a moment. "But I don't see an alternative. Yeah. I think we are. We can tell people to use the pods. It's up to them whether they do or not. Have you disconnected the device?" Chekov suddenly realised why all the loose connections in the engineering console had been bothering him so much. "No... uh, it's not here. Mister Scott must have taken it with him..."

"Why would he do that?" Sulu demanded.

"Because... he doesn't trust you and me? Because he can see some way of making it compatible with your ship's systems? And he was planning to use it without telling us?"

"Without accepting any of your explanations," Sulu said in his most businesslike tone, "I suggest we find Mister Scott, and the device, immediately. How long do we have?"

Chekov moved back to the navigation console. "Thirteen minutes."

"Damn, damn, damn. Right. Forget the self destruct. We'll just have to defend this ship with hand weapons."

"Hand weapons?" Chekov demanded incredulously.

Sulu smiled. "I thought you were worried about the time line? Either they blow us up from a safe distance, and there's no problem, or they come close enough to tango, right?"

"Well..." The lights suddenly dimmed to nothing. The two men collided at the ops station, but Chekov took a grudging step back, leaving Sulu to interpret the power readings as the illumination on the bridge flickered back up to full. "Something just took every spare joule on the ship... but... I can't trace which system. It's like there's a black hole in the power grid. Here, can you make sense of it? We didn't fire weapons, so where the hell can all that energy have gone?"

Chekov was ignoring the ops display. He pointed at the viewscreen, where the bright blip of the Orion ship had come to a dead halt. As they watched, it began to move away.

"What the..."

"There is an emergency transporter aboard, and someone just used it. To hijack that ship."

"What?" Sulu said. "Who?"

"I don't know. I don't know who it was, or if they had the device with them, or what they mean to do next. Ever since Bidoah, Lieutenant, the only thing I have known is that whatever anyone does next, it will be more unpleasant, or confusing, or criminal, than whatever they did last. I have given up speculating..."

A low vibration of engines began to hum through the structure of the Nell. "Now what?" Sulu cried. He put a hand out to the back of a chair to steady himself as the Nell's inertial dampers failed to absorb a powerful kick to the ship.

"That was not our engines," Chekov reported. "Someone must have taken your ship."

"They can't," Sulu insisted, with what Chekov considered very ill-directed certainty. "Only I have the code to override the security lockdown."

The ensign sat down on the floor and picked up one of the remaining danish pastries.

"What the hell are you doing, Chekov?"

"Having breakfast."

"Someone is stealing my ship, and you're having breakfast?"

The ensign shrugged and brushed sticky crumbs off his chin onto the deck. "What should I do? Run after them, shouting 'come back'?"

"You knew Khwaja was planning to do this, didn't you?"

"No. I thought Khwaja was planning to do something completely different. Therefore I am not at all surprised that he has done this, although I am not yet sure which 'this' he has actually done." He swallowed the last mouthful of danish pastry, licked his fingers and held a hand out to Sulu. "I suppose we should go assess the damage."

Scowling, Sulu helped him up. "I think first we should release Mister Scott."

***

Brecht was on his feet as the door opened. "Commodore! I've been worried about you..."

The ensign leveled his phaser at the freebooter. Behind him, Sulu was keeping watch for anyone else who still remained aboard, but every indication was that the complement of the Nell had been reduced to five. "Lie down on the floor, Mister Brecht, with your hands above your head, please."

The freebooter laughed. "You've got the right room -- if you've a yen for that sort of thing, Admiral -- but the wrong occupant."

"Where is Mister Scott?" Chekov snapped.

"He took offence at my temporary truce with your friend Kwhaja and banged me up in here. I don't know what he did after that."

"Then where is Khwaja?"

"A good question. I'm betting that one or other of them took off in the yacht, but I'm not sure..."

"You'd better give me that phaser, lad."

The cold muzzle of a disruptor pushed against Chekov's neck and he held up the phaser over with an irritable sigh before turning to confront the remnant of the Nell's crew. "Mister Scott..."

