Ethan pressed his palm to his forehead hopefully to scratch an itch that was unscratchable behind the bony ridges of a prosthetic forehead.

“You’re going to expose us,” Trinity scolded him.

“I know, but I’m sweating in this thing and it’s itching like the Devil.”

They had arrived at the planet were the Omega molecule had been detected.  Unbelievably the native population appeared to be about the level of early 21st Century Earth. How these people had not only managed to create the omega particle,  but it seemed like they had a way of controlling it. And since bombing the location from orbit would violate the Prime Directive here they were.

“The signal is coming from over there,” Trinity pointed to the right.   It was a low building clad in white stucco.   There was a high wall surrounding the compound, and the building had no windows. 

Ethan sighed as he looked it over.  It looked like a government facility if he had ever seen one.  Not that it really mattered.  Security wasn’t likely to be impossible for them to breech given this civilization’s level of technology. But, if it was military there could be soldiers,  and dealing with a soldier over a scientist was completely different. 

“I would really like to get in and out without a phaser fight.  I know it’s Omega and we have a ton of latitude, but a body count just isn’t up to our usual standards,” Ethan said.

“You have standards?” Trinity teased him. “When did this happen?”

“Last night when I realized that I could do so much better than you,” he deadpaned without looking away from the building. 

She punched him in the gut. Ethan resisted the urge to double over in pain, but there was a twitch of a smile. “See what I mean?  Abusive too.”

“I am the mother of your children,” Trinity pointed out.  “I’m the best you’ll ever get.”

Ethan chuckled, recovering quickly.   She had pulled the punch.  Definitely could have been worse and he did deserve it.  “Okay, what are we going to do here?”

“I don’t know,” she replied with a shrug.

“Okay,  I know time is of the essence,  but I don’t want to go in there blind.”  He lead Trinity down the street and into a blind alley. “Talon to Zebulon Pike,” he announced pressing his concealed combadge.

“Go ahead Boss,” Murphy said over the com.

“Two to beam up.”

The five officers were gathered in the conference room of the USS Zebulon Pike six hours later.   On the conference screen was a wire frame depiction of the research facility.

“Okay here’s the plan,” Ethan replied.   “David has constructed a Borg harmonic resonance chamber.  Standard procedure is the take Omega out with a torpedo, but in this case it’s in the middle of a population center.”

“I can program the chamber to emit an inverse frequency.   It should be enough to dissolve Omega’s interatomic bonds.  There’s just one problem: we have to get all the Omega particles into the chamber,  and it’s too unstable for a standard transporter sequence,” David replied.  “We’ll need to get in there and set up transport enhancers.”

“We also have to destroy all research into the project,” Ethan added. 

“And there’s another problem,” Trinity added.  “I’ve been going over their media. It seems the government where Omega is located is in a cold war with another nation state.  We stand a good chance of turning that cold war into a very hot war.”

“So what do we do?” Ethan asked.

He got blank stares back, but eventually it was David that spoke, “Well, I am assuming this is a top secret facility.  I doubt you would want something like Omega from being general knowledge.   Their government may just sweep it under the rug.”

“Or it could be the justification for a full scale nuclear war,” Ethan replied. 

“What it…” Trinity hesitated,  “Well, what if we kidnapped the president.   We can brief him on the perals  of Omega.  I doubt he knows all the details, but if we prove that we aren’t his enemy at least he may not use it as justification to bomb the crap out of innocents.”

Ethan nodded,  “I like it.  Do you know where he is?”

“I think so. I think I can beam some surveillance drones into the presidential compound tonight and once we locate him, beam him to the ship.”

“Good. Catarina we’re going to need canisters of neurozine gas.  I seriously doubt we’ll get their blessing. Can you handle that?”  

“On it boss.”

“Well, I guess we’re kidnapping the president,” Ethan sighed.   “Let’s get on it. The longer we wait the greater chance for an accident.”