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She might have been able to convince the two Starfleet commanders, Decker and Kirk, to let her take the Instruments, but many of her descendants on Pegasus Major IV had inherited her persuasive abilities. They had been nicknamed “Sirens” after some human mythological creature and gained a reputation—one that Decker and Kirk had used against her.

The second Instrument had proven just as elusive, again because of the interference of Starfleet. This time it was the energy weapon, which had been discovered on a moon of the planet Bajor.

Now, only a few short months later, she had been thrilled to find that the third Instrument—the weather controller—was in a region of space between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. Best of all, the region was demilitarized—there was no chance of interference from Starfleet.

The Instrument was in transit to a star system that the locals referred to as Slaybis. Aidulac put the Sun on course for that world.

This time, she thought, I will not fail.

“So what’s your story?” Darleen Mastroeni asked B’Elanna Torres.

Torres had just finished rerouting some of the power relays to coax some more speed out of the warp engines without straining the Liberator hull or shorting out its structural-integrity field. Mastroeni had been worried about the latter, since the SIF had taken a beating after their last throw-down with the Cardassians, but everything seemed to be functioning well. Torres was obviously very good at the type of seat-of-the-pants engineering that was required to survive in the Maquis, and Mastroeni had decided that she was going to do what she could to recruit this prodigy away from Chakotay.

“Story?” Torres asked as she checked over the readings.

“C’mon, everybody in the Maquis has a story.”

Smiling, Torres said, “Oh yeah? What’s yours?”

“You ever hear of Juhraya?”

“Of course,” Torres said with a nod.

“Did you know that the first contact between humans and Cardassians was on Juhraya? Most people don’t know that.”

“I certainly didn’t,” Torres muttered. “Is there somewhere I can get a drink on this boat?”

Mastroeni nodded and led the way toward the mess hall. “Sure. Follow me.” Tuvok wasn’t there anymore, so Mastroeni could go there to relax. “Anyhow, a Cardassian ship crash-landed on Juhraya about fifty years ago. Some people say it was a Starfleet ship that made the first contact—some kind of silly diplomatic thing—but that’s typical of their propaganda. It was us, and everyone who matters knows it.”

Torres laughed. “No love for Starfleet, huh?”

Snarling, Mastroeni said, “Not remotely. A bunch of arrogant prigs with no conception of how the galaxy actually works.”

As they entered the mess hall, Torres said, “You won’t get any argument from me. I went to that penal colony they call the Academy for a year and a half.”

Mastroeni nodded. “They kicked you out.”

“Let’s just say we all agreed that it wasn’t the place for me.”

“Well, that agreement turned out good for us. Coffee?”

Torres nodded, and Mastroeni approached the food replicator and ordered two coffees, black.

“How’d you know I took my coffee black?” Torres asked as she removed her steaming mug from the slot.

“You’re an engineer. Haven’t met one yet that didn’t drink it black.”

“Very observant.” She took a sip. “Anyhow, you’ve now heard most of my ‘story.’ I grew up on both Kessik IV and Qo’noS.”

“So you are part human?”

“Half and half,” Torres said with a nod. “My father’s human, but he left when I was a kid. After that, my mother and I moved to Qo’noS.”

“Which did you like better?” Mastroeni asked the question mostly by way of trying to find out what Qo’noS was like. She knew very little about the Klingons, but she always imagined that she would like it on their homeworld.

“I hated both of them pretty much equally, actually. Kessik was too pastoral for the Klingon side of me, and Qo’noS was too rough-and-tumble for my human side to deal with.” She laughed. “Or maybe I was just rebelling. Who knows? I was a dumb kid who resented her parents, like most dumb kids. So I went to