"It's strange, knowing I'm going to be just a few seconds away from meeting myself." Sulu, wearing civilian clothes too neutral to be identified as anachronisms, stood waiting to beam down and meet Commodore Keane. Strange or not, it was apparent that the thought of meeting Commodore Keane again was on balance a pleasant one. The lieutenant was like an athlete at the starting blocks.

Knowing that Starfleet Intelligence had been involved in this from the start should have been incredibly reassuring, Chekov reflected. Instead the very idea sent cold shivers up his spine.

"How can you be sure you won't be 'just a few' seconds late and ruin everything?" Scott was helming the Nell from engineering, peering into a display that would have looked small on a tricorder, and keeping the ship in an orbit that would allow a discrete transport to the surface.

Sulu checked the chronometer display on the main engineering console. "It was a Starfleet Intelligence operation, synchronised to the second. I could probably still reel off my orders word perfect. I know exactly where we met, how long we spent there, what we did and what we talked about. I also know which direction she arrived from, and that she was five minutes late. All I have to do is be on her route, ready to detain her for those vital five minutes." The lieutenant shot a smile in Chekov's direction. "And with the fifth shard to back me up, I won't have to waste too much time convincing her I mean business."

Scott frowned. "I suppose since she *was* late, that proves she must have met you..."

Khwaja was pacing restlessly. He shot a look at Sulu and started to say something, but stopped himself.

Sulu grinned reassuringly at everyone. "Don't worry. I'm taking a phaser. Just in case she was intending to meet someone else."

With a sigh, the engineer made a minor course adjustment. "And we'll hope that 'someone else' hasn't had the same thought."

"Oh, don't fuss," Moray said. "We're on the big wheel of fate, and we can't get off. This Keane person..." She stopped and looked at Brecht. "If she was making deals with the Orion families, you should know about it."

The agent shook his head. "What I do know, Moray, is when not to ask too many questions."

"Whatever," Sulu said cheerfully. "If she was in the business of making deals with Orions on behalf of Starfleet, it'll give her the credibility she'd need to broker a deal like this."

"Well, that's true," Khwaja said doubtfully. "There probably aren't more than half a dozen people in the galaxy who could take one look at that shard and instantly know how to bring together the other four." He looked across at Brecht. "Wouldn't you say?"

Brecht didn't seem concerned. "Maybe. Maybe."

"One minute," Sulu read off from the chronometer. He moved across to stand on the concealed pad. "The shard, Khwaja..."

"Oh, yes." Khwaja pulled the fragment out of a pocket and tossed it to the lieutenant. "Good luck. And don't worry. I'll take care of Chekov for you if you don't come back."

Sulu ignored him, checked the time again, nodded to Scott, and vanished in a cloud of luminous green particles. Scott clucked disapprovingly. "It gives me the willies just watching it."

Chekov folded his arms and waited silently as Khwaja, Brecht and Moray departed engineering, apparently forgetting the ensign who had retreated into a shadowy corner in the hope that they would do just that.

"Mister Scott..."

The engineer dropped an adjustable wrench and swore loudly. "Mother of God, Chekov. You'll give me a heart attack, doing that. Can't you see I'm busy? This ship wasn't put together to stand being flung around like a blasted cannonball. There's not much point in all your bloody figuring if the old girl bursts a gasket, is there now?"

"If you tell me what acceleration is acceptable..."

"Hah," Scott muttered contemptuously. Chekov wasn't sure if he was referring to the repair he was making or to the offer of collaboration.

"Do you really believe that these people will escape prosecution, when we get back?"

Scott snorted. "Why not? I did." He fell silent again, as a difficult connection demanded his entire concentration.

Chekov knelt down and bent a troublesome clip out of his way.

"Ah, thanks. Can you get this cable now..."

"Ow!"

Scott raised his and looked at Chekov, who was shaking his fingers as if he'd been bitten. "That's not live."

"It is."

"Damn." The engineer leaped to his feet and hurried over to a computer station. "The reason Starfleet left Bardon Goudchaux to rot was very simple, Chekov. The man could never understand the sense of keeping his specs updated..." A series of blue screens laced with spidery white lines rolled past too quickly for Chekov to follow. "It can't be carrying enough power to give you any kind of shock. It was just static."

