The morning of the third day of repairs started badly. Scott was stalking the ship with a handwritten list of components and materials still needed for vital repairs and apparently not available anywhere. Chekov and Sulu found themselves taking apart equipment that they'd only restored to working condition the day before, because some other system had a higher claim on the resources.

When Scott came past them for the third time, muttering under his breath, they both kept quiet, in hopes that the shield generator they'd just re-assembled wouldn't prove to contain anything useful. "Micro-sensors," Scott snapped at them.

"What about in the medical equipment?" Sulu suggested.

"Don't be an idiot. We no longer *have* any medical equipment." Chekov bent back to the making of connections, but an idea had occurred to him. He tried to ignore it. Scott's foul mood, as far as Chekov was concerned, didn't seem to arise only from the supply problems. It also seemed to contain a generous dose of insane jealousy over Jessie Alleyn. But Chekov was no good at keeping ideas to himself. He called rather hesitantly after the departing engineer. "Mister Scott..."

"Yes?" Scott sounded more impatient than optimistic. Chekov was tempted to pretend it had been a mistake, but Scott was already on his way back. "I need more than twenty. Where do you think you're going to find that many, hm?"

With a scowl, Chekov pointed at the door to Chen's torture chamber. "In there."

"Why, what's in here?" The door was locked. Scotty impatiently phasered it open. "What the hell is this?" The compartment had taken almost no damage in the various attacks on the Nell. The equipment gleamed. "Dear God. Is this Chen's?" Scott turned round and frowned accusingly at Chekov. "What were you doing in here?"

Chekov swallowed. Just seeing the padded table, and the straps, was making him nauseous. "Wishing I was somewhere else, most of the time."

Scott wandered inside, eyeing the various components like a window shopper. Chekov stayed in the doorway. He could feel Sulu breathing down his neck.

"Right. These aren't exactly what I need, but I can make do. You two, strip all the sensor circuitry and bring it down to engineering. Don't rush it. You'll need to check each system is completely powered down, or you'll burn out the sensors themselves." Scott came back over to the door, but stopped in front of Chekov and looked at him. "The medallion is missing."

Chekov shrugged. "So? Goudchaux is probably selling it to various Orions right at this moment, and it will all turn up again next time we need it."

"You think Goudchaux took it..."

"Goudchaux or one of the others. Or Brecht. Or Jessie Alleyn."

He expected Scott to lose his temper, but the engineer merely sighed. "Chen was always an odd one. I thought he just collected this stuff." Scott gestured over his shoulder. "Like a stamp collector, you know. They don't collect them because they want to write letters."

Chekov was beginning to relax again. Until: "So what were you looking for in my cabin, Chekov?"

"I wasn't... Jessie Alleyn... I was never alone in there. She was with me the whole time." Chekov drew breath. "I'd cut my hand. She had the regenerator."

"Take that lot to pieces. I don't want any of it working by the time you finish." Scott pushed past Chekov and Sulu and vanished down the corridor.

Chekov leant back against the door frame before his knees gave way. "Why does he always assume I'm lying to him?"

Sulu shrugged, making no attempt to get on and obey Scott's orders. "Because you look guilty all the time?"

"Or is it because he is always lying to me?" Chekov suggested cynically. "And what is he hiding in his cabin anyway?" He remembered, even as he asked, the papers that Scott had put out of sight so unsubtly.

Sulu leaned forward, resting his head against the door frame just above Chekov's left shoulder. "Chekov," he said softly. "He knows he can't trust her, but I guess he hoped he could trust you. Now c'mon. Let's strip the guts out of this stuff. Before anyone else is tempted to make use of it."

***

"...another twelve hours work, and we'll be ready to make a move," Scott said, spooning custard generously over a helping of treacle sponge at lunch time. He paused before taking a second mouthful. "Who made this?"

Alleyn nodded at Chekov. "He did."

"Oh."

