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It flashed into liquid form, shooting past Picard to activate the control panel.

The force field buzzed, flickered away.

Million-degree drive plasma flooded the room.

And Picard vanished in a ball of incandescence.

CHAPTER 12

The Changeling took the form of a sun-hunter, a silvery spaceborne creature shaped like a rocket-propelled pumpkin seed, and capable of enduring the plasma long enough to escape the ship, the chip still hidden safely deep inside its body. It was a shame there wasn’t time to destroy the Enterprise, but now it and its sister ships would be neutralized in the war to come.

And an even greater threat had been eliminated. Had Picard really intended to betray his Federation, or had it all been part of some larger scheme he had been trying to pull off? Well, it didn’t matter now.

Picard was dead.

The Changeling emerged through the glowing red screens of the Bussard collector ducts to see the shimmering nebula far behind them, its star glowing brightly from its center. The Changeling shifted forms again, this time becoming a Starfleet long-range probe. It sensed the Enterprise turning toward it, but they were too late. In a moment, the Changeling went to high warp and left the big ship far behind.

Soon it would rendezvous with another Dominion spy and transfer what it had learned back to the Dominion. And after that…Well, there was still Earth. Best to see it in what little time it had left.

Picard stepped off the transporter platform. Despite their precautions, he felt sunburned from the inside out. He’d let Dr. Crusher-the real one-check him out when there was time.

His combadge sounded. “Riker here. Captain, the Changeling has gone to warp.”

La Forge looked at him. “Captain, should we really have let it escape? After what it did?”

Picard scowled. He wasn’t happy about the situation either. “We may never know with certainty. But at this point, Mr. La Forge, I have little doubt that the Changeling sabotaged the Samson with deadly intent, and that it very likely murdered Lieutenant Addison as well. I am at least certain now that the Changeling was fully capable of those acts, without thought or remorse.”

The room’s doors slid open, and Riker and Hawk entered.

“Captain,” said Riker, “you’re looking well for a dead man.”

Picard nodded. “Well, as I was just telling someone else, I have great faith in Mr. La Forge’s skill with a transporter. In any case, the safety interlocks Mr. Hawk installed prevented the force field from fully disengaging until I had dematerialized.”

“I’m glad it worked, sir,” said Hawk, “but I don’t quite understand the theatrics.”

“While you were literally ‘herding’ the Changeling though the narrow confines of the pylon, I was figuratively herding it through a narrow series of choices, one it followed to the very end. Now it has a false set of shakedown logs that will lead the Dominion to underestimate Sovereign-class ships and waste effort trying to exploit nonexistent weaknesses, and my betrayal of the Federation and my ‘death’ helped to sell those as authentic. We have misled our enemy, and in war, that can be far more valuable than striking down one individual.”

Hawk shook his head. He still looked angry. “There’s no justice in it, Captain.”

“War isn’t about justice, Mr. Hawk. Like so many of our ideals, war leaves little room for it. It is one of the countless ways that war, necessary or not, diminishes us all.”

Riker nodded. “I’m just glad you’re safe, Captain. I just hope this was worth all the risk you took.”

“I had to know what the Changeling’s intentions were. If there was any shred of doubt, any hope of negotiation, I had to know. But my worst fears were confirmed. This will be a long and difficult war, Number One.”

“At least now if the worst comes to pass, the Enterprise and her sister ships will be able to play their part.”

“These are dark times, when that passes for good news, Number One. Dark times and troubled waters ahead.”

The U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-E, sailed in a smooth arc away from the planetary nebula, which glowed and pulsed