CHAPTER

        1

QUARK--TEMPORARILY BARLESS, unbusy, at loose ends--

walked a frenzied pattern around and around the de-

serted Promenade, trying not to notice the empty kiosks,

locked doors, and dimmed or missing welcome signs. He

felt his face flush; he knew he was a bright, pinkish

orange color that would doubtless elicit a double-sneer

and cutting remark from Liquidator Brunt, if they were

on speaking terms. Never before had the Ferengi bar-

tender debased himself so thoroughly... parading

around the Promenade wearing a sandwich-board adver-

tisement! I might as well be as naked as a female under

here, he thought with some bitterness, though he wore

his best suit in a futile effort to recapture a shred of

dignity. But of course, no one could see it past the

flashing lights and animated holoeharacters cavorting

across his chest and back. No, they were all too busy

drinking up and having a smoking time at the holomated

Quark's Place.

    Grim-faced, the Ferengi quick-walked around and

around, hoping to drum up the merest smidgen of

business. One customer! Is that too much to ask? One,

stupid freighter captain, a passing smuggler, even a hu-

man/He was aware that the cheery image of unclothed,

prancing nymphs and satyrs having a grand old time at

the bacchanalia on his sandwich board contrasted

sharply with the bitter, warning snarl on his face;

Quark's lip curled back from a set of teeth razor-

sharpened that morning in a frenzy of ablution. But he

couldn't stop himself from baring his naked fury. With

the general evacuation, Quark had not had one, single

customer in three days--well, just one: Morn, of course.

    Already hurting more than he would admit from being

cast off the loving accounts of the Ferengi Business

Alliance, now he had to admit that he was failing at the

one piece of identity he had left: Quark was a failure as a

businessman.

    By the Profits/Why not just apprentice myself to Rom

and make the humiliation complete? Or show up on Nog's

doorstep at the hu-man Academy and say "Good morn-

ing, Nephew--I'd like to enlist/"

    Instead Quark walked, not quite staring at the empty

shops, abandoned enterprise zones, lonely benches, and

somnambulant security guards. Constable Odo stood

near one of the benches, a spot from which he could see a

quarter of the Promenade, from Garak's clothier's--not

even Quark had patronized the Cardassian's shop lately;

he had no money even for a new suit!--all the way

around to Quark's Place, at whose flashing lights and

enticing holomation the Ferengi stubbornly refused to

look.

    "Still carrying around that ridiculous, obscene bill-

board?" growled the constable.

    "No, I died about three hours ago, Odo; this is my

ghost you're talking to."

    "I thought Ferengi went to the Divine Treasury when

they died. Weren't you greedy enough?"

    Quark stiflened and stopped, glaring at the tall, aus-

tere, and now thoroughly solid constable--a fancy term

for cop. "Greed is never enough, Odo. A true Ferengi

combines greed with pure corruption and a passion for

staying out of other people's business unless there's a

profit to be made. I'm pleased to note that you fail all

three tests of Ferengi character."

    Odo snorted, his "hnh!" indicating he had been bested

by the Ferengi, as usual. "Take off that ridiculous sign!"

he commanded, to no purpose, as usual.

    "Why should I? Is there a law against advertising a

perfectly legal, perfectly above-the-table business?"

    "You look utterly absurd. Who are you advertising to?

And you're contributing to the net ugliness of this

station--"

    "That's like contributing to the bad temper of a

Klingon. And who is being disturbed?"

    "I'm tired of that thing flashing in my eyes. Take it off!.

Consider that an order."

"You have no authority to give such an order!"

"Then consider it a... a favor." The constable rolled

the word around his mouth as though it had a disagree-

able flavor.

     "A favor?" demanded Quark, incredulous. "You want

the sign gone? Fine. How much is it worth to you?"

  "What?"

    "Everyone has his price... even dear, old Constable

Odo. How much is your sanity worth to you?"

    "I would think you could remove it out of simple

courtesy!"

    "Well, that's not the Ferengi way, is it? How do you

expect me to get to the Divine Treasury if I go around

doing favors for every Tom, Dick, and Odo?"

    "Quark, someday, I hope to see you thrown out an

airlock, drifting away like yesterday's garbage. You'll beg

me to rescue you, and you know what will happen?"

 "The alarm clock will go off, and you'll wake up."

 "Hnh!" Odo stalked away, hands clasped behind his

2                                                                3

back. Quark smiled grimly; he's as bored to death as 1

am./

    Ferengi and constable had a symbiosis that very nearly

allowed each to read the other's mind. Odo fretted,

Quark knew, because the dangers that menaced Deep

Space Nine were wholly beyond the constable's ability to

affect them. Odo understood all manner of internal

disruptions, from simple drunkenness and assault to

full-scale riots, from burglary to sex crimes--some races

that visited the Federation had not even the concept of

self-control--to homicide to religious discrimination;

Odo had gotten much experience dealing with that

particular crime now that Bajor was such a powerful

force on the station. Odo understood financial misman-

agement of all sorts, from thievery to fraud to high-end

smuggling operations, much to Quark's chagrin.

    But the constable knew nothing, absolutely nothing,

about war and invasion. He was as useless in defending

the station against an attack by his own people, the

Founders, as a hu-man would be to judge a Ferengi civil-

court action.

    Now that Odo was gone, Quark peeled the sandwich

board off and threw it to the ground, as he had been

dying to do until Odo started barking orders. Massaging

his aching shoulders, he gave the board a savage kick,

shorting out one quadrant of the holomation: now the

nymphs coupled with satyrs, headed toward Quark's,

and vanished into a mysterious, enticing black square.

That might even have been more effective at drawing a

crowd to Quark's Place... were there any crowd to

draw, that is.

    The billboard had been a last-ditch attempt by the

Ferengi to maintain his sanity. He had let go all his

employees. Why pay Dabo girls to spin the wheel for an

empty bar? Why pay busboys to clean tables that had not

been dirtied for days? Now Quark faced the prospect of

living on his replicatot rations, of all things! Like a hu-

man!

    And all it had taken to empty Deep Space Nine was a

single, nasty encounter with the Jem'Hadar on a planet

altogether too near the wormhole for the comfort of the

cowardly, sheeplike civilians living on the station. One

battle, and it wasn't even conclusive!

    But the mob, the "mobile class," had lived up to its

name by quickly booking passage on any and every ship

leaving the station for points closer to the central maw of

the mass of tentacles that was the Federation... as

though that would save them if the Founders really did

come through the wormhole again.

    "Miserable consumers!" shouted the Ferengi, sitting

on one of the many, many unoccupied benches, though

there was nobody in earshot. "How dare they just leave?

If they have no concern for their own career options,

can't they at least have some consideration for me, their

hardworking, profiteering bartender?" No one an-

swered.

    Quark stared at the flashing sign at his feet, felt the

eerie silence, even the pulse of the station reactors, many

levels down, generally not noticeable above the roar of

the mob. Maybe Rom was right. Maybe, in this misera-

ble, altruistic, hu-man Federation it made sense to have

a trade to fall back on, something other than business.

Quark's own, personal modification of the Sixth Rule of

Acquisition read "Never allow the hatred of family to

stand in the way of opportunity." After all, Quark didn't

live on Ferenginar anymore, did he?

    And never wouM again, echoed an unwanted voice in

his head, the voice of Brunt.

    Quark shook his head. It takes more than a little

adversity to hurl this Ferengi out of orbit. Still, Quark's

brother was pretty busy, even now: Master Chief Miles

Edward O'Brien had Rom hopping all over the station,

repairing every electronic combat device and sharpening

the station's teeth.

 Quark snorted, then jumped as he realized he sounded

just like Odo. Two coins in a purse, he thought bitterly. I

wonder what my brother--

    "... what my brother is doing now?" asked Rom.

Chief O'Brien stared incredulously back at his Ferengi

crewman; the chief was, more than usual, exasperated

and frustrated at the inept, clunky Cardassian circuit

design.

    "I should think you'd have more important things to

do than wonder about your crooked brother," he said.

    "Quark is not crooked! Well, uh, okay, maybe a little,

but his heart's in the right place." Rom couldn't quite

meet O'Brien's eye, the chief noted.

    "Your brother's heart is in his cash register, along

with his conscience and his loyalty. He couldn't care

less what happened to any of us unless it affected his

bottom line!"

    Rom nodded curtly. "Apology accepted," he said.

O'Brien rolled his eyes and returned to the photon

torpedo circuitry, which was failing left and right on

every test run. With war and the rumors of war coming

at Deep Space Nine from all sides, Captain Bejamin

Sisko had ordered a complete overhaul of every combat

system on the station, which meant everything else on

DS9 was going to hell in a handbasket, along with the

special retrofit on the Defiant's cloaking device that

Chief O'Brien had worked out in theory.

    Suddenly, O'Brien's comm badge beeped, echoing like

a screaming baby in the tight confines of the upper firing

chamber of pylon II. The chief jumped and dropped his

plasma infuser, and cursed like an Irish sailor.

    "Chief," said the voice of Major Kira Nerys, depart-

ment head of Weapons and Defenses, "something urgent

has come up. Drop everything andre"

    "I just did drop everything, Major!" barked O'Brien.

"Now I have to pick it up. Can't you wait until I finish

adjusting the--"

      "Now, O'Brien! This is an all-senior-hands briefing by

the captain. I think you'll want to hear this, anyway."

  "Hear what?"

    "This isn't a secured channel, Chief. Come on up to

Ops."

    O'Brien paused. A secured channel? Whatever had

just happened, it was so secret, O'Brien realized, that

Major Kira wouldn't even say it over the comm link for

fear Garak or some other spy might be eavesdropping.

"On my way, Major," he said, softly; he tapped his

comm badge to sever the connection. "Rom, how would

you like to finish realigning the firing chamber wave

guides?"

    "Would I!" breathed the Ferengi, overjoyed at the

prospect.

    "Well, don't have too much fun; this is supposed to be

work, you know." With a last, nervous glance at the

delicate guides, Chief O'Brien began the painful and

delicate operation of extracting himself from the cham-

ber, climbing over the Ferengi--whose small size proba-

bly gave him a job advantage over the bulky chief

anyway--and sliding down the pylon without slipping

and killing himself.

    Twelve minutes later, the turbolift popped up into

Ops, disgorging Chief O'Brien. A teenaged ensign (well,

he looked like a teenager to the chiefl) said, "In the

captain's office, Master Chief," pointing in case O'Brien

forgot the way up the ladderway.

    "Aye, sir," said O'Brien; then he saluted, just in case

the kid didn't catch the sarcasm the first time. The

ensign returned the salute without glancing away from

his scanner panel.

    Hustling up the ladderway, O'Brien entered through

the nasty, dilating, Cardassian security door to find the

entire senior staff, including Odo, staring at him, impa-

tient to start the meeting. "Um, sorry," mumbled

O'Brien, slithering into his seat. "I got--hung up."

    "Now that all of us have arrived," said Captain

Benjamin Sisko, "I will explain what prompted so much

drama." Sisko smiled, his cold, glittery smile that always

made O'Brien swallow. It was the we who are about to die

smile that they doubtless taught at the Academy: use this

expression, cadets, when you tell your troops you're about

to lead them on a suicide mission/

    Captain Sisko stood, his back to the tableful of officers

(and one chief), staring at the main viewer. The Starfleet

planet-logo popped up, followed by a series of security

tags, including Eyes Only. The hairy face of some

admiral O'Brien faintly remembered meeting once su-

perimposed itself over the logo, which faded behind

him.

    "Captain," said the recorded voice, "one of our deep-

cover humints relayed a very disturbing piece of intel to

FleetIntCom."

    "If I may interrupt," said Dr. Julian Bashir smoothly;

the image froze. "What race are the Humints? I've never

heard of them before."

    "Human-intelligence units," said the captain. "It's an

ancient term for actual spies planted inside the enemy

camp. Inside the Dominion, in this case. They probably

aren't actually human, but Admiral Montgommery is of

the old school."

    Chief O'Brien squirmed uncomfortably; a top-secret

message from the vice admiral in charge of Fleet Intelli-

gence about the Dominion could mean only one thing: so

it~ finally happening, thought the chief, wondering

where he could send Keiko and Molly, his wife and

daughter--if they would even agree to leave Bajor!

    Bashir slumped in his chair, probably chagrined at not

knowing an old Earth term for a spy. "Continue play-

back," said Sisko.

    "You have already seen the reports of the minor clash

near Charlie-Lima-202 and Delta-Lima-201, 'Carlos'

and 'Diana,' we're calling them, in the Gamma Quad-

rant. Well, the clash wasn't as minor or as random as we

initially believed. In addition to the two Star fleet ships

destroyed, the Parallax and the Delphine, there were

seven ships that joined the battle in progress...

possibly rebels from the Dominion sphere of influence.

And on at least one other ship, the T'Pau, there was an

infiltration. The Founder was detected when she bolted

before a routine blood-screening; unfortunately, she

escaped on a shuttle before the ships returned through

the wormhole."

    The department heads nodded; evidently, rumors had

already gotten out, though O'Brien hadn't heard them.

He had heard about the battle, of course; everyone had.

It had emptied the station! But O'Brien had not heard

about the infiltration of the Vulcan ship. That was a bad

blow, considering the security measures already in place.

Great, now we'll need to get even tighter/ Lieutenant

Commander Jadzia Dax smiled cheerfully... another

sign of bad things to come.

    The admiral continued: "We now believe, Benjamin,

that the attack was not a random contact between flanks,

but an attempt to keep the fleet away from a particular

sector of the Gamma Quadrant. Captain," Admiral

Mongommery leaned close to the screen, his face look-

ing tired and mechanical, "FleetIntCom is convinced

that a massive assault is imminent and focused in some

fashion on a sector near where the Carlos-Diana battle

occurred. We don't know why that sector is important or

what's going on there. We're worried it might be a new

Founder weapon, or perhaps an alliance or conference to

bring more parties into the war. But all border units are

hereby ordered to full combat alert status... and more

than likely, at some point not far in the future, Fleet

Intelligence is going to draft you and the Defiant as intel

operatives."

    Lieutenant Commander Worf did not react, but

O'Brien knew his friend well: the Klingon was exulting

on the inside with the joy of pending battle, especially a

dangerous mission behind enemy lines as a spy. Dax was

Dax, of course; she would go wherever there was action.

But Major Kira seemed curiously reluctant, less blood-

thirsty than even just a year before. I wonder if impend-

ing motherhood--even impending surrogate mother-

hood-- is permanently changing her personality?

    Julian looked pensive, arms folded across his slender

chest. Odo showed no change in his expression, of

course; it would have required more effort than he cared

to expend on such trivialities.

    The message continued, giving more specifics of other

tiny bits of "intel" Starfleet had managed to pick up,

most of it sounding ambiguous and useless to the chief.

But the admiral seemed convinced, and Captain Sisko

held his own grim, gray grin throughout. The recorded,

scrambled transmission ended with the usual formali-

ties, and the screen went blank.

    "Chief O'Brien," said the captain, "have you finished

modifying the cloaking systems on the Defiant?"

    O'Brien cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed. "No

sir; the system is still based on the Romulan model, and

there's no logic to it. It's a dog's breakfast ofand-or's and

Y-branches; there's no elegance or--" "How long?" snapped Worf.

    "Another week at best," admitted O'Brien. "Assum-

ing something else doesn't blow up in my face. I'd have

been done a week ago if the photons hadn't crashed.

Captain, should I switch back to the ship?"

    Sisko mulled over the question, then answered with

one of his own. "Is Rom up to the job on the photon

torpedoes? I won't leave the station defenseless, no

matter what the orders from FleetlntCom."

    "Well ..." O'Brien looked to Dax for help; she was

training the Ferengi in the scientific and engineering

theory involved. O'Brien had a hard enough time keep-

ing his temper while teaching Rom standard Starfleet

maintenance procedures! The Ferengi had spent too

much time around his brother. He always looked for the

quick and dirty shortcut, not thinking about the prob-

lems it might cause down the road.

    "He can do it, Benjamin," said Commander Dax.

"It'll take longer than if the chief does it, of course. And

there's no way he can do the cloaking retrofit," she

added.

    "Fine, Old Man," said Sisko, "it's against my better

judgment, but I suppose our best allocation of resources

is to move O'Brien back to the Defiant and let Rom

finish the photon-torpedo alignment. Worf..."

 "Aye, sir."

    "Put together a skeleton crew for the Defiant, in the

event we get the mission: volunteers only, with excellent

hand-to-hand, in case we run into Jem'Hadar."

    "Aye, sir!" The Klingon could not keep a snarl of

battlefield pleasure out of his voice.

    "People," concluded the captain, "we've known this

was coming for a long time, ever since we first ran into

the Founders. They will not be satisfied until the entire

Alpha Quadrant is under the control of the Dominion,

and we're all as dependent upon them as are the

Jem'Hadar.

    "I don't know whether we can survive. With the

Klingons and the Cardassians, together, we might have

had an excellent chance, but under the present circum-

stances?" Sisko shook his head, smiling again. I hate that

smile! thought Chief O'Brien.

    Sisko continued. "But this is not what we are going to

tell the troops. For their ears, the war is winnable. We

beat the Klingons; we beat the Borg. We can beat the

Founders. That's what we'll tell them, and that's what

we'll believe. And that is an order!" His smile changed to

one of genuine mirth, and the senior crew chuckled,

even O'Brien.

    "Now unless anyone has anything to add, this briefing

is--"

 Dax's viewer beeped, and she held up her hand; Sisko

paused, waiting to see what was so important that the

duty ensign would interrupt a high-level staff meeting to

signal the science officer.

    "Ship coming through the wormhole, Benjamin," she

said, "and it's broadcasting a Federation priority-one

distress call!" She stared at the screen for a second.

"Captain, there are two ships following the first, firing on

it--and they're Klingon!" She looked up at Sisko. "Ben-

jamin, if we don't get out there in the next five minutes,

they're going to destroy that ship!"

    "Worf, Dax, O'Brien, you're with me on the Defiant;

you too, doctor--we may need to rescue survivors. Kira,

red alert. You have the conn... and remember, phasers

only! We don't want to fry poor Rom."

    Worf slapped his comm badge; "Emergency crew

recall!" he commanded, summoning the Defiant on-duty

team from wherever they were and whatever they were

doing.

    Why would the Klingons try something here? thought

O'Brien. Well, they're in for quite a donnybrook if they

pick a fight in front of this station/

O

CHAPTER

        2

JADZIA DAX WAS momentarily confused with both the

captain of Deep Space Nine and the captain of the

Defiant on the bridge at the same time. Benjamin had

immediately turned over responsibility for the ship's

launch to Worf while he demanded a detailed briefing

from Dax on recent Klingon activity around the worm-

hole. At the same time, Worf was barking orders at her in

her capacity as helmsman and weapons officer!

    Meanwhile, the two Klingon ships fired three more

disruptor blasts. Two deflected off the shields of the

target ship, the last partially penetrated and drew blood

from the starboard engine pod.

    "Aye, Commander--I'm sorry, Captain?--engine

spin-up, seven-six-five-four. Yes, sir, five ships in the last

two weeks; can't say for sure they were Klingon, but they

were cloaked and they were in and out of the wormhole.

Release docking clamps, chief. Aye, Commander, reverse

one quarter...

 Captain Sisko stood and walked away from Dax,

reluctant to interrupt her while she performed the whip-

turn and got the Defiant cruising to attack speed headed

toward the wormhole, where the battle raged. Now one

of the birds-of-prey fired a torpedo of some sort, briefly

illuminating the smaller ship's shield structure to the

naked eye.

    A fourth blip appeared for a moment in the glare, but

Dax quickly classified it as most likely a sensor echo.

Something seemed strange, however. Could it be another

cloaked ship? Well, we'll soon see, she thought; it has to

decloak to shoot anything.

    "On screen," said Worf; he didn't say, but Dax knew

he meant the combat. They watched as two Klingon

birds-of-prey harried a smaller vessel of unknown de-

sign, a ship that scarcely would have attracted the

station's attention except for two points of interest: it

was squawking a Federation distress call, and it was

being cut to ribbons in their own backyard.

    Worf inhaled, but before he could ask, Dax responded,

"Four minutes, Commander." Another disruptor blast

rocked the presumed Federation ship, skewing it from its

path and sending it careening into the teeth of the

second bird-of-prey. "Captain," said Dax, "their shields

are holding remarkably well. We should be there in

plenty of time."

 "Let's hope so, Old Man."

    The lieutenant commander watched her oldest human

friend pace back and forth. His face was impassive, but

the Trill could read it like a tricorder, so long had she

known him. There were rumors of high-level, political

contact between Gowron and the Federation Council,

but nobody had given the word to the high muckety-

mucks of Starfleet, let alone a mere captain commanding

a space station in the quadrant boondocks. The Klingon-

Federation alliance was off; no, it was on again; no,

definitely off---absolutely, definitely, positively--well,

maybe not, but they weren't exactly sure.

    The captain, Dax understood, fretted that yet another

incident between the Defiant and Klingon warships

might have diplomatic repercussions far beyond the

problems of a Federation pleasure yacht or ore-hauler

that had stupidly poked a stick into a Klingon anthill.

But how could Benjamin Sisko possibly stand still for a

Federation ship being mauled within eyeball range of a

heavily armed Federation fortress?

    O'Brien spoke up. "No response to the hail from

the Klingons, Captain. I mean, Commander." Dax

smiled.

"They heard us?" asked Worf, touching all bases.

"Yes, sir. They're just giving us the cold shoulder."

Now Worf rose from his command chair. "Captain,

I insist you either give me full command of this mis-

sion and let me lock phasers or take command your-

self."

    "I'll take the conn, Mr. Worf," said Benjamin deci-

sively. He strode to the command chair as the Klingon

vacated to the XO's position. "Full power to the phaser

array, Old Man. Lock on both targets simultaneously but

don't fire yet. Mr. O'Brien, try one more time... tell

them to stop immediately or we'll blow them out of the

sky."

    "Can I quote you on that, sir?" asked O'Brien, but he

was already sending the message.

    "Two more shots, Benjamin," said Dax. "Their

shields are still at sixty-five percent."

    Sisko stood, staring at the forward viewer. "That

should hold until we can hose them down and separate

them."

    Suddenly, Dax saw an energy surge; her suspicions

were confirmed. "Captain, there's a third Klingon ship!"

The new ship, a small, lightly armed patrol vessel,

decloaked practically at the side of the Federation vessel.

"Their shields are powering up, but they don't have any

disruptors."

    "I've had as much of this as I'm going to take. Fire on

the birds-of-prey. Let's bloody their noses and see if that

catches their attention{"

    Abruptly, Worf leaped from his chair and raced to

Dax's console. "Commander, did you say the small ship

has no disruptors?"

    "Yes, sir. Firing now, Captain." She tapped the touch-

plate, still incongruously called a "trigger" even centur-

ies after the last mechanical lever dropped a hammer on

a firing pin. The twin bolts appeared instantaneously--

actually at just a hair under lightspeed, but close enough

to infinity across such a short distance--cutting through

the weaker side-shielding of both birds, crippling the

disruptor alignment module of one ship and slightly

damaging the aft environmental controls of the other.

Call it one hit and one near miss.

    "Readying photon torpedoes," announced Chief

O'Brien, in case the captain decided to finish them off.

    "Just shields?" demanded the Klingon in Dax's ear,

urgently.

    "Huh? Oh, yes Worf, just shields. Why, is there

something I should--"

    "They're modulating their shields{" shouted Worfi

"Captain, we must reverse course and put as much

distance as possible between us and the Federation

ship!"

    "Why must we do that, Mr. Worf? That ship needs our

help."

 "That ship is already dead, sir{"

    Hesitating only the briefest of moments, Sisko made

an instant decision to listen to his second in command.

"Full stop, reverse full impulse. Get us out of here, Old

Man." His voice seemed a bit sulky to Dax; Benjamin

was not happy about withdrawing when he seemed to

have the upper hand.

    The small, unarmed Klingon ship began to modulate

its shields, extending them. Suddenly, every sensor on

Dax's console shot off the scale, and she actually felt a

hard, electrical shock pass through her body.

    Both ships now drifted naked, the two shield systems

gone. "Hold tight," said Commander Worf.

"Benjamin, the Klingons are beaming something--"

She never finished the sentence. The forward viewer

flared white, giving the Defiant crew an instant of

spectacular rainbows as the viewscreen filters tried to

damp the electromagnetic energy by separating it into

component bandwidths. The computer finally gave it up

as a lost cause, and immediately substituted an instru-

ment readout in place of the visual.

