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everything in his power to save his friend.
    ****
    "You seem a bit distant tonight," Kellea said as Jason twirled his drink glass in his hand. As soon as the words left her mouth he could see the regret etched on her features. "I'm so sorry," she said. "It was completely selfish of me to ask you here when Crusher is still down on the surface in that prison. I apologize, but we get to see each other so rarely that perhaps my judgment was clouded."
    "It's fine," Jason assured her without much enthusiasm or sincerity. "Unfortunately, there's nothing else I could be doing right now without knowing what happened to him. The person we were hired to smuggle out of De'Moltia was killed and dumped as a statement ... but I'm not sure what that means for my guy on the inside."
    "I wish I could do something," she said, putting her hand over his. "But Crisstof hasn't felt it necessary to tell me what is going on down on Faulli. He's sequestered himself in his own suite and seems to only come out and go directly to the hangar bay where his shuttle is on alert around the clock."
    "Seems very mysterious," Jason said. "Did he even give you a hint how much longer you'd be here?"
    "Not directly," she said. "He intimated that with our contact now murdered the Defiant should be ready to break orbit at any time."
    "I see," Jason said. "I guess we'll need to come up with a realistic plan of attack soon then."
    "I wish there was something I could do," Kellea said for the second time in just as many minutes.
    "I don't suppose you'd allow me to access the Faullian network through your downlink?" Jason asked, holding his breath. It was a risk exposing his intentions in such a way, but he felt she deserved a chance to help him on her own terms before he took drastic and underhanded measures to get what he needed.
    "You know about the connection we have to the capital on the surface?" she asked with a frown. "That was protected information." Jason sighed inwardly. If she had any intention of allowing him access to the link she would have said so. Instead, she was more worried about internal security leaks on her end.
    "I'm not sure where I heard it," Jason said with a shrug. "I want to say it was part of the initial brief we had before we inserted Crusher into De'Moltia."
    She looked at him suspiciously before continuing. "The downlink is being carefully monitored on both ends," she finally said. "There's no way I could allow you access to it without analysts on this ship alerting Crisstof and the Faullian government detecting it on their side."
    "It was just a thought," Jason said. "It would have simplified things, but we have other means available to us."
    "I'll get you another drink," Kellea said, snatching the glass from his hand and walking to the small bar. Steeling his resolve, Jason pulled a small tab, not even the size of a pinhead, from under his left thumbnail and, while never taking his eyes off her, dropped it into her tea mug with a seemingly negligent toss. The tab instantly dissolved as it hit the hot liquid, not leaving so much as a bubble in its passing.
    "There is every possibility that Crusher has gone to ground if he witnessed our contact being killed," she said, handing Jason another strong whiskey-type drink. "It could just be a matter of time before he makes contact and you can figure out a new plan to extract him."
    "That is a possibility, but I'm still going to need some type of confirmation that he's still here on Faulli or still alive before I decide if we're going to stay or not," Jason said. He rose from his seat and walked over to the plush sofa that lined the wall facing the tall window, wanting to get Kellea away from the table and in a comfortable seated position as quickly as possible.
    As he'd hoped, she grabbed her steaming mug and walked over to join him on the couch. They sat in comfortable silence, each lost in their own thoughts. By the second sip of tea Jason could tell the drug was beginning to take effect. By