PICARD STILL COULDN’T BELIEVE what Sesballa was telling him.

“We don’t know where it came from,” the Rigelian said, his ruby eyes twinkling as he stared out at Picard from the monitor screen in the captain’s quarters, “but if it’s what it appears to be, we may be able to meet the aliens on an equal footing.”

Picard understood his colleague’s excitement. The data gave them all kinds of insight into the aliens’ tactical systems—weapons, shields, thruster timing, all of it. It was impossible not to get excited about it.

Of course, they couldn’t trust it entirely, given the anonymity of its source. But Simenon had already decided that it had the ring of authenticity, and no one knew more about engineering theory than he did.

Besides, they didn’t have a great many other options.

“Rest assured,” said Picard, “we will make the necessary adjustments.”

“I’m sure you will,” said the Rigelian. “Sesballa out.”

Picard sat back in his chair. Suddenly, he was feeling better about facing the invaders. A lot better.

“Do you see her, sir?” asked Paris.

Ben Zoma studied the bright, eye-shaped monitor in front of him, embedded in a console covered with serpentine reliefs. “How could I miss her?” he asked ironically.

Unfortunately, the Stargazer was one of more than thirty starships amassed in front of them, more than the first officer had ever seen in one place. Under a different set of circumstances, he might have supposed that it was the enemy who was in for a beating.

But not now. Not with what the D’prayl knew about Starfleet’s tactical systems.

“No one’s fired yet,” said Paris. “Otherwise, there would be residue in the vacuum.”

Ben Zoma nodded. “Good.”

They were making their move in time. However, they still had a few small obstacles to overcome.

First off, they were in a D’prayl scout vessel, which—as it bore down on the Starfleet formation—had to have the look of a ship on a very determined suicide run. And they couldn’t send a message to their comrades to disabuse them of that notion, because the D’prayl were jamming Starfleet communications.

Worse, their borrowed ship’s shields and weapons were humming along at full power, an unavoidable consequence of the way the vessel was designed. So it would not only look hostile, it would prevent anyone from scanning it to see who was inside.

On top of that, the scout ship had a remote self-destruct device—which Otholannin had said he would use in a heartbeat, if he even began to suspect that Ben Zoma might betray him. After all, the First One didn’t want his people’s tech secrets delivered to the Federation—not any more than the Federation had wanted its secrets delivered to the D’prayl.

Of course, the odds were that Ben Zoma and Paris would be reduced to space dust by their colleagues long before Otholannin might be tempted to use his self-destruct option. However, the stakes were high enough that both Starfleet officers had been willing to take the risk.

Besides, Ben Zoma had an idea.

“We’re almost in weapons range,” said Paris.

That was the first officer’s cue. Getting out of his seat, he made his way aft, where their cargo was waiting in the scout ship’s cramped little hold.

It was a roll of the same flat, pale foodstuff that he and his team had discovered in the D’prayl supply vessel. As he wrestled it over to the scout’s hatch, which was about two meters tall and a bit more than two meters wide, he was forcefully reminded of how badly the stuff smelled.

However, he had put up with it in the supply ship, knowing what it meant to the future of the Federation. And for the same reason, he would put up with it now.

Carefully, Ben Zoma eased the roll to the floor. Then he swiveled it around a bit, lining it up until its long dimension was parallel with the hatch in the side of the vessel.

Only when he was satisfied with its positioning did he stand up and press a bulkhead control, opening the hatch. Then he returned to his cargo and sent it rolling out into space.

But he didn’t let it go all at once. He held onto one end, anchoring it as it began to unravel. Slowly, propelled by nothing except the momentum Ben Zoma had lent it, the length of foodstuff extended itself into the void.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to stop the air in the ship from whistling out as well—a fact that was hardly conducive to the survival of the craft’s human occupants.

Ben Zoma would have loved to be wearing his containment suit at a time like this. However, the D’prayl had destroyed all the stowaways’ suits in an expression of disdain, long before Ben Zoma and McAteer got a chance to speak with Otholannin.

It was getting impossible to breathe, and cold too. But the first officer didn’t dare close the hatch for fear that the ribbon wouldn’t unravel all the way.

Only when it had unfurled completely did he toss the rest of it away. It continued to move away from him, vaguely snakelike in appearance, an unexpected ripple against the stars. And as it undulated out there, it displayed something that he had written on it with a dark dye made of fruit juice. It wasn’t much, but he believed it would do the trick.

If it was seen by the right person.

Getting to his feet, Ben Zoma lurched for the hatch control and pushed it again. But there was hardly any air left in the cabin, and it was colder than any place he could remember.

Groaning with the attempt to draw oxygen into his lungs, he dragged himself to the tiny port in the hatch and peered through it. The roll was still undulating, slowly and awkwardly, making its way through space.

Ben Zoma bit his lip. A lot was riding on this stunt. He could only hope that his friend got the message in time.

Picard was regarding the enemy, waiting for them to make a move, when he saw a single vessel break ranks and start to cover the distance between the fleets.

“Scan her,” he told Gerda.

The navigator shook her head. “I can’t, sir. Not without disabling her emitters.”

Picard frowned. It wouldn’t take long, but they didn’t have the time. “Ready phasers.”

“Phasers ready,” said Vigo.

The vessel wasn’t very big—not nearly the size of the alien warships lined up against them. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t a threat.

And Sesballa would see it the same way—the captain was certain of it. At any moment, the Rigelian would give the order to fire. This is it, Picard thought.

“Captain…” said Gerda, her normally assured tone riddled with uncertainty.

His curiosity piqued, he moved in the direction of her console. “What is it?”

Gerda muttered something to herself, her face caught in the glare of her monitor. Then she turned to him and said, “There’s something coming out of her, sir.”

