The turbolift doors opened onto the bridge. Rojc stepped out, closely followed by Thot X'Ro'Us and 4 Jem'hadar, weapons drawn. Coleman, Iv'Oor, and Nicot knelt with there hands above their heads not far away, between Mission Ops and Science Station I.

"Commander Rojc, so good to see you again. I'm glad you could see things reasonably and surrender." Kilara smiled a bitter-sweet smile.

"Kill him now, Kilara!" shouted Varus. "The longer he's alive, the greater a threat he becomes."

Kilara turned to face the Breen at her side, "Patience, Varus." She turned back to Rojc. "Now, then. You will help us re-establish control over the Phantom's systems, or I will make sure the rest of the crew suffers excruciatingly slow deaths before the ship explodes."

Rojc paused for a moment. "I wasn't the one to introduce the virus into the system."

"I'm well aware you have a level fifteen security access. You have the ability to override any program, virus or not."

"I believe he needs more persuasion to think faster." Neeron pulled his disruptor pistol from its holster and stepped behind Iv'Oor. He took careful aim at the back of her head.

Kilara took a moment to glare at the Breen. "You will not execute prisoners without my authority."

"He's stalling," Neeron spat back. "Either he will comply, or I will shoot these three, starting with the Andorian female."

Kilara grumbled and turned back to Rojc. "Commander, I believe Thot Neeron is intent on killing your officers. I caution you to drop the games."

"I'll need access to an unaffected console."

"He had this on him when he surrendered." A Jem'hadar stepped up to Kilara and handed her a PADD.

Kilara looked over the PADD. "Interesting configuration, Commander. I wasn't aware Federation officers had access to it." She stepped down from the command platform and approached Rojc. "Start with OPS." She handed him the PADD.

Appearing reluctant, Rojc took the PADD and walked over to OPS, closely followed by three Jem'hadar guards. Kilara joined him at OPS.

Meanwhile, Neeron dropped back a bit behind the Jem'hadar guarding Nicot, Iv'Oor, and Coleman. It would take careful timing to make this work—or at least for him to survive the initial disruptor salvo. He glanced over to the OPS station—Rojc had just interfaced with the system. It was now or never. Neeron abruptly broke off his threatening aim, turned to the two Jem'hadar, and fired. Chaos broke out.

Nicot and Iv'Oor were quick to pick up the fallen soldiers' disruptor rifles and started firing. Acting quickly, Rojc knocked the three Jem'hadar around him to their feet. He turned back to OPS and tapped in a few commands before turning back to the stunned Jem'hadar. He picked up a disruptor rifle for himself and set up a crossfire.

Varus and Kilara were now just starting to register what was happening. Varus grabbed for his weapon, but it was shot out of his hand by Rojc. Between the four Starfleet officers and Neeron, all the Jem'hadar were promptly dispatched. Rojc re-leveled his phaser at the Vorta. "Step away from the OPS console please."

Neeron had taken his own prisoner. "Thot Varus C'Rakl'mus, I hear by place you under stoi'tilaka arrest."

Varus looked up from his injuries. "No..." He looked Neeron in the straight in the eyes. "You betrayed me!"

Neeron smugly smiled. "Yes. I did. And now you will pay for the crimes you have committed against the Imperium."

Iv'Oor stood up. "What now?"

"I've flooded the rest of the ship with anesthezine gas. Right now, the Jem'hadar are sleeping like babies."

"You have accomplished nothing! You still need to purge the ship's system, and you can't possibly do that before the Breen come looking for us." Kilara stood defiantly.

"Nicot--this is your area of expertise. Get the ship up and running. Iv'Oor--start beaming the Jem'hadar into security cells. Coleman--go down to Security and monitor Iv'Oor's progress. Take our 'guests' with you."

It wasn't a typical senior staff meeting: it lacked the presence of the Captain; several department heads had also been invited--along with one Breen general.

Senishra, who sat in the Captain's chair, was the first to speak. "How goes our efforts to combat the virus?"

Lieutenant Commander Victor Dolby spoke up. "We've cleared the virus out of most of the main systems' controls, but its still in various subsystems and backups." He glared at Nicot.

"And the status of the warp cores?"

"Not good," replied Guitarrez. "The loss of the third core has taxed the system worse than the designers had originally speculated. We've lost several systems; none critical for the moment. But that could change."

"Right now, the biggest loses appear to be the phaser cannon and much of the stealth sensor array," added Lieutenant Michael Hersch.

