“I take it you’ve got something, Lieutenant?” Mac asked as Jenu Trid stepped into his office, a padd in hand and a look he would be pressed to call concerned.

“Just in time too,” the young Bajoran woman answered as she set the padd down and pushed it across his desk. “Nausicaans had what we were looking for and more. Coordinates for a depot in the Archanis Nebula, off the beaten paths where they’ve encountered the Hohenzollern multiple times. But better yet, they had coordinates listed for where they’ve escorted the Hohenzollern twice to meet with Orion Syndicate ships. About as far away from their home base as you can get without slipping out of the nebula and being seen by Starfleet or Klingon sensor nets. And I found a communique telling them to be ready to ship out there in a days’ time.”

“And we can assume the home base is likely on alert since that raider got away,” he said, inspecting the padd and its contents.

“We lost track of it an hour ago,” Trid admitted. “Slowed to warp four as it entered the nebula’s outer reaches. Likely the best speed that can do through the whole thing.”

“And ours?”

“Commander Malcolm is confident we can handle warp six,” she answered. “Better engines, better deflectors, engineers that know what they’re actually doing.”

He nodded in agreement as he pulled up the coordinates on his own computer, swiping away a series of reports he was doing a fantastic job of ignoring so far. “I can see why Crashanburn chose this spot. It’s such a lovely locale.”

A few summons issued and a couple of minutes later his ready room was starting to get a bit crowded. Both seats across from him were taken and standing room was all that was left for the last to arrive all the way from Engineering.

“Well, this is just perfect,” Evan Malcolm grumbled after Trid delivered a quick briefing to bring Sidda, Matt, Evan, and Blake all up to speed. “Shields will be useless.”

“Sensors too,” Matt added. “Well, mostly useless.”

“Without the shields, radiation exposure is going to be an issue.” Blake sat up on the couch off to the side she’d been lounging since her arrival.

“If I can get some more power to the deflector, we should be good.” Trid shrugged as she looked at Evan. “Another twenty percent?”

“Hell, you can have all the warp power,” the engineer answered. “Meeting inside a proto-planetary disc is an idiotic decision. We’re not going to be going to warp while we’re in it. Actually, why are we going in it? Why not just wait till the Hysperians come out and jump them before they can get their shields up?”

“Because they’ll be cloaked.” Matt weathered the glare from Evan with aplomb. “It’s not a normal cloaking device. They’ll still be able to use it in there. But they have to turn it off for their meeting. It’s our window of opportunity.”

“Who the hell makes a cloaking device that’ll work in a mess like that?”

“Starfleet.” Matt’s answer didn’t do anything positive for Evan’s mood. “It was in the same vaults as the Genesis Device.”

“And I’ve had communiques from people with enough brass to bury all of us to get both this unique cloak and the Genesis Device back, or ensure they are destroyed.” Sidda’s interruption got everyone’s attention. “Recovered is the preference, of course.”

“Of course,” Mac said. “We’ll deal with that when we get to it.”

“So, that begs the question boss,” Sidda started, “how are we going to do this? That starcastle was bristling with guns. The Syndicate ship will be as well. And a slugging match in a soup without shields isn’t going to end pretty for any of us.”

“What, no clever pirate plan?” Evan asked, though the jibe didn’t carry the useless sharpness to it. It almost sounded like he was asking a genuine question.

“I do, but I’ll need six Pakleds, a mariachi band and a Klingon in tights.”

He struggled to restrain a laugh and keep a straight face. Even managed to pull off a look that said ‘really?’ in his own judgement. Evan looked dreadfully confused, then started casting his gaze around the room to see if anyone else knew what Sidda was talking about. Blake surrendered to a short laugh while Matt had an eyebrow raised to rival the Vulcan masters.

Trid just looked at Sidda, shook her head and said, “No.”

“It’ll be fun,” Sidda said. It was an in joke and everyone else was not in on it. “Seriously though, Evan, not any good plans.”

But now it was his turn to shine. He leaned back, smiling as he crossed his arms. “There are two things I’ve learned in the last few days,” he said, stealing everyone’s attention with his pace and calm. “Hysperians are a joke that has gone too far and taken on a life of its own. And the only people not in on the joke are the Hysperians themselves.”

“Sir?” Matt asked.

“Just like any other people in the universe, they have a cultural code of conduct. The expected do’s and don’ts. And during the middle ages in Europe on Earth, the nobility all lived by…” he dragged it out, hoping someone would arrive at the same conclusion.

“Chivalry?” Blake asked. “Chuck, you want to do what, call him out? Challenge him to a duel?”

“I like the idea,” Sidda quickly said. “But the man has established himself as the Last Pirate King and told you what he wants to do to Hysperia in the guise of that fake brother story he fed you. He’ll only abide by a code of conduct up until it suits him. Then, well, he’s just going to shoot you.”

“Speaking from experience?” Evan asked.

“You know it,” Sidda answered, smiling at the engineer, who just rolled his eyes. But just as quickly, Sidda snapped to him, eyes glinting as she grinned widely. “You want to beat him to the punch.”

“Damn right I do,” he said, grinning. “When I stick my head into this trap, it’ll be the last part of our own trap around the Viscount.”

“Where do we start?” Sidda asked.

“The Nausicaan database had a planned trip to the rendezvous for tomorrow. Viscount Crashanburn is expecting to meet with the Orion Syndicate. That is how we’re going to have people in the room when I walk in.”

There were a series of blank expressions before him. A grin on Sidda’s face. Blake was glaring at him. But he had their attention. “Here’s my plan,” he said as he started to outline the plan he’d come up. “First, we need to intercept the Syndicate ship…”