"I think you owe us an explanation, Mister Chekov." The engineer looked more than a little displeased, and Alleyn, at his heels, wasn't smiling either.

The ensign's temper snapped. "Me? I owe *you* an explanation? You are one with a criminal record. You are the one who only joined Starfleet to avoid serving a prison sentence for piracy. You, Mister Scott, have done nothing in all this time to stop Bardon Goudchaux and the rest of them from... from... from doing anything... "

Scott let out an embarrassed laugh. "Me? A pirate? That's ridiculous."

"But actually true," Alleyn confirmed.

"Absolutely true," Brecht echoed. "I've seen the transcripts."

Scott smiled tightly at Sulu's incredulous expression. "Oh, well. It was a long time ago, Mister Sulu. I was only a bairn."

"As if that makes it any better," Chekov grumbled.

"I'll explain it all to you another time. What's the situation now?" Scott asked impatiently.

Sulu shot a defiant look at his helm partner. "I *think* Chekov must have released Khwaja when he said he was taking breakfast to everyone. He was obviously expecting him to ambush you and take over the ship. He got the drop on me and..."

"I'm with you. And then Khwaja got the drop on me, and locked me and Jessie up. It took us a couple of minutes to get loose, and by then the whole pack of vermin had taken off in your yacht, Sulu. I suppose they reckoned Brecht here was one too many for so small a vessel, and left him to throw himself on our tender mercies."

"We caught him taking up the deck plates in Goudchaux's cabin," Alleyn added. "And decided to lock him up in here, since we thought we'd deactivated all the trick exits."

"I think you were right about that," Brecht agreed ruefully. "None of Goudchaux's magic words seem to work any longer." He cast a sympathetic smile in Chekov's direction. "We hitched our wagon to the wrong star, Admiral."

"You certainly did," Scott said. He gave Chekov a considering look and shook his head. "Come here, Mister Sulu."

Scott's hands moved too quickly and surely for Chekov to follow. In seconds, he was wearing the cuffs he'd put on the lieutenant only minutes earlier, and the spare pair he'd been carrying for emergencies were adorning Stuart Brecht's wrists. The freebooter beamed a smile at him. "Matching jewellery. Ain't that cute?"

***

There was, unquestionably, a great deal of work to be done, putting the Nell back together. Since Sulu's ship was no longer available for cannibalising spare parts, Scott was constructing components from first principles. Sulu and Alleyn took on the role of technicians, and the grunt work, riveting burst panels, welding conduits, and generally cleaning up, fell to the chain gang.

It had been Alleyn's idea to have Chekov and Brecht fixed together. She said it cut down the effort required to watch them. Chekov had thought she was joking. She wasn't. Since she was in charge of supervising them at the time, no one had questioned her decision. Nor had anyone been in any hurry to reverse it.

Sulu arrived with lunch for them about mid-way through the afternoon, according to Chekov's stomach. Brecht laid down his laser cutter and turned to greet the lieutenant with a smile. "My stomach was beginning to think I'd cut my own throat," he said appreciatively, picking up a spring roll and a glass of tea. "No one can call the catering on this cruise dull. And let me tell you, after eating Orion cuisine for a few years, I'm ready for some home cooking."

Alleyn turned round from the computer panel she was fixing. "I'm taking a bathroom break."

The moment she vanished into the lift, Chekov stopped work too and held out his hands. "Sulu..."

The lieutenant shook his head. "Uh huh. If Khwaja comes back..."

"You'll need me to..."

"You were helping him, Chekov."

"I can explain..." Sulu raised an eyebrow and waited.

"Not in front of him." Chekov gestured abruptly at the freebooter.

Brecht sighed. "I thought we had an understanding, Admiral." He picked a stray beansprout off his tunic and sucked it into his mouth between closed lips. "Now, if I were you, I'd be asking Mister Sulu here why he's keeping vital facts from Montgomery Scott."