Chekov held out his hand. Blisters were rising on his fingertips.

"You'll mend." Scott grabbed a diagnostic meter and hunkered down by the exposed cables again. "Ach, damn. Look at this!" He turned the meter's screen towards Chekov for a split second, and then reached into the centre of his repairs and pulled the offending cable physically free of its moorings. "Well, that's done it," he said.

Chekov frowned. "But..."

"Someone has sent a subspace message out. Presumably they hoped everyone else would be too busy to notice." The engineer stared off into space, presumably trying to work through the implications of this betrayal.

Chekov frowned deeper. "They should have done it while we were busy transporting Sulu. Then we might not have noticed."

Scott shrugged. "Maybe it took them longer than they expected." Then he turned and fixed Chekov with a hostile scowl. "Or maybe, they wanted to wait until we'd scattered all over the ship and no one had an alibi but you."

***

Ten minutes later, they were poring over the communication logs. Khwaja had come down from the bridge, in possession of the 'answer' to the original message, but not the substance of the message itself. Esme was sitting on the deck with a padd, trying various decoding strategies on the raw data in the logs.

"'Why do you have to be so mysterious, darling?'" Khwaja read out yet again. "'But of course the answer is yes. I'm sure I can spare a few credits and quote keep my pretty little mouth shut unquote. Yours as ever, possibly more so, Britta'. Look in the code for 'keep your pretty little mouth shut', Esme. No..." He turned and smiled nastily at Chekov. "Translate it into Russian, and *then* try it."

"How could I send the message?" Chekov demanded. "I was here in engineering all the time."

"You set the computer up to send it when it suited you," Scott suggested amiably. "We all know you know how to do that."

"I don't know anyone..." Chekov halted. He realised that not only did he know a 'Britta', he also recognised her epistolary style. *And*, somewhere at the other end of the sector, he suspected that he and she were co-operating in the design of an experimental shuttlecraft right at this moment. He looked at Khwaja, who looked right back at him.

"I've done it," Esme said tersely. "Financial market information, fairly specific trading instructions. The data they're based on is probably in the computer files on board, in standard newscasts. Nothing here that would draw attention to the person giving the instruction. Just a standard 'doubling up' strategy that would turn a few credits into a small fortune in four years." She looked up. "Nice work, Chekov. This won't raise a ripple on any review of the markets, but the next time you go see 'Britta', if she hasn't run out on you with your share of the loot as well as her own, you'll be sharing a hundred million credits."

"She never said..." Chekov began. He shook his head. "I didn't send that message. He did." He pointed at Khwaja.

Khwaja gave a very creditable impersonation of aggrieved innocence. "Why would I want to make some old girlfriend of yours into one of the wealthiest women in the Federation, kitten? Trust me, I don't believe in independently wealthy women. It's bad karma, and I think you're going to regret it. It might be better for you if she does run off with someone else."

"Oh, God," Chekov said. He hadn't been listening to Khwaja. He was remembering the second year Market Economics lectures where they'd been set an assignment to develop a 'beat the market' investment strategy. His own attempt, a statistical model, had been as unsuccessful as anyone else's, but the mere existence of the course made a plausible background for him to propose the strategy to Britta... and suggest that she implement it. He'd been a cadet, while she'd been a civilian student. He would be breaking the rules by applying his coursework to real markets. She was similarly constrained in theory, but would find it far easier in practice. It was pretty unlikely they -- she -- would ever be caught.

And Britta, he recalled, would take great delight in the charade of *not* mentioning the plan to him. Looking back, it explained several occasions when Britta had been extremely... well, grateful, for no discernible reason.

It wasn't even impossible that Khwaja had attended the same Academy course a few years earlier.

"Starfleet will probably attempt to confiscate the proceeds. They'll argue that any information you obtained in the course of this mission is classified," Khwaja decided. "But if she co-operates and shops you nicely, I doubt if they'll prosecute *her*."