"Those are going to be critical systems very soon, indeed. From what I understand of the intended rendezvous, we should have been there as of ten minutes ago. They will no doubt start looking for us." Neeron looked around the lounge to gage the reactions.

"Any idea what we can expect for ships?" asked Rojc.

"No," replied Neeron. "But no doubt, it will be substantial."

"Very clearly, the first thing we should do is re-establish communications with Starfleet," said Senishra. "Hopefully, reinforcements can get to us before the Dominion can."

"That may be what protocols dictate—but we break radio silence now, and it'll allow the enemy to pin point our position that much quicker," responded Iv'Oor.

Senishra did her best not to frown, but it was fairly obvious she had failed. "We have no choice, Lieutenant. Our options are limited and are duties are clear: return to Federation space."

"I'm not sure its that clear cut, Commander," replied Nicot, backing Iv'Oor up.

Senishra looked to Rojc. Rojc clearly understood the look. "I'm sorry, Senishra, but I agree with my officers." The rest of the room was silent. "We have an unknown number of ships looking for us, a diplomatic situation to diffuse by returning to the Breen home world, and a spy to expose."

Arona came to Senishra's defense. "That may be your opinion, but Senishra is in command here. I agree with her assessment—return to Federation space as quickly as possible."

"We do have full warp capability," added Lieutenant Tiron Sanas.

Ensign Coleman stood up. "Rojc has authorization to override the primary mission goals of this vessel—he would be well within his jurisdiction to order the Phantom to proceed as how he sees fit."

"That's a load of—"

"Enough!" Senishra interrupted Arona before she could finish her thought. "I respect your view of the situation, Commander Rojc, but unless you are willing to invoke Intelligence authority here, I see no reason to put the ship at further risk. We will re-establish communications, taking all necessary precautions, and return to the Federation with all available haste."

All eyes were on Rojc. He knew full well the risk and responsibility of invoking Intelligence authority.

"Well, Rojc?" asked Arona impatiently.

"You're putting me in one hell of an uncomfortable situation—you realize that." Rojc scowled. "I don't believe I would be justified to countermand my commanding officer's orders."

"Thank you, Commander," replied Senishra. "Dismissed."

The officers quickly filed out of the room, but Rojc and Senishra lingered behind the rest. After a moment, they were alone. Neither said anything.

"She's all ready, Ma'am. Ship-wide functions have returned to normal," reported Nicot.

"Very good, Lieutenant. Bring the communications relay online and connect to the nearest buoy," replied Senishra.

"…Connection established. Receiving data…"

"Lieutenant Iv'Oor, set course—"

"Wait a minute. Something's wrong," Nicot interrupted, "Damn! Someone's tracing the signal! I can't disengage!"

Rojc looked over the display at his station. "You're supposed to be the computer expert Nicot. Circumvent the relay software."

"Bridge to Engineering," Senishra opened the comm-link, "we need to shut down the communications array and we need to do it now."

"I'm having trouble doing that. The relay has frozen the system."

"How is that possible?"

Rojc turned his chair to face Senishra. "Its not our relay. That's the only answer."

"He's right. There's no way anyone could do this using our equipment."

Nicot hit the console. "There it is—they rebuilt the buoy's signal on the molecular level. I would have never seen it without a full sensor analysis."

"The question becomes how to break the connection," Senishra declared, "Can you do that, Lieutenant?"

"I think so. I don't have a lot of experience with Breen tech, though."

"Bridge to Thot X'Ro'Us."

"Go ahead," Neeron replied icily.

"We could use your assistance up on the Bridge. Your people have locked us into a communications buoy."

"I'll be there immediately. Neeron out."

"I can't get by the encryption lock outs. They're changing faster than I can lock on," reported Nicot, starting to get frantic. His hands moved as quickly as they could across the console.

It was another couple of moments before Neeron entered the bridge. Rojc glanced in his direction. "Mission OPS is open and ready for you, Neeron."

The Breen sat at the station and began interfacing with the decoy buoy. After a moment he swiveled around and triumphantly announced, "I've frozen their system. You should be able to bypass the security system."

"I'm in..." Nicot paused. "There we go, we're free from the buoy."

"Not that it does us much good," Rojc asserted. "They've got our position within a couple of light years."

"That leaves us with probably little more than an hour before they close in," added Neeron.

"Put together options and tell the crew to prepare for battle. I want all senior officers assembled in the observation lounge in a half-hour," ordered Senishra.