The ensign looked up immediately from his own meal. "Why? Is something wrong with it?"

"No."

"But nothing is particularly right with it, perhaps."

Sulu's spoon hovered an inch from his mouth. Chekov had been spoiling for a fight all morning. Scott either couldn't see it, or had taken a strategic decision to ignore it.

"Just another example of the admiral's kaleidoscopic talents," Brecht said through a mouthful of golden crumbs.

"Speaking of which..." Jessie said, with a careful glance at the engineer.

Scott sighed heavily and silence settled once again on the luncheon party, until Chekov decided to break it: "So, in twelve hours, we are going to start robbing the royal Orion houses?"

"That is the plan, Mister Chekov." Scott pushed his empty dish back towards the serving dish. "Give me another helping of that sponge. It might be the last decent food we get for a while. We're going to have to work fast, hit them before they can warn our next target."

"They won't be in any hurry to help each other," Brecht said. "They'll all start out assuming that at least one of the other houses is responsible for the raid. With luck, they'll be so busy hitting back at each other, we'll just sail through the crossfire."

"Our shields should be able to stand anything they can throw at us, and we know we can outrun them, so our only vulnerable time is while we're actually stealing the jewels." Scott stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

"Because we have to lower our shields in order to transport into their palaces?" Chekov said, in an utterly innocent tone.

Scott accepted the bowl of sponge that the ensign was holding out. "The transporters on this ship are an... experimental design, that will operate through some types of shield. The trade off is that they're less safe than I'd like. They also take a good deal more power than the standard variety, so we will have to *reduce* our shields while we're using them. On the other hand, we should be able to punch through any primitive shields that the Orions are using at their end."

Sulu glanced uneasily at Chekov. "These transporters..."

"We can minimise the problems." Scott nodded to himself. "If we get in as close as we can..."

Chekov decided to get to the point. "Who are you intending to transport using this 'experimental' technology?"

Scott corrected himself: "Perhaps 'experimental' isn't quite what I meant to say..."

"I volunteered," Brecht said hastily, "but apparently I'm not to be trusted on this one."

"What about me?" Sulu asked.

Scott shook his head. "You're our best pilot. The closer in we can get, the safer the transporter is."

"Miss Alleyn," Chekov suggested, "probably has more experience of stealing from Orions than I do."

She smiled sweetly at him. "You have a real bitchy streak, you know that? Well, you might be right, but I suspect you're a quick study. You didn't seem to take long getting the hang of whoring back on Quondar. Anyhow, I'll be there to give you a hand. And to watch your back. Scotty really isn't planning this as a way of getting you killed."

***

Eventually, Chekov had to agree it made sense. Scott needed to remain on board to operate the transporters, Sulu was best utilised at the helm, and sending Brecht down with Alleyn seemed like inviting disaster.

On the other hand, leaving Brecht on board, with the other two fully occupied also seemed like an unnecessary risk, but there wasn't any other way to arrange things. Chekov checked the disruptor Scott had just given him -- it represented a less 'different' technology than phasers, should he be stupid enough to leave it behind. Then he turned to Brecht, who was standing ready to give the raiding party a final briefing on which particular jewels were waiting for them on the planet they were currently approaching.

'Teacher Golton's book had reappeared. Chekov sighed. "This is really a reliable source of information?"

Brecht flicked unconcernedly through the brightly illustrated pages. "Descriptions of the Orlan Du were based on eye witness accounts from people they'd outwitted. Naturally, they make the thieves sound larger than life, with superior numbers. Now, what you have to remember here is that you're looking for the Imperial Crown, with the two diamonds in the cross bar, and the matching bracelets. Plus whatever else you can carry."

Chekov shrugged the strap of his shoulder bag into a more comfortable position and looked enviously at the communication device Scott had given to Alleyn. Apparently it was the only one they had: any spares had gone missing with Goudchaux and his crew. "And where..."

