"It not how you makin' it out to be, you know," DelMonde whispered, breaking a long silence.

They were in the air vents of Donner's Dive once more, having worked their way up to the top floor. The Cajun was steadfastly maintaining a squeamish refusal to full open up his mind to what was going on around them. He had, however, taken enough of a peek to get a good indication that there was anxiety and debate taking place somewhere in the uppermost floor of the bordello about Starfleet personnel who were making a serious nuisance of themselves.

"What?" Paget was ahead of him, crawling along the narrow metal passageway. Narrow shafts of light from the rooms they were passing provided a meager source of illumination at regular intervals.

"The t'ing wit'..." The Cajun paused as they passed by a meshed off vent opening. The grunts of the occupants were audible over the loud, rhythmic squeaking of a piece of equipment that was either being severely overtaxed or was in bad need of oiling.

"The thing with..." Paget whispered back as soon as he felt they were clear. He thought about finishing the sentence with 'Kane and Mangini," but decided it couldn't hurt to go ahead and inject the already exposed truth into the conversation, "Ruth?"

"Yeah," the engineer confirmed sharply.

Paget decided to press the matter. "And Sulu?

"Yeah." A there was a very aggrieved tone of reprimand to the engineer's whispered monosyllable. "I not feel th' way you say."

"That's fine," Paget agreed amiably. "Feel however you feel."

They had come to a point where the passage made a sharp, dog-leg turn to the right. On other floors, the dog-leg had come further along in the airway and always led to the vertical portion of the duct. Here, though, the shaft that led off the right became too narrow for a man to fit through.

"Far as we can go," DelMonde said, turning back the way they'd come.

They crawled in silence past the squeaky room... and the moan-y room... and the gasp-y room to an unoccupied room they'd passed earlier.

Paget lay down to rest for a moment while the engineer worked on loosening the vent.

"It would be natural, though," he said, quietly as the Cajun carefully applied his laser wrench to the sealed seams barring their entry. "To be a little weirded out about the two of them ending up together."

The engineer gave a non-committal grunt without pausing in his task.

"I mean," Paget continued. "It is the only woman you've ever really been in love with sleeping with the only man you've ever..."

"Alright, all right," the Cajun interrupted sharply, holding up his laser in a warning. "We not goin' there."

"Fine," Paget acceded, holding up his hands in surrender. He was silent while the engineer carefully lifted the mesh screen out of its frame. "But it's natural to be weirded out... and a little hurt, maybe."

The Cajun made no reply before sliding through the opening and down into the room below.

"Here the t'ing 'bout it," he said as he assisted Paget to a smooth landing. "Ruth an' me... The t'ing is... We always fight a lot... 'Specially there at th' end. An' even though we make up an' all... We never really promise anyt'ing to each other when she leave."

"Really?" After brushing off his knees, the Security Officer straightened and looked his fellow officer in the eyes dubiously. "No promises at all? Nothing?"

The Cajun shrugged diffidently, rubbing his sore elbows. "I guess all we really promise is never to fo'get one another."

"And you think she's forgotten you?" Paget asked gently.

"Hell, no." The engineer straightened as proudly as Jer thought he might. "Fuck ol' Kamikaze," he proclaimed, his customary arrogance reasserting itself. "He might be Le Roi, but even he ain't good enough t' replace what I had wit' that girl."

Despite this slur on the object of his passion, Paget had to smile.

"She always gonna remember me," the Cajun averred, as he crossed to the door that would take them into the hallway. "Whether she want to or not."

The corridor was broader and more ornate than the one on the lower floor had been. The sounds of laughter and the clinking of glasses from the far end of the corridor indicated that there might be another bar there. At the opposite end of the hallway, though, was an impressive, embossed leather-covered door... Which was guarded by an equally impressive, leather-covered guard.

"We been spotted," DelMonde said, turning away.

"Stay cool," Paget cautioned, pasting a sultry grin on his face and putting an arm around friend. "I just need to get close to him."

"He t'ink..." The Cajun turned away again. "Oh, shit..."

"What?" Paget asked, getting the impression that his friend was more dismayed than alarmed.

"He t'ink we be new talent who done snuck up here t' get at th' high rollers," the Cajun informed him quietly.

Paget had to smile at the way the engineer's cheeks had gone a little uncharacteristically pink. "So he's just assuming we're rent boys even before I go into my act?"