After a half-hour, the senior staff was once again assembled in the observation lounge.

"Commander Rojc, your briefing please," Senishra glanced in his direction.

Rojc stood up and moved to the displays. "We've conducted several sensor sweeps of the nearby sectors, and determined that approximately two dozen Breen ships of varying classes are closing on our position. We've got about 20 or so minutes before their sentry ships reach us."

"I assume you've got a plan, Rojc," said Arona indignantly.

"Of course I do, Doctor," replied Rojc curtly. "Its kind of a stretch given our situation, but I think we can pull it off. There are at least four sentry ships incoming--light vessels, nothing we can't handle with too many problems. If we can get away from them, were home free."

"You cannot out run those ships," came Neeron's voice from the other end of the room.

"And even if we could, we don't have enough of the stealth sensor array to get off of their sensors," added Guitarrez.

"We don't need to out run them, and we don't need more than a couple minutes usage of the stealth sensor array," responded Rojc. "We are going to adapt the Picard Maneuver and the Crusher-Taitt stratagem."

Rojc's plan shocked the room. Even Senishra registered a visible shock on her face. "Need I remind you the unfeasibility of the Picard Maneuver in present day strategy?"

"Or the fact we've never even tested the metaphasic shielding," added Guitarrez.

"Its simple, really." Rojc moved back towards the display. He hit a few buttons before continuing. A computer simulation appeared and began running. "What we do is this--first we lull them into a false sense of security--make it look like we're taking heavy battle damage. The Breen like to use strafing runs--and that figures into this. After a few moments of battle, we're all set up for their latest strafing run. When they enter immediate weapons range, we launch a full series of class II probes and a full spread of quantum torpedoes. Meanwhile, we will have made the jump to warp, while the stealth array masks our survival. This won't lose them--but it will stall them long enough to enact the second part of the plan. We will travel to this star, where, upon engaging the metaphasic shielding, we will enter the corona and go to gray mode."

The rest of the senior staff still seemed skeptical. "What is the success rate of this plan, Commander?" asked Senishra.

"48.31%."

"That's not even half chance! Its the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Arona said.

"Its has better odds than us trying to out run or out fight the Breen. I'd love to hear your expert suggestion, Doctor."

Senishra turned to Guitarrez. "Commander Guitarrez, can you enact the metaphasic shielding and re-route power to the stealth array?"

"In ten minutes?" she asked incredulously. "I can probably give you one or the other by the time we're ready to make our escape from the battle—but I don't think I can do both."

Senishra folded her hands and rested her arms on the table. "Unless someone can come up with an alternative, you're going to have to get the work done, Commander." The room was silent. "Return to your duty stations and prepare. Dismissed."

"Report!"

"Its the four sentry ships plus another two ships. Their weapons are already powered up."

Senishra surveyed the tactical display, visibly annoyed. The sentry ships had arrived sooner than expected and in greater numbers. "Bridge to Engineering."

Over the open comm-link, indistinct shouting and alarm klaxons nearly drowned out the sound of the response. "Guitarrez here!"

"Do we have either stealth array or metaphasic shielding yet?"

The chief engineer sighed heavily. "I can guarantee the stealth array for around five minutes, but the metaphasic shielding is another story..." Her voice trailed off.

Another salvo from their Breen interceptors shook the Phantom. Responding in kind, the Phantom opened fire on its attackers with phasers and quantum torpedoes, squarely hitting two of the enemy ships.

"How much time, Commander?"

"5 minutes?"

Senishra was almost scowling. "Be ready to bring the shielding on-line."

"Yes ma'am."

Senishra turned to Rojc.

"Shields are at 92%," reported Rojc, "The Breen are re-grouping for another pass."

Senishra turned back around to face the viewer. "All right, let's make this look real. Lieutenant Iv'Oor, plot evasive maneuvers at your discretion. Lieutenant Nicot, prepare to simulate major systems failure. Commander Rojc, continue to return fire but prepare the probe and torpedo spread."

"Torpedoes ready."

"Evasive patterns laid in."

"Systems ready."

Once again, the Breen closed on their prey, fearlessly firing away. The Phantom deftly maneuvered as best it could to avoid the smaller attackers, but to limited effectiveness. All throughout the maneuvers, the Phantom's weapons consistently found their marks. Within moments, the Breen had once again had broke off their attack and were regrouping outside of weapon range.