    A moment later, Dax restored visual contact. The

Federation ship was a dark, twisted hulk of metal,

shredded beyond recognition as a starship except for the

telltale warp signature residue and other forms of radia-

tion associated with hyperluminous travel. The smaller

Klingon patrol boat was nowhere to be seen, not even

with a sensor sweep.

    "Faith," whispered O'Brien, eyes as wide as Dax's

must have been.

    "Dax," shouted an unexpected voice from the turbo-

lift, "scan for life signs!"

When did Bashir come up to the bridge? she wondered.

"The two birds-of-prey--where are they?" said Sisko.

The words broke the spell that had held the others

motionless.

    Dax quickly remodulated the scanners, swept the

entire system. She had totally lost track of them when

all the instruments maxed out. "Captain, they're head-

ing back toward the wormhole at full impulse. We

can't catch 'them before they're in the Gamma Quad-

rant."

    Sisko stared, silent a long moment. "Better let them

go, Dax. We have no idea what reception committee

might be waiting for us on the other side, and I think

we'd better discuss this one with the flags before going

anywhere."

    He sat at his command chair, looking heavy and tired.

He hates this part, thought his friend. "Take us to the--

the remains of the ship, Dax. We'd better make an

inspection, file a complete report. Bashir, Dax, pull some

EVA suits and meet me in Transporter One. Doctor,

bring your forensics case. Let's at least try to figure out

who they were."

    Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax laid in the rendez-

vous course and engaged, then she rose from her console

and shuffled toward the turbolift, feeling quite heavy

herself.

    Doctor Julian Bashir sealed up his pressure suit,

feeling the perfect fool, and stepped forward onto the

transporter pad. Listening to his own breath rasping in

and out his helmet stimulated his adrenal gland; his

heart raced, and his breathing grew ragged. By the time

POI Swenson pulled the transporter slides forward,

energizing the away team, Bashir's hands were shaking

and his knees felt weak, as if he couldn't support

himself.

    He didn't need to. There was, of course, no gravity on

the exploded wreck of a hull: no lights, no air, no

gravity--no life that Bashir could see. Materializing, he

could not stop his feet from twitching as his stomach

lurched, and he launched himself gracelessly across the

belly of what once had been the main deck. The others,

even the captain, had similar problems.

    The comm channel squawked loudly in Bashir's ear.

"Good idea to tether us together, Benjamin," said lovely

Jadzia Dax. The doctor quite agreed and said so.

    The away team comprised Captain Sisko, Lieutenant

Commanders Worf and Dax, and Lieutenant Bashir, but

it looked like a single, four-bodied, sixteen-limbed or-

ganism connected by thin, vascular cables. "Everyone

freeze, "ordered Sisko, straining against the pull of three

other bodies with their own momentum, their own

velocity.

    Singly, the captain reeled them in slowly; one tug was

all that was necessary, Bashir noted--he'd "known" it,

of course, but studying zero-G in books at the Academy

was different from actually experiencing it in a ghoulish

hulk of a once-was starshipT Even the two training

exercises he'd received were inadequate.

    As the captain pulled Bashir closer in turn, the doctor

tried to shake off the fantasy that he was a fly in a web

being drawn in by a hungry spider. "Everybody loosen

your tether reel," said Sisko. "Just move slowly and

don't exit the ship without my authorization."

    Suddenly, Bashir blinked. He'd just seen movement,

something about the walls. Staring at a particular bulk-

head, Bashir suddenly realized what he had seen: "Cap-

tain, the hull is contracting!"

    Sisko winced inside his nearly transparent helmet.

"Good eye, doctor. O'Brien, is this ship stable?"

    "Um..." The chief activated his tricorder, which

flashed silently in the vacuum, and he spun slowly in

place. "No sir; it's not stable. It could go at any second.

Maybe we'd better get out of here."

    "Set up a forceshield to reinforce the hull," ordered

the captain."

    "That'll give us a whole half an hour," muttered

O'Brien.

    "Then monitor it carefully, Chief. I don't like sur-

prises."

    While O'Brien set up the minishields, Bashir bounced

gently to the center of the black cavern, trailing his

gossamer tether; looking out--there was no up or

down--he saw stars through gaping holes in the skin of

the ship, holes with jagged edges pushed outward pre-

sumably by a terrible explosion. Ground-zero was not

yet determined; that was Worf's job. Bashir unslung his

medical tricorder, set the scan depth, and kicked the

deckplates to begin a slow pirouette, searching for

lifesigns the ship's scanners might have missed--

/9

though how anyone could still be alive on this frozen,

airless hulk is beyond me, he mentally added. As ex-

pected, the only lifesigns he detected were those of the

away team.

    Bashir began to grow dizzy; he was still breathing too

rapidly, hyperventilating, and the short, shallow breaths

were scrubbing his blood of carbon dioxide. Starting to

panic, he tried to stop his rotation, but he had drifted out

of contact with the deck. He closed his eyes, but that was

worse. Forcing himself to inhale slowly, taking long,

deep breaths and holding them, the doctor finally

calmed himself. His stomach continued to roll and

lurch, however... he really didn't like zero-G!

  "We're alone!" he reported.

    "Ouch! Doctor, there is no reason to shout. I can hear

you perfectly well over the corem link."

    "Sorry, sir," said Bashir, chagrined. "No further life

signs."

    Dax spoke up; Bashir heard tension in her voice, too,

and this made him feel better, though he didn't know

why. "Julian, try scanning for organic molecules."

    "Right, Jadzia." The task required recalibrating the

tricorder to a more sensitive scale, which of course

required closer proximity to what he was scanning.

"Captain," he said, cutting off his words too crisply,

"request permission tomto untether. I cannot conduct a

full DNA scan while tied up like a dog on a leash."

    Sisko was a long moment answering. "If you think it's

necessary, Doctor. I don't like it. Report every few

minutes, so I know you haven't drifted through a hole

and into empty space."

    Julian reached down, hesitating a moment; he gently

rubbed his fingertips together, then quickly discon-

nected before he could change his mind. Holding on to

the base of a chair, bolted to a bulkhead (or had it once

been a deck?), he stared around at a dozen rips and gaps

easily large enough to "fall" through. Even ifI did, the

20

Defiant wouMstill catch me, he told himself; his stomach

and knees refused to believe him.

    The hull lurched again. "Sorry, Captain," grumbled

Chief O'Brien. "This jury-rigged fairy box isn't going to

hold much longer."

    Pushing away the fear with thoughts of duty, Bashir

began a laborious scan across each flat surface for

organic molecules. He struck rich ore right away: nearly

every deck, overhead, and bulkhead was coated with a

fine spray of DNA, the gigantic, easily detected coding

molecule found in varying forms in every species of

animal or plant in the quadrant. "Good Lord," he

whispered, forgetting he was hot-miked. "Find something?" asked Sisko.

    "There was somebodymthere were several some-

bodies here all right, urn, I count six; but they were...

vaporized is the only way I can put it. They were blown

apart by a bomb, I would guess, so powerful that all

organic entities aboard this ship were taken apart, mole-

cule by molecule, and dis--" Bashir swallowed, feeling

nauseated at the thought, "and distributed in a fairly

even coating approximately a hundred and fifty ang-

stroms thick throughout the ship."

    The guttural voice of Commander Worf cut through

the soft conversation like the blare of a trumpet in the

middle of a string quartet. "Captain, I was afraid of this.

The Klingons have perfected a weapon they were only

testing when I was last on the homeworld." "A new weapon, Mr. Worf?."

    "To be more accurate, sir, a new weapon-delivery

system. I do not know how familiar you are with

Klingon battle tactics."

    "I'm reasonably familiar, Worf; I had a good instruc-

tor." Bashir could hear the smile in Sisko's voice; he

recalled that Curzon Dax, Jadzia's former host and a

mentor to the young Benjamin Sisko, had befriended

many old Klingon warriors.

"Then you know about the legendary battle of Fom

Kerdeth."

    "I think I recall," said the captain. "Perhaps you

should enlighten us anyway."

    "At Fom Kerdeth, Bardak Linron the traitor fought

the forces of Kahless to a standstill. Many dead were

recorded during those six days, and many songs have

been sung. But Kahless finally lost the battle when

Bardak sent his best general, Renarg, to negotiate terms

for separating the combatants. Renarg entered the tent

of Kahless's high command with an arrogant list of

demands, but his terms were a ruse, for he had strapped

high explosives all around his body, concealed beneath

his armor and clothing. He detonated the munitions,

sacrificing himself to kill Kahless's entire general staff. It

is only by a miracle that the Emperor himself survived;

he had stepped out to... to relieve himself from the

night's drinking."

    Bashir waited; evidently Worf wanted some prodding,

which Dax supplied. "A charming story. How does it

relate, Worf?"

    "We have long theorized that any ship, of any size, can

be destroyed by transporting a bomb directly to the

engineering deck next to the antimatter containment

field, or to the bridge if you want to preserve the ship as a

trophy. The idea is to detonate a bomb aboard your own

ship, transporting it just as the explosion initiates, so

there is no time for the target to transport it into space or

back aboard your own ship."

    "You can't transport a bomb or anything else through

shields, Worf," said Sisko.

    "That has always been the difficult point," agreed the

Klingon. "The High Council spent years secretly funding

Project Renarg, trying to develop a method for momen-

tarily interrupting a target ship's shield. Two years ago, I

took the initiative to quickly read through a classified

abstract of the current theory: the researchers believe

that if you pilot a ship without a shield up to the target,

22

then activate the shield set to a frequency whose wave

crests and troughs are the exact mirror image of the

target's shield, it will cancel out both shields."

    "Only for a moment!" exclaimed Dax. "Only until the

target realizes what has happened and remodulates its

shields. A second or two, no more."

    "A second or two is all you would need, Commander."

No one spoke for a moment, then Worf continued. "I

have found the center of the explosion, and it is not at a

location where it could have occurred by accident or in

the heat of battle. There is no evidence of concealment;

the explosive device seems to have materialized exactly

where it exploded."

 "Project Renarg," mused Bashit.

    "Yes, doctor. I believe the project has been successful.

The Klingons now have the capacity to destroy any ship

in the Federation fleet."

0

CHAPTER

        3

"CHARMING," SAID DAX. The Old Man doesn't sound

particularly charmed, thought Captain Sisko.

    "Mr. Worf, this raises an interesting question," he

said; "assuming your analysis is correct, why would the

Klingons tip their hand by using their secret weapon

right here, within smelling distance of a Starfleet star-

base?"

    Worf sounded almost apologetic--an odd tone of

voice for a Klingon warrior! "That is the part I cannot

fathom, Captain. I can think of no strategic advantage to

letting us know of their new capacity."

    Sisko smiled, noting the faint emphasis Worf placed

on the words "us" and "their"; making sure I know

which side he~ on, thought the captain. Worf made a

point of doing it every few days, as if concerned that

fellow members of Starfleet might start to grow suspi-

cious of the only Klingon member of the service, given

the circumstances.

      "They would 'let us know' by blowing up a Galaxy-

class starship with a patrol boat," Dax chimed in.

 "Unless..." came a hesitant voice.

 "Yes, doctor?" encouraged Sisko.

    "Unless whatever they had to destroy was more dan-

gerous than allowing knowledge of their success to leak

out."

    Sisko grunted assent. It was the only likely explana-

tion. "So what could have been so valuable aboard this

small, private yacht? What did they want so badly to

destroy? Spread out, everybody. Untether and search

this entire ship--carefully. I want to know what skele-

tons are buried here."

    Heeding his own advice, the captain released the

trigger on his cable reel, and the cable silently rolled tight

through the airless ship onto Dax's reel. Turning, Cap-

tain Sisko played his helmet lamp around the ruined

chamber. There was virtually nothing recognizable left.

"I suggest we move to the farthest ends of the ship, as far

away from ground-zero as we can. We won't find any-

thing intact anywhere else. And people: if O'Brien

shouts, be prepared for an emergency beam-out. As he

said, those forceshields will not last forever."

    Sisko himself moved aft--at least, I think it's aft, he

corrected--until he began to see the skeletons of corri-

dors and shards of doors; then he searched room to

room, looking for clues amid the destruction.

    Movement, flicker; Sisko's heart lurched, and his hand

jumped of its own accord to curl greedily around the

phaser. He froze, drifting slowly in the zero-G corridor,

time frozen. After a moment, he took his hand away

from the weapon, feeling a thin layer of ice crack around

his elbow joints, condensation perhaps from a gruesome

"humidity" of fine blood droplets not yet condensed

against the metal surfaces. He reached to a bulkhead and

tugged himself along the corridor again.

 The movement was his own shadow, thrown into

relief by the floodlights of the Defiant reaching through

the torn skin of the wayfaring corpse. Sisko's shadow

danced on every surface, surprisingly three-dimensional,

as he moved past more holes blown through the hull.

    Whenever the captain came across a shadowy or

buried corner, he pulled away whatever debris concealed

the space, looking and hoping. A thick table or titanium

hatch might have shielded a body or log-clip from the

blast--something to prise the secret from the silent

ship's skeleton! His breathing became more ragged as he

exerted himself, sweating like a horse. More times than

he could count, the captain reached up and tried to wipe

his face, only to bump his hand into the unfamiliar

helmet.

    Farther along the corridor, the force of the internal

explosion (like swallowing a phaser-grenade) had twisted

the ship's orientation; Sisko "swam" through a vaguely

helical corridor, as if he were an RNA messenger mole-

cule surfing the monstrous DNA helix for the protein

code that would whisper what happened.

    At last, nearly as far aft as he could get before the

ribbons of ship became so disjointed he could no longer

unambiguously call it inside or out, Benjamin Sisko

found a cabin space. It was still just barely recognizable

for what it once had been: the infirmary. Here, so far

from the focus, the force of explosion had not obliterated

all traces from the room. Instead, the room was com-

pressed fore to aft, contracted into a space many times

smaller than it once occupied, but still recognizable.

And, amid the rubble, the shatter of glassware, the

ubiquitous spray of bio-residue, to be polite about it,

were the remains of some model of personal log and

recording device.

    The box was nearly crushed beyond recognition by the

compressive force, but still visible was a company logo

glued to the side of the machine: Levanian Biomedical

Survey Pangalactic Consortium, it read in Levanese, as

near as Sisko could tell; he was not an expert in the

Levanian language. But there was one other symbol on

the box that caught Sisko's eye: the stylized red cross that

still, after hundreds of years, signified something medi-

cal on most planets in the Federation.

    Sisko stared for a moment, breathing twice with a

catch in his throat; then he touched the helmet transmit

switch with his chin and spoke into the microphone

inside his light, clear helmet. "Bashir, come aft, home on

my signal. I've found... something."

    "On my way, sir!" The relief in the doctor's voice was

palpable. Julian Bashir was unsettled by a dead ship that

would not yield its dead.

    Within ten minutes, the captain was joined not by

Bashir alone, but the entire away team except for

O'Brien, who still tended the force shield. None had

found anything worthwhile, so they all responded to the

promise of something, anything. "Doctor," asked the

captain, taking Bashir's arm and launching him toward

the find, "what is that piece of equipment?"

    With difficulty, Bashir maneuvered himself upside-

down with respect to the captain's orientation, not that

it made any difference in zero-G. The doctor pulled his

face close to the remains of the electronic device, study-

ing it carefully for several minutes before responding.

"Sir," he said at last, "as near as I can make out, I should

think it's a--it once was a medical log. Of course, I'm

not as familiar with this model as with the modern

Starfleet version."

    Sisko couldn't help licking his lips. "That is what I

thought, Doctor. Julian, if Chief O'Brien can salvage

that medical log, would you be able to deduce where the

ship was and what it was doing to incur such wrath

among the Klingons?"

    Bashir rotated, then seemed disconcerted when he

realized he and Captain Sisko were inverted with respect

to each other. "I... well, that is, I really cannot say,

Captain. The medical officer shouM input the stardate

before every entry, and we should be able to extract the

approximate location. But sir, this isn't a Starfleet ship,

and I cannot guarantee his accuracy or diligence. Or her

diligence, whatever he or she was."

    "Do you generally describe the station's current mis-

sion in your own logs, Doctor?"

    Bashir managed to blush and preen simultaneously;

quite a feat while floating on his head! thought Sisko.

"Well, of course, my own log entries are hardly typical.

I'm a very thorough doctor. I don't know about

these... whatever they are."

    "Levanians," supplied Sisko. "Dax, see if we can

rescue the remains without losing any circuitry or break-

ing it any further than it already is."

    It took the station's science officer more than ten

minutes to gently detach the box from the bulkhead into

which it had been thrown. The rest of the team tethered

around the room in various orientations and fidgeted,

forcibly prevented from "helping" the Trill by stern

command of the commanding officer. Such ham-fisted

help from, say, Worf was more likely to pulverize the

fragile, remaining bits of electronics than actually to

assist Jadzia Dax.

    Worf remained at alert, outside the corpse of the

starship, with the away team inside. Julian Bashir gave

advice to Dax, as if his specialized knowledge of medi-

cine automatically extended to all electronic devices

ever used by doctors. The captain hovered, literally,

nearby, trying to keep the doctor occupied so he

wouldn't bother the Old Man-young woman.

    Finally, Dax loosened the last contact point that had

fused metal-to-metal. She gently teased away the entire

unit with a single, sharp tug, then pulled her hands

away. The data-pack of the medical log "rose" from

the mess of machinery and drifted in zero-G across

the room. It barely rotated on its axis... Jadzia Dax

had quite a delicate touch, far more so than Curzon

had!

    She captured it in a shield-containment module, what

used to be called a magnetic bottle in the more colorful

jargon of bygone centuries, recalled the captain with a

flicker of a smile.

    "Activating a zero-G containment field," Dax said,

touching the appropriate buttons. "This thing is about

ready to fall apart, and the Defiant's gravity field might

just do it."

    At that moment, the urgent voice of the engineering

chief cut through the chatter in Sisko's command comm

circuit. "We're losing it--get us out of here, Captain!"

    Sisko chinned his comm switch: "Away team to Defi-

ant: emergency beam-out! Four to beam back, plus a

memory-pack in a containment field that should be

beamed directly to engineering."

    As he materialized, Captain Sisko saw the hull col-

lapse under the tidal stresses of the distant Bajoran sun

and the ship's own mass. As they materialized on the

transporter pad, O'Brien was looking at his timer:

"thirty-eight minutes, twenty seconds. I'd say we got our

money's worth, Captain."

    Chief Miles O'Brien took custody of the medical log,

but one look persuaded him to leave it alone until he had

it all the way back on the station. As well-equipped as the

Defiant was, the job was too delicate to be conducted

remotely.

    The chief would have preferred to work alone; failing

that, he would have rather worked with anybody than

Doctor Bashir. Although O'Brien had become fairly

chummy with the doctor lately--playing darts,

kayaking--Bashir still tended to ask a fairy-mound of

annoying questions, which O'Brien was obliged to an-

swer politely, since Doctor Julian Bashir was a commis-

sioned Starfleet officer while O'Brien was only an

engineering master chiefi

 Bashir leaned forward, peering over the chief's shoul-

der; O'Brien felt the doctor's breath on his ear and

almost cringed away before catching himselfi "Julian, if

you don't mind?"

    "Eh? Oh, terribly sorry, Chiefi I was just trying to see

what you're doing."

    "What I'm doing is scanning the edge of the spool-

pack to find sections with the property parity; that's the

only spot we're likely to decipher."

 "Ah. Yes. Of course." Bashir nodded vigorously.

 "You don't have a clue what I just said, do you?"

 "Certainly I do. Well, no I don't; not really."

    Gently pushing the doctor back into his chair, O'Brien

explained the engineering theory behind the recording

and how it might have survived the Klingon bomb. The

biggest danger was not the actual force of the explosion,

since the log was shielded by a metal desk. Most of the

damage would have been done by the intense pulse of

electromagnetic energy that would accompany any deto-

nation of that size: it was worse than running through a

data-clip library with a huge electromagnet tucked under

one arm!

    On the first run-through, O'Brien found nothing but

snow on the visual channel and white noise on the audio,

with just a few fluctuations here and there: but those

fluctuations actually contained more information than

the human ear could detect. In the second play-through,

after digital enhancement, O'Brien turned the volume all

the way up. He and the good doctor listened in mounting

nervous fascination to a loud hiss masking the eerie

echoes of a distant warning: the words recorded by the

female doctor of the Levanian Consortium sounded

urgent. The tension in the woman's voice was evident,

even though the words were so far unintelligible.

     A ghost from beyond the grave, thought O'Brien, shiv-

 ering, thinking of the Banshee of the Scots; sheg come to

 warn us, if we can heed her words. But first they had to

 understand her words... and that required more deli-

cate digital construction than the computer could do by

itself. It required the full attention of Miles Edward

O'Brien.

    The chief caught himself working feverishly, as if

everyone's life depended on hearing the Levanian doc-

tor's last warning. Well, maybe it did; until they knew

what the warning was, they had to treat it as extremely

serious, after all, the Klingons had been willing to kill,

even to reveal the existence of their newest weapon, in

order to silence her. It was up to O'Brien to give her a

voice again.

    He clipped individual word fragments, compared

them to intact words elsewhere, and made shrewd

guesses where insufficient information stumped the com-

puter. The trouble with computers was that they were so

literal. It still took a human to make the intellectual

leaps of faith necessary to reconstruct words obliterated

by an electromagnetic pulse, to drag the warning back

from the Other Side.

    Finally, after nearly nine straight hours of "recon-

structive surgery,"--during which Doctor Bashir re-

mained every bit as alert and concentrated as did the

chief, impressing O'Brien more than he would admit--

they were ready for another playback. Gingerly, the chief

said "computer, play tracks four through six." No star-

date was intelligible from the tapes. They were identified

only by the physical track on the bubble-recording

medium.

    There were seven sentence fragments, all that re-

mained of the life and death of the Levanian doctor, all

that remained of her urgent warning. The annoying hiss

remained. O'Brien was reluctant to eliminate it, since it

might contain information that so far had eluded him.

But he had the computer mostly suppress it for the

playback. Each batch of now-intelligible words was sepa-

rated from the others by many minutes of visual snow

and audio steam. Still, O'Brien and Bashir listened

intently, even during the long gaps:

31

SURVEY NEARLY CONCLUDED . . .

APPROACHING GAMMA GAMMA KILO NINER SEVEN FOUR

TO CONDUCT . . .

FOUND THEM~ NEVER KNEW THE ]EM . . .

--DISRUPTED! THE JEM'HADAR HAVE FLANKED...

BESIDE THE KLINGONS; WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL

THEY'RE . . .

--WORKING TOGETHER] THIS INTELLIGENCE IS SO CRITI-

CAL, WE MUST BREAK AWAY IMMEDIATELY TO REPORT IT

TO...

--'HADAR TRAINING' WITH THE KLINGONS ON GAMMA!

    O'Brien swallowed hard; he was a man who remem-

bered his history. The Federation had had many con-

flicts with the Klingon Empire, each time Starfleet

barely winning against their more aggressive and vi-

cious opponents for one major reason: the Klingons

were impetuous and tended to attack before they

were fully ready. They didn't wait for a workable

strategy; they never quite had the technology to match

Starfleet.

    But things were different this time, weren't they? In

the past, Starfleet always held the technological and

strategic edge. But the war between the Federation and

the Founderswfought mainly by the latter's slave-

warriors, the Jem'Hadar--was just the reverse: it was

the Jern'Hadar who enjoyed a decisive technological and

strategic advantage, in addition to the Founders' ability

to shapeshift. In fact, the Dominion was so far held in

check only by the Founders' evident reluctance to attack

outside the Gamma Quadrant.

    "All they've ever done is infiltrate, manipulate," said

O'Brien aloud. He didn't need to clarify whom he was

talking about. Dr. Bashir understood.

    "The Gowron incident," said Julian. "They've never

attacked us directly. Maybe their power is stronger

inside the Gamma Quadrant than outside?"

    "Not anymore," said the chief, feeling his stomach

start to hurt. "Not if they've allied with the Klingons.

With Jem'Hadar technology and the Klingon presence

throughout the Alpha Quadrant, the Founders can proj-

ect their force anywhere in the bloody galaxy!"

    Chief O'Brien and Doctor Bashir looked at each other

with the same understanding: the few scraps of data left

in the Levanian medical log indicated the ship had

stumbled onto a secret training base at Gamma GK-974,

an unnamed planetary system deep and cold in the cold

heart of the Gamma Quadrant, a base where Klingons

and Jem'Hadar trained together.

