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“Duffy to da Vinci. We’ve got an Androssi security device here. Two guards are down, and the trick we used on Maeglin isn’t working this time.”

“Dammit,” Gold said. “So much for an uninhabited station.”

Nog ducked as another arc of electricity shot at him, then he fired two more shots, one at level 1, one at level 9, each at a different EM frequency. The ball seemed unimpressed.

“Duffy to transporter. Diego, please tell me you can punch through the interference this time.”

“Sorry, Commander, but I lost the lock on you guys about a minute ago.”

Gold said, “Find a way this time, Feliciano.”

“Trying, sir.”

One of Lipinski’s shots disrupted the ball—its surface stopped flowing and it disappeared from view for a second. Unfortunately, when it came back into view it immediately zapped her, and she also fell to the catwalk.

Nog fired again, cursing the thing for its effectiveness—Lipinski hadn’t had a chance to call out what setting she’d used, and there was no way anyone could risk moving over to her.

Or so he thought. The Nasat suddenly curled up into a ball—making her look like a chitinous counterpart to the security device—and rolled over to Lipinski. Two electrical bursts hit her, but they didn’t seem to slow her down. She uncurled when she reached Lipinski and checked the setting.

“Level 4, low-frequency!” she said in a tinkly voice.

Nog quickly adjusted his phaser accordingly and fired.

So did the others.

The brown ball fizzled, and then disappeared. As soon as it did, the shots being fired continued through past where the ball had been. Drew, who had been standing opposite where Nog was crouched, barely ducked Nog’s shot in time.

Letting out a very long breath, Nog tried to ignore the latest phantom itch on his leg. The war’s been over for months, and it seems like I’m fighting just as much since it ended as I did during it.

“Good work, Pattie,” Duffy said. “Soloman?”

The Bynar looked up at that. “All three guards are alive. But they will require immediate medical attention.”

Duffy tapped his combadge. “Diego, any luck?”

“Sort of. The interference is still there, but I can actually get a lock on Lieutenant Nog’s signal.”

Stevens was looking at his tricorder. “I think I know why, Duff. Look at this.” He showed his tricorder’s display to the other human.

Corsi said, “Let’s see if we can take out the mesh the same way.”

Nog was about to take a look at Stevens’s readings—it was odd that his combadge would penetrate the interference when no one else’s would—when he heard Corsi’s words. “No!” Nog cried. “If you disrupt it, the phaser shots will go through to the core!”

Nodding, Corsi said, “Fine, we’ll try something else.” Then she regarded Nog’s phaser rifle. “Nice work with that, by the way.”

“Experience,” Nog said quickly, not wanting to dwell on it.

Again, Corsi nodded. “Right, DS9 was pretty much the front line for most of the war, wasn’t it? Well, thanks for the assist.”

“I don’t believe this,” Duffy said before Nog could reply.

“What is it, Duffy?” Gold asked. “Captain, apparently these security devices are broadcasting a huge number of specific interference patterns—including ones keyed to our specific combadges. In fact, one of them is 111’s combadge.”

Nog noticed the Bynar wincing at that statement. Sounds like 111 isn’t around anymore. Is that the other Bynar? Is that why this one’s alone and has such a weird name? It’d certainly explain why he speaks so hesitantly.

He didn’t ask, though, but simply said, “I don’t get it.”

“What it probably means,” Gold said with a deep sigh, “is that we’re dealing with Overseer Biron again.”

Corsi fixed Stevens with an incredulous look. “Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that, when we were on Maeglin, the Androssi scanned and recorded the combadge frequencies of the entire complement of the da Vinci and programmed it into their security on the off chance that they’d meet up with us again?”

Duffy smiled grimly. “That’s exactly what we’re telling you, Corsi.”

“Hey, Feliciano,” Stevens said. “I got an idea. Can you use the signal you’re