Dr Becknar Gear Jr., Gentleman Spy and somewhat notorious Naval Surgeon, nursed his glass in the way one might nurse a slumbering child. The bar was just as he remembered it - dark, damp, almost Klingon in its decadence and, well, hygiene. But it had been useful to him in the past, especially in situations like this.

He had taken a table in the far corner of the main room, giving him a commanding view of both entrances and, more importantly, of the curved mirror behind the bar. The mirror was positioned just right to reflect the goings-on outside the bar, in the main part of the bazaar. The bar itself was a little busier than usual for this time of day - a side-effect of a recent layoff at the local mineral mining facility, that had led to some thirty or so men with excess free time, and a depression that they odiously felt copious amounts of alcohol might alleviate.

Buck had taken every possible precaution. Nobody knew he was here. Well, almost nobody - two women were privy to the fact. One, his wife, had remained on their runabout at his insistence, which by now was safely hidden in the mining facility's debris field. The other... Well, the other was late, for a start, but Buck's recollection of her was that she had never been 'punctual' at any point in her dealings with him. He believed that if she invited him, that she would be late to her own funeral just to spite him.

In Buck's glass was a positively vile sour mash - bad enough that he, a single malt man, had been reduced to drinking mash whiskey, but this was bad even for mash. Opposite him was a glass of white wine. If he recalled Deina's tastes, then it was probably the only thing this bar served that she would stomach.

If she ever arrived.

Deina Reeal was a mysterious woman in her own right. Most of those who had business dealings with her had no idea who she truly was. Those who had known her for years in their mutual line of work also generally had only a few sentences with which to describe her. Fewer knew something of the story that brought her to the point in her life she was today. Fewer still she owed a debt to. And Doctor Becknar Gear Jr., just so happened to be one of those people.

She walked into the bar, stomped really, dressed in precisely what all the miners were. Heavy pants that looked like they had taken a beating, a grubby shirt with a vest that had a bunch of pockets. She even had had a ring of dirt around the collar where the collar of her shirt stopped it before slipping down her neck. Her green eyes were really the only remarkable thing about her, dark hair was tied back in a pony-tail and quite a bit longer than Buck remembered it. But she altered hair length often enough for it not to be odd. Of course it was also somewhat grimy and had a fine layer of dust over her hair. When she chose to blend in, she did blend.

Deina was lithe and fit, and her movements, though meant to be from someone dead-tired and of the worker class betrayed a grace and musculature that one didn't find outside a fighter. However, since most people here needed to give as good as they got in a fist-fight, that didn't stand out either. Deina looked around the room as though searching for some friends, and caught sight of Buck in the corner easily enough.

But she didn't head right for him and instead went up to the local barkeep and ordered herself of what everyone else was drinking. They called it beer, but she knew it didn't have any of the same components - save for the alcohol. And unlike most places, this stuff was real. She swapped a joke with the barman, laughing loudly at his crude joke, and grabbed her mug and headed off to the corner.

"Expecting a lady, or will I do?" she asked in a normal tone with a wide grin, gesturing to the glass of white wine.

Buck smiled at her and instinctively stood up. "Please," he indicated the seat. Once she'd sat down he retook his seat and quietly raised his glass to hers. "Departed acquaintances."

She gave him a nod the smile still on her face and then downed a good mouthful of the swill without even making so much as a grimace. Her face didn't quite return to the complete seriousness but definitely a more serious mood than the one she had displayed in approaching him. "So, what's up this time?" she asked, completely serious in her tone.

Buck chuckled. Straight to business, of course - she had taken almost as great a risk to be here as he had. Buck handed her a few sheets of paper. The sheets were inked in an unintelligible scrawl. Not the scrawl of his diary; this was his 'work shorthand' - only five people in the galaxy besides himself knew it. Three were officially dead, two were actually dead - Deina was the numerical discrepancy.

"As you can see, I'm calling in all favors. After this, we're even - all bets are off. I'll never bother you again."

Her eyes scanned the sheets of paper quickly, and her brow furrowed. "You seem to have drawn some very well-connected attention." She steepled her fingers together and looked at him carefully for a few minutes. "Just what did she do, Buck?"