    O'Brien swallowed; a stone weight fell from his throat

into his stomach. "Doctor, are you thinking the same

thing I'm thinking?"

    "I think so," said Bashir, nervously glancing back over

his shoulder to make sure no Klingons or Jem'Hadar

were-sneaking up on them; it was a nervous gesture, and

O'Brien understood it completely. "Can we make it any

clearer, Chief?."

    O'Brien shook his head. "See these batch of electro-

magnetic spikes? This first one is where the pulse itself

washed across the log. These fainter lines in both direc-

tions are the electromagnetic echoes off the metal bulk-

heads and equipment in the infirmary. There's a total of

eleven refraction echos, plus the original: we're damned

lucky to have recovered any of the log at all."

    "Yes, I thought as much," said Bashir, sighing. "I was

just clutching at straws. Do we have enough to take to the

captain?"

    O'Brien turned back to the log, again replaying the

fugitive scraps of intelligence: the Jem'Hadar--beside

the Klingonswworking together. "We have enough that

we don't dare not take it to the captain. There's some-

33

thing else here, something I'm not one hundred percent

sure about: I'd swear that this log was erased before the

Klingons blew up the ship."

  "Before? What are you saying?"

    "I'm saying, Julian, that somebody aboard the Levan-

ian ship deliberately erased the medical log, or tried to;

looks like he ran a powerful electromagnetic field over it,

but he missed a few spots. That's why there's so little left.

Believe it or not, the bomb itself would have left more

fragments, and each fragment would be longer."

    Julian Bashir had nothing to say; it was a puzzling and

sobering development. Twelve minutes later, O'Brien

made his presentation to all assembled: the captain,

Major Kira, Lieutenant Commander Dax--and of

course Worf, the fugitive Klingon, and Constable Odo,

the renegade, now-"solid" Founder. Worf and Odo both

stiflened visibly; they didn't quite move away from each

other, but O'Brien was sure it took inhuman control for

them to stand their ground. Worf flushed darker than his

usual Klingon complexion, and Odo squeezed his fists so

tightly, his knuckles actually cracked--a feat that would

have been impossible back when he was still a shape-

shifter.

    Major Kira was first to speak. The Bajoran ex-

resistance fighter (and very pregnant birth-mother of

O'Brien's second child) sounded an aggressive note to

open the grim meeting. "I'm inclined to believe this log,

Captain," she said, studiously avoiding Worf's frosty

glare. "It definitely smells like a Klingon tactic. Uh, no

offense, Worf."

    "I choose not to take offense," rumbled the Klingon,

in a tone of voice that meant he took very great offense

indeed. Lieutenant Commander Dax shivered when she

heard it. "But I do not believe the report of

Klingon-Jem'Hadar alliance. That would be dishonor-

able," concluded Worfi

    You're dancing on very thin ice, Major, thought

O'Brien. Of course, he didn't say such a thing out loud.

34

    "If you want my opinion," argued Kira, not backing

down, "attacking Deep Space Nine was pretty dishonor-

able, too."

    Worf had no response, but Dax took up the cause.

"The Klingons I've fought with were all honorable

warriors," she said, folding her arms and crossing her

legs. "Well, at least since the Cult of Kahless arose a few

decades ago. I can't believe that even Gowron would ally

with the Founders. That's too much to swallow, espe-

cially after what they almost did to him!"

    A pensive Captain Sisko frowned. "I don't like the fact

that someone aboard the ship tried to erase the log. Were

they trying to cover up what they saw? Did they hope the

Klingons would allow them to live if they removed all

evidence of the alliance--assuming for the moment that

there really was an alliance?"

    O'Brien shrugged. The other possibility was that one

of the Levanians was a traitor to the Federation, or

perhaps they were carrying a non-Federation passenger?

It was another disturbing aspect of the medical log, but

not their primary problem.

    Odo shook his head sadly. Have we been looking at

him differently since we found the Founders? wondered

the chiefi O'Brien felt his face heat slightly. Even he had

been a little more guarded around Odo since the troubles

started; he'd looked at the constable differently, held

back a little more information than he should have. It

hard, staring at that face, knowing it~ one of their faces.

  "There is only one minor point I should make about

  that tape," said Constable Odo. "Whatever the Klingons

  may think, my people do not even have the concept of

  alliances and treaties: they recognize only masters and

  slaves. If you're not the master, you're the slave." He

  paused, but no one spoke, especially not Worfi "When I

  was briefly in the memory pool on my homeworld,"

  continued Odo, "I received many impressions. One that

  came through very clear was the Founders' fascination

  with the Klingon Empire: they see the Klingons as the

Alpha Quadrant version of the Jem'Hadar, the best

material to be... converted into servants of the Do-

minion. I'm sorry, Commander," he added with unex-

pected tenderness to Worfi

    "You're saying the Founders will betray the Kling-

ons?" asked Major Kira.

    "Let's not be too hasty," said Sisko, relaxing the

tension. "We don't even know there is an alliance yet."

    "I mean, Major, that the Founders see the Klingons

only as the means to an end," continued Odo. "Like

every other race in all four quadrants, to the Founders

the Klingons are tools, used until they're dull, then cast

aside."

    "I still don't buy it," griped Lieutenant Commander

Dax.

    "Commander," said Chief O'Brien, the first words he

had spoken since presenting the medical log data,

"might you be, ah, overly influenced by the memories of

Curzon? It's--it's a different era now. If'those days of

Klingon glory and honor were still here, then Worf

would be honored by his people, not discommodated."

The chief had been trying to cheer up Worf, but it

seemed to have the opposite effect; the Klingon glowered

at the deck, and O'Brien kicked himself for not phrasing

it better.

    Captain Sisko said nothing, but O'Brien saw his jaw

muscles bulge as he clenched his teeth. Maybe he2 still

brooding about the log being erased, the chief thought.

Then Sisko seemed to push his personal misgivings

aside: an immediate decision was required. "Old Man,"

he said at last, "any chance Gamma GK-974 is the base

for the assault that FleetlntCom was looking for?"

    Dax stood and studied the map of the relevant sectors

of the Gamma Quadrant displayed on the viewscreen.

"If it's true--and that's a big ifmthen it would be pretty

well suited for a staging area to order the invasion.

Gamma-Kilo isn't all that close to either Carlos or Diana

sectors, but it's only a couple of days at warp nine. Other

36

than that, it looks..." She trailed off, but everyone

knew what she meant, including O'Brien.

    "It looks pretty deadly," concluded the captain, not

pleased with the confirmation. "Mr. Worf, you haven't

said much. What do you think about the possibility of

alliance between Gowron and the Founders.9"

    IfO'Brien's old Klingon friend had looked stiff before,

he positively fossilized now. "Sir, I cannot imagine that

any honorable Klingon would sign a secret treaty with

the Dominion." Worf paused; no one interrupted the

silence... the Klingon had not finished. "But Gowron

has acted without honor before. He betrayed the Cardas-

sians. And as Major Kira reminds me," now it was

Kira's turn to stare down at her feet, O'Brien noticed,

"he treacherously attacked Deep Space Nine, his Federa-

tion allies, without warning."

    Worf stared at the map, at the transcript of the log,

anywhere but at Captain Sisko. "Sir, I cannot entirely

rule out the possibility," he grudgingly allowed.

    The captain pressed. "So this message could be accu-

rate: there could be an alliance between the Klingons

and the Founders."

 "It could be accurate."

    "And there might actually be a secret base at GK-974

where Klingon warriors are training side by side with

Jem'Hadar shock troops." "It could be so."

    The chief swallowed; he knew what would have to be

done. Silence fell across Ops like a heavy, woolen shroud

over a corpse. Captain Sisko turned to O'Brien: "Prepare

a summary message to Fleet Intelligence, Chief. Worf,

begin working up the Defiant crew for a dangerous run. I

suspect we are about to be drafted."

    "Aye, sir," said the engineer and the security officer

simultaneously.

    "Sir," said Odo swiftly, "I would like to ac-

company-"

 "Of course you will," said Sisko without hesitation.

CHAPTER

       4

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER DAX was unsurprised when the

order came back from Starfleet Intelligence less than

three hours after the chief sent the priority message, even

though it was probably a fleet record for making a

decision of this magnitude. But she was nonplussed

when Benjamin called her into his office and said, "Old

Man, I'm going to have to leave Commander Worf

behind."

 "You're joking."

    "I need an experienced battlefield commander in

charge of the station. There are still Klingons about, and

the Founders might still come through the wormhole."

  "But what about Major--"

    Benjamin leaned close and whispered, as if the major

might hear them even through the Cardassian-steel bulk-

head: "Major Kira, in case you haven't noticed, is nearly

ready to have a baby. I cannot exactly see her squeezing

through the corridors with a phaser in each hand."

38

    "Can you see her manning the phasers on the De-

fiant?"

    "I sincerely hope it will not come to that, Old Man,"

Sisko winked. "This is an intelligence-gathering mission,

not special-ops. We'll stay cloaked, keep our mouths

shut, and our eyes open."

    Dax nodded. "Yes, I can see where that would be hard

enough on Kira."

    "I need Worf here, not because he can fight, but

because if he's here, he probably won't have to fight. Not

many commanders would attack an angry Ktingon with

several thousand photon torpedoes in his pocket, at least

not without a brigade. Worf stays."

    Dax swallowed. Sisko had a point, but Worf wasn't

going to like it. She was just as glad she wouldn't

be present when her old friend issued this particular

order.

    Worffs reaction was more sedate than Jadzia Dax

expected, possibly due to the growing closeness between

them. "No! This is not acceptable!" he growled.

 "Worf, those are the captain's direct orders!"

    "I will not be left behind like a--like a Ferengi! They

are my people, my problem, my mission!" The Klingon

clenched his teeth and began to look around, presum-

ably for something to throw. So much for his taking it

well.

    Dax's first impulse was to bolt, get away from the

raging bull, but she had long since learned that Worfs

Klingon rages burned themselves out quickly... even

when he had as much cause as for this one.

    "Commander Worf, yltamchoH!" The Klingon

blinked in surprise, freezing in mid-rant. "Do you still

have any honor left... or are you a verengan

Ha'DlbaH?"

    Worf said nothing. He stared at Dax. She swallowed,

facing him down. By Klingon law, Jadzia Dax had just

challenged Worf to combat... potentially to the death.

Am I his comrade in arms now? she wondered, or just his

woman? If the latter, she might be dead before his

Starfleet training could reassert itselfi Klingon women

did not lightly insult the honor of their men.

    Worf took a deep breath, then another, and Dax knew

she was safe. "I apologize for my outburst, Jadzia; I have

felt the rage since I first heard about the alliance."

    "Possible alliance," she corrected. "That's what we're

going to find out, Worf." She half closed her eyes, feeling

her own sense of shame at the honor of her old friends

impugned. "My gut still tells me it's not true, but we

have no choice: if the Klingons really are training at a

Jem'Hadar camp, it changes everything. It would

mean--"

    "It would mean having to rewrite the entire order of

battle," said Odo, having joined them so quietly that

Dax jumped at the sound.

    "Worf," she added, "Benjamin needs you here.

Who's going to defend the station if Gowron attacks

again... Kira? Before or after she gives birth? Julian?

Quark?"

    Worf sucked in a third deep breath and let it out in a

snort, curling his lip in disgust. "You are right. It is the

proper course of action for the captain to take. I will

change the voice-codes and command authority at

once." He stomped off toward the turbolift, pylon IV,

the Defiant.

    Constable Odo stared at the wreckage of the bench. "I

suppose the maintenance crew isn't terribly busy these

days anyway," he sighed.

    Not four hours later, Dax expertly tapped the impulse

thrusters to nudge the Defiant away from the pylon,

while her captain brooded over the transcript of the

recovered medical log.

    "Three contacts in this sector," said Kira, staring at

her sensor readout. "Standard lights, no hostile indica-

tors, no fire-control sensors... looks like a Lonatian

freighter and two Federation science surveys where

they're supposed to be, according to SigInt."

    Sisko didn't respond, but he didn't need to; the major

was merely stating for the log that there was no hostile

activity in the vicinity of the wormhole.

    "That freighter is a smuggler who sometimes works

with Quark, our resident one-Ferengi crime wave," mut-

tered Odo, not so much because it was important, Dax

realized, but merely to have something to say. Not even

Odo was immune from nervousness--though Benjamin

still sat silent as a statue.

    The Defiant seemed eerily empty with only the four of

them and two ensigns aboard, Janine Wheeler and

Taryak Amar. Dax missed seeing Chief O'Brien scurry-

ing about, adjusting controls that were already reading

perfectly, and she even missed feeling the longing gaze of

Julian on her neck speckles whenever he thought her

back was turned. Most of all, she missed the comforting

bulk of Commander Worf, his confident snarl, the savage

way he barked orders at the cringing junior ot~cers. But

Worf was needed on the station, and there was no rea-

son to risk the lives of the engineering senior-chief and

the station doctor:. as Benjamin said, this was an

intelligence-gathering mission... four days of tedium

at peak sustainable warp, cloaked; a few days of observa-

tion at Gamma GK-974 to quash the ugly rumor--or

confirm the even more ugly truth--and then another

four-day high-speed run back through the wormhole and

into DS9 again to transmit the intel, for good or ill.

    Well, here goes nothing... I hope! On her own initia-

tive, the Trill turned the ship and headed toward the

electromagnetic and gravitational singularity that was

normally invisible to the naked eye--except when a ship

passed throughrebut was lit up like a supernova in the

high-end of the spectrum from ultraviolet to X-ray.

"Shifting to warp two," she said. "Entering the worm-

hole now."

    The multicolored "tunnel-wall" effect encased the

ship like a cocoon, and Dax clenched her teeth: they were

flying invisible, thus unshielded, into the belly of the

beast... and Jadzia Dax feared what she might find

inside.

    Master Chief Petty Officer Miles Edward O'Brien

prowled around inside his "pit," the engineering well

from which he could, in a pinch, control virtually every

aspect of the station from weapons to environment to

rotation to communications--even, though few were

aware of it, to station movement, as if Deep Space Nine

were a gigantic, albeit slow, starship. Worf eschewed the

captain's office, preferring to command from Kira's

weapon station, for typically Klingon reasons, O'Brien

supposed.

    "Chief O'Brien," snarled Worf, becoming formal in

his agony, "will you please cease whistling? It is bad

enough I was left behind two days ago. I do not wish to

endure audio torture as well."

    The chief stopped, embarrassed; he hadn't realized he

was whistling so loudly. With a guilty start, O'Brien

realized he was actually happy that he wasn't on the

mission--but he was terrified for Kira, and for his and

Keiko's second child, artificially implanted in Major

Kira after Keiko was injured. Happy, frightened, and

guilty, his only outlet had been to sing, and the only song

he could think of would have been more appropriate in

Quark's, or in a Dublin pub, than in Ops.

    Again, O'Brien felt disturbingly as if someone were

staring at the back of his head. He couldn't resist the

temptation to turn around and look behind him; of

course, he saw only the wall of the well, and further back,

the doorless turbolift leading down into the rest of the

station. "Worf, don't you find this rather creepy?" He

gestured around. "This, I mean--the whole station is

empty, and now even Ops is deserted."

    "In fact," rumbled the Klingon, "I find the solitude

refreshing. I just wish the station were also empty of a

certain pair of Ferengi. I am uncomfortable having to

take Odo's place in watching them."

    "Oh, come on, Rom's not bad," said O'Brien, defend-

ing his budding prot~g6.

    "Rom is the brother of his brother! He is still under

the thumb of Quark."

    "He only goes there to eat; I haven't seen him palling

around with Quark since... since I don't know when."

    "I will reserve judgment," conceded Worf. That's

probably the closest he'll ever come to admitting he's

wrong about Rom, mused the chief.

    O'Brien glanced at the readouts on the power grid; he

had noticed some odd fluctuations in the past three days.

Whenever an intense electromagnetic field, such as a

starship, interacted with the EM field of the power

conduits, an interference pattern developed that the

chief could detect on some of his sensors. But there had

been no ship activity around the station since the Defiant

left two days earlier, and the fluctuations and interfer-

ence patterns persisted.

    "Probably one of the grids is flickering," muttered

O'Brien.

"Please say that again. I did not hear you."

"Talking to myself, Worf. That's what happens when

you're the last living being in a dead station." The

Klingon's only response was half grunt, half snarl.

    Spinning on his stool, Miles O'Brien touched three

screens in rapid succession, bumping up the scale of the

displayed interference pattern. He stared, puzzled. No

matter how he sliced the data, more than anything else,

they resembled starship fields interacting with the power

grid. But there was only one problem: there were no

ships. Sensors confirmed the only unnatural objects

nearby were small runabouts and one-man skiffs. Sud-

denly the floor lurched under them.

    "What the hell?" O'Brien exclaimed, gripping his

console as he stared at a sudden, inexplicable surge in

the pattern degradation of the power grids.

    "Chief, I have just lost all communications carrier

waves, and my sensors have darkened."

    "Commander, we were just hit by a huge electromag-

netic pulse!"

    "Is this an attack?" demanded the Klingon, his hands

already flickering across his battle stations; O'Brien's

view in the well was good enough to see Worf power up

all the station's weapons.

    "I don't think so, sir; I don't see..." The scanners

flickered in and out of operation; during the moments

when they worked, the chief scanned all headings, all

bearings, but saw nothing. "I don't see any ships. All I

see is--good God!"

    "What? What do you see? My instruments are blind

here."

     O'Brien stared in disbeliefi A partially functional

 video sensor showed a scene so bizarre, the chief could

 barely believe it was real: the entire subspace emitter

 superstructure had been sheared offJ "It looks like...

 no, can't be."

     "Chief O'Brien! I must have complete information if I

 am to command this station!" Worf seemed more snap-

 pish than normal, certainly more than the situation

 warranted.

     "Sir, it looks like the damage that would be caused by

 a ship colliding with the subspace emitter, but there are

 no ships out there. Wait a moment," O'Brien scanned

 for warp trails. "No sir, there's been no warp activity

 since the Defiant departed two days ago. We must

 have... maybe a meteorite?"

     "Or a cloaked vessel," growled Worf, curling his lip

 and baring his sharp teeth.

     The chief stared at his friend. "Worf, you're saying a

 shipma cloaked ship--sheared a piece of the station

 away?" Again, he stared at his readouts. "I said there's

 no indication of any warp signature since the Defiant

 left; before, even... not for two days!"

     "Then the ship has remained stationary for two days."

 Abruptly, the Klingon stared around Ops, as if looking

 for lurkers in the dark. "There is a spy out there. Has

 anyone beamed onto the station recently?"

    O'Brien checked. "No, not according to the records.

Of course, if someone beamed into, say, the habitat ring

and-- Worf, a ship just decloaked by the sliced emit-

ter!"

    "Shields up!" shouted Worf, but three events occurred

simultaneously: Miles O'Brien positively identified the

ship as a Klingon destroyer. A spherical object materia-

lized in the middle of Ops--the very middle, hovering

three meters above the deck, and a terrific flash bathed

the entire room in a hellish, blue-white light.

    O'Brien never had time to raise the shields. He had

grabbed the lip of the well while he leaned down to the

defensive-systems console. As the invading sphere

flashed, his right hand and arm jerked convulsively. He

grabbed them, and they throbbed angrily, the digits

tingling.

    "Worfl Worf, are you all right?" he cried, but then, the

tingling in his arm expanded until it enveloped his chest

and finally his brain; logy from the disruptor blast,

O'Brien discovered that he could not focus his eyes, and

he felt flushed and nauseated: symptoms of disruptor

stun/his confused mind finally concluded.

    The well had shielded O'Brien from the full force

of the bomb, else he would be down and out for the

count. Worf did not answer, and neither did the only

other person in Ops, a green ensign (literally green; she

was a Lysenian, tinted a charming teal) named...

named...

    The chief could barely remember his own name. He

dimly recollected something about shields, but he

couldn't for the life of him remember what they were or

how one went about activating them. As O'Brien stag-

gered to his feet in the well, he realized he could hear

nothing and could barely see; every eyeblink dragged

back the afterimage of the disruptor bomb that had just

exploded.

    Out--get out.t It was the only thought that screamed

clearly enough to be heard in the tumult of his disor-

dered brain. He tried to grab the lip of the well to vault

out, but his right arm still would not move. He stepped

on a console and managed to slither up the side like a

worm, wallowing onto the deckplates and tearing his

uniform and the skin on his knee.

    "Get... out." The task sounded reasonable enough,

just two words. But he couldn't make his body work!

O'Brien humped along on his belly, elbows digging into

the wire-mesh above the deckplates themselves, crawling

toward the turbolift. They're coming--they're here.t

    He reached the turbolift and rolled into it just as the

first, characteristic vertical patterns of a Klingon trans-

porter appeared in Ops: a dozen Klingons beamed

aboard Deep Space Nine, standing amid the bodies of

Worf and the young ensign.

    One of the Klingons looked vaguely familiar, but

O'Brien had no time to chat him up. They stared around

Ops, pointing disruptors in every direction. Strange,

thought a confused Miles O'Brien, why not bat'telhs?

That was a more usual weapon for a Klingon to carry for

hand-to-hand combat.

     The Klingons spotted the bodies immediately. One

 invader, the obvious leader, crouched low over Worf and

 examined him closely, then he snorted and rose, speak-

 ing rapid-fire orders: "Secure the rest of the station. Use

 the turbolift."

     That's my cue, thought the dazed engineering chief.

 "Computer," he gasped, praying that the disruptor blast

 hadn't burned out voice-recognition circuits, "en-

 gineering--stat!"

     The Klingons turned as a man to stare. "It is talking!"

 shouted the slightly familiar one.

     "No! Really, son of Noggra?" The sarcasm of the

 strike-force commander's response drew a round of

 snickering among the other troopers.

     Just then, the turbolift started to descend, taking

 O'Brien to his command destination. "The prisoner is

 escaping!" shouted the increasingly observant "son of

 Noggra."

    "Shoot the control mechanism!" shouted the leader,

but those were the last words O'Brien heard as he

dropped below the Ops level. All that he heard after that

was the shrill whine ofa Klingon disruptor, and then the

turbolift ground silently to a halt, the safeties tripping

until the computer could diagnose whether the lift was in

danger of fallingmand leaving Chief O'Brien lying half-

stunned on a platform, ten meters above the next deck

down. Level one and a half thought O'Brien bitterly.

    There was only one way down to the Promenade. In a

couple of seconds, he was going to be looking up into a

dozen angry Klingon faces. If he wanted to get down to

the next deck, he was going to have to jump--and pray

for a soft landing.

    Miles O'Brien was not an agile man, but his hands

were quick and his fingers had never failed him, not

while rotating a Bradford spar into place or curling the

most delicate fiberoptic cable into its connection. In the

dim light from Ops, he could see the power conduit just a

meter and a half below the lift platform... close

enough that with luck and a strong grip, he wouldn't

drop down the shaft to his death. But one hand still

tingled madly and barely worked.

    Brilliant, he thought, after twenty years, I've finally

become a maintenance monkey! He lay on his belly and

reached his good arm as far down and forward as he

could. The conduit was still well out of reach. He would

have to drop and make a grab as he fell past.

    "There--stop him!" shouted a voice in Klingon above

him. O'Brien didn't waste time looking up. He knew

who was doing the shouting. He muttered a quick wish

for the dexterity of the wee folk and lowered himself

headfirst over the side of the turbolift.

    Dropping upside-down through the air, it was all he

could do not to close his eyes--it would have been fatal.

He made a wild, one-handed grab at the power conduit

and connected! For a second, he balanced on one arm,

feet still up on the turbolift platform.

    But the chief discovered, too late, that a fine mist of

lubricant from the stone-age Cardassian turbolift tracks

had coated the conduit pipe... his hand slid right off

the side of the cylinder, letting him drop straight down-

ward.

    His shoulder and face thunked into the same conduit

he had just slipped from. This time, he wrapped his good

arm around it in a death grip, then his legs as soon as

they fell onto the steel bar.

    O'Brien swung around until he dangled freely from the

pipe, staring straight up into the nasty end of a Klingon

disruptor seven meters above. The Klingon snarled

something unintelligible that O'Brien assumed was

Klingon for "eat flaming red death!" and thumbed the

contact.

    The chief squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth;

his last thought was of Keiko, his beloved, and of his

darling little girl, Molly.

    O'Brien's next thought was to wonder how the

Klingon could possibly have missed such a thick target

as himself at such close range. Cursing, the attacker fired

again, and this time O'Brien saw the trouble: the electro-

magnetic power grid surrounding the turbolift interacted

with the essentially electrical discharge from the disrup-

tor, and the beam actually bent outward to pour harm-

lessly into the power mesh.

