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Zevon gazed at him in something like disappointment. “And you have so much influence, Eric?”

“I don’t need influence. I have a CST” Stiles swept his hand wide to illustrate the ship around him, and the suddenly proud crew. “We can build it. A combat support tender is a movable starbase, a flying factory!”

“Of course!” Spock breathed. Even he hadn’t thought of it, and that gave Stiles a particular zing of pleasure.

“Impossible,” Zevon argued. He pointed at Spock, but spoke to Stiles. “You’re saying this to get what he wants, because you worship him!”

A rumble of frustration rose in Stiles throat. Better let that one go. “My crew is packed with trained technicians, mechanics, and engineers. We can build almost anything, darned near anywhere, all by ourselves. And even though you’re refusing to help us, we’re going to go back there and build it.”

Zevon squinted with doubt. “But we have no treaty! Starfleet will not give you permission-“

“I don’t need permission,” Stiles recklessly sparked. “I’m not even going to ask for it. And on top of that, I’m going to use a few other resources available to me right here and now. For instance, Dr. McCoy over there is going to treat whatever’s making your wife sick. I don’t have to let him do that, y’see, because I’m in command here and he has to do what I say. But I’m going to tell him to do that anyway, Zevon, because not everything in life is a tradeoff. And then we’re going to fly away and leave you alone with your planet and your wife and your barricade, and we’ll see if you can forget who did for you what you couldn’t do for yourselves.” He jabbed Zevon in the arm. “You and everybody on that stupid planet are going to find out what real freedom means.”

Across the bridge, Ambassador Spock settled back against the science station and looped his arms into that casual appreciative fold that Stiles had seen so many times on the historical tapes. Stiles got a rush of delight at seeing Spock fold his arms like that, right here on Stiles’s bridge, just as if he liked being here.

Astonished, Zevon could do nothing but stare at him with a thousand emotions pushing at him. Stiles did not turn away from that gaze, determined to show that nothing would stop him from doing what he said he could do, exercising both the power of his command and the industrial might of his ship.

Dr. McCoy looked up then, and clicked off his medical tricorder. His face was stiff, his voice rough.

“He’s not going to find out any time soon. There must’ve been something on the spike.” He looked first at Stiles, then at Spock. “It’s all over, gentlemen. He’s infected.”

Chapter Twenty-five

McCoy’s WORDS SHOOK STILES to the bone. Spock too, he could tell, was inexpressibly disturbed. Only seeing the worry on his idol’s face caused Stiles to finally absorb just how rare Zevon’s uncontaminated blood had been to them all. What would come now? Decades of instability in the galaxy? The suction of a collapsing empire on the Federation’s doorstep? Endless struggles and endless repairs, so ships and crews could go back into more endless struggles?

“Call Dr. Crusher to beam over here,” McCoy tersely said. “I want a corroborating opinion. Not that it’ll change a goddamn thing….”

Wordless, his throat too tight to make a sound, Stiles nodded the order over to Travis, who spoke into his comm. “Dr. Crusher, would you beam over please? Dr. McCoy’s request.” “Acknowledged. One moment.”

The bridge fell to silence. Except for the snapping of electrical systems that had been violated, there was hardly a sound. The squawk of the transporter beam sent a ripple up every spine. Soon Dr. Beverly Crusher stood right there on the bridge, providing a mere haze of hope. But nobody here doubted Leonard McCoy’s diagnosis, not for a moment.

The elegant lady doctor looked around, noted everybody, including the only two Romulans, hesitated briefly over Sykora, then silently concluded that Zevon was the only one who could be the person they’d come here for.

“I think we’re