"I don't know all of the specifics - as much as she trusts me, she still keeps some things to herself. I think she honestly believes that keeping me ignorant might somehow reduce the level of attention they may pay me if they ever get to her... What I do know is that she stood up to Wolfe - the Fleet Admiral, over at 1-1-8 - stood up to him good and proper... I don't know if these people are connected to him - if they are, that means either they're 'Fleet - and I pray to the Chalice that they aren't 'Fleet - or it means Wolfe was in with some very, very nasty external parties..." He paused, sipping at his whiskey, looking into her eyes for a moment. "You know I wouldn't have come to you if I could handle this myself... It's beyond me - I'm in so far over my head I can't see daylight. All I can do is everything within my power to keep her alive."

There was a look in Deina's eyes, and only her eyes, that said she was considering something. What, no one could say. "Alright. I will help you. But I need to speak with Jesa - in person."

Buck almost spat out his whiskey. "D-Deina... I-" he began to stutter, then stopped, remembering the delicate balance of trust between them. "I'm asking you to do these things for me. Not for Jesa. You know me - I like to think we trust each other as well as two people in our... profession... can. But you're asking something that both impractical and... difficult. Even Father does not know where Jesa is..."

He stopped, hoping she might expound upon why she wanted to see Jesa... A million thoughts ran through his head, one after the other, like an immense steam-train. Had somebody gotten to Deina? Impossible! But she had left his father's section of Intel - if these people were in 'Fleet, might they have recruited her? Had he gambled and lost? Would he leave this table alive...?

A slow grin worked over her features. She knew precisely what he was thinking without even scanning him. Then the expression slipped into sadness. Power. Power over one or another. Playing one to get a leg-up on someone else. Continually jockeying for position. Yes, they had trained her well. But she worked for herself now; in a way she always had. Anyone who had delusions to the contrary would be disabused of the notion sooner or later and often had been. There was a murder a long while back, mostly the start of Deina's reputation that she would turn on her employers if she felt betrayed. Of course they could never quite prove that it had been her. There hadn't been enough of the body left to run tests on.

"I won't go into the difficulties in what you're asking because you already know them," Deina said, pointedly. "But I need information that Jesa only possesses. I need to know what she did, every word, every action if I am to figure out who she royally pissed off enough to come after the both of you with such... resources." Deina considered the comment that they should be proud, even her enemies had never mobilized that much technology for her apprehension. Of course, she had never strayed far enough where they might try it.

"If you send me off with only half the information, and I leave with some you should be aware of, we will both be at a disadvantage," she took another swallow of the repulsive liquid, making no more notice of it than water. "You may scan me if you like; you will see I harbor no desire to harm her or you, for that matter."

Buck nodded, slowly... What she said made sense, after a fashion. Gently, he moved his arm forward, taking her hand in a taut grip, and his metaphorical third eye opened. He probed - hard, deeper than normal, looking for anything - any hint of a psychic trigger, or a hidden hypnotic suggestion - it might be Deina was an assassin herself and did not even know it. He had to be sure.

Her mind was focused, intense, with hints of steel in every part of it. It was obvious she was forcing the opening in her defenses - allowing him unfettered access to her mind. There were corners, dark places, emotions deeply hidden and very old. There was a lot of pain. Suffering. Things that haunted her when she tried to rest. There was hatred, pulsing strong within her, black and thick as tar. When he tried to find the target of those emotions, the answer was frustrated. The greatest hatred was at a source that was undefined. He barely had to question at it when he saw Anaya's face in her mind. Whomever she hated she believed responsible for what had happened to Anaya, and to other things that didn't make sense to Buck.

Other hatreds were more focused on individuals, but he found neither himself or Jesa in those images. When it came to them, Deina's emotions on the topic - as surprising as the fact she did have emotions - was that she had a desire to help them. A subconscious tug started to push Buck out before she subdued it. It would have been something she preferred him not see. The reasons were just as plain as the desire. She hated seeing people trapped, identified with it, and couldn't free herself.

After a few minutes, slowly, gently, he pulled out of her mind. To do so quickly, as deep as he'd gone, would have hurt her. And it seemed she had endured far too much of that already - so much more than he had known... If only she'd said something...

He released her hand and opened his eyes, which had been closed with concentration.