"Yeah," the engineer confirmed uncomfortably.

The Security Officer arched an eyebrow at this fellow officer. "Yeah."

"Why you givin' me that look?"

"All the shit you've given me over the way I dress - slutwear, whorific, trampolicious... The one time I dress like you, less than two hours later I get mistaken for a prostitute."

"The rust on th' buckles mus' bring out your eyes," the Cajun replied sardonically.

"Okay, don't sweat this, babe." Paget guided his unenthusiastic companion back towards the doorway they'd just exited. "This is the opening we need. You stay right here while I get his attention..."

The engineer stopped him after taking one short glance at the sentry. "No."

Paget frowned. "No?"

"It me, Jer," DelMonde informed him, reluctantly. "I the one he want."

To confirm this, the guard uncrossed one beefy arm and crooked a finger at the Cajun.

"Even better," Paget said, rubbing his friend's shoulders encouragingly as he aimed the engineer at the sentry as if he were sending a star player into a game. "You can swing this, babe. Just strut over there, turn on the charm and bring him back here to your good old Uncle Jer." When the Cajun took a couple stumbling steps forward in response to the Security Officer's push, the guard gave him a pitiless smile and beckoned him forward again.

Rather than following the instructions of the man in front of or behind him, DelMonde heaved a heavy sigh and looked about him for some way out of the situation. Being given none, he gave an even heavier sigh and turned towards the burly guard.

"Go on, babe," Jer urged him. "Show him what you got."

However, instead of the swagger Paget had asked for, DelMonde approached his target at an unwilling trudge. Avoiding eye contact, the engineer looked as though his forward motion was strictly inspired by someone was holding a phaser rifle on him. The sour expression on his face suggested that would consider it a favor for the trigger to be pulled.

Fortunately the guard seemed mildly amused by the Cajun's reticence and waited for him to reach the end of the hall with condescendingly cruel patience.

When DelMonde muttered, "All right. C'mon," the Security man only paused a second to check both ways that the coast was clear of any witnesses to his planned dereliction of duty before he licked his lips and followed.

"Hey," Paget said, running a bold hand up the sentry's thigh when he reached the doorway of the empty room.

"Both of you, eh?" the guard said, in a rumbly voice, putting an arm around Jer's waist as he gave DelMonde an unsympathetic push towards the bed.

"You betcha, lover," Paget whispered, licking the man's large ear.

"Gotta be fast," the sentry warned, undoing his belt and licking his lips again as he watched DelMonde make slow work of removing his jacket.

"Oh, it will be," Paget assured him before delivering a well placed chop to his neck that immediately rendered the guard unconscious.

"T'ink he fit in th' closet?" the Cajun asked, removing a wicked assortment of implements from that enclosure.

"I'm counting on it," Jer replied, dragging his victim from the doorway.

It took both of them to wrestle his bulk into the closet.

"So that was the best you could do?" Paget asked his friend, then assumed an approximation of his friend's accent, "'Aw'rite. C'mon"?"

"It a whorehouse, Jer," DelMonde reminded him, bending the guard's leg in an effort to fit it inside the enclosure. "Not auditions fo' the friggin' Drama Society."

"Well, that's a good thing," Paget commented archly, stuffing back in an arm that had gone astray.

The Cajun glared at him. "It work, non?"

"Might have worked better if you'd put a little enthusiasm into it," the Security Officer pointed out, having to hold the guard's shoulder pressed into the closet and manually guide the door to slide shut.

"Jeremy," DelMonde replied, using his laser wrench to double lock the enclosure. "Once more. It a cheap whorehouse, not cheerleadin' camp. You not get no extra points fo' pep."

"Well, you certainly wouldn't," Paget couldn't resist putting in a last shot.

"Have you got any idea how many people are in there?" the Security Officer asked as the Cajun worked his magic on the ornate entrance at the end of the hall.

His friend shook his head. "Can't say... A couple at leas'."

Paget checked down the hall for unwelcome passersby. He was sincerely wishing they'd been able to take the air vents into this room instead of this foolhardy frontal approach.

The engineer paused with his laser poised over the final tumbler. "We got any plan other than to run in an' grab anybody wit' fuzzy eyebrows?"

"Nope," Paget admitted apologetically. "Not yet."