"I have a plan of the palace here," Brecht reassured him, unfolding what looked suspiciously like a tourist guide. "You don't need to worry about it. We'll be putting you right where you need to be."

Jessie Alleyn, clad like Chekov all in black, straightened up from strapping a knife to her thigh. She winked at Scott. "Just like the old days, isn't it?"

"I wish I was coming with you, lass," Scott said seriously.

Chekov frowned. It had just occurred to him that if the transporter malfunctioned and only one person could be snatched out of danger, Jessie Alleyn was going to take precedence. She'd done everything she could to turn Scott, and Sulu, against him, almost as if she'd been anticipating this situation. He avoided looking at her as they each took their places on the transporter pads that were built discretely into the floor of the engine room.

Scott hit the comm switch. "Distance, Mister Sulu?"

"Coming up to forty thousand kilometers."

"Prepare to deactivate the cloak and drop shields on my mark..." Scott ordered, his hands busy on the small set of transporter controls that had been hidden behind a wall panel. "...and don't forget we'll probably lose all impulse power for at least forty seconds..."

"Acknowledged." Sulu's voice was businesslike as he manoeuvred the ship into position.

'If that plan is wrong, I could materialise right in the middle of the guard room, or the dungeons,' Chekov thought morosely.

"Three, two, mark!"

It felt as if this device transported your stomach, and only then came back for the rest of you. As soon as he could tell he had arms again, Chekov clutched them across his abdomen and looked up into the eyes of an irate Orion guard wielding what any century would have recognised as a gun.

***

Chekov heard Alleyn yell for Scotty to beam them out as the butt of the gun came up and made contact with his face. He sprawled on the floor, feeling something sharp under his hands as he tried to save himself.

A boot made contact with his ribs and he rolled away from the assault, only to find himself at someone else's feet. He closed his eyes in case they were going to kick him too. Damn. This was supposed to be a sealed treasury. It was the middle of the night down here. Why was this room full of people and why was there... He opened his eyes fractionally and searched around with his fingertips. Why was there metal shrapnel all over the floor?

He was turned over on his face, skin catching and tearing on the debris, so that someone could clip restraints on his wrists.

'Just making me feel at home', he thought hysterically. He blinked as he was dragged upright. All round him were smashed display cases, empty stands and busts stripped of their necklets and tiaras. Blood began to trickle into his right eye, making him blink furiously.

He realised that the Orions around him were yelling at each other, and him, but he couldn't understand a word of it. When they began an impromptu interrogation, he couldn't even remember whether shaking your head or nodding was the right way to tell an Orion 'I don't know'. Eventually, the guards moved him out of the way of the clean up teams, into a corridor, and thence to a cell. The door slammed shut with unpleasant finality, and he sank bonelessly to the cold floor.

***

After a few hours, daylight started to filter through a small window high in one wall of his prison.

Chekov roused himself from an uncomfortable half-doze and tried to take stock of his situation. The immediate details were unpromising; the window, a door, an otherwise bare compartment. They'd prudently removed his boots, his disruptor and his belt. His hands were tied behind his back. Mister Spock, using the Enterprise sensors, would have isolated him among a planetful of Orions in minutes. The Nell wasn't so well equipped, and neither Scott nor Sulu were as competent.

If they were going to get him back, they'd have to rely on Stuart Brecht's ability to sweet talk in ancient Orion. Chekov turned his face to the wall. He wasn't even sure they'd think it was worth bothering.

He was, therefore, not particularly happy to hear voices outside the door of his cell.

"That's the one," a male voice said. A translator echoed the words into Orion, smothering the original before Chekov could identify the speaker.

"Why do you want him?" This time the Standard overlaid the Orion.

"Because those pirates stole him from us, when they plundered one of our trading ships a month or two back. He was expensive too, and you can see what they've done to him. Filthy, overfed and toting a weapon, according to your guards. They've turned him into a third rate burglar. We'll probably have to wipe him and start over."

The Orion laughed. "If we can question him before you do that..."

