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The red lights came and the battle stations sounded. Tuvok and Tyla ducked out the door at a fast walk. Chakotay stepped back into Tuvok's position,

Janeway sat down in her command chair. "Tom, ease us down toward the Xorm."

"Aye, Captain," he said. "It might get a little rough."

"Just as long as we survive," she said.

"No problem there," he said.

"Mr. Kim, Chakotay, I want full scans of the Xorm ship. Look for a second active warp core. If there isn't one, well apologize, back out of here, and go to Plan B."

"They're trying to block our scans, Captain," Kim said after a moment. "But they're not succeeding," he continued with a note of triumph.

"Got it," Chakotay said. "On their shuttle deck, inside a small ship of some kind."

Janeway glanced around at her second-in-command just as he looked up. "It's in an unmanned shuttle."

"And it's not the shuttle's power source and driver'

"No," Chakotay said. "It's baggage. Nothing more."

"Damn," she said. "I was hoping I was wrong."

"So was I, Captain," Tom said. "No offense."

"None taken."

"The Xorm are hailing us." "On screen," Janeway said, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to look stern.

"What is the meaning of scanning us, Captain?" Fedr said, his eyes nothing more than slits.

"Well," Janeway said, acting calmly, "when you decided to stay at such a low orbit, I got to wondering why."

Captain Fedr's face slowly grew slightly red. "As I said. Research on the binary." "Would you care to explain to me what information you can get in that extremely dangerous and difficult-to-maintain orbit that you could not get at, say, the location we are at now?"

Janeway just kept smiling. She wanted to make sure she didn't shove him in the wrong way.

Captain Fedr's face just kept getting redder and redder.

"With all due respect, Captain, that is our business and not yours."

"Ahh, I see," Janeway said, now no longer smiling. "You're not planning, by chance, to use the extra warp core in your shuttlebay to send the neutron star at the Qavok homeworld?"

"With due respect, I am simply following my orders. This discussion has ended," Fedr said ruefully.

The connection was terminated and the spinning neutron star binary filled the screen.

"Guess we got the answer we needed," she said. "Not the one we wanted, though." Behind her the bridge was deathly silent. She tapped her combadge. "Seven?"

"Go ahead, Captain."

"We found an extra warp core on the Xorm ship. Harry's loading the information our scans got down to you. What I need to know is how much time we have before they launch it."

"I will have the answer in a moment, Captain," Seven said.

Janeway glanced back at Chakotay. "Any chance we can transport through their shields?"

Chakotay did a quick check of the board in front of him, then shook his head. "Afraid not."

"Too bad," Janeway said. "That would have made it so easy."

"Captain," Seven said. "Taking all factors into account, including the time it will take for the warp core to reach the desired height above the secondary neutron star, the time remaining is nine minutes and ten seconds. Mark."

"Got it," Kim said.

"Thanks. Keep working on the second time frame," Janeway told Seven. "I'm hoping we're going to get a chance to use it."

"Understood," Seven said.

"All right, I'm open to suggestions here."

"The shuttle is the answer, Captain," Chakotay said.

"How?"

"We hold it outside our screens with a tractor beam, let it fire enough to knock down the Xorm shields. When they're down, we'll beam that warp core out of the Xorm ship and destroy it."

"Without shields, Captain," Tom said, "the Xorm ship won't last long in that orbit."

Janeway nodded. "Unfortunately, that's their problem. Unless someone has a better idea, I'm going with this one."

"Captain," B'Elanna said. "We could have the shuttle blow up the warp core right after it has launched and is outside the Xorm shields."

Janeway