"I... I see. I'm sorry, Deina... I- I shouldn't have gone as deep as I did. And I should have had more faith in you... I'm sorry, Deina - I had no idea..."

A few tears were on her cheeks, but the look in her eyes was the same controlled intensity she always wore. She held her hand up slightly to stop him, "You have no reason to apologize. You had to be sure. You have your own to protect." She ignored the pain and shoved it to the back of her mind. The only other person she had let into her mind like that was Anaya, and she hadn't been probing for anything. What he did had hurt; but hurt was hardly something to mind anymore. There was a certain tightness in her jaw from the feeling of being exposed, but she didn't hold anything against him.

Buck felt ashamed... Had his paranoia driven him so low? No. He needed to be careful. But here was yet another friend he had failed - how many people had suffered simply because he blinded himself to their problems...? He did not know - didn't want to count. He took a small, green handkerchief from his top pocket and folded her hand around it. He had made her cry - for no good purpose...

'No Buck,' he thought to himself, 'there will be time for atonement later. Deal with what must be done now, now.'

"I'll arrange for you to accompany me to the Runabout... I can't bring Jesa to the planet, but at least you can meet her. Clarify that which requires clarification..."

"I will need to pick up these things first," Deina said, pointing to the paper, surreptitiously wiping her eyes and pocketing the handkerchief. She was attempting to avoid any specific mention of the technology.

Buck nodded. "Of course. I'll accompany you - the rendezvous is scheduled for ninety minutes from now."

"Plenty of time," she said seriously, looking at him. She gave a slight nod which served as well as a statement of 'let's go' from her.

Then she smiled, warmly, the change was so sudden and discontinuous with the conversation that he took a moment to realize it was for show. Deina stood smoothly and waited for him to follow, then linked her hand in his in the appearance that they had become rather interested in each other after their conversation. Such things were hardly uncommon around these parts.

Buck slipped into the role relatively easily, but it left a foul taste in his mouth. It was the first time since his marriage that he had played the 'Spy Game' - and despite the reasoning, and the pretend nature of it all, just holding Deina's hand like this felt like a betrayal of Jesa.

She stayed silent but gave somewhat knowing smiles, looking over at him often. The charade of emotion was uncomfortable, but then many things a spy had to do were.

Gathering the rucksack from its deposit box at the docks took them the better part of an hour, queueing being what it was, but Deina needed it if she was to perform the analyses Jesa wanted. And it filled in the time in slightly less awkward fashion than their continued presence at the bar might.

All that remained was for them to walk to the fourth Observation Mast and wait there for the appointed time, at which Jesa would power up the Runabout's engines just long enough to impart some momentum, to divert her orbital path past the mast, and trigger a transport the instant before kicking into warp.

With the seconds ticking down, and knowing Jesa was normally quite punctual, Deina matter-of-factly turned to Buck and put her arms around him so the transporter would catch them both. They had agreed upon this, and while it didn't bother her any, Deina was pretty sure it was bothering him. An instant later the beam took them and they rematerialized on the runabout sharing an awkward hug.

Of course Jesa didn't give Buck the chance to disentangle from Deina before she turned around from the left front seat of the runabout, and had her mouth half open in something she had been intending on asking him, before her expression turned bemused.

Inwardly, Buck sighed. This was one of those Sitcom moments his grandfather had been so fond of. "Um, Hi Honey... This-" Buck realized he and Deina were still embracing. Quickly - all too quickly - Buck pulled away from Deina and began dusting himself down, matter-of-factly. "This is Deina Reeal. She... Needs more information from you. Don't worry - we can trust her, if we can trust anybody."

Jesa wasn't really entirely above enjoying her husband's embarrassment and suppressed a chuckle at his discomfort. But she didn't really get the chance to comment on anything because Deina matter-of-factly extracted herself from the transporter pad and proceeded through the rear door of the runabout without uttering a word. Exchanging a look, Buck and Jesa followed.

By the time they reached the back room, she had everything laid out on the table and was sitting in one of the chairs, examining purple crystals with interest. Without acknowledging their entrance, she spoke. "First, I need to take a look at these things. If they are what I suspect they are; this could be a lot more interesting than what any of us bargained for." She popped a small black device from one of her pockets and clipped it over her ear, looking again at the disperser.