The next pass of the Breen ships went much the same, only the Phantom was now starting to feel their attackers' weaponry.

"Lieutenant Nicot, how are we doing?"

"Couple more passes and I won't need to simulate any systems failures," Nicot reported to Senishra.

"Commander Rojc, on the next pass, target at your discretion--no more 'pot shots'."

"Guitarrez to Bridge"

"Go ahead."

"System modifications have been made, the metaphasic shielding program is on-line and waiting to be implemented."

"Good work, Commander. Bridge out." Senishra turned to Rojc. "Forget targeting--prepare to execute as we planned."

"All ready here."

Senishra paused, watching the oncoming Breen ships.

"Breen ships closing...ten seconds until we are within their weapons range."

Senishra still said nothing. The seconds were quickly passing. "Fire! Helm, set course and engage at maximum warp!"

The visually stunning explosion left the Breen vessels confused as the Phantom warped away. The first part of Rojc's plan had so far paid off.

Senishra looked over to Rojc. "Status of the Breen ships?"

Rojc grinned warily. "They've resumed pursuit...took 'em longer than I expected, too."

"We've dropped out of warp and are nearing the star," reported Iv'Oor.

"Very good. Engage the metaphasic shielding and shut down the stealth array. Lieutenant Nicot, bring the ship to gray mode."

"We are entering the corona," Iv'Oor related to Senishra.

Senishra swiveled towards Nicot. "Status of the metaphasic shielding?"

"All indications are that the shielding is working as planned," replied Nicot, "We're now operating at gray mode."

"Commander Rojc, status of the Breen?"

"Its hard to get a clear reading without full sensors." Rojc paused. "Looks like the Breen reinforcements have arrived--they appear to be fanning out. Probably searching for us."

"Guitarrez to Bridge!"

"Go ahead, Commander," responded Senishra.

"We've got a problem. I can't pin it down, but I something is wrong with the shielding system."

"Explain."

"I'd like to Captain, but it could be any number of things. Depleted system resources from the lost of the core; some unknown radiation from the star interfering with systems; traces of Nicot's 'virus' still in the system--need I go on?"

"That will suffice. How long do we have?"

Guitarrez let out an audible sigh. "I can't be certain. The best I can give you is an estimate. I doubt we have more than five minutes before we'll be forced to leave the corona."

"I find that most disturbing, Commander. Do everything you can to keep those shields up."

"I'll do my best, sir. Guitarrez out."

Senishra scowled. "Can we use a solar flare to destroy the Breen vessels?"

Nicot shook his head. "Doubtful. We might get some of them, but there is little to no possibility we will get them all."

Rojc turned around. "If we're going to attempt the solar flare, we should wait until we're going to have to leave. Its possible the Breen will move on before our shielding runs out."

"Do we have any other options open to us?" asked Senishra.

"Perhaps if we still had the systems powered by the third core," replied Nicot.

"So we wait," said Senishra with an implied sense of impending doom.

The minutes took forever to pass for the crew. Time seemed to slow as a sentence of doom hung in the air. The comm-link chirped to life, breaking the uneasy silence.

"I'm sorry, Captain, but there's nothing else we can do down here. We will lose shield integrity in a little over 60 seconds."

"Acknowledged, Commander." Senishra glanced hopefully at Rojc. "Status, Commander Rojc?"

Rojc shook his head. "Its no good, the Breen haven't moved off."

Nicot sighed heavily. "I'll begin calculations for the solar flare."

Iv'Oor counted down from helm, "Fifty seconds."

The seconds continued to pass as Nicot worked fervently working at his console.

"Forty seconds."

Senishra glanced over at Nicot. "Lieutenant--"

Nicot bit his lip. "Almost...got it..." He hesitated. "There! I'm configuring the main deflector to send out the pulse now. Returning to active status--going straight to Red Alert."

"Lieutenant Iv'Oor, as soon as that flare as dissipated, take us out of the corona at maximum available speed," ordered Senishra.

"Aye sir. Course plotted and laid in. Twenty five seconds."

"Initiating pulse," uttered Nicot.

The Breen ships closest to the star had detected the strange activity in the star and moved closer to it to investigate, much to their peril. They never had a chance, as the sheer, overwhelming force of the solar flare washed over them. Moments later, the Phantom shot out of the star, quickly going to full impulse.

"That flare only took out six ships--none of them the larger heavy cruisers. Sensors show a total of eighteen Breen vessels closing on us."

"Commander Rojc, prepare to fire at will."