DelMonde gave him a smile of grim vindication for the aspersions cast against his planning abilities. "Jus' checkin'."

The Security Officer's brain was too busy running through possible scenarios to notice. "Just follow my lead."

"Yeah, but if I get th' idea..." The engineer tapped his chest. "You be ready to follow my lead."

Paget rolled his eyes. "We're like two dyslexics at a dance tournament... Okay, someone will follow someone's lead. Let's go."

"All right," the Cajun replied, taking a deep, preparatory breath before he opened the door.

As Paget's brain had informed him was a distinct possibility, two guards immediately met them as soon as they crossed the threshold. As the sentries laid violent hands upon them, Paget reasoned that they were probably either stationed on either side of the door permanently or that they'd been alerted by a silent alarm. The Security Officer let himself be seized easily, knowing this would make the formidable resistance he was capable of offering more of a surprise when he did decide to retaliate. From the sounds beside him, Jer could tell DelMonde was putting up more of genuine fight. That, he knew, would only lend more authenticity to his lack of resistance.

"Not so rough! Not so rough!" he cried in a tremulous whine, as the guard twisted his arms behind his back. "We was only tryin' to sneak us a peek at some high rollers, man!"

"Must I continually be subject to this sort of nonsense?" a man with a deep, displeased voice asked those sitting in front of his expensive-looking desk. He was, as DelMonde had described him earlier, somewhat rat-faced, with sharp, cruel features. Most notable were his odd eyebrows, which were a normal size near the bridge of his nose, but spread into wide, fuzzy wings near the tips.

One of the men was the fellow they'd seen sending a message to the flunkies in the warehouse. "Where's Chen?" he asked angrily, rising from his comfortable chair. "Where's the floor manager?"

"Oh, come on, boss," Paget wheedled, twisting weakly in his captor's strong grip. "Don't be that way. We was only tryin' to get in on some high credit action."

"Oh, you'll be getting plenty of action," the plump man promised darkly. "Ragi, take these two sluts down to Jenzch and make sure he teaches them a lesson about staying the fuck away from the reserved rooms unless they're sent for."

A shiver of anticipatory delight raced down the Security Officer's spine as an almost involuntary response to this threat. Business before pleasure, he reminded himself.

"C'mon, man," he whimpered cloyingly, as the guard firmed up his grip in preparation to hauling him out the door. "We didn't mean no harm."

"We not your whores!" his fellow officer burst out, trying to wrench his way out of his captor's grip.

Paget looked at him, sincerely hoping this was part of a very good Plan B since his Plan A seemed to be developing into something he was pretty sure they could work out to their advantage.

"We th' officers from th' U.S.S. Hood that you done tried to frame as drug dealers," DelMonde announced.

This statement galvanized the attention of all those assembled in the room. Everyone's gaze turned to Mr. Fuzzy Eyebrows for a decision.

"That's a rather serious accusation, young man," the Big Boss replied smoothly. "Completely untrue." He treated DelMonde to a cold, superior smile. "...As well as completely unverifiable."

"Smug son of a bitch," the Cajun growled.

Mr. Eyebrows' smile became a fraction chillier as his guard painfully tightened his twisting grip on DelMonde's right arm. "Rulan, contact Station Security. I'm sure they will have a few questions for these troubled young men."

"We done gotten away from those bozos plenty o' times," the engineer bragged dismissively. "You turn us over to them, we jus' slip away again, no problem."

There goes Plan C, Paget thought ruefully.

"You got anyt'ing to charge us wit', motherfucker," DelMonde continued. "You best make that call direct to our ship."

Jer frowned. He could not see where the engineer was going with this. It would be nice to let the ship know where they were, but he didn't see any way that could help extract them from their current difficulties. They had nothing substantial to report yet on Mr. Eyebrows that Paget knew of other than the vague telepathic impression DelMonde had reported earlier.

"Wassa matter, fuzzy?" the engineer was sneering. "You scared of the Federation? 'Fraid to show your fucked-up face to a Starfleet Captain?"

Again, Paget could not see where his fellow officer was going with his baiting. There seemed to be absolutely no reason for Eyebrows to risk calling the ship as the Cajun obviously wanted him to do. All he needed was to place a call to his operative inside Station Security and the two of them were as good as on the next shuttle to the nearest Benenite labor camp.