     The chief wasted no time contemplating his brush

 with the final reward. He reached down with one foot

and managed to kick open the maintenance access

ladder for servicing the conduit. Hooking his knees on

the rungs, he swung himself onto the inspection catwalk.

Must remember to thank the gentry, he swore, lest they

take offense and tie Molly~ hair in knots.

    The Klingon commander shouted something, and

O'Brien caught the word for "follow"; the chief grinned.

Let them try! I'd match myself against anyone, even

Rom, for crawling the hidden paths through the station./

0

CHAPTER

        5

WORF, SON OF MOOU, commander in Starfleet and cap-

tain of the Defiant (when Captain Sisko was not taking

the ship out for spy missions), loyal and honorable

subject of the Klingon Empire of a most ancient and

honorable house (a house that was experiencing a few

technical difficulties at the moment), awoke to a throb-

bing pain in his head. He sat up, wincing, trying to

reconstruct what had happened.

    As soon as he realized he was locked into one of

Constable Odo's own cells, and that a Klingon wearing

the uniform of a colonel general was staring at him

through the forceshield, Worf was able to make a shrewd

guess.

    The general's face was shadowed, deliberately, Worf

presumed. The Starfleet commander angrily opened his

mouth; but before he could speak, the captain said "Oh

yes, I will."

    "What?" thundered Worfi The voice... it is so famil-

iar, so--

     "You were about to say, 'You will never get away with

 it!' Were you not?"

  "You cannot succeed."

     "Oh yes, I can." The general grinned; "and you are

 going to help me, Worf, son of Mogh."

    Worf controlled himself outwardly, but his stomach

lurched, not just at the insulting implication of faithless-

ness, but at the increasing sense of familiarity about the

general. He was a Klingon from Worf's past, a face and

name he could not quite pull into the light, but one with

whom his destiny was intertwined, even before the

colonel general captured Deep Space Nine.

    Years earlier, back on the Enterprise, or even a year

ago on Deep Space Nine, Worf would have spit some

angry insult at his captor in response to the prediction

that Worf would sanction the loss of his own command.

But he was older; he felt older. And today, he did not

react as impulsively as the green lieutenant he once had

been. He said nothing, only rose slowly to his feet and

stared at the general from a distance of five meters--by

Klingon custom, far enough not to imply an immediate

challenge, close enough not to appear cowed.

    The general stepped into the light, and Worf sucked in

a breath of sudden recognition.

    "I am Malach of the noble and honorable house of

Razg." Behind Malach was a phalanx of a dozen Klingon

warriors. Something was peculiar about them, but for

the moment, Worf's concentration was fixed upon Colo-

nel General Malach.

    "Did you think I would forget you, Malach?" For a

moment, Worf could think of nothing else to say, though

myriad thoughts exploded through his brain. Malach/

 Malach . . . my blood brother.

    "A house of honor," continued the Starfleet Klingon,

"would not launch a sneak attack without much to gain.

And you have nothing to gain by attacking this station,

Malach, Son of Razg."

 Malach stared Worf full in his eyes, silently demand-

ing Worf remember the oath he had sworn as a boy to the

boy Malach. The general threw his head back and smiled

at the ceiling, eyes closed. "Oh, but we have so much to

lose, son of Mogh. We both have so much to lose." After

a moment, he snapped his head down and stared at

Wore "You know the fear."

    Well, if he is not going to mention it, I will not be the

first. "If the Founders come through the wormhole,"

insisted Worf, "we will stop them here."

    "I am sure you will fight well, son of Mogh, my

brother. And you will earn an honorable peace in Sto-

Vo-Kor," Malach curled his lip, "but that will not help

the Empire much. Or the Federation... I do not know

where your loyalty lies most, my brother; but either way,

if the Founders are not stopped here, they will over-

whelm both Federation and Empire. I launched this--"

"Criminal assault."

    "This military engagement not only for Klingons, but

for humans and their lackeys in the Federation."

    "So it is necessary to kill them in order to save them!

Is this what the honor of my blood-brother has fled in

favor of, a criminal act of cowardice?" It was a calcu-

lated thrust. Worf had not seen Malach for many years,

more than two decades, since they both were young boys

at the military academy in Emperor Kahless Military

City, in the year before the House of Mogh removed to

Khitomer. It was while Worf and Malach were at the

academy that they swore the blood oath. Worf was six

and Malach was eight, but the oath was official and

witnessed.

     Malach did not even blink at the deadly insult, which

 in any other Klingon would have provoked a challenge to

 fight to the death. In fact, he smiled. "You cannot anger

 me, my brother; do not even try. We have killed no one,

 and we will kill no one. I have issued strict orders: for a

 Klingon in my command to kill, or attempt to kill, or

 even to act in wanton disregard for Federation life on

52

this mission, is to earn the dishonorable death of a

traitor."

    Worf stared, astonished at sheer audacity of the gener-

al's lie. "But I felt the blast! I--" He froze as one by one,

the strands of observation pulled together at the center.

    The honor guard behind Malach carried disruptors,

but no bat'telhs. Disruptors could be set to stun. The

bat'telh could not. And in the beserk fury of battle, what

Klingon could resist taking an arm, a leg, or a head, if he

held the bladed crescent in his hands?

    And clearly, the bomb that exploded in Ops had been

set to stun, not kill, or Lieutenant Commander Worf

would not still be sucking air.

    Finally, the astonishing control that Malach exerted

when Worf--his own blood brother!--called him a

coward and impugned his honor, and that of the House

of Razg--not once, but twice!wbegan to percolate

through the commander's skull like the morning's first

raktajino.

    Worf was still at a loss for words; everything he had

seen or heard indicated that Malach was telling the

truth: that this was an invasion without casualties.

Having nothing to say that could advance his causem

and Worf was very clear where his loyalty lay--he stood

mute, waiting for his blood brother and captor to contin-

ue. It was clear Malach thought he could persuade Worf

to cooperate. The burden was on the general to push the

conversation.

    "My brother," said the general, "you must work with

me. I swore to Gowron that you would cooperate."

    "You should not have sworn for another. I will not

help you take control of this station."

    "Worf, I already have control of this station! These

troops," Malach indicated the warriors behind himm

they glared at Worf with nothing but contempt, knowing

who he was and seeing the uniform he wore--"are not as

circumspect as you and I." Malach grinned and

shrugged, acting more like a Cardassian plotter than a

Klingon, Worf thought. "I can give orders, but warriors

can also disobey. Your friends could die if I do not

maintain control, if I must pick another hero to do your

job."

    Worf hesitated, and knew he had nothing to gain by

open defiance--open defiance. Not yet. "What would be

my job?" he asked darkly.

    Again Malach shrugged. "The obvious. Herd the de-

feated into the portable cells, contact Starfleet, demand

ships to transport the hostages back to Federation terri-

tory in exchange for recognition that this station is now

Klingon territory." Malach raised a finger, curling his

lip. "And one more thing, brother: one of the senior

crew, the enlisted man, escaped. He will raise a force

among the remnants of the crew and lead a rebellion,

and people will die on both sides. Worf, your first duty

will be to track down the maintenance chief petty officer

who was on the bridge with you."

    The bridge? It took Worf a moment to realize Malach

meant Ops. "Where is he now?"

    "He has not left the station. Other than that, I know

nothing."

    Feeling a bitter taste in his mouth, Worf nodded. "I

will find O'Brien. You will give me your word as a

Klingon warrior and as my blood brother that no defend-

er will be hurt."

    Malach nodded faintly; it was enough. May the Em-

peror Kahless ensure it is enough, prayed Commander

Worf.

     "He could be anywhere," he growled. "O'Brien knows

 this station better than any person alive, except perhaps

 for Gul Dukat."

     A trace of a smile flickered across Malach's face. "For

 reasons that should be obvious, the gul is not presently

 available for service." Worf glared at the general, never

 having liked his absurdist humor even when they both

 were children.

     Malach nodded to one of his men, and the forceshield

 sealing Worf's cell from the rest of the brig vanished.

 Stepping forward, Worf stood nose to nose with the

 Klingon he once would have defended with his life. "You

 will deafly instruct the Starfleet ships when they capture

 you that I betrayed my oath only to save the hostages."

     "Nobody will capture me, Worf, so the situation will

 not arise."

  "It is inevitable."

    "On the contrary, it is utterly evitable. My men

control Ops, so there will be no communications until I

choose to initiate them through my ship. We destroyed

your subspace emitter, so even if one of your Federation

friends broke free--O'Brien, perhaps--and tried to call

for help, he would not be heard. The station is nearly

deserted, and your captain and his ship are in the

Gamma Quadrant. They will return too late to do

anything but marvel at the glory of the Empire!"

    Worf searched his memory. Was my brother always

such an egomaniac? he asked himselfi Taking a deep

breath, Worf agreed to the terms: "If leading this search

is the only way to protect the lives of my command, then

I will agree to lead the search."

    Malach grinned, in pleasure, not in challenge. "Wel-

come home, son of Mogh," he declared, not noticing that

Worf had, in fact, not exactly sworn to anything; the

statement was conditional.

    So it has come to this, thought the commander; I pass

from warrior to space-lawyer! His cheeks stinging from

the humiliation, Worf pushed roughly past his blood

brother toward the door. But as he passed one of

Malach's honor guard, Worf glanced at the warrior and

froze, staring.

 "You... know this man?" asked Malach curiously.

    "I have seen him before," said Worf in a strangled

voice, struggling to find his center of balance.

 "He is Rodek, son of Noggra. A fine family. He was

wounded in the Cardassian war and has lost the memory

of his former life, but he is a brave and honorable

warrior with an astonishing natural grasp of strategy. I

think he could perhaps command his own ship or cohort

someday." Rodek, son of Noggra, stood tall, his suspi-

cious gaze never wavering from Wolfs face.

    Never wavering, never recognizing. He did not recog-

nize the Klingon who was his brother in another life, his

real brother. Rodek, son of Noggra, was what he called

himself now, not knowing any better.

    But a year earlier, he had been Kurn, son of Mogh; a

year before, Kurn was Worfs brother, a general who

commanded his own fleet. "Perhaps I do not know him

after all," said Worf quietly, suppressing the emotion

that could--at the hands of his blood-brother--threaten

his brother's life.

    A year before, Kurn was unable to live with the shame

of his brother Worf dishonored, their house discommo-

dated. Kurn had demanded to die at his brother's hands

during the rite of Maukto'Vor, but Captain Sisko would

not permit it aboard Deep Space Nine.

    Instead, Kurn's brain had been whitewashed, his en-

tire identity obliterated, and the name Rodek, son of

Noggra, painted across the now-blank canvas. So really,

there is no more Kurn, and I have told no lie.

    Turning his face from Rodek, son of Noggra, Com-

mander Worf pushed through the honor guard and

exited into the outer office of Constable Odo. He

clenched his teeth and forced his hands to his sides, lest

he grab a weapon from the desk--phaser, baton, any-

thing!--and begin killing everyone around him.

    Seeing Kurn--Rodek--shook Worf more than he

allowed himself to admit. It was not just the sight of a

familiar, unfamiliar face; it was the knowledge of what

drove him to the horror of identity obliteration--the

pride of a Klingon, the face that must at any cost be

saved!

  The memory tasted like ashes, and Worf turned away

from Rodek, from the memory, from confronting the

damage wrought by the core of Worfs soul, the core of

any Klingon: honor. If honor led to this, the blank face of

what used to be Kurn, then what was honor but a bitter

joke played upon Worf by the cruel, jesting gods of

Klingon folklore?

    Worf did not look back. He was afraid the punchline

might be gaining on him.

    Jake Sisko, raconteur and troubadour, was engaging in

the time-honored tradition of mopery with intent to

gawk. He was stationed at his normal spot, on the second

level of the Promenade, at the railing high above the

people below, the place where he and his erstwhile

constant companion Nog used to hang to observe the

teeming ants on the Promenade. But with Nog off at

Starfleet Academy--where Jake always presumed he

would be forced to go one day, and which fate he had

escaped only by discovering a talent for writing--and

with the anthill mostly empty with the rumors of war,

Jake was more than usually bored.

    He amused himself by inventing fanciful stories for

each of the few people still puttering around the wide,

circular Promenade: this one was an unlucky gambler

hiding out from his loan sharks; another was a Cardas-

sian spy, surgically altered to look like a chubby mainte-

nance worker; a third was a rich merchant getting ready

to purchase the entire planet of Bajor for her own private

estate.

    Suddenly, a swarm of Klingons burst onto the scene.

For a moment, Jake was surprised at the vividness of his

own imagination; he often visualized invasions or ro-

mantic interludes, but never this distinctly!

    Then he gasped and leaned farther over the rail,

abruptly realizing that this was no dreamy hallucination:

this really was a sudden invasion of Klingon warriors!

    He stared, transfixed, as the tiny figures drew their

disruptors and swept the small, scattered crowd. The

victims collapsed into heaps where they stood, offering

no resistance. They don't even know what ~ happening! he

thought.

    He was about to bolt to the turbolift but stopped

himself, his heart pounding. What the hell was he going

to do, fight the Klingons bare-handed?

    It took only a few seconds for these thoughts to race

through his mind, then he saw a phalanx of Odo's

security force attempt to charge out of the security office,

only to be mowed down mercilessly by the Klingons. The

shrill whine of disruptors and the piercing throb of

phasers drifted up to where he stood, and in half a

minute, Jake began to smell the metallic tang of ozone

produced by the electrical discharges around both

weapons.

    He stood frozen at the handrail, staring down at the

tableau, unsure whether there was simply nothing he

could do and nobody to tell, or whether it was just

another manifestation of his own cowardice. The same

feeling of senseless, unreasoning panic gripped his gut as

he'd felt during the seige on Ajilon Prime, when he'd

deserted Dr. Bashir and fled randomly across the coun-

tryside.

    But even when he forced his panic down and desper-

ately tried to think of something to do, he still found

nothing! The security forces obviously knew as much as

Jake did and couldn't even get out of the squadroom that

had become their trap, and Jake's father, Captain Sisko,

was far, far away, on the other side of the galaxy, as a

matter of fact, in the Gamma Quadrant.

    "Where the hell is everybody?" he demanded of

himself. All right, Odo and Kira were on the mission

with his father, but where was Chief O'Brien? And where

was WorJ? Odo might have had primary responsibility

for crime on Deep Space Nine, but surely defending the

station against an armed Klingon assault was WoWs job!

Unless... Angrily, Jake dismissed the thought. He

 had no doubt about the Klingon's loyalty to the Federa-

 tion, after all, hadn't Jake's father personally picked

 Worf for the station security slot? He can't be involved

 he can't/Dad5 the best judge of character in all Star!leer/

  And then, staring down at the carnage--just begin-

  ning to feel the horrific sense of unreality of a witness to

  massacre--Jake saw him. It was Worf, no question. He

  still wore his red Starfleet command uniform.

     And he was leading the Klingon forces as they circled

 the Promenade, hunting down survivors and shooting

 them.

    "No!" shouted Jake impulsively. He dropped to his

belly, somehow feeling closer to the scene than when he

was standing over it. "No, you dirty... [" For several

minutes, Jake watched Worf clearly lead the Klingon

expeditionary force in a search-and-destroy pattern

around the lower level of the Promenade. Then the

Klingon traitor left a holding force on the bottom level

and led the rest up to the second floor, just below Jake. It

wouldn't be long before they searched the top floor too,

and Jake Sisko would be a cardinal anomaly in a sea of

casualty statistics, dead as a Ferengi's charity.

    For a moment, Jake broke through his own terror and

helpless rage to thank fate and the circumstances of

coincidence that his dad was not on the station. At least

one of us will live to see tomorrow, thought the young

man bitterly.

    At the thought, the rage boiled over into berserk fury.

Jake jumped up, leaned over the railing, and screamed a

stream of obscenities down at the traitor, Worf. What the

hell, I'm going to die anyway! He climbed onto the

railing itself, balancing precariously and hanging on to

the overhead catwalk. For the first time in his life, Jake

felt the fear of death drop away like a torn cloak, and he

felt himself filled with the recklessness of desperation

that produces heroes and martyrs. But in the tumult of

battle, the warrior didn't even hear the poet.

    But other ears did hear. As Jake balanced on the

handrail, one of the Klingons looked up and saw the

young man, the boy, furiously waving his fist. The

Klingon raised his disruptor and fired. The first shot hit

the railing beneath Jake's feet, causing his legs to spasm

with the electrical jolt. He lost his footing, barely grab-

bing the catwalk with his other hand to dangle twenty

meters above the floor that was littered with the bodies

of victims.

    The Klingon raised his sights for the second shot,

striking the catwalk itself. Another jolt of current flashed

through Jake Sisko. It was all he could do to cling grimly

to the bars, his face paling and his stomach convulsing

with the impact. He swallowed bile, knowing the next

shot would either kill him outright, or cause him to lose

his handgrip and plummet to his death below.

    But the most extraordinary thing happened. Staring

down at the man who would kill him, Jake saw another

Klingon, one wearing a much-decorated uniform of high

rank, reach out and grab the assassin's throat in a

headlock. The second Klingon yanked and twisted his

arms savagely, and the sniper fell to the floor, his legs

and arms jerking randomly! Even from Jake's height, he

could see that the Klingon's neck was broken: his own

comrade in arms had killed him.

    But there simply was no time to worry about the

vagaries of Klingon table manners, even without another

helpful blast from a disruptor, Jake was in imminent

danger of losing his grip and his young life.

     Terrifiedmespecially so, now that he thought he had a

 plan for escaping, but still might not make itmhe began

 to swing back and forth, desperately struggling not to

 look down or think about the huge, empty space below

 his feet. With every swing, he got closer to the opposite

 platform, until at last he hooked one bootheel over the

 lip. He shimmied and squirmed until he managed to

 haul himself up and onto the maintenance walk that ran

all the way around the Promenade, close to the ceiling.

He collapsed onto his stomach, utterly spent.

    Shaking, he peeked over the edge. His Klingon guardi-

an angel watched him narrowly, but made no move to

shoot. In fact, as soon as the officer saw that Jake had

made it, he turned back to the invasion, directing troops

to remove the body of the dead Klingon.

    Jake lay on the steel grid, panting and exhausted from

the one pull-up he had done! Absurdly, the thought that

echoed round his skull was of his father urging him to

spend more time on physical training two years before.

His face flushed as he remembered his snotty response:

"How many pull-ups do I have to do to pass the writers'

test, Dad?"

    Jake Sisko staggered to his knees, then his feet, and

jogged lead-looted along the platform, looking for a

maintenance hatch leading up out of the Promenade. If

he could get into the access tunnels and conduits, he had

a chance, assuming he didn't get lost and starve to death!

But beyond the immediate, he had no plan and no

strategy, except one: get as far away from the mob of

bloodthirsty Klingons, led by Worf the Betrayer, as he

possibly could.

    If I can just hoM on. avoid capture until Dad gets back,

he'll know what to do/And if he didn't? Jake refused to

consider the possibility.

CHAPTER

        6

MILES O'BRIEN WATCHED the carnage on the Promenade

from the grating of an air vent high above the main floor,

fuming with frustration--and feeling the most horrific

sense of ddjt~-vu. I've seen this before, he raged, but there

was nothing he could do. The air vent grill was bolted

tight, and even if he could remove it, all he could do was

drop ten meters to the deck, break his ankle, and then be

mowed down by the Klingon invaders.

    But what hurt most, tearing at his innards like a

Klingon bat'telh, was how quickly Worf had reverted to

his own kind. O'Brien ground his teeth as Worf led the

assault, rounding up the Starfleet and Bajoran personnel

who still remained on the station--then watching, doing

nothing, as the forces under his command poured dis-

ruptor fire upon them. The bodies fell to the deck,

twitching for a moment, then lying still. Odo's security

force put up a valiant fight, but without the changeling--

ex-changeling, O'Brien reminded himself---leading the

point-defense, and without benefit of Kira, Sisko, Dax,

 and, of course, the traitor Worf, the good guys were

 overwhelmed by the Klingons.

     The chief couldn't watch anymore; he was sick to his

 stomach. Turning his back on what used to be his

 station--his own friends, allies, comrades--Miles

 O'Brien crawled through the air vent, thanking his lucky

 stars that Keiko and Molly were safe on Bajor, attending

 a conference on ' vertical gardening" and playing among

 the springferns, respectively, and that his nascent son

 was still growing in the womb of Major Kira, the child's

 surrogate mother, where he was reasonably safe in the

 Gamma Quadrant.

    The thought struck O'Brien so hard, his head rang.

Bajor! He had to get a message out to the Bajorans. They

could send warships and contact Starfleet. O'Brien

slapped his comm badge, but all he heard was a persis-

tent, annoying buzz. "So, jamming the signal, are you?"

he muttered. "Well, anything you can fuzz, I can stabi-

lize."

    O'Brien began the long, slow descent to the engineer-

ing levels, where he could control every aspect of station

operations, including the entire communications sys-

tem. Obviously, the Klingons must have left some chan-

nels open, even if encrypted, after all, they had to

communicate with one another. It was just a matter of

finding the open channel and exploiting it.

    But he had one stop to make. He couldn't make the

trip alone, and he would also need an extra pair of hands

when he got there. God, I wish I knew where Rom was, he

thought. Alas, the Ferengi had been off-duty, and could

be anywhere from Quark's Place, just outside the air

vent grill, to his quarters on the habitat ring, to the cargo

hold.

    But there was one obvious second choice, the only

other person aboard that O'Brien could trust. "Next

stop, Saint Julian's Infirmary," he said.

    With no patients to care for and nothing much else to

do, Dr. Bashit was running diagnostics on the medical

equipment in the infirmary, some brand-new Starfleet-

issue, others left over from the Cardassian era. Not that

the station residents were unusually unhealthy of late,

but they were unusually absent... with the threat of

war with the Dominion, recent clashes and dire warn-

ings, it seemed to Julian that the entire station had

abruptly migrated to Bajor or even deeper into the

interior of the Federation.

    At first, he didn't even hear the screams, so deeply was

he concentrating on aligning the cortical stimulators just

so. Then he looked up, his mouth open in astonishment:

through the clear windows of his operating room, over

the desk of the head MedTech, and out the open door of

the infirmary itself, Julian saw people running in abso-

lute panic, closely followed by... "By Klingons?" he

demanded incredulously.

    The doctor bolted toward the open door, getting

halfway across his medical lab before the folly of run-

ning into a panic slammed home. He staggered to a halt,

then spun to take a quick head-count. He slapped his

comm badge and shouted, "Computer, emergency medi-

cal beam-out of four personnel from the infirmary to

the..."

    Julian paused. He slapped his corem badge again. It

did not even make the normal chirping sound, which

meant the computer was either completely offline or else

it couldn't "hear" the high-frequency, subspace throat-

clearing by which a comm badge got the computer's

attention. "Uh-oh," he said.

    "Doctor, what is it?" demanded the senior staffer

present, MedTech-2 Janaholt Jaas, still wearing his

greens from the one operating procedure earlier that day.

Fortunately, the patient had already left to recuperate in

her living space in the habitat ring.

     Julian stared out the door. Now it was mostly Kling-

 OhS running past, firing their disruptors as they ran. It

 was only a matter of seconds before one of them looked

 inside, saw the medical crew and took them out with a

 few, well-placed blasts.

     He looked around the room for a hypo to fill with a

 sleeping aid, a breakfast tray, anything to use as a weapon.

 Alas, Julian's technicians were too well-trained--they put

 everything away when the doctor was finished using it!

    By the time the first Klingon hesitantly poked his

snout into the infirmary, the three MedTechs had al-

ready caught up with Julian in figuring out what was

going on, and how little they could do about it. As the

attacker raised his disruptor and pointed it at the gaggle

of men and women, Julian caught himself thinking, You

know, it never wouM have occurred to me in a million

years to stock the infirmary with phaser rifles.

    The Klingon fired. Julian braced for the impact of

death, the physical blow he expected would end his short

life--worse, his Starfleet career!--in a flash of glory. But

the blow never came.

    Bashir opened his eyes. Evidently, Jaas had panicked

at the last moment in the face of certain death--/can

hardly blame the man.f---and had bolted sideways to

escape the shot, but instead of dodging the disruptor

blast, the poor chap had wandered directly into the

brunt of the blast radius, and in the process, had

completely shielded Dr. Bashir.

    The realization flashed through Julian's mind in a

microsecond, so quickly that the other three were still

just beginning their long, slow fall to the deck. Strange,

thought the doctor in his accelerated mental state, why

didn't they simply phase out of existence?