Then she flicked it on. A slight change in expression came over her face before she could suppress it.

Another device came out of yet another one of those pockets and she held up a pair of goggles to her face and scanned it with something that looked quite close to the scanning unit on a medical tricorder - at least so far as size and shape went.

Jesa looked over at Buck with a quizzical expression, standing somewhat near the table, and watching the dark-haired woman work. She wasn't entirely certain what to make of Deina's behavior. But since she had put the navigation on autopilot she wasn't too concerned about leaving the cockpit. The computer was rigged to blare alarms six ways from Sunday of anything unusual happened. So she offered Buck the chair in front of the rear computer console and stood next to him, not entirely sure Deina wanted company at this point.

Buck gratefully accepted the chair, if only because it meant not having to look at Jesa's face and feel the guilt of disloyalty. He felt like he needed to wash his soul with bleach. Jesa knew she owned his heart, mind and soul as sure as anyone could know such - but Buck had always held himself to a higher standard of morality than was possible to maintain by any mortal...

He looked at the star field out the window. They were en route to Betazed, but no doubt that would need to change - they couldn't drag Deina that far into Federation space. Buck began reviewing the navigational libraries for somewhere suitable to drop her off. "So," he said, not turning around, "what do you know that we don't, Deina?"

"This is Khalli-tech," Deina said, "Modified rather crudely from the normal design. It seems someone was in a bit of a hurry and stripped this out of the helmet unit. They didn't even bother modifying the field center." She looked up at the Changeling woman who was standing there, not very near Deina's position. "Jesa, would you mind holding this and attempting to shapeshift?" she asked, offering the Changeling the disperser.

Jesa just blinked at her a moment not quite sure how to respond.

"Khalli?" asked Buck, curious. He had heard the name before, but it had been in the dismissive context with which Federation Intel discussed any non-allied race that didn't pose a threat. "So they're the outside power with the thing against Telepaths? Jelly'll love that."

Deina heard his observations, but didn't bother refuting them for the moment. She simply sat there and waited for things to play out. This would make her point far quicker than anything explained.

Meanwhile Jesa had taken the device and had decided she might as well change hair and eye color as anything else. She prepared for the change by visualizing what she wanted and feeling the shift. Normally it was quite a fluid motion, but suddenly there was a barrier. She jerked slightly and tried to do it another way. Again she smacked into that barrier. Pushing against it, she tried to figure out a way around the barrier, but it was smooth and slick as stone in her mind. She attempted to drop her humanoid form completely.

Nothing happened.

The expression on her face was becoming just as horrified as Buck's had been nearly a year ago.

The silence was what caused Buck to turn from his console. He saw Jesa's horrified face, that device in her hands, Deina's seemingly self-satisfied expression - he acted on instinct, leaping out of his seat and knocking the device from Jesa's grip.

"Jesa!" he clamped his hands to her shoulders. "Jesa, are you alright?" Without waiting for a response, still holding onto Jesa, he turned to Deina. "What did you do?"

Of course, Deina wasn't inclined to answer quickly at this time and scooped it up the device and flicked it off in one smooth motion.

With the device further from her Jesa's eyes shifted color and back again. She breathed a bit, touching Buck's sides for a moment. "I'm fine." She had been subjected to such things before, but Buck had said it wasn't emitting radiation... her expression turned from surprised to thoughtful. "It kept me from shifting."

Buck's expression hardened. "It stops my telepathy, stops your morphology... By the Great Fire, is it some kind of Leveler? A system designed to maximize the evolutionary potential of known space to bring it in line with Normals?" The question wasn't really meant to be answered - he hadn't meant to ask it.

"I'm sure some would love to use it in that fashion," Deina said dryly. "Because, as you well know, certain individuals have advantages over others," she tapped the side of her head. "So, shall I ask for all the assumptions you and affiliates have made with regard to these things and disabuse you of those notions, or should I expound?"

Buck subsided, returning his attentions to Jesa, kissing her forehead lightly. "I'll go back up front. If you need me..." He glanced back to Deina. "Do you have any preference of drop-off point, once we're done here?"

"Betazed is fine. I have some evidence to gather there anyway," Deina responded. She had obviously looked at the heading and extrapolated a likely destination.