The man would have to be an egomaniacal danger addict with an overwhelming enough desire to prove himself against the Federation to drive him to compulsively react to a challenge - foolishly following emotion over reason - in order for there to be any hope at all that he would respond to the engineer's dare.

"Get them out of here!" the plump man screamed at the sentries.

Hello, Benenite chain gang, Paget thought as the guard started to drag him towards the door.

"No." Eyebrows' voice was quiet, but commanded immediate attention. "Rulan, place the call."

Paget shot his fellow officer a look as the plump man uneasily obeyed his superior's command. Although appreciative of the mental finesse required to make it possible, the Security Officer still couldn't see the point in having Eyebrows contact the ship. They had nothing on the man. Even with the puritanical Benenites at work, odd facial hair had not yet been criminalized in this part of the galaxy.

As the mellifluent tones of Greg Halloran, the Hood's Communications Officer, crackled over the speaker of the comm. unit near Mr. Eyebrows' desk, DelMonde turned slightly and frowned a 'Why don't you ever trust me?' look at Paget.

While the plump man enumerated a list of complaints against them, the Security Officer silently hoped that his friend was remembering the little trick the cops in the bar had played with the tiny bags of photolectrine. Even if DelMonde was able to manipulate their captors into turning them over to the Hood, it would be just as easy for the sentries to try a repeat of that stratagem. A couple baggies of illegal drugs would be very hard to explain and do severe damage to their credibility.

As the face on the screen changed, the Cajun turned away another admonishing frown. Paget was afraid the expression looked a little worried.

"This is Jack Aronson, commander of the Hood," their captain was saying in a very unamused tone. "Mr. Rulan, I am sorry that there has been some trouble with a couple of my officers. I understand that you have them in custody. May I speak to them, please?"

When Eyebrows nodded his confidently smug approval, the plump man turned the comm. unit in their direction and signaled the guards to bring them forward.

"Captain," DelMonde twisted in the grip of his captor to get as close to the screen as he could. "That man..." He nodded towards Eyebrows. "That man right there..." The Cajun took in a deep breath before shouting, "is a DAMN KLINGON AGENT!!" When his guard automatically pulled him back, the engineer twisted forward again to yell, "Beam us the hell up out here RIGHT NOW!!!"

"Well, Lieutenant-junior-grade-pending-the-approval-of-Star-Fleet DelMonde," Paget greeted his cabinmate when the engineer finally began to rouse from his slumber. "How do you feel?"

The hullabaloo over the discovery of a Klingon agent running a sabotage operation on Kottman's Glory had finally died down to the point that the Cajun was able to get eight hours of un-interrupted sleep in his own bunk. DelMonde had been so exhausted, he'd been content to drop off with the aid of only a miniscule dose of sapphire. Jer had no doubt, though, that the Cajun intended to address this pharmaceutical miserliness later.

Paget himself had only taken a few catnaps between debriefings and reports to his superiors. He was currently working on a codicil to his initial report in response to a query from Starfleet Intelligence while with his other eye he was monitoring the ship's Security channels for chatter about what was coming out of the Klingon agent's interrogation.

"To tell the truth, Lieutenant-junior-grade-'cept-fo'-the-paperwork Paget," the Cajun replied, sitting up and giving a huge yawn. "I kinda hungry fo' some o' them ribs from Di'Adnot's."

Jer laughed. "I'd've thought Kottman's Glory was the last place you'd want to go."

"It is," the engineer affirmed readily. "You t'ink it be too much for a Presumptive Hero to th' Federation t' get some take-out delivered?"

When they'd beamed back down the planet to help the Hood's Security team to free Kane and Mangini from Station Security and identify the Klingon's plant in their ranks, the whole installation was a madhouse. Accusations and counteraccusations were flying. Mr. Eyebrow's flunkies - refusing to believe that they'd been dupes in a Klingon plot - had done their best to instigate a riot against what they portrayed as an unprovoked crackdown - including kidnapping and character defamation of their boss - by Federation personnel. The Constellation had to be called in to help quell the violence and round up the perpetrators, but reports from the station indicated the situation currently seemed under control.

"We Presumptives don't want to be too presumptuous," Paget replied. "We're off duty for at least the next seventy-two hours. We could just beam down and get it ourselves."