    But as Jaas was thrown forward by the convulsions of

his own muscles, Julian had a flash of absolute, utter

clarity, as if his spirit had just jumped out of his body,

out of time, and could spend hours or days figuring out

exactly what to do next.

    As the MedTechs fell, mown down by the disruptor

shot, Julian Bashir jerked convulsively in exactly the

same way, falling to the floor almost in unison with his

department petty officer. It was so perfectly executed

that one of the other enlisted technicians, MedTech-4

Yvette Tang, actually fell on top of him!

    This is crazy! This is useless... Surely, as soon as the

Klingons examined the good doctor and discovered he

hadn't attained room temperature, they would simply

slit his throat with a bat'telh or cave in his skull with a

well-aimed bootheel. Bashir stayed very still. His posi-

tion was very awkward, which was good, they were less

likely to examine him closely. But it was also very

uncomfortable, and Julian had to struggle against him-

self not to shift ever so slightly to a different position.

    Two Klingons stomped around the med-lab, nudging

their victims with toes and prodding them with meaty

forefingers. When one of the pair--the foulest smelling

Klingon Bashir had ever run across--leaned close over

the doctor and stared at his face, Julian didn't even

breath for nearly a minute.

    The attackers did not bother feeling for a pulse.

They're so damned cocky, thought Bashir. A bitter rage

tore at his insides as he thought about his dead comrades

lying around and on top of him. Outwardly, he was as

close to a corpse as you can be with a functioning

circulatory system and cerebral cortex. But inside, he

felt such desperate horror at such death and de-

struction... and for what? What did the Klingons hope

to gain from slaughtering the inhabitants of Deep Space

Nine? What the hell did they want with us? he raved, all

without so much as twitching a single muscle in his face

or body. Why, why, why?

    But his friends were unable to respond, and for

obvious reasons, the Klingons chose not to enlighten

him. So still in ignorance, Julian Bashir suffered being

dragged from the scene of the crime, out onto the

Promenade, and deposited among a large heap of bodies

a few meters distant.

  Bashir waited in mounting impatience for the Kling-

66

ons to go away, Instead, another batch came and dragged

all the bodies, the doctor included, to a new spot that

seemed no different or better than the old spot. Then a

Klingon non-com popped round and screamed at the

troops to haul them all back again.

    Lying against the bodies and trying not to move,

breathe, or otherwise reveal his continued presence

among the living, Julian suddenly made the astonishing

discovery that other bodies were also still living. He

didn't dare talk to them or try to find out if they, like he,

were simply faking death, but as soon as he noticed the

incongruity, Bashir began edging his hands out ever so

slightly to gently touch a carotid artery here, a wrist

pulse there. He shifted his eyes and observed long

enough to see that chests were rising and falling all

around him.

    In fact, to Julian BashiPs confusion, he could not find

even one, single dead body! Everyone he was thrown

against, everyone crowded into his particular heap of

bodies, was alive.

    Still, nobody else was raising his head to peek around,

so the doctor had to mimic them and not attract Klingon

attention. Every medical impulse in his brain screamed

that he should jump up and see who needed emergency

help, but if he were killed or incapacitated, that would

leave everyone without medical care now and into the

future.

    At last, his most burning question--did the Klingons

know that their victims were still alive?--was answered

in the affirmative: one of the "bodies" began to groan

audibly, and the sharp-eared Klingon non-com heard

her. He told his subordinates to "take her to the portable

cell right away, the damn disruptor is weariag off."

    The discovery simultaneously relieved and astonished

Bashir: the Klingons were deliberately avoiding killing

their victims! The thought was so boggling that he

almost stood up and demanded to know why.

    Then his question was answered. Someone who

sounded exactly like Lieutenant Commander Worf

stomped into view, bellowing at the Klingons: "Stop

prodding him with your foot, you miserable worm! I will

tear your cowardly eyes from your head!" The Klingon

grumbled and shuffled off, but Bashir was stunned into

paralysis. Wore My God, Worf was commanding the

attack/

    Unable to resist, Bashir raised his head slightly, peek-

ing over a stunned, barely clothed Dabo girl, he saw Worf

himself. Worf, the Deep Space Nine security officer; the

Klingon who had turned his back on the Empire for the

Federation; the man for whom honor and loyalty defined

his life. The traitor leading the assault upon his friends!

    Suddenly, Worf turned, seeming to feel Bashir's eyes

on the back of his neck. The doctor froze, not wanting

even to lower his head for fear of attracting even more

attention by the sudden movement. Worf scanned the

bodies for the source of the offending feeling, and he saw

Bashir, looked him right in the eyes.

    They stared thus at each other for a beat. Worf's face

was flooded with a sadness and desperation wholly

inappropriate and unexpected in the face of a Klingon.

Then he shook his head, so imperceptibly that Bashir

was hardly certain he had really seen it. Commander

Worf turned away and began barking orders in the

typical Klingon style, accompanied by threats and snarl-

ing denunciations of his troops' honor and courage, and

marched away to see to the comfort of other victims. He

did not look at Bashir again and did nothing to help him,

but neither did he make a move to order him restunned

or shifted to the "portable cell" where they'd taken the

previous, still-conscious prisoner.

    Julian lowered his head excruciatingty slowly. No one

else had noticed him. But he couldn't get past the strange

interlude or decide what it meant. He knew only one

thing for sure: something horrible and strange was

613

happening to the station's resident Klingon, and Worf

felt compelled to cooperate with the unexpected, inexpli-

cable invasion. But whether the compulsion was some-

thing the rest of them would understand, especially

Captain Sisko, Bashir could not possibly guess.

    The Klingons had stacked Dr. Bashir's heap of bodies

in a small room off the Promenade that once was, he

recalled, a bistro serving bad Klingon food. How grue-

somely appropriate, he thought bitterly. The Klingon

cook--whom Worf never patronized, saying he pre-

ferred replicated human food to badly prepared Klingon

food--had left with the first wave of emigrants, proba-

bly because he could only survive as a restauranteur with

a population density high enough that some were forced

to patronize his eatery by necessity. But the place still

smelled like rotting flesh.

    The other victims didn't object, and Bashir con-

cluded, without even examining them, that they must

therefore be stunned into unconsciousness. At the maxi-

mal stun setting, a Klingon disruptor, he remembered,

would put a human or Bajoran out for a least three

hours. So, probably, no one would be back for a long

time--unless they decided to move the bodies again.

    Before he could decide whether to risk standing up

and getting out, Bashir began to hear a strange metal-on-

metal scrape from above. He stayed still, desperately

wishing he could look up and see what was making the

sound.

    A moment later, he heard the wrench of some large

piece of metal, followed an instant later by a hushed

curse, then a loud clatter as an access hatch or panel or

something crashed to the ground a couple of meters

away.

    Julian felt a wild surge of reliefi the curse had carried

the distinct accent of an Irishman and could belong only

to one person. After two minutes of total silence, during

which O'Brien was surely waiting and listening to see if

any Klingons would come running at the noise, Bashir

heard a loud thump, followed by another round of

whispered cursing and moans of pain, and "damn this

ankle! Why don't I just cut the bloody thing off and be

done with it?"

    On impulse, Bashir remained motionless. He wasn't

sure why. "Oh no," said O'Brien aloud. "It really is you.

Julian, why'd you have to be standing in the way when

the bastards started shooting?"

    The shock of the engineering chief was genuine, and

Bashir realized that O'Brien didn't know that the bodies

were still alive! For Julian, it was the first thing he'd

noticed, shoved up against them. Once again, he was

amazed at the quickness with which lay people assumed

a still, unmoving body must be dead.

    He almost rose and reassured O'Brien that he was still

using up the station's oxygen, but a morbid impulse

stopped him, made him lie still and listen to what

O'Brien might say over his "corpse." Probably the closest

I'll ever come to hearing my own eulogy, he rationalized.

    Miles O'Brien was silent a long moment, long enough

that Bashir risked peeking through slitted eyelids. The

chief looked less like a mourner than a student faced

with an unexpected question, trying to drag the right

answer from a dimly remembered study session. His

brow furrowed as he bit his lower lip, staring up at the

ceiling he had dropped from. "I guess you weren't a bad

sort," he said at last. Bashir almost leapt up in outrage at

the faint obitutary. "Though you did get on my nerves

once in a while. Well, quite a few times, actually. To be

fair about it, it was pretty constant; you always... But

enough of that. I really will miss you, Julian. You were a

good friend, and that makes up for a lot.

    "I'm sorry this isn't more flowery, but I was never

good at that sort of thing, you know. Maybe your friend

Garak could've put something together that was a bit

more, well, like you'd probably have done yourself. But

what the hell. It's the thought that counts, isn't it?"

    During the final sentence, a thoroughly offended Jul-

ian Bashir was creeping his unseen hand closer and

closer to O'Brien. With the last question, he grabbed the

chief firmly by the ankle, sat up suddenly with a wild

look, and snarled, "No it bloody well isn't the thought

that counts, you ungrateful rat!"

    Chief O'Brien gasped like a dying man and turned

white as an albino Denebian bloodworm. He stared at

Bashir as if the doctor were a zombie come back from

the dead to vent his wrath upon the living. He skittered

back, face now turning the pinkish-orange color of

Quark, mouth working soundlessly.

    "You... you... you/You son of a--" For the next

several seconds, O'Brien let loose a string of cussing that

would have put a drunken Klingon to shame and make

him take the pledge, resolving to devote the remainder of

his life to good works among the unfortunate. Alas,

Bashir missed the performance by talking over it, a

terrible breach of swearing etiquette.

    "You heartless bolt-tightener! Is that the best you can

do? I wasn't a bad sort? I got on your nerves? And what,

exactly, did you mean by saying my friendship made up

for a lot of things? What things?"

    The two stared at each other for a long minute, while

O'Brien's color and respiration slowly returned to nor-

mal and Bashir's ire subsided into inarticulate grum-

bling. They both looked away, glancing at each other

sidelong.

 "That was a pretty dirty trick," accused the chief.

 "Well that was a pretty pathetic eulogy!"

    Another long, uncomfortable silence. "Friends

again?" offered the doctor at last, feeling more guilty

than he would ever acknowledge about having played

dead and then scared the bejesus out of Chief O'Brien.

    "I guess so," agreed the chief, picking at his boots. "I

guess I could've been a bit more, you know, deep about

it. But I couldn't think what to say. I'm not really a

talker, you know."

    "I know. And I'm sorry, Chief." Bashir shrugged.

"Usually, the person delivering the eulogy has a pre-

pared text, anyway. I'm sure you could have done better

if you'd had some preparation time."

    "Now why didn't I think--I mean, yeah, that's proba-

bly true. Friends again, I guess." He suddenly jabbed a

thick, pink finger at Julian. "But don't you go tellin'

anyone about this, right?"

    Julian half-cringed back, smiling and putting his

hands up. "Oh, I wouldn't breathe a word of it! I

promise." He smiled and winked, and O'Brien scowled.

"And now, the burning question: What in heaven's name

are the Klingons doing here? And why is Worf helping

them?"

    "I think we'd better wait on those burning questions,

if you don't mind, Julian. We've got a more important

problem: How do we transport two wanted escapees off

the Promenade, and where do we find reinforcements?"

    "Ah," said Julian, annoyed that he had missed the

more urgently practical point. "I think I know someone

who might be able to help us."  "Who?"

    "Why, you should know, Chief. You were the one who

suggested him."

    Shaking his head, O'Brien hoisted Julian up until the

doctor could grasp the lip of the air vent. After pulling

himself into the shaft, the doctor returned the favor,

reaching down to haul the chief up beside him. They left

the cover on the floor. The Klingons weren't likely to

notice it, and there was no way to replace it in any event.

CHAPTER

        7

CAPTAIN BENJAMIN SISKO sat cross-legged in his command

chair, tugging absently at his beard, frowning, scowling,

grunting, and, in general, annoying the living daylights

out of Jadzia Dax. "Benjamin," she said sweetly, "will

you please stop fidgeting?"

    "I'm troubled, Old Man. Something just isn't right

here."

 "What?"

 "That's why I'm troubled: I don't know what."

    "Ah, my favorite kind of complaint." Dax pushed a

few buttons uselessly. They were still en-route to Gam-

ma GK-974, a solid day into the four-day journey, and

there was nothing to look at: no anomalous stars, no

peculiar gas clouds, no inexplicable energy sources, no

chronotron particles or emergency beacons or planet-

devouring alien machines. They had crossed paths with

three Dominion ships along the way, but, cloaked, the

Defiant had slipped right past without so much as a

ripple in the ether, not even a warning call via subspace.

    And Jadzia Dax was, quite frankly, bored to tears.

Dax had never been a patient Trill, not in any of his, her,

and its bodies. Jadzia was not as impatient as Curzon,

but in times of tedium, the spirit of Curzon tended to

loom forth and make his complaints very public.

    She swiveled around to observe her oldest non-Trill

friend, now her commanding officer. But Sisko said

nothing more.

    "You know," said Kira to Dax's right, "I'm feeling

something too."

 "Something?"

    Kira made a face, looking down at her bulging abdo-

men. "I think the littlest O'Brien is going to be a

dancer," she added. "But that's not what I meant. I keep

looking over my shoulder, like something's coming up

from behind."

    Dax swiveled back to the sensors, grateful for some-

thing to do at last. "Well, nothing that I can find, Nerys."

    "I know. I already... already..." Then Kira was off

on another sneezing spell, spoiling yet another hand-

kerchief. Take it easy, Dax counseled herself. Bajorans

can't help it.

    Yes she could! rejoined the wicked side of her brain,

the Curzon-devil. She couM have refused to take the

baby. She did it just to annoy us!

    Constable Odo still paced back and forth in the rear of

the bridge, hands clasped behind his back. He was

nervous, Dax could tell; he was not happy. In fact, even

through the plasticity of Odo's face, Dax could tell that

the erstwhile changeling was actually frightened. "I

think we're all just jumpy being out here," he said in his

sexy, gravely voice. "This sector is empty enough that

there's no reason anyone would be looking here. And

nobody knew we were coming... it's not as if there

were any ships around the station when we left."

  "Yes," said Sisko, "I noticed."

  Odo nodded, mistaking the captain's disappointment

for the constable's own relief. "Yes, that's at least one

good thing to come from this war: at last the station's

population is down to a manageable size."

    Sisko glanced at Odo and couldn't help grinning. He

winked at Dax. "So, Constable, how do you suppose

things are getting on back at the station?"

"Oh, I'm sure my deputies have things well in--"

"With an unsupervised Quark on the loose back

there?" added the captain, as if innocently completing

his thought.

    Irritated, Odo opened his mouth to reply before

realizing someone was tugging at his fetlock. He con-

tented himself with a loud "Hnh!" and turned to face the

forward viewscreen, ceasing his pacing at last.

    But Sisko was not clone worrying about his feeling,

Dax noticed. "Benjamin, what's really bothering you the

most?"

 "I just don't like coincidences, Old Man."

 He paused, and she raised her eyebrows.

    "Well, for example, it was quite a coincidence that the

Klingons didn't manage to destroy the ship until after it

passed through the wormhole."

    "True. But the Levanians could have made a monu-

mental effort to break through the wormhole, thinking

the Klingons wouldn't dare follow and kill them right

out in the open."

    "Then there's the matter of the log we found. Think of

the astonishing coincidences connected with that log!

First, the Klingons blow up the entire Levanian ship, just

to stop us from discovering intelligence about this

Klingon-Jem'Hadar training camp, but they don't de-

stroy the very log that will tell us!

    "Third, somebody tries to erase the log with a magnet-

ic sweep. But who? And why? Was there a traitor aboard

the Levanian ship? If so, why destroy the ship and attract

our attention? Or was it the doctor himself, afraid that

someone wouM find the log?"

    "Well, those are good questions, Benjamin." Dax

pursed her lips, trying to visualize a set of circumstances

that would lead the Klingons to pursue and destroy the

ship, but not to destroy the most important piece of

evidence aboard the ship. After blowing it up with

Project Renarg, why not pump a few more torpedoes

into the shredded hulk before the Defiant arrived?

    "And then," continued Sisko, "there's the most curi-

ous coincidence of all: the entire medical log is erased,

hundreds of hours of routine medical reports... except

for just a few words that just happen to be the very clues

we'd most be interested in!"

    Dax exhaled noisily, resting her chin on her hands.

"That is pretty coincidental," she admitted. "You've got

a point there."

    "If you ask me, it is entirely too much coincidence all

around."

    Throughout the exchange, Kira had been turning her

head back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match.

"Oh, come on!" she exclaimed at last, "are you actually

working yourselves into believing this whole thing is an

elaborate conspiracy? But why? If someone wanted to

lure us off to destroy us, why hasn't he struck already,

like right here?" She gestured around them, meaning the

sector they traversed, Dax presumed.

    "You've got a point too," she pronounced. "The

problem here, from a scientific standpoint, is that we're

speculating way, way, way beyond the data. All we know

is that a ship was destroyed, the medical log gave us a

clue to a possible secret Klingon base in the Dominion,

and that Starfleet has directly ordered us to check it

out."

     She looked to Odo for another opinion. The ex-

 changeling shrugged. "In light of the orders, I don't see

 that we have any choice, Captain."

     There was a long pause, during which Benjamin

 continued tweaking his beard and squirming. He's really

bothered by this mission, she realized, and the thought

worried her: almost invariably, Benjamin Sisko's intui-

tion was far smarter than it had any right to be. "For the

moment," he said at last, "Constable Odo has the

winning argument. Until we have a lot more substantial

evidence than my fretting and a few strange coinci-

dences, we must proceed on course to examine this...

Gamma Gamma Kilo niner seven four."

    His face lightened, and Dax knew he had thought of

something for her to do. "In the meantime, Old Man, I

want you to go back and examine the record of the

automatic sensor logs taken while we passed through the

wormhole. If there were a warp-speed chase going on

that ended there, we might have picked up evidence of

the ion trails left behind the ships."

    "I'm on it, Benjamin," she said, already calling up the

raw data.

    The Defiant, like other Starfleet ships, automatically

scanned 360 degrees heading and bearing around itself,

unless the science officer specifically turned off the

autoscan, for "silent running," for example. But Captain

Sisko had thought it more important to have advance

warning of anyone approaching, and Dax had continued

the scans.

    Normally, the autoscan logs were kept only twelve

hours before being erased and recorded over. But Jadzia

Dax had discovered ages ago that sensor logs were

inadvertently shadowed whenever the ship overwrote

them, and the "echo" could still be retrieved as long as

four days later, if one had a well-trained retrieval demon,

which, of course, Dax developed for every new ship or

command she served on, including the Defiant. Thus,

even though the book declared it impossible, she was

able triumphantly to announce her success three min-

utes later, preceded by a computer-generated fanfare

sound.

 "Got it! I have the logs."

 "Miraculous, Old Man."

    "Was there ever any doubt?" Dax reviewed them

carefully for ion trails. The critical period was just before

they entered the wormhole and just after they exited into

the Gamma Quadrant. The sensor autoscan did not

work properly inside the wormhole itself.

    "This is... peculiar, Benjamin," she said after a few

moments.

    "Peculiar?" said Odo, looking as puzzled as one can

look without actually changing expression. "Peculiar in

what way?"

    "Everything on our side of the wormhole looks per-

fectly normal. But on the Gamma Quadrant side, all the

ion trails come from different directions."

    "So?" Odo still didn't understand the significance, but

Dax noticed that Benjamin was starting to smile grimly.

    "Odo," she said, "do you think everyone involved,

Klingons and Levanians, met for the first time right at the

wormhole and started the chase there? What did they

do--flip a coin to see who would be the chaser and the

chasee?"

    Kira leapt in immediately, protecting her friend Odo

from Dax's sarcasm. "Well, maybe somebody else was

chasing the Levanian, and... and the Klingons tried to

head him off at the pass. But he snuck through first."

    "It's a possibility, Kira, but it's starting to smell

suspicious," Dax replied.

    If Odo noticed her sarcasm, he didn't react to it. "Are

you saying that the chase might have been planned? That

they gathered, then created the illusion of a chase to

catch our attention?"

    "That's... a chilling thought, Constable. Is that the

kind of thing criminals might do?" That was, of course,

exactly what Dax already suspected, but now they had

entered Odo's realm: the criminal mind.

    "Commander, criminals can and do contrive anything

they can to hide the truth. It's the sort of thing a Ferengi

 would do by second nature, and I daresay even a Klingon

 could think of it if he turned his mind to being devious.

 Ferengis have no corner on duplicity." Odo folded his

 arms across his chest, pleased to be able to contribute at

 last to the mission. "If my guess is correct, and they did

 stage this so-called chase for our benefit, then that calls

 into question all the evidence about a Klingon-

 Jem'Hadar training facility."

    "And raises a most disturbing question," interjected

Captain Sisko. He sat cross-legged in his command

chair, steepling his fingers and resting his lower lip

against them, deep in thought.

    "You mean why, Benjamin. Why would the Klingons

want us to think they were in league with the enemy?"

    "Well," said Kira, struggling for an explanation, as

they all were, "Cardassians do that sort of thing all the

time: keep everyone guessing whom they're allied with

today and who's about to receive an unexpected visit

from a Cardassian battle fleet."

    "But Klingons aren't Cardassians," griped Dax. Damn

it, can't anyone in the Federation understand the Klingon

concept of honor? It was a neverending source of frustra-

tion for the Trill. In her many lifetimes, she had more

than once fought alongside Klingon blood-brothers and

sisters, developing a tremendous respect for that culture.

Neither she nor any Trill could ever understand the

shortsighted view of the Federation and the Empire

toward each other. When both sides allowed it, they

worked so perfectly together!

    "Tell me about the ship, or what was left of it," said

Odo, who had not, Dax remembered, ever seen it.

    Dax waited, but the captain said nothing. So she began

to talk. "The ship was wonderfully eerie... a dead

hulk, no gravity, no air, and not even a ghost aboard."

    "Doctor Bashir--" Odo said the name as if he sus-

pected the good doctor was not the quadrant's most

reliable witness to anything--"Doctor Basfir reported

finding Levanian remains aboard."

"Well, in a manner of speaking, I suppose," said Dax.

Odo scowled, shifting his hands to the behind-the-

back hold. He had yet to master the lifelike hand

movements of a "solid." "What does that mean, Com-

mander? Either you found Levanian remains, or you

didn't."

    "What she means, Constable, is that we found a fine

mist of vaporized cells that contained Levanian DNA."

    "Exactly," said the constable, who deafly had read the

report closely and was leading them along a train of

criminological deductions. "You found, in fact, no bod-

ies! Despite Doctor Bashir's extravagent claims to the

contrary."

    Kira was staring back at her chum. "What do you

mean? They found what was left of the bodies after the

Klingon bomb."

    "Really?" Odo leaned forward inquisitorally. For a

moment, Dax realized what it must feel like when the

man actually suspected a person of a crime, and she felt

a pang of pity for Quark, which she quickly suppressed.

    Odo asked the next question in his cross-examination.

"Was the bomb blast evenly felt throughout the ship?"

    "No," she answered. "The aft end suffered much less

damage. That's where we found the medical log, still

more or less intact. Apart from the erasing, I mean."

    "And also where you would have expected to find the

bodies of Levanian crew members, also 'more or less

intact.' Wouldn't you?"

    Dax looked at Kira, who stared back, hand on her

belly again, waiting for another kick. "He does have a

point," the Bajoran admitted.

     Lieutenant Commander Dax turned back to Odo.

 "Are you saying there never were any bodies? That the

 Levanian body cells were just... sprayed in before-

 hand?"

     "I'm saying," clarified the constable, "that we don't

 know that there ever were any living Levanians aboard

 that ship, and now we can't even establish that there was

an actual chase before they arrived at the wormhole.

Isn't that interesting?"

    "Old Man," said Sisko, "I am starting to get a very bad

feeling." The captain leaned forward, raising one finger

as if pointing to the overhead. "Let's pretend, just for a

moment, that there never really was any pursuit, no

Levanians, and no Klingon-Jem'Hadar training facility.

We're right back against my original question: Why

should the Klingons want us to think they're allied with

the enemy?"

  "Uh oh," said Kira, staring down at her console.

    "What?" asked Dax, hurriedly scanning for close

encounters of the Dominion kind: nothing.

    "I think I just figured out a reason they might, I say

might, want to trick us."

 "Which is?" asked Benjamin Sisko.

    "Which is--exactly what we're doing. Going out

chasing a green puffin."

 "A green puffin?" demanded Dax.