"Victor Tyne!" Jesa said suddenly, finally having recovered enough self-possession to place the word. "THAT's where I remember that term from."

Buck paused, halfway through to the cockpit. "Tyne?" He turned around, his face dark, his eyes losing their sparkle. "I see... If nobody minds, I think I'll stay. The ship's on autopilot in any case."

Apparently no one minded, even Jesa was too busy trying to sort things out to do much more than nod in his direction.

"That's where he was from, the Khall'ianen - and that ship, captained by a friend of his. I remember him telling me. And that's where these are from?" Jesa gestured at the bag of technology. She wished she could say it all made sense now.

"Undoubtedly. I don't know of anyone else who has this technology or exploration into Psionics, as they call it," Deina said. She was only half paying attention at this point and going through the rest of the things in the bag. She picked up the cloak and activated it, half of her arms disappeared as it hid them from sight. "Don't know about this though. They have cloaking technology, but I have no information indicating they would have created this."

Deina stopped her examination and looked over at Buck. "But before you start spinning more grand conspiracy theories. I know who invented the dispersers and how the technology was developed and utilized until right now. Save for any intelligence projects they have going, I wasn't able to gain access to those."

Buck nodded, quietly, and sat down. "Okay - so these things were invented by these Khalli. What possible purpose could a telepathic inhibiter serve?" Buck paused, realizing... "Medical...? These are control devices for telepaths who can't manage their powers?"

The black-haired woman looked at him and realized just how large the gap was of knowledge to be conveyed, and just how much it would weigh on him if she did convey it - on both of them, and they were two running for their lives. How to put it simply... skirt over the stories that needed skirting and continue on. "Actually it was revenge - against Changelings. Right now it is for protection. But that's another story entirely. The most wide-spread application of the technology is involved in the transport cycle of the Khalli to detect against Changeling infiltration. And you know the inventor, yourselves - Victor Tyne."

Buck was silent. Revenge. Against Changelings? Tyne... Buck had almost convinced himself that Tyne had not intended Jesa harm those years ago - and it turned out now that Tyne's own agenda was one of revenge against Jesa's species? He kept quiet - things were moving fast and the pace needed to be maintained - he could ask his questions after he had all the facts...

Jesa remembered his reaction when she told him who she was, and realized that there probably was a whole second level of reaction rather than just the conditioned response she had dealt with. She remembered Victor coming to her while she watched over Buck in his exhaustion-induced unconsciousness. No, if he had been full of blind hatred then, it wasn't something that could be hidden that well. In this time of doubting everyone, she had to try and keep some trust alive...

"Hello, what's this?" Deina said aloud, pulling the odd weapon out of the bag.

"I'm not entirely sure what it is. What it does is absolutely vile. Like a distruptor, but liquefying rather than disintegrating. The two who attacked us on our honeymoon were armed with them. I don't know how long you live through the process, but it's positively agonizing. Give me a phaser any day..." Buck shuddered.

Deina's eyes seemed to be looking at several things not there, switching between them, as she accessed the scanning capabilities linked to the earpiece she wore. She narrowed her eyes, "I've never seen anything like it either." Switching back to the goggles, she scanned it with the second device. "It has a focusing crystal, but it is psionically active... that does seem consistent with its origins being in the Khalli."

She refocused her gaze on Buck, "You said it liquefies? Does it affect non-organic matter?"

Buck shook his head. "Only the organics. I swear, if the Romulans or the Dominion ever found anything like this and managed to apply it on an orbital-weapon scale, the Federation would fold like a Vulcan playing Texas Hold'em..."

"Or vice versa," Deina reminded him. The body armor was the only other thing left other than the receiver for the sensor they had found, but that was easy enough to put together in any capacity. She didn't really see much interesting about the body-armor either, it was a pretty standard material, basically the same idea as ablative armor, giving additional closely-packed mass in order to add resistance to phaser blasts by spreading the energy over the mass. And that approach was hardly new.

"Okay, we have two attackers, wearing no identifying marks but toting a lot of heavy tech around; much of it of Khalli in origin. The only two possibilities are that they had access to it legitimately or illegitimately. But either way that's where the trail leads. This," she pointed at the weapon, "I'd recommend sending to an expert because it probably has a story to tell that none of us can read, but there's only one I can think of whom I can trust with this information."

