Horrified, Reoh forced himself to look away. He wouldn’t contribute to the degradation of these poor slaves.

“You want me,” she whispered, her hand clasping his perch.

“Uh, no, thank you, Ma’am.” Reoh uneasily smiled to let her know it was nothing personal. “I don’t think so.”

“You are unhappy . . .” she murmured.

“No, really, I’m fine, thank you. I’m waiting for my next appointment to arrive.”

“I think you wait for me. . . .”

Reoh tried to look at her, but she was drawing herself up behind him. “No,” he told her uneasily, “it’s a Pa’a captain.”

Her hands slipped over his shoulders, her kneading fingers sending shivers down his spine. Her rumbling purr moved near his ear, then an icy‑hot trail flashed up his skin as she licked his neck.

Reoh tried to untangle her green arms from around him. How had she managed to do that so fast?

“I think you have the wrong customer,” he told her. He could barely make out the other animal‑women– sometimes two or three women–twining themselves around the men resting on the nearby ledges.

“Please . . .” He had to lean closer to hear her breathy little voice, which hardly penetrated the thrumming music. “I will be in trouble if you send me away.”

Reoh stopped trying to hold her off, looking her right in the face. “Are you serious? You mean you’re punished if a customer doesn’t pay for a dance?”

She nodded, busy nestling closer.

“All right, give me your finger,” he agreed, holding the tab so she could press her delicate hand against it. He felt bad. He had been sending women away all day, waiting for Captain Jord to let him inspect her cargo of dicosilium. From what he’d learned in the past few weeks, allbusiness was done in the dancing bars. “Are the other girls punished for not getting dances?”

“I know only my master,” she murmured, seemingly content with curling up next to him on the ledge. But he kept having to capture her wandering fingers, lulled by her gentle stroking of his hand or his chest.

“What’s your name?” he asked, pulling back to see the bronze green sheen of her cheeks, the startling whites of her eyes.

“Meesa,” she breathed.

“Meesa,” he repeated, helplessly trapped by the warm scent of her, the feel of her in his arms.

Reoh shook his head, and pushed her away slightly, trying to get hold of himself. He felt like he had been fighting off Orion animal‑women ever since he got to the Beltos system, but this one was more persistent than most. He had been rejecting her advances for nearly an hour before finally giving in. It usually wasn’t difficult to hold himself back. Except for momentary lapses of pheromone‑induced lust, he mostly felt pity for them, trapped in these hellholes.

“Here,” he said, taking her hand and pressing her fingertip to his charge card once more. “There’s another dance. Now, I have to be going. No, thank you very much,” he assured her, scraping her off as he pushed into the glide lane that carried him through the bar.

He glanced back as he was leaving, but he couldn’t see Meesa anymore. He wondered if he had misread Captain Jord’s message and gotten the wrong bar. That wouldn’t be unlikely in these warrens the Pa’a called space stations.

Reoh consulted his tricorder and hitched the spectro‑analyzer more securely on his shoulder. The jostling crowds were mostly natives from Beltos IV, trading their precious minerals or trying to obtain permits from the ruling Pa’a to travel to other planets in the system, or even enter Federation space. Only two gates on each station led to the docking rings–a passenger gate and a cargo gate. Both were close‑encrypted by Starfleet personnel, running the front lines of border control. Despite the safeguards, smuggling was a big business among the various arms of the Pa’a.

At the very least, Captain Jord wasn’t going anywhere until Reoh validated her encryption pass for the cargo. He also had to give her the coordinates where her vessel could penetrate the automated sensor‑scan buoys at the edge of the system.

Reoh pressed his thumb to the sensor padd of the passenger gate, uneasily aware of the many envious eyes of loiterers on the levels above and below him, watching the traffic through the immense portal. As he phased through, a silver‑tinted Pa’a bustled up and pressed his encryption pass against the sensor padd. The high‑ranking Pa’a pushed past Reoh, heading to the upper docking ring where the better vessels were in port.

Reoh’s ancient shuttle was parked among an assortment of Starfleet ships. Because the stations weren’t under Federation rule, Starfleet officers were required to stay on their ships rather than transient quarters. Reoh preferred that anyway. He felt comfortable in his shuttle, the Dilithium Node, which had been in service in the Beltos system longer than he had been alive. A modern replicator was jammed awkwardly into one corner and the bunk was barely wide enough for him to lie down, but it was home.

There was a voice‑only message from Captain Jord, informing him that she would be delayed and would be unable to meet him until the next day–at the same dancing bar. Reoh methodically checked to make sure he had found the right one.

He really didn’t mind the delay. He had one other inspection to perform in the next couple of days, then his rotation was up and he could return to Starbase 3 for R&R before his next month of duty. He was looking forward to seeing the starbase again. It was one of the biggest in the Federation, servicing a wide variety of systems and species. He had only spent three days on board before shipping out for Beltos IV.

Reoh shook his head at the thought of this assignment. Who would have thought geophysics would be so exotic? He loved rocks, and that was really the only reason he had chosen geophysics. Rocks were safe and enduring. After his spectacular lack of faith in himself as a Vedek and in the Bajoran religion, he had desperately needed to belong to something that was as close to permanent as he could find–the planets themselves.

The Academy was also an enduring place. Stricken with sudden longing, Reoh checked the chronometer for the time at the Academy. It was late, but Jayme usually stayed up until all hours. He sent the signal.

“Hello?” Jayme finally answered, blinking sleepily.

“Did I wake you?” Reoh asked.

“Who is that? Nev Reoh?” Jayme said blearily. “Gad, almost didn’t recognize you in that uniform.”

Proudly, Reoh straightened his blue‑shouldered jacket. “I’m a level three geo‑inspector in the Beltos system.”

“Glory be,” Jayme yawned. “Orion animal‑women! Having fun yet?”

“Uh, not really,” he admitted. “It’s mostly dust and rocks, you know.”

“I can understand you’re distracted, what with everything that’s happening,” Jayme agreed.

Reoh felt like he’d missed part of their conversation. “What do you mean?”

“In the Bajoran system. They’re battening down the hatches.”

“Cardassians?!” Reoh asked, his voice rising in a frightened squawk.

“No, the Dominion.” Jayme finally seemed to wake up. “Where have you been the past few weeks?”

“In the Beltos system–”

“Yeah, I guess the rumors wouldn’t have reached you yet. Everyone here at the Academy knows, of course.”

“What’s wrong with Bajor?” Reoh demanded.

“We found out the Dominion are shape‑shifters. They’re the ones who control the Jem’Hadar, and they’re practically invading through the wormhole.”

“Invading!”

“Well, not yet. But everyone expects them to.” Jayme shifted through some clips on her desk. “I’ll send you some of the reports. I’m surprised they haven’t called you to DS9. There are so few Bajorans in Starfleet.”

“There’s not much for a geophysicist to do on a space station by a wormhole,” Reoh said numbly, thinking over the implications of Bajor being smack on the front lines of an invasion. His people never seemed to get a break.