Dokka began the senior staff meeting as soon as the door closed. "Narchi? Any good word?" The Chief Engineer pulled out his pocket computer and said, "This office and five other places are now free of that damned surveillance system. THAT is all the good news. Now for the bad--we can't remove it without knocking the shields and Hyper-drive off-line for at least half an hour!" "If I get my hands on the bastard who wired the damned thing up, I'll skin them alive!" Commander Rose crossed her arms and she said, "Apparently a not very well informed electrician wired the transmitter for the surveillance system wired it directly into the Relative Inertial Frame antenna to use while the shields are up so there would be no signal loss. HOWEVER..." "HOWEVER that means it's screwing up our FTL engines!" Narchi frowned. "It's taking TWO percent off the top of our engine efficiency! If anything happens to that damned spy system, the RIF goes off-line and the shields go down. Not only is it inefficient, it's illegal!" Commander Malbess looked over at the Captain and asked, "By the way...why did you let me sit down?" Dokka smiled and shrugged, "Letting us in on our spy system, you earned it. Call it a small measure of respect." "The crew does NOT respect the decision to hang the Measure and her escort out to dry while we go off on a lower priority mission. I agree with the crew. This will enrage the Naga of Nada-Haltuu in ways that I do NOT want to think of. This endangers not only my planet, but our whole system, in my opinion." Malbess looked grim. Commander Rose nodded and said, "I concur. This speaks of an expendablity of personell that troubles the Cyclops on the ship GREATLY." Dokka blinked at Rose's grim appraisal. He asked, "Any options?" Narchi waved his PPC and said, "It would be a shame if that spy system blew out when we re-entered normal space. Our shields would be toast and we couldn't go anywhere until we repaired or removed it. We'd have to 'officially' find it, and I would have to report it to the USCOMM office of the GAO as SABOTAGE during wartime! You never told me about spies or anything else, so reporting would be independent." Rose nodded, while Malbess laughed. "Sneaky AND underhanded! Remind me not to play poker with YOU Narchi! Damn. Better than YOU skinning them, the General Accounting Office will skin them!" Captain Dokka Tkarro took a deep breath and sighed and nodded. "Do it on emergence. You said half an hour repair?" Rose said, "He's padding the time by almost fifteen minutes. We can be operational in fifteen." Narchi sighed and shook his head, "HEY! Don't take all the mystery out of Engineering! If I get it done in half the time, I'm a miracle worker!" Dokka said, "I'm more worried about LIVING spies for fleet and such than spy systems. What are they so worried about?" Malbess said, "We have more Cyclops and mixed race couples, and extra-solar aliens than any other ship in the United System Commonwealth. Someone in USCOMM is worried about that." Narchi said,"At least the new uniforms are comfortable. They'll stop most knives and bullets and are fire-proof. I'd still prefer to NOT be spied on in my own bedroom with MY WIFE! Damned frikking perverts in Fleet! You think our escort ship is in on it?" Dokka shrugged. "Maxim's a good man from what I've heard, but it only takes one comm-office to monitor and record our activities." Malbess shook her head. "It goes all the way to Sky-Marshall Zolf Reinz. He was listening to us. I forced his hand." Rose said, "The Human Colonial Authority has zero affection for the Friggians of Adamesh or the Cyclops of Balaam. There are over five hundred million machine-lives combined between our two races. THAT causes fear in the older humans." Dokka said, while clenching his fists, "I'm not going to allow that fear cost me one of my crew. We're going to help rescue the Measure. Everyone get ready." -To be continued!-