Buck raised an eyebrow. He knew very few weapons-specialists - Jelly was many things, but a murderer wasn't one of them. In fact, BetaRAc did practically none of the Federation's weapons research... "Who's the expert?" Buck already knew the answer - it made him feel ill.

"Tyne," Deina replied simply, a little annoyed at having to actually state it. But for the moment she was on their time.

He nodded, quietly, thinking...

"Jesa - what do you want to do?" Buck sighed, slipping into his traditional role as a Betazoid husband. He knew what he wanted to do - he wanted to get them both as far away from this whole mess as possible - and he knew what he was honor-bound to do - to protect her and to return to protect their friends... But what she wanted to do had to come first.

Jesa was just beginning to realize how deep this mess was likely to run. Was it even possible to do what they were intending to do without becoming on the run all the time? But the idea of them running while Wolfe sat smugly in his little castle - so sure he was invincible while pawning away the lives of everything decent and good in the Federation (or at least his sector of it) for more power was insufferable.

Because Deina knew her husband, and Victor, she was inclined to trust her. "Let her take the weapon. Maybe Victor can provide some insight."

Deina's eyebrow quirked, she hadn't intended on becoming a courier.

Buck nodded to Jesa, "As you wish, Imzadi."

He turned back to Deina. "On the condition that Tyne in no way discerns our location..."

"No, I will have him reply directly to me, and then I will inform you of the results," Deina responded. "What exactly are you two intending on doing after Betazed? I might be able to find out who is behind this, but it could take months, even years."

Buck smiled. He had trusted Deina this far, and the next step was only a minor leap of logic away. "We're going to the one place the lion can't bite..." It was one of Buck's father's axioms - one he taught all his students: the only place a lion cannot bite you is down her throat.

She looked at him intently for a moment, "Except, in this case, I think what you may be dealing with is a pack of hyenas - and have little hesitance about hurting one of their own for a particularly tender piece of meat even if it is in another's throat."

Buck nodded, and looked at the silent form of Jesa. He stood up, walked over to her, and took her hand in his, silently kissing it, then he looked back across to Deina. Jesa watched him a moment, still deep in thought. "We cannot abandon our friends - or the innocents of the quadrant - to the mercies of our enemies... You know me, Deina - do you really think I could leave Jelandra within the reach of Wolfe's stranglehold...?"

"She's not currently a target - you two are," Deina shrugged off the point, she wasn't going to argue with them to change their intentions. "I am pretty certain the grievance will lead back to Starbase 118, in one form or another. But I will follow the rest of the information to make sure there isn't another party we haven't considered yet. What do you want done with those responsible?"

Buck paused, thinking. What did he want done with those responsible...?

"Nothing." He spoke, firmly. "At least not yet. Once we know who is calling the shots we can take it from there - but if we act too hastily, we may cut off one head, only to find two larger, nastier ones grow back... You know the tune; when you find the fiddler, tell us, and we'll decide what to do with his instrument..."

"Understood," Deina said simply. "Anything else you want to know or have clarified before I ask Jesa to recount the information surrounding the blackmail attempt?"

Buck shook his head, and looked back at Jesa. "I know there are... things you don't want me to know. I'll be in the cockpit if you need me..." He stood up to leave.

Jesa didn't understand what he was referring to. She hadn't wanted to talk about this before mostly because a part of her was thoroughly ashamed for going to such underhanded methods. But now that it seemed prudent, that hesitance was gone - if not all the shame. "Buck, there's nothing I know I would hide from you. Please stay if you'd like."

Buck nodded, his heart rising ever so slightly at the realization that she trusted him so, and he sat back in his chair. There was little more he could say. Deina nodded in satisfaction and began the process of clarifying details.

She preferred to do this in an interview fashion because it helped her understand some of the nuances of interaction that didn't come through in print. What was surprising was the amount of information Deina had already dredged up on the blackmail. She already knew most of what Jesa had to tell her by the way she was guiding Jesa to skip ahead and back to clarify points, and it also seemed she had a decent amount of knowledge of the parties that Jesa had probably offended. So it left one to wonder why she so desperately needed to speak to Jesa in person.