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Salek was especially pleased with the arrival of the Nasat engineer. P8 Blue could survive without an EVA suit in a vacuum for as long as she could hold her breath—a figure measured in hours—and that, combined with her multiple, more flexible limbs, allowed her access to places a suited humanoid couldn’t get at. Her presence cut their repair time by a factor of ten—a not inconsiderable amount, especially given the precariousness of this system. Lt. Commander Corsi’s fears regarding the Cardassians were well founded.

Looking out into space, Salek saw the hulls of the Sloane and the Appalachia—illuminated by running lights—in a defensive position proximate to the relay. At present, he could not see the da Vinci, as its orbit had taken it to the other side of the relay relative to Salek’s own position.

“Uh oh.”

Frowning, Salek activated his comm link to Duffy. “Report.” He commenced with replacing the next ODN conduit.

“I just found something that I think is—oh, crap. Duffy to da Vinci. ”

“Go ahead,” said Gold’s voice.

“There’s a beacon of some kind in the comm relay—it looks like Cardassian tech. As far as I can tell, it’s relaying sensor data via a subspace comm link.”

“Deactivate it immediately,” Salek said.

“I’m not sure I can yet, but even if I do, I don’t think it’ll make a difference. I’m picking up a Cardassian transporter trace on the thing.”

Salek’s eyebrow raised. “In all likelihood, the Cardassians who attempted to take this system beamed it into the relay.”

“Damn,” Gold said. “Duffy, hold off on deactivating it for a minute. What kind of data is it sending?”

“Not sure yet. Give me a minute.”

“Sir, we cannot allow the beacon to remain active,” Salek said. He continued his work on the ODN conduit, as he was easily capable of splitting his focus. “It represents a security risk.”

“So does deactivating it. It means they know we found it and they may come back to try to take another shot at the comm relay. It might be more useful to us as a decoy. If it’s there to eavesdrop on our comm channels, we might be able to turn it to our advantage. Deliberately feed false intel through the relay.”

Not for the first time, Salek was reminded as to why Starfleet did not assign engineers to captain the S.C.E. vessels. Sometimes a more galactic perspective was needed on their missions. It was a most logical setup, as Salek had not thought of the possible tactical uses of the beacon.

“It’s a nice idea, sir,” Duffy said, “but I don’t think it’s gonna work. I just tapped into what, exactly, this thing is sending. If my tricorder’s reading its Cardassian right, it just sent an SOS out. It knows we found it.”

Salek heard a sigh from Gold. “That tears it, then. Yellow alert. McAllan, alert the Sloane and the Appalachia that we may be having company soon, then see if Starfleet can deign to send us some backup. Duffy, kill that thing before it sends over full technical specs of all three ships. Salek, how much time do you have left?”

“Approximately forty-four minutes, twenty-nine seconds.”

Gold snorted a laugh. “The proper definition of the word ‘approximately’ you should someday learn, Salek. All right, get a move on. Can you get the work done faster with more people?”

Just as he finished replacing the latest ODN conduit, he replied, “Negative. There are only two areas that need repair work of the type that can be accomplished by humanoids in EVA suits. Additional personnel would simply be in the way. The remaining tasks can only be performed by Blue.”

“Gee,” Blue said, “only on board a few hours and already indispensable. It’s good to be me.” She made a noise that corresponded in the Nasat lexicon to laughter.

“So why are you wasting time jabbering at me? Gold out.”

Salek, of course, had been working while talking to the captain, but there was little to be gained by reacquiring the comm signal and pointing that out.

“Got it!” Duffy said. “Okay, this puppy won’t bark no more.”

Salek interpreted this comment to mean that he had successfully deactivated