"Sulu should be signalling for transport any time now," Scott said, breaking into the silence.

"Why?" Chekov demanded of Khwaja. "Do you think giving me money will persuade me to co-operate with you? Or that ruining my record will undermine any accusations I make at the end of all this?"

Khwaja was looking at the decoded instructions on the padd. "HMGB Minerals. They were standing at 2345.6 last time I looked. You're buying in at... 21.0. Chekov, if you put a couple of evening's beer money into this, and you repeat that performance just... let's say five times in the four years, but it looks like you were aiming for more than that... Esme's right. You're multiplying your stake by a factor of at least one hundred million. This is not just money, kitten. In these quantities, it's power. It's influence. It's being able to have whoever you want." He looked over the top of the padd at the ensign and raised his eyebrows. "Was Britta the champagne and truffles kind, or is there going to be anything left for you?"

Chekov shook his head bewilderedly.

"Stand away from the transporter," Scott snapped.

Khwaja grabbed Chekov by the arm and yanked him to one side. The ensign hadn't been very near the pad anyway.

"You're going to be obscenely rich," Khwaja insisted. "Think about it."

"But I..."

"So you expect us to believe that you're going to just calmly turn us all in at the end of this, and go back to being a bread-and-milk ensign?" Khwaja said, rather pointedly.

Chekov blinked. Then it occurred to him that it would be in some -- or even most -- people's interest if he didn't survive too long after he'd completed the list of tasks required in order to maintain the timeline.

"I'm just looking after myself," he said loudly and angrily. "Like the rest of you."

The transporter energised at that moment, but Chekov thought Montgomery Scott looked distinctly relieved.

***************

"I have a very bad feeling about this," Sulu said, as he poured two glasses of beer and fetched the bowl of nachos out of the galley to the table in the mess. Chekov was having some fairly bad feelings too, about almost everything. He'd attempted to persuade Scott to look over his finished calculations, but the engineer had waved him away. "I'll mind the engines, you mind the numbers. It's all gibberish to me. I tried and I couldn't get my head round it. I'll just have to trust ye. At least now I know you have an incentive to get us through in one piece."

"Khwaja sent a message to an old girlfriend of mine, to make it look as if I have been speculating in the financial markets," Chekov explained to Sulu, who'd overheard this last.

The helmsman frowned. "Why would he do that?" he asked.

Chekov had suggested the beer, in the hopes that this would give them a chance to synchronise world views before the final jump. The jump itself was scheduled for midnight, ship's time. It would not only take them back to their own time, but right bang into position in the empty space between Quondar and the coordinates. If Chekov's calculations were correct, he reflected pessimistically. Triple A or not, it was still a big 'if'.

But midnight was still five hours away. Scott seemed to have a few more repairs and modifications to make. They'd taken the precaution of raising shields and departing orbit, just in case Commodore Keane had second thoughts about maintaining the timeline, or believing Sulu's story in the first place.

"I'm not sure," Chekov admitted. "It might be an incentive for me to assist the pirates in their claim to be innocent victims of a temporal accident."

Sulu thought about it. "If you're going to be at all convincing, you'd have to stop calling them pirates. But I thought you thought Khwaja was an SI agent. If he is..."

"Then perhaps he is trying to protect me."

Sulu raised a questioning eyebrow, along with his beer bottle.

"If the pirates think I have a good reason to deceive Starfleet myself, then I may be less inclined to tell the truth about them."

"And what about me? There's no point them buying your silence and leaving me to blow their cover."

Chekov considered suggesting that the pirates might be planning to silence Sulu in a more direct fashion, but thought better of it. "I don't know."

"Why does it have to be so complicated?" the helmsman said into his bottle. He blew mournfully across the lip, producing a booming note.

"What is the problem?" Chekov prompted.

"I... I guess I've kind of idolised Commodore Keane, over the last four years. I mean... I was flattered when... I mean, someone that high up in Starfleet Intelligence, that anyone would believe that I... And now, I was thinking it would be a relief to just tell the whole story, and let someone else take responsibility for everything. I'd... I suppose I was thinking of the commodore as being a kind of cross between Captain Kirk and my grade school principal..."