"To hell wit' that," DelMonde retorted, stretching and yawning again. "Barrin' direct order from the Admiralty, I not settin' foot on that shithole ever again... Wait a minute. Did I jus' hear you say we got seventy-two hours off?"

"Yeah, but we're not on leave," Jer explained quickly. "We're at the disposal of the investigative team from Intelligence. In fact, we're scheduled for another round of depositions at 04:00."

The Cajun consulted the chronometer behind Paget. "That three hours from now," he pointed out reproachfully.

"Lieutenant-junior-grade-barring-a-big-screw-up-in-front-of-a-high-ranking-Intelligence-Officer DelMonde, you do have a point," Jer conceded with a sigh, breaking a bottle of Jim Beam's Finest out of the cabinet next to his desk and pouring a shot for his cabinmate.

"Thank you, Soon-t'-be-Lieutenant-junior-grade-t'ink-he-my-babysitter Paget," the Cajun said, accepting it.

"We're gonna need shorter names," Jer observed.

"And taller shot glasses," the Cajun complained - as he usually did.

Paget sat down on the bunk next to him. "Why didn't you tell me before we went in that Mr. Eyebrows was a Klingon?" he said, asking a question that he'd not had the opportunity to raise despite their innumerable official re-hashings of their adventures on Kottman's Glory.

"I not know he was 'til we in there. He so well-trained for this job, he even think in Standard." DelMonde took a nice, long sip of the bourbon and then smiled. "Well, mos' the time."

"Slipped up, huh?" Paget guessed.

"Yeah. Bein' a spy, the t'ing he mos' afraid of is that Stafleet Intelligence gonna come snoopin' 'round. So he'd done gone through the surveillance footage his people had collected on all of us, makin' sure there weren't no one in th' crowd he could pick out as an agent."

"So, when he got a good look at us, he recognized us as being from the Hood?"

"He knowed he'd seen us before but couldn't place where right off," DelMonde clarified. "Although his brain was telling him Starfleet."

"And for a split second, he thought we were with Intelligence?"

"An' it scared him so bad he slipped into Klingonese an' thought 'oh, shit!'" The Cajun grinned. "Or t' be completely accurate, 'diseased droppings of a cowardly field animal!'"

Paget smiled as he topped off his friend's glass. "I didn't know you spoke Klingonese."

"Jus' a few cuss words here an' there, really."

"And what if it turned out he just knew a few curse words?"

"No, he'd done showed himself at that point." The engineer sipped his bourbon. "After that, I could push and' shove around an' get him to t'ink 'bout some other t'ings that told exactly who he was."

"I didn't think you were going to be able to goad him into calling Aronson," Paget admitted honestly.

"To tell th' truth," the Cajun confessed. "He almost didn't. But it were a hell of a lot better than your plan t' let 'em take us down to the basement, tie us up, beat the hell out of us, then fuck us into a stupor."

"Child," Jer admonished with a grin. "That was not my plan. I was just ..." He paused and stretched sensuously. "...savoring a delicious suggestion."

"You incorrigible," the engineer concluded. "You know that, don't you?"

"Truer words have never been spoken," Paget affirmed, stealing a sip of his friend's whiskey.

"An' you know. as many times as I saved your ass last night, you need t' start havin' a li'l more faith in me," the engineer accused, reclaiming his glass. "What'd you t'ink? I jus' messin' wit' the fellow's brain 'cause I was mad at Ruth an' Sulu?"

Paget was greatly encouraged that the Cajun was far enough along in dealing with his feelings about that relationship to call them by name and joke about the situation.

"Well, considering how well things turned out," he replied. "If you were just getting back at them, maybe we ought to send them a thank you card."

DelMonde made a face as he downed the rest of the shot. "I not that over it yet, Jer."

"Take your time, babe," Paget said, giving his friend's leg a consoling pat before standing up and stretching. "You know, I'm starting to crave those damned ribs too. What the hell? N.C., let's beam down and get a bucket."

"Wit' our luck we pro'bly wind up in as big a mess again as we jus' got out of," the Cajun grumbled, pulling on his uniform pants.

"Yep, but look on the bright side." Paget grinned as he tossed his friend's tunic to him. "Brilliant as we are, that'll just give us the opportunity to shorten our names to Admiral by the end of the week..."

The End