"What facts?" Sulu asked. He turned to Chekov. "What's he talking about?"

Chekov scowled. He'd been planning to bring this up when he had Scott and Sulu together, but Brecht had jumped the gun. "The fact that not everyone is with Khwaja on your ship. The fact that this ship has transporter capability. The fact that there is an Orion ship out there under the control of..."

Sulu laughed. "Eat your lunch, Pavel. There never was an Orion ship. You programmed the computer to show a ghost on the viewscreen. It was just part of your diversion to keep us occupied while Khwaja made his escape. And if there's no need to explain how Goudchaux and co got onto an Orion ship, then there are no transporters. I don't know which I mind more, you lying to me, or you thinking I'm that stupid."

Chekov picked up a spring roll. He bit one end.

The silence grew more and more uncomfortable, until Brecht finally broke it. "So what's the plan?" he asked Sulu.

"To collect the treasure of the Orlan Du..."

"Isn't that theft?" Chekov interrupted icily.

Sulu frowned. "We don't have any choice, Chekov. We already did it."

"That will make a most interesting defence."

"The best defence is not getting caught. Particularly at this point in time. If I remember my Orion history, the families were a little... unforgiving." Brecht smiled at Chekov's worried expression.

"And if we get caught when we get back?" the Russian asked dubiously.

"Make sure it's by the Federation," Brecht suggested. "They're more likely to agree that the statute of limitations applies."

"Hell," Sulu said, and massaged his brow with his fingertips. "This is all..." He shook his head.

"Mister Brecht," Chekov said.

"Yes, Commodore?"

"Does this ship have an emergency transporter of some kind?"

"Oh, sure."

"And Goudchaux used it to hijack an Orion ship just now, didn't he?"

"Yeah. The double-dealing ingrate. You see why I prefer to do business with you, Commodore. You're naive, but you're straight." Brecht winked at him. "Unfortunately."

"And Mister Scott knows all this?"

"Of course he does."

Sulu shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Okay, that's enough. I have no idea why you're trying to make me distrust Mister Scott, Chekov, but it won't work. For all I know, you and Brecht here have been working together all along, and..."

"Why would he do that, now?" Brecht asked. "Why believe that Chekov here is the one in league with pirates?"

"I don't. I don't think that for a moment. He's just... scared and out of his depth. I'm sorry, Chekov, but..."

"I don't mind admitting that I am scared and out of my depth. I am *not* stupid however."

"No. Okay." Sulu stopped, clearly not sure what to say next. "Okay," he repeated. "But the fact remains that Montgomery Scott is the senior officer here, and now, and he's done nothing that I'm aware of that would justify me in disobeying his orders. Chekov?" The ensign set his lips in a straight line. "If he has done something," Sulu insisted determinedly, "you'd better tell me."

Brecht laughed softly. "You're not listening to what he's not saying, Mister Sulu."

"I'm not... Fuck that, Chekov. Spell it out for me. Words of one syllable, whatever. Come on!"

"Maybe," Brecht said, with a smile for Chekov, "Commander Scott is not the senior officer here. Is that it?" Chekov's mouth tightened. "And I'd guess the admiral has orders not to let that out to anyone. Am I right? Well, of course, he's not going to tell me if I'm right."

With an exasperated expletive, Sulu reached into his pocket and thumbed the control to release the link between the two sets of cuffs.

"Brecht, take these trays back to the galley. Then go up to the bridge and see what needs doing up there."

"I'll leave the two of you to your little tete a tete, then."

The two Starfleet officers faced each other, waiting until Brecht was out of earshot, Sulu tapping his fingers impatiently on the bulkhead.

"It makes no difference, Sulu. There are two people aboard -- no, two people *involved* -- who have claimed to be Intelligence Agents. Mister Scott allows you to believe he is acting in the best tradition of Starfleet, and you would claim exactly the same. So do I. Even if *all* of us are telling the truth, none of us knows the right course of action to follow in this situation. No one knows what we have, as you say, already done. Mister Scott knows most of the people involved, what they are likely to do. Brecht knows a little Orion history. *I* know that I will survive long enough to tell myself not to come back to this time, and someone else thinks I will be in a position, at some point, to return the time travel device to its proper owners. Beyond that... We are each as lost as the rest. Right?"

