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Kadohata inhaled a breath through her teeth. “Sir, now reading two ships disembarking from Terok Nor’s docking pylons. Both Galor class.”

“Proceed on course, Ensign,” Picard said. “Go to yellow alert. Arm phasers and quantum torpedoes. Shields on standby.”

“Yes, sir,” Addison said.

Picard turned to Odo. “Were you able to obtain the assistance you mentioned?”

“I sent a message,” Odo said, “in the manner he requested. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing if he received it.”

“One way or another,” Ro said, “we’ll find out soon enough.”

Damar stood at the table in the center of ops. To his relief, Bokri did not feel the need to wake Kalec up, so she was the only person present who outranked him.

Bokri stared down at the status board in front of her. “Both ships are disembarking, but Gul Ocett wishes to know what, exactly, she’s attacking.”

Sighing, Damar said, “Give her the coordinates again.”

“She has the coordinates,” Bokri said testily. “She simply sees nothing there, since her vessel isn’t equipped with an antiproton scanner. Also, Prefect, I’m not at all convinced that what we’re seeing really is a cloaked ship. It could simply be a sensor shadow created by-”

Damar interrupted, not interested in having his authority flouted in the middle of ops. Inside the office, he could deal with it, but not out here. “If that’s what it is, then the worst that happens is those two ships are wasting their time. If it truly is a cloaked ship, however, then Guls Jasad and Ocett will be in a position to stop it.”

Of course, Jasad wasn’t on his ship, but his first officer, a young dalin whose name Damar didn’t get, had followed orders without question, and set course for the anomalous reading.

“We’re also receiving a signal from a Jem’Hadar fleet-they’re en route, and will be here in twenty minutes.”

Damar nodded. He didn’t know much about the Cardassians’ new allies, but he knew they were quite valuable in a fight.

“Ocett’s hailing us,” said one of the officers whose name Damar did not know.

“On screen.”

The pretty face of the gul appeared on the oval screen at the front of ops. “This is ridiculous. We have scanned the area and there is nothing there. I demand to know why-”

“Gul, we are detecting what appears to be a cloaked ship-” Damar started before Ocett interrupted.

“Don’t talk back to me, Dalin. I don’t appreciate my time being wasted on a fool’s errand.”

After taking a deep breath, Damar said, “With respect, Gul, if you would simply fire on the coordinates that we’ve been providing.”

“They keep changing.”

“It’s a cloaked ship, Gul,” Damar said with every bit of patience he could muster up. “It’s in motion.”

“Very well. I will indulge you in this because I respect Dukat, and he left you in charge for whatever insane reason. But if this is for naught, you will find yourself busted down to gil and cleaning waste extractors on Cardassia VI.”

With that, the screen went blank.

“Tactical overview on screen,” Damar said.

It took several seconds for the order to be carried out, which Damar supposed he should have complained about, but it seemed pointless. The screen showed Ocett’s and Jasad’s ships as yellow dots both proceeding toward a red spot that was labeled as an unspecific sensor reading. Damar frowned at that at first, then realized that the computer hadn’t yet been programmed to recognize what the antiproton scanner was picking up. It didn’t matter much for now, but he made a mental note to tell Karris about it in the morning.

Suddenly, both ships exploded.

Damar blinked. “What happened?”

Ops was suddenly awash in activity. The tension level shot up. Prior to this, it had been a strange exercise, but not one being taken particularly seriously by anyone other than Damar. Now, though, two Galor-class warships had been inexplicably lost.

“Dammit,” Damar said, “report, somebody!”

The officer at the science station said, “Sensors are picking up traces of triceron in the debris.” He looked up sharply. “Sir, that’s an explosive.”

“I’m aware of the most common use of triceron, Glinn,” Damar snapped.