"And?" Chekov was fascinated in spite of himself.

"Well... Now that I've actually met..."

"You hadn't met her before today? I thought..."

"Not actually met, no. We did almost meet once in a corridor at Command, when I was being briefed about our 'affair'." He sighed. "Times, places, hotel room numbers..."

Chekov was shaking his head. "'The Commodore's Geisha', for that?"

"What?" Sulu asked, sounding a little hurt.

"That's what everyone calls you." Chekov couldn't help his smile breaking into a giggle, and then a full laugh. Within seconds he was clutching his stomach, eyes streaming. "The Commodore's Geisha and you have never even met her! It should be the mail order geisha."

Sulu bit his lip. "I thought it was history by now. You mean on the Enterprise, too?"

Chekov shrugged, swallowing what even to him felt uncomfortably close to hysteria. "Maybe. They probably wouldn't say it in front of a mere ensign. It would be such a terrible example for me."

"Chekov," Sulu said tiredly. "Shut up."

The ensign obliged. He thought about Britta instead, who had probably taken Khwaja's suggestions as a kind of joke, a financial 'flutter', and then when it worked, had never reported back on the results. And all the time, she'd been thinking about her bank balance when he'd thought she'd been thinking about him. She had begun telling him once in great detail about some plan to invest in resort hotels. She'd even seemed rather annoyed when he hadn't taken much interest, but then he'd thought she was just daydreaming. He blinked, trying to remember the details of the long ago conversation.

Sulu went to call up another two beers from the synthesiser in the galley. Returning, he stopped dead in the doorway. Chekov turned to see what he was looking at, and realised they had been joined by the pirates, and a large anti-grav sled.

"What's happening?" Sulu demanded.

Goudchaux began directing Chen in stacking the Orion treasure on the table. Esme and Morgain sorted through the smaller pieces. Morgain was muttering brief descriptions into a padd.

"We have to synthesise copies, to put in the pod," Goudchaux explained. "And we thought we should sort out who's having which pieces now, in case we're pushed for time later,"

"Copies?" Sulu echoed.

Khwaja pointed to the galley. "We have a synthesiser."

"A *food* synthesiser. Get real. You really think you can whip up something out of gelatine that will fool Chekov into thinking he's handling ancient Orion heirlooms? Even Chekov can tell genuine stones from jello."

"Why? Is he a geologist or something?" Goudchaux demanded. "He didn't have a tricorder."

"But you said you were going to hand the jewels over to Starfleet," Sulu spluttered. He turned to appeal to Khwaja. "I thought you were supposed to be a Starfleet Intelligence Agent?"

"So?" Khwaja demanded. "It's a job, not a vocation. Suddenly, piracy's paying better." He reached out and pulled Chekov over to help with the unloading. "And it has other benefits."

"But... But I've told the commodore where we're going to be and everything. If we're not there..."

Chekov took advantage of Khwaja's preoccupation with an enamelled Orion mace to move away from the table again. Unfortunately, just at that moment, Brecht arrived and escorted him back to his work.

"Oh, dear," Brecht said. "If we're not there, it'll look like you were lying. Tut tut." He smiled sympathetically at Sulu. "You naughty boy. Don't tease the admiral, please, Khwaja. We need him to tell us if the replicas are up to scratch."

Esme had begun carrying the pieces, one at a time, into the galley. Chen accompanied her to make the necessary adjustments to the little machine.

"You handled the jewels, didn't you, Chekov? This won't work. Tell them it won't work." Sulu was beginning to look a little wild-eyed. Chekov shrugged helplessly.

"I hardly looked at them, really. They resembled the pictures in the book, and pictures I'd seen in other places. And these..." Chekov shrugged, wondering just when the thrill of unimaginable wealth had worn off. "These look very much the same."

"You have to agree, it would be criminal to let the treasure of the Orlan Du blow out into space if we can help it," Morgain said self-righteously. "All that Orion heritage. Like this piece for example." She held up a choker of green stones. Their brilliance seemed to feed off illumination in the room. "Or these." A set of bracelets studded with rubies and diamonds dangled momentarily from her fingers before she dived back into the pile of baubles.