Sulu considered for a couple of seconds. "I just want the name of the person that you believe..."

Chekov thought about it in turn. There was no reason not to tell Sulu that Kwhaja had been claiming to be part of Starfleet. The pirate had clearly been lying, taking advantage of Chekov's gullibility in order to steal Sulu's ship. The ensign just wasn't in the mood to admit he'd been taken for a ride. "If that person *is* an intelligence agent, obeying orders, then I can't tell you. If they are lying, there is no point you knowing."

"Right." Sulu shook his head to dislodge the confusion. "There are logical holes in that argument that you could fly a starship through."

"Scotty is lying to you, to both of us," Chekov said. "You know that now."

"You're refusing to tell me everything you know," Sulu insisted. Chekov picked up the panel and snapped it back over Alleyn's finished work. "Join the club."

***

Scott reckoned it would take them three days to get the Nell warp capable, with weapons, shields, and passable communications and navigation capability. Well fed, working until he was ready to drop where he stood by the end of each day, and sure of an uninterrupted night's sleep in Khwaja's cabin, which he shared with Sulu, Chekov began to wonder if his paranoia was entirely justified. True, Scott was finding him work that kept him off the bridge, but he appeared to be trusted beyond that. Sulu, somewhat embarrassed, removed the manacles before they turned in the first night, and they never reappeared. Brecht still wore his, and was locked in Morgain's cabin the first night. Chekov wasn't too sure about other sleeping arrangements, although he had his suspicions.

He tried not to think about it, or anything else beyond the endless list of repairs which Scott had assigned to him. Midway through the following morning's tasks, he noticed that he was leaving bloody palmprints as he replaced an access panel. He decided he could spare five minutes to visit sickbay.

It looked as if someone had made a start on clearing up the mess in the small medical compartment. At any rate, loose articles had been cleared away, even if the deck was still dirty. Chekov tugged at the door of Esme's supply locker. Something had slammed into the door, buckling it. It was wedged closed. The ensign unfolded his fingers and the gash across the pad of his thumb dripped blood copiously onto the deck. With a more secure, two handed grip on the handle, he finally forced the door open, narrowly avoiding striking himself in the face. The locker was bare, like the shelves and cupboards. The sickbay hadn't been tidied, it had been stripped. Goudchaux, with more foresight than Chekov had anticipated, must have realised that an Orion ship would be short on effective medical supplies for humans: or maybe he was just hoping to give the crew of the Nell some distraction from pursuing him. Not, Chekov reflected, that Scott seemed to have any interest in pursuing the pirates. Then it occurred to Chekov that if Goudchaux had had time to raid the medical supplies, he might have helped himself to other things. He turned away from the empty shelves, and contemplated the absence of a regenerator, or blood substitutes, or even a medical tricorder. His hand continued to bleed generously.

"Feeling poorly, Peterson?"

Chekov didn't bother to turn. He could see Alleyn clearly enough in the inky display panel of a non-functioning diagnostic bed. The diagnostic sensors had been ripped from their housings, but the display itself must have been too big to remove in a hurry. Chekov decided to be grateful he wasn't suffering from appendicitis.

In workmanlike coveralls, her head covered by a fine, fair stubble, Alleyn was beginning to look less exotic. "Oh, you've cut yourself. Come with me. I took all the skin off my knuckles clearing out a thruster vent this morning. I left the regenerator in my quarters."

"I don't need a regenerator," Chekov said coldly. "Just some tape."

She walked round in front of him, shaking her head. "I don't think Goudchaux left us any. I think he only left the regenerator because the front plate was smashed. You could start tearing up sheets, I suppose."

"Why would Goudchaux..."