"Be my guest. The translator should help you get what sense you can out of him, but I warn you, he's not particularly bright." The door clicked open two guards entered. They dragged Chekov to his feet and stood him facing the wall as they repeated the search their colleagues had carried out some hours earlier. As they patted him down, a hand rested briefly on Chekov's shoulder. "Answer his questions, Chekov. Don't try to be clever. If they catch you lying, they'll kill you. Understood?"

Chekov's mouth was too dry to speak. He nodded. It was Khwaja.

"He needs something to drink," his supposed owner said firmly. A few seconds later, a cup of tepid water was held to his lips. It tasted wrong, tainted by unfamiliar compounds. Chekov swilled a meagre sip around his mouth and swallowed reluctantly.

"What is your name," the Orion asked, the translator automatically imitating the slow, deliberate way he was speaking.

"Chekov. Sir."

"How did you get into my treasury, Chekov?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Where were you before?"

"On a ship, sir."

"Whose ship?"

Chekov hesitated. Goudchaux's ship, a Federation ship, 'I don't know': what was the right answer here?

"A ship," he said finally, "of the Orlan Du."

There was a momentary silence.

"And who," the Orion asked finally, "are the Orrolan Dhu?"

Chekov took a very deep breath and repeated Teacher Golton's opening description of the robber barons, word for word.

"Do you know where they intended to go next? The location of their hideout, perhaps?"

"No, sir."

"I have it in mind to kill you, Chekov. Is there anything you can tell me, anything useful, or even amusing, that might persuade me to return you to your owners instead?"

"Lord Budrin..." Khwaja objected

"I'll compensate you of course, friend Khwaja. Once I catch these 'Orrolan Dhu' ."

Chekov's stomach had sunk down to the level of his stockinged feet. "You will not be able to catch them. Their ship is faster than any ship you have. Their weapons are more powerful. They have a device that enables them to travel instantly from their ship to the surface of a planet and..."

"Chekov..."

"What?" Budrin demanded, clearly annoyed by Khwaja's interruption this time.

A hand tousled Chekov's hair, giving it a sharp, warning tug too. "He's a habitual liar. And since he thinks his life depends on telling you something 'interesting'..."

"Hm." Chekov was taken by the arm and jerked a couple of steps to one side, presumably out of Khwaja's reach. "Tell me, little one, all about the fantastical abilities of these people who stole you from kindly Khwaja. *I* will not accuse you of spinning falsehoods."

"Budrin, he'll make you look a complete fool..."

"And I'll deserve it, if he can take me in."

The ensign's blood crusted eyes were beginning to itch furiously. He tried to duck his head and scrape them across his shoulder, but with his hands fastened, he couldn't make contact.

"Fetch a cloth," Budrin ordered casually. A moment later, rough hands turned Chekov around and swiped something warm, wet and scratchy across his face. He was able to see the Orion. He took in a sharp breath. The creature was a head taller than Khwaja, with olive green skin and prominent teeth dyed in various colours.

Khwaja, noticing his reaction, laughed openly. "Don't you like your guardian angel so much now you can see him, kitten? Perhaps I should give you to him. Budrin, would you like this insect for your seraglio?"

"Too puny," the Orion said contemptuously. "Now, Chekov. I'll make a deal with you. Tell me something that will allow me to catch those thieves, and I'll let you live."

"You probably cannot catch them," Chekov said. "But you don't need to. Just wait until they kill each other, and then take back what they stole from you."

There was silence again, and then Budrin began to laugh. He clasped Chekov to himself. "Khwaja, Khwaja, he amuses me. I see why you wanted to keep him. I'll give you five thousand measures of tenilium for him." The Orion lifted Chekov's chin with his large hand and gazed into his eyes. "To take my mind off my losses."

Chekov waited for Khwaja to remind Budrin of all the reasons why he didn't want to buy the ensign. Instead, Khwaja said, "Done."