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“Nog, there’s a man here that you need to meet. Captain Montgomery Scott, this is Lieutenant Nog.”

The Ferengi’s eyes went wide. “It is an honor to meet you, sir.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, lad. This is quite a little plan ye’ve cooked up.”

“Thank you, sir. Coming from you, that means a lot.”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news, though. I could only rustle up nine ships—and as I told the captain, I canna guarantee that they’ll go along.”

Grinning, Nog said, “Leave that to me, sir. And don’t worry about it—with the da Vinci, we’ll have ten ships, and that’s actually one more than we’ll need.”

Gold whirled toward the Ferengi. “Then why’d you say you needed twelve?”

Nervously, Nog said, “Fifth—Fifth Rule of Acquisition, sir: ‘Always exaggerate your estimates.’”

Scotty laughed, which seemed to relieve Nog. “That was an engineer’s axiom long before you heathens took it on,” he said. “Well done, lad, well done.”

“Thank you, sir. I know that this plan doesn’t exactly follow the established norms, but—”

Waving his left arm dismissively, Scotty said, “Good God, lad, don’t concern yourself. The established norms are just guidelines, and your job as an engineer is to find a better way around them. Always remember that.”

Smiling, Nog said, “I will, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Now be off with you—I’ve business to discuss with the captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

Still smiling from ear to oversize ear, Nog left Gold’s quarters.

“Back home, we call that a mitzvah,” Gold said with a chuckle.

“Well, the lad deserved it. But I wanted to talk to you a bit more about the Androssi.”

“What’s the word, Doctor?” Domenica Corsi asked as she entered sickbay.

Seated behind her desk, Elizabeth Lense looked up from reading a padd and smiled. “The word is good, Commander. Frnats, Hawkins, and Lipinski all received serious shocks to their systems, but with some bed rest and CNS therapy, they should be able to report back to duty within a week. For Frnats, more like a week and a half.”

Corsi frowned. “Why so long?”

“Commander, CNS is central nervous system. The weapons the Androssi used on them were like the effect of a phaser on stun magnified by a factor of about a thousand. In fact, I’m amazed it didn’t kill them, though it came pretty close with Frnats. I want to do some bio-scans on our two prisoners, to see if this weapon is fatal to Androssi. If it is, we have to be aware of the fact that they might eventually upgrade the weapon to have a maximum impact on aliens.”

“That’s a good idea,” Corsi said with a nod. Lense took a practical viewpoint that Corsi found refreshing on a ship full of engineers who tended to have their minds buried in isolinear chips. She was also a good roommate—quiet, considerate, and not given to irritating habits. Her people had been chatting endlessly about the feud between P8 Blue and Abramowitz, and Corsi was grateful to have been spared that.

Leaning back in her chair, Lense fixed Corsi with another smile. “So what’s happening between you and Stevens?”

“What’re you talking about?” Corsi felt her face flush.

“He spent the night in our quarters the other day. I saw him coming out when that meeting was called yesterday morning.”

Corsi clenched her fists.

Lense wasn’t finished, though. “And when Drew was visiting Hawkins earlier, he was talking about how you were—how’d he put it?––‘making goo-goo eyes’ at him.”

“What!?”

Corsi spoke loudly enough that Lense actually flinched. “I’m just telling you what he said.”

“Right,” Corsi said, forcing herself to calm down. It wasn’t fair to the doctor, biting her head off like that. Though right now, Corsi wasn’t all that interested in what was fair. What she was interested in was putting Fabian Stevens through a bulkhead.

What for, exactly? she thought, as she excused herself from Lense and exited sickbay. For saying yes when I asked him back to my quarters?

No, it was hardly Fabian’s fault that he was there for her when she needed companionship. It was her own stupid fault for indulging herself on a ship the size of a toolbox.