The replicas were accumulating at the other end of the table. They *were* duller, Chekov thought, but he wasn't sure if he saw them that way only because he knew which were which. Esme was packing the genuine articles into cartons and sealing them shut.

"You know, selling these is not going to be easy," Goudchaux grumbled. "Even stripped from the settings and recut, unless you cut them into several smaller stones..."

"Commodore Keane will be waiting for us, when we put the pod in place," Chekov began. "How are you..."

Khwaja shook his head sadly. "You really aren't cut out for a life of crime, are you, kitten? We're not *going* to put the pod in place. You are. Or your friend Mister Sulu can, if you prefer not to. Or if you're dead."

"Dead?" Chekov asked. "Why would I be dead?"

"Well, what was your impression of the state of the Nell when you recorded that message? We'll try to get you out, but... but really, you haven't been very nice to us. And salvage operations on burning ships... it's always so risky. And then there's the time factor. If we're going to collect Stuie's little Black Beauty from Quondar, that doesn't give us a lot of time to play with. The Shonagon is faster than the Nell, but not by much."

Chekov worked through what Khwaja was saying. "You plan to go to Quondar, arriving just after the Nell has left for the first time. You'll destroy this ship as a background to me recording the message, then place the message in a transponder in the pod, along with the jewels and the device, and leave me, or Lieutenant Sulu, to deliver the pod to the coordinates, overtaking the Nell on the way there."

Khwaja and Goudchaux were both nodding.

"And you will all take the jewels in the Black Beauty to..."

"To Treasure Island, Jim-lad," Khwaja said cheerfully. "And no maps."

Chekov frowned in confusion. "Mister Scott, do you intend to be on the Black Beauty or the Shonagon?"

"Well," Scott said thoughtfully. "That's an excellent question. The jewels are quite a haul, but disposing of them is going to be a real problem. I'm wondering if I might prefer to be an engineer long enough to draw a pension, rather than a rich man with my DNA code in every police file in the sector. I think Starfleet might have spoiled me for piracy. I'm sorry, Bardon, but..."

"You're welcome to take a berth on the Shonagon," Goudchaux said cheerfully. "So long as you leave your share of the jewels behind."

Scott was nodding. "A clean break, then. We all go our own ways, and no recriminations. Mister Sulu?"

Sulu had sat down at the table, his arms folded in front of him. "If you say so."

"Chekov?"

"It seems like a good plan," Chekov said hesitantly. He wasn't sure what was bothering Sulu so much: getting out alive, being rescued promptly by Commodore Keane, and never having to see the pirates or their treasure again seemed more than acceptable to him. He sat down by the lieutenant and tried to explain. "I have to record the tape. We can't change that. And if something does go wrong... at least you and Mister Scott will make sure the timeline is preserved, and you'll be safe."

"I said OK," Sulu snapped. He jumped up and left the room.

Khwaja extended a hand to stop Chekov following him. "He's outvoted, kitten. Don't worry about him."

"But why..."

"You wouldn't understand." Khwaja leaned down and stage whispered into Chekov's ear. "He has a bad case of hero-worship for the commodore, and we're about to make Keane look very stupid indeed. You should sympathise with the young fool, even if you'd never be stupid enough to put yourself in such a ridiculous position." The pirate straightened again, hauling Chekov to his feet at the same time. "And now, while we're on the subject of grand passions, I think you and I should make the most of our last few hours together, don't you?"

Chekov shoved his elbow into Khwaja's stomach. The man grunted and held him out at arm's length. "I've had second thoughts. Anyone else want him?"

Goudchaux shook his head. "What for? Tomorrow, I can buy whoever I want."

Morgain walked up to the ensign and ran her finger tip down his chest. "Sorry, sweetheart. I'm saving myself for a Deltan gigolo. You're cheap. And you're used."

One by one, the pirates filed out of the mess hall, leaving Chekov alone with Brecht. Chekov glared at the Orion agent.

Brecht laughed. "There's no pleasing you, chief."