 "A snipe, a red herring, whatever."

"That," said Sisko, "is exactly what I was afraid off"

"You mean they wanted to lure us out here? Or'just

away from the station?" Dax was already starting to get

angry: she still could not accept the idea that Klingons

would actually ally with the Jem'Hadar, but she could

buy more easily the notion that they could trick Starfleet

into worrying that they were allying with the Jem'Hadar,

enough that they would order the Defiant through the

wormhole to check on the rumor--and away from the

station, leaving it defenseless against... "An attack?" she suggested.

    "That's a terrible thing to say, Old Man, and I'm

afraid you may very well be right."

    "Again?" Dax felt the Curzon memories start to rise in

fury at having been tricked once again by the Klingons.

Maybe, corrected Jadzia Dax to herselfi "On the other

hand, Benjamin, this is all still speculation."

 "Yes," added Kira. "What if the original information

is true after all? If we turn around because we suddenly

get paranoid about the Klingons, we'll be disobeying a

direct order from Starfleet, and we'll never know wheth-

er there really is a joint training camp."

    Odo now turned 180 degrees and began to argue the

other side. Dax was annoyed, but she understood he was

only doing his job: examining every aspect of the evi-

dence, just as he would for a particularly puzzling crime.

"Captain, it's important we never lose sight of the

duplicitousness of my people. They are perfectly capable

of either allying with the Klingons, or else tricking them

into thinking they're allied. Or even of taking the form of

Klingons to trick us into thinking they're allied."

    Sisko turned to look back at Odo. "You sound like

you're saying that no matter what we do, we may be

wrong."

  "I'm afraid so."

  "That there is no right choice."

  "Well, I didn't say that, exactly."

     Sisko rose from his command chair. Everyone else fell

 silent and waited for the captain's decision. "Kira's

 point is welt-taken. We have direct orders from Starfleet

 to proceed to Gamma GK-974 and investigate the

 possibility. But my primary duty is to defend my com-

 mand, which is the station."

     "Captain," interrupted Major Kira softly, "are you

 sure you're not being, um, unduly influenced by the fact

 that Jake is still back there?"

     Benjamin Sisko paused a long moment. "Of course I

 am," he admitted, "and why shouldn't I be? Jake is my

 son, but there are still other civilians aboard, including

 children. Not everyone has left. It is my duty to defend

 them."

     "So you're just going to throw out all the evidence

 aboard the Levanian ship?" Kira seemed amazed that

 the captain would make such a decision. She spent too

 many years in the Bajoran underground, thought Dax,

 saw too many kids die.

    "No, Major. I have weighed that alleged evidence

against the points that Odo brought up, and I find the

thesis lacking credibility." Sisko turned to Dax. "In the

end, Old Man, I trust your judgment about Klingons

more than I trust an unknown medical log on a de-

stroyed ship. Ensign Wheeler, plot a course back to the

wormhole at maximum warp and let me know when it's

ready."

    "It's ready now, sir," said Janine Wheeler, as quiet as

Kira had been. Neither she nor Taryak had participated

in the conversation on the bridge. They had almost

faded into invisibility, trying to stay out of the way of the

senior officers.

    "Engage," said Sisko with finality. Kira shrugged, and

Odo frowned.

    Dax wasn't sure what she felt. she was hardly unaware

of the huge gamble the captain was taking: if it turned

out they were wrong, and there was no attack, the station

was fine, and then the Klingons and Jem'Hadar staged a

joint attack on the Federation... well, everyone aboard

Deep Space Nine might as well bend over and kiss .their

careers goodbye, that is, assuming they and Starfleet

Command managed to survive long enough to come to a

parting of the ways.

    Wheeler turned the ship expertly, of course. She was

only an ensign, but she had spent eleven years in Starfleet

before attending the academy, rising to the rank of

senior chief petty officer. The ensign engaged maximum

warp.

    The ship surged forward, but, almost instantly, it

wrenched back to impulse power and, simultaneously,

every warning horn, tocsin, and klaxon on the bridge

began to shriek: crash warning/

    Dax instantly transferred control to her own console

and veered hard to starboard, praying that whoever or

whatever was heading directly toward them had the

same emergency procedure. When seconds passed and

83

they hadn't turned into a huge fireball of matter-

antimatter reactant, she breathed a sigh of reliefi

  "What the hell was that?" demanded Sisko.

    Dax tapped furiously at her console, backing the

Defiant away carefully. "Urn, Benjamin, you know that

feeling you've been getting about us not being alone out

here? Well, you win the blue ribbon for intuition."

0

CHAPTER

       8

Now THE CAPTAIN was pacing furiously on the bridge, and

Kira was desperately trying to reconfigure her sensors to

target on a cloaked... what? "Captain," she said, "any

idea what kind of ship we're facing? Cardassian, Romu-

lan, Dominion?"

 "Try Klingon?' snapped Sisko.

    "They're not supposed to use cloaking technology,"

said Dax.

    In a pulak's eye! thought the major. "Maybe this one

has a problem with authority figures," she said politely.

The Trill could be so touchy about her Klingons, espe-

cially now that she was romantically involved with one.

"Or maybe he's not even a member of the official

Klingon fleet. Dax, after this long, don't you think

everyone in the galaxy, public and private, has managed

to beg, borrow, or expropriate cloaking technology from

somewhere?"

    Dax said nothing, but she snarled, which Kira took as

grudging agreement.

84                                                         85

    "I don't know that this has ever happened before,"

said the captain, landing at last in his command chair.

"Two cloaked ships, no shields, facing each other blindly

with phasers and torpedoes." He smiled, but without

mirth. In fact, he looked a little like Shakar, leader of

Kira's resistance cell, and now boyfriend, sort of, some-

times. "I can't say I like being the test case," Sisko

added.

    "On the other hand," mused the science officer, "there

was a subspace surge just as we missed that did look a

little like the warp signature of a Klingon bird-of-prey.

Khitomer class, ironically enough."

    Kira stared longingly at the shields console. "Sir,

maybe we should just drop the cloak and raise shields?"

    "Mm-mm," said Dax, emphatically shaking her head,

"can't power up the shields until we complete dropping

the cloak, but the bad guy can fire a torpedo as soon as he

starts powering down his own cloak. And that would give

our friend almost five seconds to torpedo us into constit-

uent atoms."

    "Perhaps if we simply made a speed-run back toward

the wormhole?" Odo suggested.

  "N c'      "

     o nance, said Sisko. "Major Kira, what would the

Klingon do?"

    "He'd follow along behind, guessing where we were

headed or following the ion trail, shooting randomly.

Eventually, one of his torpedoes or disruptor blasts

would slide right up our warp engines, and we'd light up

the sector." At least that~ what I'd do, she added to

herselfi

    "I don't understand how the ship followed us in the

first place," continued the constable. "Isn't the cloak

working?"

    "Evidently," said Kira, "otherwise we'd have been

destroyed by now." She found her hands actually shak-

ing. I'm no coward! Whatg happening to me? Then at

once the explanation sprang into her forebrain: it~ the

86

baby, stupid/ She forced her hands to remain on the

weapons console, though she had a nearly irresistable

impulse to touch her belly, feeling for her baby's kick.

    No/Keiko~ baby, Keiko and O'Brien ~. . . not mine/

Not for the first time, she wondered whether she would

really be able to give the child up, having borne it for so

many months.

    But now was not the time to worry about it; trembling

or not, she had to force her hands to dance across the

console, teasing out whatever slight sensor readings she

could, waiting for a partial lock or even a manual target.

Something to shoot at. Now was the time for Kira the

major, not Kira the mother.

    So began the slow, deadly dance, each ship maneuver-

ing blind and invisible, reaching out with gentle fingers

on the triggers of terrible weapons. First to stumble loses/

thought the young major from Bajor.

    "What?" demanded Miles O'Brien, jerking upward

and banging his head against the ceiling of the ventila-

tion shaft. "You're not planning to invite that doddering,

old fraud, are you?"

 "Old? He's no older than you!" retorted the doctor.

 "Well, he acts like a grandfather."

    "And you know as well as I that you're the fraud. Mr.

Garak is the real article."

    "Oh, and I suppose you're in Garak's league?

Bashir... Julian Bashir. Secret agent!" O'Brien

sounded distinctly nasty. "All right. Then I don't want to

involve us with that middle-aged, competent, but totally

untrustworthy Cardassian spy!"

    "And why not?" responded Dr. Bashir, irritated that

his friend still, after all these years together, didn't seem

to trust the judgment of Bashir, Julian Bashir. There was

something about the hard-headed master chief, some-

thing annoying. "Garak may sometimes look like a

traitor or act like a traitor--"

    "And flap like a duck and quack like a duck. Julian,

he's a duck! He may not be a spy anymore, but head

games are his blood, Julian. We're much better off trying

to get to the subspace emitter and repair it, so we can call

for some help, than wandering around the station look-

ing for the last surviving member of the Obsidian

Order!"

    "Have you got an envirosuit in your pocket? Do you

think the Klingons will leave the airlocks unguarded? I

really hate to do this, Chief O'Brien, but I'm afraid I'm

going to have to make it an order."

    O'Brien stared incredulously. "Julian, you're ordering

me to help you find that Cardassian threadneedle?"

    Bashir took a deep breath. He so rarely pulled rank, it

felt like pulling on an old overcoat that had shrunk over

the years. "I'm afraid so, Chiefi"

    Miles glared at him for a moment. "Aye-aye, sir," he

said tonelessly, and Julian felt the sting. Friendship is

only possible between equals, he remembered. Until the

crisis was settled, Julian and Miles would have to be

Lieutenant Bashir and Chief O'Brien.

    The chief set out along the shaft, scuttling so very like

a spider that Bashir could barely keep up. O'Brien was at

home in the nooks and byways of the station, but the

doctor had never climbed up a turbolift shaft in his life

and had only rarely crawled along a ventilation shaft.

The experience took him back to his carefree days in the

Academy, where only a ventilation shaft connected the

male and female cadet quarters.

    It was hot and very dry work. The air in the shaft was

thoroughly scrubbed of water vapor, to reduce the possi-

bility of molds and airborne bacteria spreading through

the station, and within a few minutes, the skin on

Bashir's face began to crack, and his eyes, leached of

moisture, felt achey and heavy. He tore his uniform at

the elbows and knees, then started working on the skin,

but he had to press on. And of course, Miles--Chief

88

O'Brien, that was--didn't complain, so neither could

the officer.

    So creeping, scuttling like rats, they closed on the

barricaded tailor's shop, desperately hoping the once

and future Cardassian spy had managed to hold off the

Klingon invaders. Bashir knew that O'Brien's heroic

plan to warn Star fleet was something between despera-

tion and despair. If they were to have any hope of

remaining free and retaking the station, they would need

allies, as many as they could get. Bashir was already

thinking ahead, beyond Garak, about whom they could

trust in a pinch.

    Quark was "tending bar" when his brother, the white

sheep of the family, burst in screaming incoherently

about some silly disturbance or other. Quark put the

phrase tending bar in quotation marks in his mind

because the reality of tending bar included, he was pretty

sure, having actual paying customers, which were in such

short supply lately that he was seriously thinking of

packing up and moving to someplace more rollicking,

like Vulcan, perhaps.

    Nevertheless, there were two remaining customers: an

ancient, retired Bajoran judge and, of course, the peren-

nial Morn, forlornly drinking Rigelian bloodwine and

spinning the Dabo wheel, though there were no gorgeous

Dabo girls to take bets. While there was even a single slip

oflatinum in Morn's pocket, it was Quark's Ferengi duty

to relieve him of it.

    Quark was scurrying from behind the bar with a

trayful of drinks, one for Morn and four for the judge,

when Rom charged into the room, grabbed his elder

brother by the elbow, and caused Quark to spill the

entire tray over Morn's table, lap, and head.

    "You blithering idiot!" screamed Quark at his hyperki-

netic sibling. "You... you altruistic nonprofit volun-

teed Look what you've done! Well, that's going to come

out of your--" Quark paused, groping for words, he had

been about to say "wages," but of course, Rom no longer

worked for his brother. Instead, the little Ferengi had

taken the most un-Ferengi-like tack of becoming one of

Chief O'Brien's engineers/ Worse, he had allowed his

own son, Nog, to run away and become a decidedly

unprofitable cadet at Starfleet Academy, an embarass-

ment surely caused by Rom allowing Nog to fraternize

with the hu-man boy Jake Sisko.

    Quark still worked his mouth, though now no words

came out. But Rom didn't even notice. He was still

shouting something about barbarians or invaders or tax

collectors--the Ferengi word he used could have meant

any of the three.

     "We've been invaded by tax collectors?" shouted

Quark, suddenly realizing what his brother was saying.

  "Worse!" responded Rom.

    Quark was puzzled. "What could be worse than tax

collectors?"

"Klingons! We've been invaded by Klingons!"

Quark stared at his obviously demented brother.

"Rom, ring up the sum! Klingons can't collect taxes here,

it's not their financial jurisdiction!"

    Suddenly, Rom seemed to go crazy. He grabbed Quark

by his lapelsw"my best suit!"mand shook him vigor-

ously enough that when he let go, Quark's ears rang and

his sense of balance was halfway back to Ferenginar.

    "Open up your ears, brother!" bellowed Rom, eyes

almost as big as his lobes. "The station has been invaded!

For-real invaded, by Klingons, not tax collectors, and

they're killing people in the Promenade, just outside the

bar!"

    Dizzy, Quark grabbed hold of the nearest stationary

object, Morn's head, to steady himselfi "What are you

babbling about? There are no Klingons!"

    Just then, the loud and unmistakable noise of a

disruptor sounded just outside the open doors of

 Quark's Place, followed by a series of screams and the

 battle-shouts of Klingons in full cry. Quark vaulted over

 a chair and dashed to the door. After a second, he turned

 back. "We've been invaded by Klingons, you idiot!" he

 snapped.

    "That's what I've been trying to tell you! And they've

taken over Ops, and the comm grid is down, and we're

alone and cut off and I want... I want..."

    With two long strides, Quark bellied up to Rom and

shook his fist under the younger Ferengi's nose. "I'll

earbind you if you say one word about wanting your

Moogie!"

    Rom sniffed but didn't say the hated phrase. "I was

fixing a weird comm grid problem that was piping all the

Ops communications down to a public restroom on the

Promenade when I heard Worf say something about

the subspace emitter being sheared off, and then there

was an explosion, and then I heard the voices of Kling-

ons, andre"

    "Rom, will you shut up! I need to think. We have to do

something, but should we bolt with the loot or stay and

defend the place?" Quark heard another volley of dis-

ruptor blasts, followed by a pathetic, few phasers in

return fire. "Well first, we'd better at least shut the door!"

    The two Ferengi ran in opposite directions, Quark to

the door and Rom to the two customers, pushing and

shoving them out the rear exit. Quark poked his head out

for a moment. The battle seemed to have passed right by

Quark's Place. Presumably, the Klingons wanted to

secure the entire Promenade before they started assault-

ing the shops, one by one. But Quark had no illusions

that that wouldn't be the next phase of invasion: plun-

der! Why else would anyone attack anything? he thought.

War is just organized robbery anyway/

    Then he pulled the heavy doors closed and threw the

brand-new deadbolt. The old Starfleet-supplied lock

would probably have lasted about five seconds, he fig-

ured, or just long enough for the first Klingon to set his

disruptor on the highest setting and vaporize the locking

mechanism. The new duridium bolt should be much

better... twenty seconds of disruptor fire, if they were

lucky!

    Then he ran back to Rom, who was already cleaning

out the latinum safe into a tablecloth. "Rom, we're not

leaving! We're going to stand and--hey, how did you get

my safe open, you little sneak-thief?"

    "I pick your lock every couple of days," answered the

young Ferengi without a trace of embarassment, "just in

case of an emergency!"

    "You do?" Quark stared at his brother with new

respect. Maybe there~ hope for him yet, he thought.

"We're not going to be driven away by a pack of wild

Klingons, Rom! This bar is mine, and I'm going to fight

for it!"

  "Good for you, brother!"

    "Help me move the cash register. I've got a little

Klingon surprise hidden under the deckplates!"

    Quark stooped and began tugging at a barely visible

tab that poked from the deckplates no more than two

centimeters--any larger, and he figured that formerly

shapeshifting goon Odo would have found it. But it was

devilishly hard to get a grip on such a small bit of metal!

Sudden shouts, followed by the pounding of a steel-shod

bootheel against the door lent urgency to his tuggings.

    At last, the trap flew open with a groan, just as one of

the Klingons outside shouted to use a disruptor, as

Quark had predicted. "Hah!" snarled Quark, poking an

arm into the black dark hole and retrieving first one,

then another, phaser rifle. The heavy shoulder-weapons

were a little too big for Ferengi hands, but Quark

supposed they would manage.

     "Where did you get those, brother?" asked Rom,

 staring incredulously.

  Quark looked up, annoyed at the query when he

should have heard congratulations at his cleverness.

"From Mrs. O'Brien's magnificent phaser collection in

the schoolroom!"

    "Uh, that doesn't look like something Mrs. O'Brien

wouldw"

    "Oh for acquisition's sake, Rom! What difference does

it make where I stole--I mean bought--I mean found

them. Take one and shoot anything big and warlike

coming through that door!"

    "Yes, brother!" Rom fumbled the rifle when Quark

tossed it to him. As it twisted and spun, finally falling to

the deck, Quark squawked and dove for the ground,

cringing; the gun didn't fire, fortunately.

    "Rom, you idiot! It's not enough you ruin the family's

reputation by becoming a hu-man engineer... now you

want to fly me?"

    "Uh, I'm sorry, brother." Sheepishly, Rom picked up

the rifle and hefted it. "Does this feel a little light to you,

Quark?"

    "Light? Light?" Quark bared his sharp, crooked teeth

at his brother. "Well, why don't you just hang the first

Klingon corpse from the barrel to make it heavier?"

    "Oh, here's why it's so light." Rom stared into a slot

he had just opened. "Uh-oh."

    A slow, red, creepy feeling spread through Quark's

innards. "Uh-oh? What do you mean, uh-oh?" Gingerly,

he turned his own rifle upside-down and popped the

hatch.

    It used to hold a battery, the battery that supplied

the phase-energy that supplied the phaser shots. "It's

empty," announced Rom, master of the blindingly

obvious.

    Quark suddenly felt nauseated. He quietly buried his

face in his hands as Rom ticked off a list of possible

suspects.

    "... and he could have traded the batteries for a can

of Hyperian beetle snuff," the engineer finished trium-

phantly.

    A defeated Quark shook his head. "It doesn't matter

who took it, you imbecile. The point is, my entire family

is now as good as dead."

    "Don't be silly, brother--the whole family isn't going

to die!"

    "Oh! Really? How is that possible?" the bartender

drawled skeptically.

 "Well... Moogie isn't even here."

    Quark stared at his brother for a second. "Rom, get

your lobes into the bolthole!"

0

CHAPTER

       9

THE KLINGONS WERE still pounding on the doorlock,

which was a brand new, duridium deadbolt Quark had

just bought from a Lonatian trader. He hated bargaining

with them so much--they spoke only in rhyme, and one

had to conduct negotiations in iambic hexameter to get

anywheremthat he had allowed the trader to get the

better of him.

    Well, at least we'll get to see whether he actually

cheated me or merely overcharged. Quark dashed for the

Ferengi bolt-hole on the heels of Rom, who was still

Ferengi enough to grab the bag of latinurn en passant, the

pitiful fruits of all the years of Quark's labor in the bar.

The Ferengi were practical businessmen, and they always

believed that no matter how good things were going, at

any moment, the marks might figure out the actual rules

of the game, at which point, they would storm the

Ferengi shops with torches and pitchforks.

 Thus, it was standard Ferengi business practice,

though never formalized into a Rule of Acquisition,

always to build a last-ditch escape tunnel, or bolt-

hole, into every Ferengi establishment. In fact, "block

his bolt-hole" was a common Ferengi expression mean-

ing "don't give him any options or room to nego-

tiate."

    Rom dove over the bar and hit the deck rolling, just as

a final kick from the lead Klingon snapped the duridium

dead-bolt like a wooden spoon. Hah, you lantern-headed

Faav lizard! thought Quark, already imagining what he

would do to the Lonatian if he ever caught up with him

again; he's not a trader... he's a traitor/

    Rom grappled with the ventilation grating in the

bulkhead; Quark elbowed him aside and grabbed for it

himself. They wasted precious moments in a wrestling

match for who would get to open the bolt-hole and

escape first, but a blast from a Klingon disruptor that

split the difference between the two Ferengi settled the

matter: Rom had his hands on the grill for the moment,

and Quark leapt back screaming threats and impreca-

tions at the attackers, allowing his brother to wrench free

the metal grating.

    The Ferengi bolted into the hole in reverse chronologi-

cal order, the younger brother going first. Just as Rom

cleared the lip, the first enraged Klingon leaned over the

bar, saw the escaping proprietor, and bellowed an order

to halt immediately. "Yes sir, right away sir!" screamed

Quark to confuse the behemoth. While the Klingon

vaulted the countertop, Quark dove through the hole

after his brother.

    The Klingon made a blinding lunge and barely man-

aged to catch one of the Ferengi's boots, but Quark had

just had one of the Dabo girls, Deppi An, polish the

footwear before she emigrated--and the Klingon's grip

slid right offi

    Quark scuttled backward like a spidercrab. The Kling-

on's shoulders were much too broad to fit into the bolt-

 hole, but, of course, he could stick his gun-hand inside.

 And he did.

    But a Ferengi bolt-hole would be suicide without a

back door to slam in the face of the pursuing enemy! As

the Klingon shoved his arm and one shoulder into the

hole, bending to bring one angry eyeball into view and

his disruptor to bear, Quark lashed out with his foot and

kicked the "panic panel."

    With a bang like a huge, Cardassian firecracker,

explosive bolts blew three rods made of DS9 hull

material across the tunnel, blocking the entrance,

and incidentally impaling the Klingon's arm in the

process. He screamed in agony as one of the rods passed

right through his forearm. Then his Klingon machis-

mo took control, and he clenched his razor-sharp

teeth and fought back another scream. But for all

intents and purposes, the bolt-hole was permanently

blockaded.

    "Let that be a lesson to you, Rom," said Quark,

gingerly retrieving the pinioned Klingon's disruptor,

which had fallen inside the tunnel; "always trust tradi-

tional Ferengi values, like the bolt-hole, ahead of new-

fangled, duridium technology."

    They scurried through the "tunnel"--actually the

gap between the shops of the Promenade and the

station core, too small even for Ferengi to crawl through

comfortably--as it made several right-angle turns.

They dropped through a hole in the floor, then wriggled

up a ladderway. When Quark and Rom stopped at last

to catch their breath, there was no line of sight between

them and the Klingons, not even a good three-cushion

shot for a projectile weapon. "Ah, I have a question,

brother," said Rom. Quark said nothing, he was too

busy staring back the way they had come and thinking

about the wreckage of his business, his standing in the

Ferengi community, and his life. "Where are we

going?"

    "Straight to the Land of Perpetual Poverty," muttered

Quark, "not the Divine Treasury, not the Lake of Lat-

inum."

"Actually, I meant where are we going right now?"

Quark shrugged. What was the difference? With the

bar gone, occupied, in enemy hands, one hiding place

was as dead and worthless as another.

    "Well, if you don't have anywhere in mind," said

Rom, "I suggest we find Chief O'Brien. He probably

wants us to, uh, defend the station or something."

    "Perfect! Why not?" Quark turned to glare at his

brother. "It's not as if I had anything to live for anymore!

Might as well go out in a blaze of bankruptcy."

    Rom still sat in the tunnel unmoving. "Well?" de-

manded Quark, "take me to your boss."

 "I don't know where he is!" wailed Rom.

    Any minute now, he's going to start blubbering for

Moogie, predicted Quark. "Look, Rom, there's nothing

more to do here. We're going to have to abandon the bar

and the station and get help from somewhere. We'll head

for the cargo bays and try to steal a runabout. Then,

when the hu-mans and the Klingons finish fighting it out,

we'll return in triumphant glory to reopen the bar."

Suddenly, he saw a faint metaphoric glimmer at the end

of the proverbial bolt-hole. "Say... maybe the Federa-

tion will pay us a reward!"

    "We can't abandon the station, brother. The chief

would never forgive me!"