“Something…?” the captain echoed.

Gerda pored over her instruments. “It doesn’t appear to be a weapon. Or a probe.” She turned to Picard again, looking more confused than he had ever seen her. “It reads as something…organic.”

“Magnify,” he said.

A moment later, the image jumped a level of magnitude. But he still couldn’t make out what he was looking at.

“Again,” he said.

This time, the captain saw it clearly. It was a ribbon of something, long and flat and thin. And there were markings on it, too small for him to make out.

“One more time,” he told Gerda.

The image leaped at Picard again, looking close enough now for him to see what was written on the ribbon—and what he saw was shocking in its familiarity. A brief series of characters—two letters from the Standard alphabet, followed by a punctuation mark and a couple of Arabic numerals.

CP ’32.

What’s more, he knew what it meant. CP stood for Chateau Picard. It was printed on every bottle that came from the vineyard where the captain had grown up.

And ’32? That was last year’s vintage—the best the vineyard had ever produced, if the reports from his mother were accurate. But, beside Picard himself, only one other individual was likely to know that.

That was Ben Zoma, who had heard the captain make reference to the ’32 before he departed with Admiral McAteer. Obviously, Picard’s friend had a hand in this.

But in what regard? Was he actually ensconced somehow in the alien ship? And if that were the case, how in heaven’s name had he managed to get there?

Then there was the most important question of all, the one that clenched the muscles in the captain’s stomach and made the sweat stand out in beads on his forehead: What the devil was he supposed to do now?

I know what I am not supposed to do, he decided, and that is to allow this battle to take place. If Gilaad is telling me anything, it is that.

“Mister Paxton,” he said, “get me Captain Sesballa.”

“Actually,” said the com officer, “Captain Sesballa is trying to contact you, sir.”

“On screen,” said Picard.

A moment later, Sesballa’s silver visage showed up on the forward viewer, the muscles in his face taut with tension. And he wasn’t alone. The viewscreen was split into six equal sections, each one displaying the image of a different captain.

“If anyone knows what that vessel is doing,” said Sesballa, obviously speaking to the lot of them simultaneously, “I would like to know as well.”

“I believe my first officer is on that vessel,” said Picard, before anyone else could respond, “and unless I miss my guess, he is telling us not to fire.”

“The hell we won’t,” growled Shastakovich, his face florid with determination. “That ship isn’t going to get a meter closer without my weapons officer putting a hole in it.”

“Frankly,” said Minshaya, “I am surprised at your naïveté, Picard. How can you be certain this is not a trick?”

“These aliens have gone head-to-head with us at every turn,” said Picard, “and we have yet to win a single skirmish. Why would they feel compelled to resort to subterfuge?”

“Who knows?” said Veracruz, his mustache quirking on one side. “Who knows why they do anything?”

“Why are we even discussing this?” asked Nguyen. “It’s an enemy ship, no matter what’s been thrown out its cargo hatch. It needs to be destroyed.”

Picard frowned. “Even if it hurts our chances of beating back the invaders? Or perhaps not having to fight them at all?”

“Why would you think that?” asked Sesballa.

“The aliens could not have coerced that information from my exec,” said Picard. “He had to have displayed it of his own free will. And I ask you…why would he do that if he wanted us to destroy the ship it came from?”

That gave the others pause. Even Shastakovich. But they still weren’t certain as to the right course of action—and there was too much hanging in the balance to take the wrong course.

“Well?” said Picard.

It seemed to Ben Zoma that he was floating, twisting out in space like a piece of debris from a ruined starship—or a roll of pressed grain that had been marked with fruit juice, a smelly, makeshift flag of truce.

“Gilaad?” said a voice from far away.

Strange that he could hear out here, in the vacuum of space. Or smell, for that matter. Didn’t one ordinarily need air for that?

“Gilaad?” the voice said again.

He opened his eyes and saw that someone was looking down at him. His vision was hazy, so he couldn’t tell who it was. Then he began to focus and get a clearer picture.

“Gilaad?” the voice said a third time. And at last, Ben Zoma recognized its source.

It was Picard. And they were in sickbay, the first officer stretched out on one of Greyhorse’s biobeds while his friend hovered over him.

What’s more, Paris was lying one bed over. They had made it, both of them. They hadn’t died on that D’prayl scout ship.

“We know a few things about the aliens’ technology now,” Picard explained, “so we were able to disable your shield emitters and beam you off. How do you feel?”

That’s when it all came rushing back to Ben Zoma—what he had seen and heard on the D’prayl ship. Especially what he had learned about Lieutenant Ulelo….

“Jean-Luc,” he croaked.

“Yes,” said his friend, leaning a little closer. “I am here, Gilaad.”

“Jean-Luc,” he said again, knowing how strange this would sound, “we’ve got to turn Ulelo over to the aliens.”

Picard looked at him. “What?”

“Lieutenant Ulelo,” said Ben Zoma, “he’s one of them. That’s why they’re here—to get him back.”

“But Ulelo is human,” Picard protested.

“Not according to the D’prayl,” said Ben Zoma.

He saw his friend stare at him, trying to digest what he had said. It wasn’t going down easily. But then, the first officer hadn’t expected it to.

“I’m not delirious,” Ben Zoma said. “And I haven’t been brainwashed by the invaders.”

Picard’s brow furrowed. “So you say.”

“It’s the truth, Jean-Luc.”

“But,” said Picard, “how do you know that? How can you be certain?”

Ben Zoma had anticipated the question. Indeed, he had asked it himself, back on Otholannin’s vessel. And he had received proof of the D’prayl’s contention.

Proof he shared now with Picard.