"To sell. He would have grabbed any portable technology that came to hand. Even surgical tape... well, you can imagine the inventor of that made quite a fortune, way back whenever."

Chekov stared at her. "You think he's selling medical technology to the Orions?"

"I think if his mother had been along, she'd be wearing a price ticket right now, don't you?"

He mustered some composure. "Well. You would know about that kind of business, Miss Alleyn."

For a moment, she stared him out, her expression matching his for stony disapproval. Then she smiled. "Don't tell me you weren't thinking about taking me up on my offer of employment, Peterson. For that matter, don't try to tell me you wouldn't have been more pleased to see half a dozen drunken Klingons with their trews round their ankles than that bastard Hanton. Come on, let's get your hand fixed. Scotty's going to throw a fit if you bleed on anything vital." Chekov was too startled to resist as she took a firm grip on his elbow and led him off to Goudchaux's cabin. Of course, he reasoned, a man who was creating an imaginary persona for himself might well recycle particular elements of his cover. Kwhaja had probably met Alleyn in some past incarnation as a travelling representative in silk underwear and illegal pharmaceuticals. He simply had to stop believing what people told him.

"Sit down." He blinked at the unmade bed. The whole cabin was fairly untidy, clothes lying in a heap against one wall, and half the drawers and cupboards opened. It looked as if someone had been searching for the missing pair to a sock in a great hurry.

"Go on. If you bleed on the sheets, I'll just tell Scotty he got my cherry last night."

He closed his eyes. This was not unlike being forced to listen to the sexual exploits of your parents. He held out his hand, in the hope that she'd be too busy healing it to continue tormenting him.

"There's a good boy," she said. "If you don't cry, I'll give you some jelly beans when I'm done." Her hands were gentle, but Chekov was beyond giving credit for such unremarkable kindnesses. When she was done, she released her grip on his wrist, letting his hand fall to his lap, and one finger moved to his mouth. "So... do I get a kiss for making it better?"

He jerked away from her and smashed his good hand down on the comm unit by the bed, knowing that Sulu was supposed to be fixing the ship's internal communications about now. "Sulu!" A fizz of static was the only response.

Alleyn sat down by him on the bed. "You really don't have a sense of humour, do you?" She grinned at him. "And what in vacuum did you think the man the whole Admiralty knows as 'Commodore Keane's Geisha' was going to do for you?"

"I don't believe you," he said, once his jaw had recovered independent mobility.

"Oh. Did Hikaru tell you how he came to find you?"

"Yes, he..."

"And you believe Starfleet sent a mere lieutenant, single handed, with a ship worth an admiral's pension, into Orion space? Is that... what do you call it? ... 'protocol'?"

Chekov decided to examine his newly mended thumb for implanted poison capsules and surveillance devices.

"Don't take it too hard, kid." She laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. "We all have to grow up and stop believing in Baba Yaga some time. You're supposed to be fixing the lateral inertial dampers, aren't you?"

"I have finished."

"Really? Scotty thought it would take you at least six hours..."

"I am not quite so incompetent as Commander Scott, and everyone else, seems to think I am."

When he looked up, she was smiling benevolently at him. "Oh, now. He said it would take most people two days. He has great respect for your abilities. Really."

The door to the cabin swung open, and the subject of their discussion entered, wearing a preoccupied expression. He stopped dead at the sight of the two of them. Chekov jumped to his feet.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were fixing the dampers? And you, Jessie?" Scott's eyes darted angrily around the cabin.

Chekov was a little taken aback at just how annoyed the engineer appeared to be at finding them together. "I cut my hand," he began to explain, "and I had finished..."

"...so he was relaxing," Alleyn interrupted, batting her eyes at him. Scott turned his back on them, sweeping a sheaf of papers from the desk into a drawer and slamming it shut. He picked up a pile of books from the corner of the desk and put them down again. "Go to your quarters, Mister Chekov, and stay there. I'll let you know when there's something else I need you to do."

"I could..."

"Your quarters, now."