    Quark rolled his eyes. "Well, aren't we just as likely to

find O'Brien in one of the cargo bays as well? Getting off

the station and getting help is probably the top priority

on his mind, too." Quark didn't mention his own idea

what was the most probable "top priority" thought in

O'Brien's mind at that moment: justifying himself be-

fore the Divine Treasury, or wherever it was hu-mans

went when they were fried into a cloud of submicronic

dust by a disruptor blast.

 "Well, you may be right," conceded Rom.

    "Am I ever wrong?" added Quark, his bad mood

returning as the Federation reward receded farther and

farther in his mind, hidden behind a mountain of dirty,

dangerous work.

    Rom looked dubious, but he seemed to have no better

plan. The two Ferengi set out through the bolt-hole,

trying to find the main ventilation shaft that they would

take toward the cargo bays.

    Chief O'Brien kept a pretty face, but inside he was

groaning and complaining like a bent, old woman strug-

gling up Tara hill. The extended crawl through the shafts

and vents was killing him. He didn't want to admit he

was getting to be an old man, and he surely wouldn't let

Bashir see him crippled and limpingrathe kid was

thinner than O'Brien had ever been, and wiry enough to

slither like a snake through the narrow holes of the

ventilation system, and Miles O'Brien would be damned

before he'd let on how much he was hurting!

    It would be different if he were alone, better, but with

another person bumping up against his feet every few

seconds, the chief's chest tightened and he felt more than

a dollop of frustration, exacerbated by Bashir's incessant

chattering.

    "How far do you think we've crawled, Chief?. I'll bet

it's at least a couple of kilometers. I never realized how

extensive was the ventilation system in this station! I

guess that makes sense, though... I mean, it has to

supply air to thousands of people and filter the atmos-

phere of every room on Deep Space Nine. Have you ever

thought of installing lights along here, Chief?. No, I

suppose there's no need... I wish you'd let us use hand-

torches, instead of these glowtubes, but I agree there's

too much danger of the Klingons tracking the electro-

magnetic fields produced by the current-flow in flash-

lights."

    O'Brien stopped so suddenly, Bashit ran right into

him, yelping in surprise. The chief turned his head; his

body was too tightly wedged to move. When he spoke,

his voice was more than subtly tinged with irritation:

"Will you please kindly shut the hell up? Sir?"

    A few moments before, he wouldn't have thought it

possible, but O'Brien found the ensuing silence even

more troubling. He felt guilty. Bashir wasn't a bad sort,

really, just a bit of a blatherer.

    "Garak's shop is just ahead, Julian, if you're still

interested in that wash-up," O'Brien continued in a

gentler tone. "I think he sleeps there too."

    "Oh, he won't be there," predicted the doctor. "Kling-

ons and Cardassians mix like acid and base."

    O'Brien stopped again, but this time Bashir was

farther back and avoided bruising his cheek against the

chief's boot again. "If you'll pardon my asking, then why

the hell did we just crawl all the way around the damned

Promenade?"

    "I expect him to have left, but I hope he left behind a

clue to his whereabouts." Bashir's voice floated from the

darkness beyond the red light of the glowtube. It was

strange to talk to a person whose face was shadowed.

O'Brien never realized how much of communication

depended on visual cueing; he felt he was talking to

Bashir over a comm link.

 "Why would he leave a clue?"

 "So I would know where to find him, of course."

    O'Brien rolled his eyes, but Bashir probably couldn't

see it in the dark. "He left it for you to follow?"

    "Of course; he knows I would try to find him, were I

able to do so. Who else could serve as the nucleus of the

resistance force against the Klingon occupation?"

    "But he wouldn't know the station was being invaded

until the Klingons burst into his shop. There'd be no

time for a note to you! And the Klingons would find it

and use it to hunt him down anyway."

     "I'm sure he had advance warning, Chief. He probably

 heard you and Worf talking about it up in Ops."

    O'Brien began crawling again; the annoyance pro-

voked by the conversation was getting him agitated

again. "Julian, you think the station tailor has planted a

bug in Ops?"

      "Why not? He's also the only resident member of the

Obsidian Order."  "Ex-member."

    "Chief, there is no such thing as an ex-member of the

Obsidian Order of Cardassia. No matter what Garak

may say. 'Death will not release you,' as they say."

    O'Brien merely grunted in response. He was too busy

trying to fit through a particularly close section of the

tube.

    If the shaft narrowed any further, though, O'Brien

would stick; he was already cursing himself for not

following Keiko's advice and losing a couple of inches

around the waist. I'm sure that skinny bastard Bashir is

having a grand, old time. But he crept forward.

    They came to a sharp bend that intersected the main

shaft. The course they followed was a long, circular

route--"a commodius vicus of recirculation," thought

the chief--circumnavigating the Promenade, and the

right-hand bend led inward, toward the core, right about

the point that Garak's shop should be. "I think we're

here, Julian. I think this turning is the air-supply to

Garak's place."

    "What turning? I can't see a thing over your

enormous--ah, boots."

    "It's up here. You'd better go first, sir; if it's a wrong

turning, I might not be able to back out again."

    O'Brien crawled forward past the T-intersection, al-

lowing Bashir to squirm into the very narrow gap and

hump forward on elbows and belly.

    The chief's glowtube was fading. Time to crack the last

one, he thought. But before he did, he poked his head

into the black-dark and thought he saw a faint glow of

light in the distance, diffuse, as if it were reflected off a

dull material with a low albedo.

    After a couple of minutes, Bashir's voice came from

far down the darkness. "I see light, Chiefl I can see into a

room, and it's definitely Garak's shop... I think."

  "Wait, you think it's definite?"

  "Nearly so, I'm pretty sure."

  "You can't tell?"

     "I mean," said the doctor, "that I think it used to be

Garak's shop, but it's been turned." "Searched?"

 "By somebody with a wrecking crew, it looks like."

    "Can you break open the grill and make your way out?

Julian? Julian?" Now where had he gone?

    O'Brien turned and crawled along the inward shaft as

fast as he could. As the glow of light became strong

enough not to deny anymore, he found another baffle, an

S-turn; negotiating that took time and ingenuity--he

imagined Bashir had just bent around it casually without

giving a second thought to his thicker partner.

    Around the baffle, O~Brien saw what Bashir had seen,

and the stylus-thin doctor was right: it had been Garak's

shop! The grill was missing. Since the chief hadn't heard

it wrench out, he presumed the Klingons had already

pulled it off when they searched the room, but the baffle

was clearly too narrow for any Cardassian (especially

Garak) to squirm around, or a Klingon, for that matter,

preventing a search of the shafts by the invaders.

    Chief O'Brien crawled to the lip of the shaft and

lunged out, head-first; there was no way to turn around

in any event. He fell onto his hands, and his right wrist

spasmed in pain, provoking a yelp from the chief, hastily

cut off in case they were not alone.

    The doctor came running. "Chiefl Good heavens, I

entirely forgot to tell you it was all right! Please forgive

me." Bashir instantly noticed the way O'Brien was

flexing his hand and wincing. "Let me fix that for you,"

said the doctor, fishing out the medical kit he could now

reach.

    Bashit played the cylinder, whatever it was, up and

down O'Brien's wrist, and the pain ebbed quickly. The

chief took the opportunity to look around the tailor's

shop, trying to make sense of the chaos the Klingons left.

Racks were broken apart and the pieces flung into

corners, walls were torn out, the desk was smashed, and

Garak's computer screen was kicked in. And everywhere

were clothes, or their remains: shreds of teal and emer-

ald, happy pink and crimson, somber mauve, brooding

cobalt, maroon, and midnight, epic argent and auric for

trim... what once was the wardrobe for every nefarious

character who slunk the Promenade or stalked the

corridors of Deep Space Nine, from Klingon to Ferengi

to Bajoran to Starfleet captain.

    Now, the ruler of Garak's shop would be nothing but a

king of shreds and patches; he could adorn himself as the

world's most colorful beggar, or be misapprehended as a

wandering Ferengi rag merchant.

    Bashir began to tour the shop, muttering inanities to

himself "All right, my clever, Cardassian friend, what

devilishly brilliant hiding hole could you have--" But

O'Brien rushed first to the door to check whether they

were likely to be dodging Klingon disruptor blasts in the

next few minutes. He listened carefully. Hearing noth-

ing, the chief crept close enough to the door to activate

the auto-open.

    The door remained shut, and O'Brien bumped his

nose against the door hard enough to break the probos-

cis. "Damn it!" he yelped, pulling away a hand dripping

blood. Then the nose began to throb, then itch, and he

felt a terrible need to sneeze, which would have been

terribly painful, he knew.

    Gritting his teeth, he stomped back to the doctor.

"Loog, Duliab," he said, wincing from the pain, "I

habboo bobber ooh, bu' cabboo... ?" He pointed at his

nose, as if Bashir wouldn't notice without a visual aid.

    "Chief, Chief, how do you get into so much trouble in

such a little bit of time?" Shaking his head, the doctor

once again broke out his medical tricorder and repaired

the damage.

    O'Brien sniffed a couple of times, satisfying himself

that the nose really was straight once more. "Thanks, I

particularly appreciate the bedside manner." He turned

his back and returned to the curiously inactive door.

"They must've cut power to the automatic servos," he

announced, "probably to deactivate any automatic secu-

rity systems. The Cardassians left a few surprises on the

station, if you remember."

    "Oh, how could I forget? Just the picture in my mind

of the entire Ops crew crouching behind control panels

while Gul Dukat's alarm system fired..."

    The chief tuned Bashir out, concentrating on forcing

open the doors despite the inactive servos and the high-

friction sliding tracks. When they were wide enough

for O'Brien to exit, he poked his head onto the Prome-

nade.

 "My God," he breathed; "it's completely deserted!"

    "No bodies?" asked Bashir, his head appearing di-

rectly below O'Brien's, giving the chief a start.

    "Looks like your hypothesis was correct, Julian. I

don't think they're killing anyone. There's no blood,

either. So where would they take everyone?"

    "They talked about a portable cell, whatever that

is. Probably some sort of forcefield gadget they've

rigged."

    "Clever," said O'Brien. "It means they don't have to

waste manpower actually guarding the prisoners." He

stepped back into Garak's tailor shop. "So what do we

do now? You took charge, remember?"

    Bashir shrugged. "The only thing we can do, we find

whatever message Garak left us."

 "And if he didn't leave a message?"

    "Or we can't find it? Then... then I guess we crawl

back into the ventilation system and try to find some-

body else. Or we find suits and try to make it to the

subspace emitter. Don't ask mereI'm a doctor, not an

insurgent!" With the final admonition, Bashir resumed

his hunt for a mythical message from an Obsidian tailor.

CHAPTER

      lO

THE SEARCH WAS ON, and O'Brien found himself drawn,

unwillingly, into his friend's fantasy. So maybe Garak

left a message... so what! You can't trust him farther

than a pregnant Irish bull!

    But Bashir was obsessed, and Chief O'Brien really had

no better plan. So they searched every corner of the

shop, looking for an invisible message.

    And they found it. Actually, horrifically enough, it was

O'Brien who spotted the ink scrawl on the wall, near the

smashed remains of computer, below the trim, above the

deck-mounted mike pickup for the main ship's comput-

er, ahead of the holo-projected fitting dummy (now MIA

with the death of the servos), and behind the intact

latinum safe. "What the hell is that?" demanded

O'Brien, squatting to stare at the strange symbols.

"Looks like chemistry," he said. It was his least favorite

subject at school.

    "That's exactly what it is," said Bashir excitedly,

on his hands and knees to stare at the scrawl. "It's

Cardassian biochemistry, actually... a Cardassian

amino acid, you might say. It's part of their DNA; it

can substitute for cytosine when a human mates with

a Cardassian. Urn... corrigor? Corregidor? No--

corigan something." He leaned close, counting some-

thing.

    "What is that supposed to mean? A Cardassian amino

acid--is he hiding somewhere where there's a lot of

acid?"

    "Corigan Nine-Five, a rare, amino-acid disorder of

Cardassian children that causes them to be born with no

cerebral cortex, kind of like anencephaly in a human."

    "Well, that certainly fits," said O'Brien, but again, the

sarcasm was lost on Julian, who seemed never to notice

it.

    Bashit struck a pose, resting his chin upon his palm,

the elbow resting upon his other arm, which folded

across his pencil-thin chest. "But what could Garak

possibly mean by drawing a picture of Corigan 9-5?"

 "That he felt his brain leaking out his ears?"

     "If you wanted to conceal information from a

Klingon, what would you do?"

 "Tie it to a carrier-tribble?"

 "I'm serious, Chiefl"

    "All right, I'm sorry, Julian." O'Brien paced; his brain

seemed to work better on the go. He kept his eyes on the

deck, so as not to stumble across the strewn debris and

detritus. Something tugged at the tip of his forebrain, a

thought--where could a Klingon never look? What

would they never think of?. What does Worf lack, for

example? he asked himself.

    Suddenly the chief snapped his fingers. "Julian, I've

got it! What does every Cardassian have, but few Kling-

ons possess7"

 "I shudder to ask," quipped the doctor.

    "That's it exactly! A sense of humor. Cardassians love

to pull intricate, complex gags on their friends and

enemies. They mock, they gloat, they laugh at everyone

else. They pull pranks, like that alarm set-up you men-

tioned: Gul Dukat wasn't content to set it and leave; he

wanted to watch us sweat, so he could laugh at us."

    "You're saying if a Cardassian wanted to conceal

information where a Klingon would never find it, he

would--"

    "He'd hide it in a joke, Julian. A play on words, a

pun."

 "Corigan. Corridor?"

    "Too obvious. Besides, the corridors were crawling

with Klingons just a bit ago."

    Now the doctor paced as well. They nearly bumped

into each other, and O'Brien altered his flight plan so

they could orbit without intersecting.

 Bashir suddenly stopped. "Word play, you said?"

 "Would a Klingon ever notice it?"

 "How about an anagram?"

    "An anagram? You mean rearranging letters of one

word to form another?"

    Bashir smiled. "Corigan can be anagrammed into the

phrase 'in cargo.'"

    O'Brien froze as well. They stared at each other.

"That's perfect!" said the chief. "There are a lot of cargo

bays on this station, and each has hundreds of individual

cargo pods) And all the private cargo is shielded against

sensors unless you get right up on top of it, so a

Cardassian stowaway could escape detection for a long,

long time." O'Brien paused, pensive. He called up the

mental image of the cargo holds on the station... it was

a very big picture. "The only trouble is--which one?"

He looked at Julian, who was staring upward so intently,

O'Brien's own gaze was drawn to the ceiling.

    But Bashir was just thinking hard. Abruptly he re-

laxed, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "Of course,

what an idiot! It's staring us in the face. That wasn't just

the amino acid Corigan he drew; it was a specific

damaged version, with a unique name: Corigan Nine-

Five."

 "Yeah, so?"

 "Nine dash five? How about nine minus five?"

 "Corigan four... 'in cargo' bay four/"

"That has to be it, Chief. How fast can we be there?"

O'Brien looked back at the ventilation shaft they had

tumbled out of, and he shuddered. "Faster than a

speeding snail, Julian."

    Captain Benjamin Sisko strained forward in his com-

mand chair, staring at the viewscreen, as if that would

enable him to see his invisible enemy better. This is bad

morale, he lectured himself. I cannot allow the crew to see

me so agitated/

    The Defiant was edging sideways, so gently--impulse

engines at 0.001 percent--that he hoped the Klingon

would miss the faint radiation surge against the cosmic

background radiation of three Kelvins.

    "Benjamin, surge at forty-three mark minus nine-

teen!"

    "All stop," commanded Sisko. Ensign Amar reacted

instantly, killing the impulse engines quickly; Wheeler

sat back, her hands in the air to signal that she was not

touching a thing on the Nay console. "Old Man, are we

flanking them?"

    Though the engines were silent, the Defiant would

continue to drift in space relative to her previous posi-

tion, of course. Two centuries of subspace science had

not managed to overrule Newtonian physics when it

came to macroscopic objects traveling at nonrelativistic

speeds: objects in motion remained in straight-line mo-

tion unless acted upon by an outside force, such as an

impulse engine.

    If they were lucky, if the Defiant were moving relative

to the Klingon ship (assuming it was a Ktingon ship),

then after a few minutes, they should clear the obstacle.

And then what? he asked himself, again. So what if

they managed to clear the Klingon ship? They couldn't

jump to warp speed; the ion flux and warp signature

would give them away, even if the Klingons couldn't see

them because of the cloak. They sure as hell wouM know

where we were headed/All they would have to do is fire a

few torpedo volleys in the direction of the wormhole. If

the Defiant was unlucky enough to catch one up her

exhaust vent, that would end the story: they could not

raise shields while maintaining their cloak. It was one or

the other.

    But suppose we didn't follow a direct line to the

wormhole? Suppose we tacked back and forth? That

would minimize the chance of a torpedo strike, but...

    Sisko sat back in his chair, making an elaborate

pretense of cool serenity, probably the hardest but most

important job of a senior officer. No, that wouldn't work.

The Klingons wouM figure out that that was our likliest

evasive pattern; they wouM follow their own torpedoes at

maximum warp straight to the wormhole--and arrive

first, because we'd be monkeying around. The thought of

a blind fight at the mouth of the wormhole did not

appeal to the captain.

    "Benjamin," said Dax quietly, "the energy pickup

over the passive radioastronomy antennas isn't dimin-

ishing." She looked up at him and explained before he

could ask what that meant. "I can't pinpoint them

because of their cloak, but I can tell when they're close.

And they haven't gotten any farther in the last four

minutes since our burn."

    Sisko frowned, rubbing the close-trimmed beard he

had adopted for greater military bearing. "They must

have detected the increased radiation to one side and

correctly deduced what we were doing."

    "They matched us, Benjamin, speed for speed.

They're still too close to risk heading toward the

wormhole... even if we could figure a way around the

torpedo question."

  It was unusual to have Odo aboard, and the captain

 decided to take advantage of the occasion by picking the

 constable's brains. "Odo, you understand the situation

 we're in?"

     The constable stood with his hands crossed rigidly

 behind his back, staring at the viewscreen. "It's rather

 like a security officer and a Ferengi loose in an enormous,

 pitch-black cargo bay. Neither can see the other, but they

 can hear each other breathing, so they know they're

 close. They each have a hand-torch, but whoever turns

 on his torch first signals his whereabouts to the other,

 and he'll be incapacitated before he can swing the beam

 around and find his foe."

     Sisko nodded, impressed. "You have it exactly, Con-

 stable. It is essentially a game of cops and robbers...

 now how do we find the bad guy before he finds us?"

    Odo turned up the corners of his mouth in an expres-

sion that almost looked like a smile. He had been

practicing it ever since he became a solid. "I suppose it's

out of the question to shapeshift into a creature that sees

in the dark?"

  "Perhaps the next model of the Defiant."

    "Then I would program my torch to light automati-

cally in ten seconds, put it down, and walk away from

it."

    Sisko pondered a long time. There was something

there, something he could use; he was sure of it. But he

couldn't quite pull it out. "Dax... what do you think of

Odo's idea?"

    Actually, the logical person to ask would have been

Kira. There were several alliances and cliques develop-

ing on Deep Space Nine, which didn't bother Captain

Sisko a bit; they made for competing theories, which

usually arrived at a workable answer faster than a single,

top-down heirarchy: Dax and Worf were now an "item,"

which was hardly unusual, given Curzon Dax's friend-

ship with Klingons over the decades coupled with Jadzia

Dax's fascination with the physical side of things; this

gave her great insight into the Klingon mind.

    Kira and Odo had been friends for several years,

originally owing to the fact that both were egregiously

maltreated by the Cardassians: Kira tended to back Odo

and vice versa, sometimes without really thinking it

through.

    Then there was the puzzling and absurd coalition

between Dr. Bashir and Garak, former member of the

Cardassian Obsidian Order. Alas, both were back at the

station, where Sisko hoped they were enjoying a lunch,

during which Garak would hint at the various intrigues

of espionage he was engaged in, while the young doctor

tried desperately to sort fact from fancy.

    "I don't see how that helps us," groused Dax, respond-

ing to Odo's suggestion. "There's nothing we can set and

walk away without it instantly becoming visible to the

Klingon." Odo was a technical nail'compared to Dax,

and she was impatient at a suggestion that sounded

nonsensical.

    "Wait a minute, Jadzia," objected Kira, as the captain

had known she would. "Don't just dismiss it out of

hand! This is a police situation." Now that the Bajoran

major had opened her mouth, she had to struggle not to

put her foot in it. She would think through Odo's

suggestion more furiously, Sisko predicted, than if he

had simply asked her directly in the first place, then she

would have said "yeah, sounds great," which wouldn't

bring them any closer to a plan than before.

    "The walking away wouldn't matter if... if it were a

light point-source, rather than a beam. The whole room

would get bright, and you'd see him the same time he

saw you," Kira said.

    "So we'd each shoot each other! Benjamin, what's Odo

getting at?" Dax asked.

    Sisko hadn't a clue, so he merely sat silently in his

command chair with a faint smile, as if he were the

Sphynx demanding an answer to his riddle. But he knew,

he just knew they were on the verge of something.

    "No," said Kira, "you don't get it! Sure, he'd see us

the same time we saw him... but we'd be expecting it/

He wouldn't--I figure I can get one clean shot while the

Klingons are saying 'What the hell was that!'"

    And suddenly, no one was talking about cops and

robbers. Now it was a concrete plan for the Defiant

against the presumed Klingon bird-of-prey that stalked

them invisibly.

    Now Dax was getting excited, seeing the possibility for

some flashy pyrotechnics. "Benjamin, if we could create

some sort of bright pulse, something heavy, but with a

wavelength less than four or five times the length of his

hull, we might be able to see it bend around his ship like

ripples around a leaf floating in a pond."

    Benjamin Sisko raised his hand in benediction. "So

mote it be," he intoned.

 "Kira, what about a hyperphasic pulse?"

    "Yes!" shouted the former terrorist. "The soliton

pulse through subspace would have to deflect slightly

around the cloaking field itself. It's kind of like how we

used to detect Cardassian transports coming in to land."

    What an amusing irony, thought Sisko, to detect a ship

because of its cloak. It would only work because of the

incredible proximity: if the ships were more than five

hundred or so kilometers apart, the effect would be too

minuscule to detect.

    The women dove for the warp drive circuits~ ripping

away the cover panel without getting into each other's

way, astonishingly enough. Sisko turned to his constable.

"A brilliant idea, Odo."

 Odo nodded gracefully. "Thank you, sir."

 "I think you may have solved our problem."

 "Perhaps. It's a good start, at least."

    Captain Sisko turned to watch his science and weap-

ons officers attacking the ship's controls. Quietly, he

added, "You haven't a clue what Dax and Kira are doing,

do you?"

 "Not the vaguest idea, sir."

 Sisko smiled broadly.

    "Ensign Wheeler," he said, loud enough to attract her

attention, "at random intervals every few seconds, fire

up the impulse engines to point zero zero one, random

heading. Just to keep them on their toes."

    Fifteen minutes passed, during which the captain

strained his eyes so hard, staring at the starscape through

the forward viewer, that his vision went out of focus and

he had to blink for half a minute to restore it. Dax called

out, "Got it, Benjamin! We're set up for the hyperphasic

pulse whenever you pull the lanyard."

    Eyes closed, Sisko asked, "Can we raise shields while

we pulse?"

    There was a pause. In between blinks, he saw Dax and

Kira looking at each other and communicating silently

via nods and shrugs, as two conspirators often did.

"Sorry, sir," said Major Kira. "It's too much drain on

the ship's systems. In fact, we won't be able to do

anything that requires a power-drain for almost ten

seconds after the pulse."

 "Can you lock on phasers and torpedoes?"

    "Sure, but we can't fire until the storage cells

recharge... nine point nine seconds."

    "That will be fine. If we're lucky, the Klingons will still

be blinking from the flash."

    "Captain," said Odo, "perhaps I'm not following the

technical side of this conversation, but wouldn't it take

even more power to raise shields than it will tO fire the

phasers?"

    Kira agreed. "Can't even start for nine point nine

seconds; then it'll take three and a half seconds for

forward shields, if that's where they are."

    "But what if the Klingons don't happen to be directly

forward?"

    The major shrugged. "Well, after we identify their

bearing, it's nine point nine seconds to full power, then

three point seven seconds to start raising the appropriate

shields, and a final four seconds before full shields can be

raised. Almost eighteen seconds for full shields, assum-

ing nobody trips over their own fingers."

    "So what you're saying," Odo persisted, "is that if we

don't destroy the ship or at least disable their weapons

systems, then after we get one free shot, they'll get one

free shot. And neither of us will be shielded."

    "That," said the captain, "is the chance we will have

to take." He stood, folding his arms across his chest.

"Secure all emergency hatches, all hands to crash posi-

tions. Dax, activate the pulse on my command: four,

three, two, one, now."

    At the final word, Sisko sat quickly and thumbed the

crash-restraints on his command chair. Dax touched her

console.

    The hyperphasic pulse was so powerful, the captain

actually felt it himself, right through his body: it was like

a sudden glass of particularly rough, moonshine whis-

key, the kind he used to drink with his father in the

bayous of Louisiana when he was Jake's age, but instead

of starting in the throat and spreading down to the

stomach, thence to the rest of his body, the hyperphasic

pulse erupted from his brain and spinal column and

spread along his nervous system to the extremities,

hands and feet, fingers and toes.

    Sisko jerked and grunted, blacking out for a microsec-

ond. He shook himself and pulled his shaky hands over

his own command console, ready to take control from

Kira if she were still unconscious from the pulse. She was

awake, but the ship's systems were dead!

    Just as the fact registered in Sisko's mind, along with

the mild regret one feels when "the best laid plans of

mice and men aft gang agley," the bioelectronics burped

and abruptly came online again.

    "Searching," shouted Kira, unnecessarily, since no-

body's hearing was affected by the pulse. "Where are

you? Where the hell are you?"

    "Yes!" shouted Jadzia Dax, touching a single button

that shot the coordinates directly to Kira's console.

    "Got it," said the major. "Thanks... come on, little

ones; come back to me--come on back to me!" Evi-

dently, the phaser cells had ears; they responded almost

instantly to Kira's summons. She did not wait for orders.

She fired a full spread of phasers and photon torpedoes.

"Blessed be the Prophets," she mumbled, almost as an

afterthought.

    "Incoming!" shouted Dax. Before she could finish the

word, the entire ship shuddered, as if it had been

smashed by a giant sledge hammer. With a second blow,

the starfield began to race past the viewer. It took Sisko

almost a second to realize the ship was spinning rapidly

from the force of a blow.

 "Inertial dampers?" he inquired.

    "Normal parameters, Captain," said Ensign Amar. he

looked a little green nonetheless.

    "Correcting for the drift and spin," said Wheeler, her

hands jerking across her navigation controls.

    "Unfortunately," said Dax, "the Prophets giveth and

they taketh away. The Klingons got their shields up

before the torpedoes arrived, but we did wing 'em with

the phasers."

"How bad is our damage from the return shot?"

Dax held her hands up, staring at her diagnostic

screen. "Looks good, Benjamin! We got the jump, and

our shields came up just before their disruptor blast.

That was the first jolt. It was their torpedoes that started

us spinning, but there's no serious damage. The shields

were nearly full-power." "And the Klingon?"

    "One of Kira's phaser shots popped him right in the

weapons pod. He won't be shooting again for a couple of

days, I think. Got a partial on the warp engines. Benja-

min, I can't tell for sure with his shields up, but I think

he's crippled!"

    "That was an extra-base hit, Major," grinned Sisko.

"Now set a course back to the wormhole, maximum

sustainable, Ensign Wheeler, and get us the hell away

from here."

    "He'll follow," said Kira, as the ensign lay in the

course and engaged the warp drive.

    "But he has a weak arm," said the captain, still in a

mood for baseball metaphors. "And I'll bet the Defiant

can beat the throw to the plate anyday."

0

CHAPTER

      11

MAJOR KmA 'rOOK control of the Defiant away from the

irritated Ensign Wheeler, who rose from the nav-chair

when requested and fairly stomped to the "woodshed,"

the fold-down jump seat used for visitors on the bridge,

where supernumeraries and cadets sat to observe the

bridge. Janine Wheeler had done nothing wrong, but it

was only her third navigation-propulsion watch on the

Defiant, and the captain wanted a more senior hand at

the helm.

    Kira verified the course every half hour; "landmarks"

were distant enough in the Gamma Quadrant, which was

so sparsely scattered with stars, that there was insuffi-

cient parallax for the computer to reliably navigate: the

stars were so far away that they didn't change much as

position changed, and it was easy to drift from the

course. But on many long trips in the quadrant since the

discovery of the wormhole, Major Kira had developed

various seat-of-the-pants navigation techniques, such as

a "sideways glance" at a particular planetary system they

 skimmed, judging by the relative position of the well-

 mapped planets whether they were on course, or how

 much of a correction was needed.

     "Wheeler, stop pouting and watch what I'm doing,"

 snapped the major. "I know what they taught you in

 .your Academy, but that's theory. The reality is that there

 ~s no such thing as 'coordinates' in real space."

"I don't understand," said the ensign, still fuming.

"Coordinates are measurements from a zero-

point .... Earth, in the case of Federation coordinates.

But Earth doesn't sit still; it revolves around its sun, Sol;

and Sol revolves around the center of the galaxy and is

tugged by other star systems."  "We account for all that!"

    "But you can't account for the fact that the relative

length of whatever unit you use for measurement

changes, depending on what direction you're approach-

ing the coordinates from, and how fast you're moving

relative to Earth when you drop out of warp into sublight

velocity."

    "Huh?" The ensign looked blank, and Kira silently

cursed the allegedly "practical" approach to astronaviga-

tion that taught Starfleet officers only what they needed to

know about special relativity and quantum mechanics.

    "I mean," explained the Bajoran, with rather more

patience than she actually felt, "a ship approaching the

so-called coordinates from one star system going ninety-

nine percent lightspeed actually measures a different-

sized meter or kilometer than a ship coming from

somewhere else going ninety-nine point ninety-nine per-

cent lightspeed."

    "Wait," said Wheeler "you're saying they two ships

might come to two different spots, and each one would

think it was at the right coordinates?" "Exactly!"

 "But, which is right?"

    Kira couldn't help groaning aloud. "Janine, neither is

right. Or they both are, however you want to look at it.

There is no exact correlation between coordinates and

some fixed position in space. All you can do is note

landmarks and correct when you get there." Kira read

the numbers the computer just finished crunching from

the sighting she just made. "That's what I'm doing here,

see? I know certain landmarks--every pilot has her own

set--and I take a peek, calculate the deviance, and

correct."

    Wheeler stared for a long time, trying to absorb the

lesson. When she spoke, her voice was softer, meeker

than when she was banished. "It sounds like you're

saying the whole science of navigation is... fuzzy."

    "It's not a science, it's an art. It's like..." Kira

groped for an analogy, looking back at Captain Sisko.

    The captain had been following the conversation more

closely than even Kira realized. "It's like throwing a ball

to a friend," he explained. "There's no precise answer to

when to let go of the ball, because you never swing your

arm exactly the same way twice."

    "Only in this case," Kira added, "you're on one

runabout, and your friend's on another going a different

direction."

    Dax chimed in. "Actually, our friend is going the same

direction... and he just increased his speed. He's gain-

ing on us, Kira!"

    The ensign instantly forgotten, Kira stared at the rear-

mounted sensors on her threat board. Indeed, the image

of the Klingon in the sensor array was "blueshifting," the

term used by analogy with light, indicating he was

moving closer to them. The Klingon was catching up.

"How the hell is he doing that?" demanded Kira, almost

rhetorically.

    Dax took it as a real question. "He's overcranking his

engines, Nerys. Got hot spots all over the pods. It's a

miracle that thing hasn't blown a gasket by now."

    "Blood of the Prophets," swore Kira. "I don't believe

it."

      "Believe what?" asked Captain Sisko. "Major, if you

know something we don't, please tell us."

 "He has no weapons," she said.

 "Yes, I told you that!" griped Dax.

    "And his engines are damaged. He might not be able

to make it all the way back to the wormhole... it's two

days travel." Kira Nerys paused, but nobody spoke. The

silence was eerie, and she quickly filled it. "So that leaves

only one choice for our Klingon friend: he has to close

the gap and ram us."

    Sisko pursed his lips and touched his beard. He looked

pensive. "I cannot think of an alternative," he said at

last. "Circumstances dictate tactics." He paused for a

moment, then turned to Dax. "Old Man, we have to

match velocities. We can't let him catch up. Can you

modify the engines to get higher than maximal warp out

of them?"

    "Benjamin," she said cautiously, "we could burn out

our engines. And if we did, then we'd be stuck here, a

sitting duck, long enough for the Klingons to finish

repairing their weaponry. I can pretty much guarantee

we wouldn't make it back in time to stop--"

    "Stop whatever surprise party the Klingons planned

for Mr. Worf and Chief O'Brien," finished Sisko.

"Nevertheless, we have little choice either, just like the

Klingons: their tactics dictate ours. We must go faster.

But Dax--"

  Yes.

    "Don't overrev it all the way to maximum, and don't

burn out the warp drive; that's just what the Klingons

want. As long as they're gaining more slowly than they

are now, we should be all right." "Aye-aye, Cap'n."

    Dax dove into the wiring again, obviously unhappy.

But looking down at her screen, Kira saw that the bird-

of-prey had closed the gap by 8 percent of the separation

in only a few minutes. At this rate, she calculated, they'll

be close enough to smell the raktigino in ninety minutes/

    "Hm, one question, Benjamin," mused Dax from un-

der the propulsion console, her voice muted by the mass

of fiberoptic bioelectrical wiring, "the only two places I

can divert power from for extra speed are the shields or

the phaser banks. Which would you rather lose?"

  "Kira?" asked the captain.

    The major opened her mouth to choose the former,

then closed it to think a second time. "If we drain the

shields, and it turns out the Klingons fix their disrup-

tors faster than we expected, we're dead meat. I can

live without the phasers. We still have plenty of torpe-

does."

    "Phaser array it is," muttered the barely audible Dax.

Kira sat back and stared as the Klingons crept closer and

closer; she had to force herself to divert some attention

to course corrections, so concerned was she about the

pursuing ship.

    A few minutes later, Dax managed to goose the warp

drives, and the Defiant began to shudder. Kira gripped

the edge of her console and tried to read the blue-

shifting, difficult with the buffet from engines opera-

ting at 105 percent or 110 percent normal capacity.

"He's... not gaining quite so fast," she announced.

The good news sounded tepid. She should have hol-

lered "he's falling back!" but the sensors showed

otherwise.

    Sometime in between glances, while Kira was poking

at the nay stream, nudging the ship on a better course for

the wormhole, the blueshift changed to redshift. "Oh!"

she declared, and almost forgot what she had been dying

to say. "He's not--the Klingons are--Captain, I think

the bird-of-prey slowed down. We're pulling away from

him, now."

    "Excellent!" declared Sisko. But the triumph was

short-lived, within two hours, the color had changed

once again, and the Klingons were once again trying to

overtake the Defiant.

    For more than eight hours, the tug-of-war continued:

both ships nursed their engines, prayed hard, and goosed

the nacelles just a little faster, then backed off the heavy-

warp when warning lights exploded like a string of

supernovas across the engineering consoles. Sometimes

the Defiant gained; more often, the game went to the

Klingons. By the time another bridge-watch had passed,

and Ensign Janinc Wheeler had been replaced in the

woodshed by Ensign Tarvak Amar, Kira, who still sat in

the driver's seat, felt a terrible, shooting pain in her eyes.

She couldn't keep them moist enough, and she had to

take a thirty-second break every bell to drip saline onto

her corneas.

    The Klingon bird-of-prey had closed the gap to just

one quarter of where it had started out, after the Defiant

got the first, big jump at the very beginning. Their lead

had eroded to virtually nothing, and still the Klingons

came!

    "This is ridiculous!" complained Dax. "Their engines

are hotter than a stellar core--and I mean that

literally--their ship is shaking apart, the dorsal and

ventral stabilizers are stuck open, so the damned thing is

rocking like an elephant in full gallup. Why hasn't their

ship exploded or shot off in a random direction by

now?"

    "Jadzia," said Kira, "we're not much better off. Ex-

cept for not taking a hit to the warp pods--and it doesn't

seem to have affected them much--we're in as bad a

shape as they are."

    "Speaking of which--damn it, not again!" Dax swore

fluently under her breath. Once again, she killed the

extra-power feed from the phaser array into the engines

that had been salting the matter-antimatter reaction for

just a jot more power.

    "Kira," said Sisko, "are they in torpedo range?" She

jumped. It was the first question he had asked in hours.

"No, sir. Can't lock onto the target from here."

    "Major Kira," he continued smoothly, "have you ever

heard of a mine field?"

    Of course she had. The Cardassians had regularly

buried the deadly, indiscriminate explosive devices along

routes followed by Resistance columns, either troops or

supply trains--or civilian traffic, as the routes were

generally public. "You mean--just drop photon torpe-

does behind us and hope the Klingons run into one?"

    "Do you have a better idea?" asked the captain. Since

the answer was no, of course, Kira began the process of

"mining" the path behind them. Every five minutes, she

allowed two or three torpedoes just to "roll" out of their

magazines, set to proximity fusing. The first time caught

the Klingons by surprise, and they drove directly into a

torpedo. The blast diminished their shields by 11 per-

cent, but front then on, the Klingons were watching for

Kira's little surprise packages and were able to dodge

them. Still, the evasive maneuvers slowed the pursuers

down and prevented them from applying full warp

power toward catching up.

    With every mine Kira dropped--she preferred to

think of them as depth charges; she had seen the results

of Cardassian mines on Bajoran children--the Klingons

fell back to drive around it, then overcranked their warp

nacelles to play catch-up.

    "Kira, what are you doing?" asked Dax. "Their en-

gines look like they're ready to burst?

    "It's not the torpedoes, it's the speeding up and

slowing down," said the major, not taking her eyes off

her threat-board. Again she dropped a depth charge,

then again, then once more. "Um, Dax, how close do

you think they are? We're starting to run low here. If we

run out, we're defenseless: no phasers, no photons."

    The Trill hummed skeptically. "How many do we have

left?"

  "Four. That leaves us bone dry."

  "Well, four more spurts of power ought to blow their

engines, but I've been thinking they're going to blow for

some time now, and--"

    "And they're still turning over," Kira completed.

Damn! What are they running on?

    The captain spoke from behind Kira. "It's your call,

Kira."

    Kira discovered herself silently praying to the

Prophets... something she had been doing more and

more recently, since getting pregnant with another cou-

ple's baby. She rested her hand on her swollen belly,

something else she had started doing all the time.

Ordinarily, Kira would suggest standing and fighting,

but not every person aboard the Defiant had chosen the

danger: there was one aboard who had never chosen

anything, not yet.

    Why did I go on this mission? she berated herself, but

it was too late now for recriminations. The mission was

supposed to be a routine trek through the Gamma Quad-

rant: get close to the planet, do a passive scan for Klingon

and Jem'Hadar lifesigns, get out quickly before anyone

even knows we're there. Instead, they were racing across

the galaxy with a bird-of-prey literally in hot pursuit,

desperately trying to make it back to the wormhole--

and having no idea what they would find on the other

side. If the station fell under attack, are the O'Briens still

alive?

    Kira remembered that Keiko was down on Bajor, and

she breathed a sigh of reliefi at least one O'Brien was all

right, no matter what may have happened to the station

when the Klingons drew the Defiant away on a wild

Jem'Hadar chase. But of course, that also meant at least

one O'Brien stood to suffer the most horrible blow a

parent can suffer: the death of a child, should Kira make

the wrong choice now. Worse, Kira couldn't remember

whether Molly was aboard with Miles or on Bajor with

Keiko!

 "Dax," she asked, her throat was too dry to speak, and

she had to clear it. "Dax, what's the pattern on their

warp-engine overload?"

    "You mean each time? Urn, it rises steadily as they

accelerate to about twelve percent past redline, then they

scale back."

    "Which do they use as the mark: the speed, or the

engine temperature?"

    "Oh! I hadn't thought of that." Dax typed at her

console, then reported back. "You're right, Kira--

they're cutting off their engines when they reach closing

speed, regardless of the engine temperature!"

    Got 'era! "All right, people, here we go: let's see how

slow they have to go for four depth charges."

    With a final amen, Kira dropped the last four torpe-

does out the aft end of the Defiant. hoping the ship's

name would live up to expectations. She watched help-

lessly; with no more ammunition, there was nothing

Kira could do. Dax could reroute power back to the

phaser array, slowing the ship, but the bird-of-prey

would run right up the Defiant's aft end, possibly de-

stroying both ships in the ensuing collision. The final

depth charges had to work! The alternative was not to be

considered.

    Because they were just dropping the torpedoes out the

back of the ship, not firing them, it was impossible to

predict the pattern they would take. Kira held her

breath, praying they wouldn't all line up on one side.

    They didn't. In fact, the torpedoes spread nicely,

forming an impassable "picket fence" directly in front of

the Klingon ship. The pursuers did the only thing they

could: they slowed dramatically and altered course to

avoid the explosive barrier.

    But when ships are moving at what Bajoran scientists

called hyperluminous velocity--that is, faster than

lightspeed--slowing "dramatically," even by a few

tenths of a warp number, meant that, all of a sudden, the

Defiant was way ahead of the Klingon ship: in the ten or

so seconds during which the Klingons had to drop from

warp 9.72 to warp 9.20, the Starfleet ship pulled ahead

by some three and a half million kilometers... that was

more than eleven light-seconds.

    The determined Ktingons commenced their overheated

burn to catch up to the Defiant, and Kira gritted her teeth:

here was the last chance they had to shake the pursuit!

The Klingons had not been this far behind since they

began to overbum their engines, and they threw caution

to the solar winds, revving their warp engines up to 110

percent rated capacity. Within seconds, inside the nacelle

containment field, the matter-antimatter reaction super-

heated to the core temperature of a mid-sized nova.

Closer and hotter, the measurements stood in indirect

proportion to one another. By the time the Klingons had

almost caught up, the subspace tachyon and chronotron

output from their blighted ship was probably lighting up

sensor arrays across the entire sector, as dozens of space-

faring races were staring at their own threat boards and

saying "What the hell is that?"

    A Klingon bird-of-prey is a sturdy ship with plenty of

built-in safety margins. But no safety margin ever made

could contain a point-source as hot as those engines.

There was a flash that burned out several of the De-

fiantg sensor contacts and probably fried all the un-

shielded electronics throughout the ship. Kira's screen

went dead for several seconds, during which she

sweated and cursed silently. Then the array flickered

back into existence, the computer having switched to

backups.

    She searched behind them for two solid minutes, but

all she found was microscopic debris that might have

been the remains of the bird-of-prey, but they would

never know for sure. The ship did, however, vanish from

the sensors: whether it had blown up or burned out and

put up its cloak, she couldn't tell.

    "That did it, Captain," she said, licking her lips like a

Prophet-Bobber lizard. "I don't know where they are,

but I know where they aren't. We're clear from here to

the wormhole... unless he had a friend who's still

running silent."

    "That is a chance we shall have to take," said Sisko.

He tried to appear calm, but Kira saw his pale knuckles

and the imprint his gripping fingers made on the uphol-

stery of his command chair, and she was not fooled, not

for a minute.

0

CHAPTER

      12

JAKE SlSKO WAS surprised to find himself less terrified

than he had been earlier, much less than he had been

under the bombardment on Ajilon Prime. It wasn't just

the fear of death, he realized, it was the helplessness/

Struck by his revelation, he crept along the corridor,

back against the bulkhead, trying to look forward

with one eye and back with the other... an unten-

able position. But he hadn't seen a Klingon in several

hours.

    For the first four hours after fleeing the Promenade,

Jake "ran into" the invaders left and right. The enemy

were making no attempt to be silent--hardly unusual

for Klingons--and fleet-footed Jake, silent as a ghost,

was always able to evade the troops. He knew the sta-

tion well enough to avoid dead ends, and he was lithe and

wiry enough to duck into the most astonishingly narrow

spaces, where wide-bodied Klingons wouldn't even think

to look.

    But there were some hairy near-misses, such as the

time he hung by hands and feet from a fire-suppression

sprinkler pipe not three meters above the heads of a

Klingon patrol, who had previously spotted him and

were looking. They looked everywhere but up.

    Now Jake stalked empty halls and silent passageways,

and he wasn't afraid--not that afraid--but he wan-

dered aimlessly, from nothing to nowhere. Until he

found himself turning a corner, shading into a shadow

when a pack of braying Klingons scuffled past, looking

for stragglers. Jake had seen none for more than an

hour, the station was secure. But when the Klingons

passed, and Jake continued on his ostensibly aimless

route, he found himself standing at the entrance to

Cargo Bay 4, and at once the plan that had eluded his

stunned brain became clear: if he could steal a runabout

and escape the station to Bajor, he could warn his father

and Starfleet!

    Jake stared at the locked door, his palms itching and

sweat beading on his forehead. A moment before, he was

calm, accepting the situation as immutable. But now

that he abruptly had something to do, all his old fears

and insecurities flooded back. He was grateful for the

fear; it meant he was still alive. For many leaden minutes

at the beginning of the crisis, Jake Sisko had wondered

whether he, too, had been gunned down, and his con-

sciousness was nothing but a ghost walking the site of his

physical death.

    At first, his brain froze; then he remembered the

standard access code for station personnel, which he

wasn't technically allowed to know, but his father was

captain and had given him access. Sofile a complaint, he

once told Odo when the constable raised the issue, back

in the days when Jake and Nog made mischief and

menaced quietude on the station. Jake typed the

code... and nothing happened.

  Of course, the Klingons encrypted all the access pass-

words. Well, what did he expect, incompetence? From a

Klingon operation?

    Jake smiled. The Nog era was about to pay off yet

again. To prove he would never be bested by a mere hu-

man, Nog had demonstrated his own methods of break-

ing into allegedly secured facilities and quarters, meth-

ods that didn't require a father who ran the station to

give his little precious a security-access code. Jake,

roundly impressed, had learned the techniques, the easy

ones at least.

    He scavenged the deck until he came to a cooling duct,

as usual wrapped with tight coils of insulating material.

When uncoiled, the material was stiff but bendable, and

could be flattened into a shiny strip a meter and a half

long and four centimeters wide.

    Stretching as high as he could--Nog always needed a

leg-up--Jake flattened his thumb against the insulation

at the top of the jamb. Pressing up hard, he created a gap

just thick enough to slide through the strip of unrolled

insulator. He inserted it as far as he could, retaining just

two fist-widths, then he bent the stiff material downward

and inserted it a little farther, until the bend was right at

the top of the door.

    Jake gently pumped the insulator up and down, and

the shiny, reflective surface caught the motion-sensors

on the other side of the door. With a faint hiss, the door

slid open, the door-eye thinking someone approached

from the inside to exit. Exiting was allowed from the

cargo bay by default, unless the function was specifically

turned off, and disabling the mechanism had simply not

occurred to the Klingons. Besides, presumably they were

moving in and out themselves, and it was convenient not

to have to type an encrypted access code with an armful

of weapons.

    Jake slid into the darkness of the bay, crouching low to

make a small silhouette against the bright corridor. He

froze, his pulse pounding in his ears. His chest ached,

and he realized he was so tense, he probably wouldn't be

able to move even if a raging Klingon burst through the

boxes directly ahead of him, sweeping his bat'telh like a

scythe.

    Jake forced himself to relax, slowing his aching heart,

taking long breaths silently through his mouth. As his

pulse quieted, he could hear the noises of the cargo bay,

normal noises, but faintly behind them the insistent

buzz of low, guttural conversation.

    Creeping closer, shackled by a strange chill, the young

Master Sisko caught a word here and there, deep and

harsh, an ugly sound to the speech. But somehow, it

didn't sound quite Klingon enough. He mentally cursed

his universal translator: he knew what Klingon speech

sounded like, if only the damned technology would get

out of his way and stop translating everything into his

own tongue! What finally tipped him that he was not

dealing with a Klingon enemy was the height of the

noise, which he finally localized by twisting his head

every direction until he pulled a muscle. Unless the

Klingon were squatting on the ground or were a dwarf, it

was doubtless a Ferengi--a pair of Ferengi, now that he

listened closer. One pair of Ferengi: hardly enough even

to open the bidding!

    Jake closed the distance, treading quietly enough to

avoid alarming the two little men, but not so quietly as

to sneak up on them. His efforts were for naught.

    Rom was so startled he could barely open and close his

mouth, but Quark let out a satisfying yelp. Then the

Ferengi bartender grabbed his brother and shoved him

forward. "It was Rom! It was all Rom's idea--take him,

not me!"

    Brother Rom found his voice. "This is Quark, the

infamous smuggler! I'll be happy to inform on him ...

I've often heard him talk about how dishonorable and

cowardly the Klingons are!"

  Jake stepped out quickly, before the Ferengi caused

 irreparable damage to their sibling relationship. Quark

 and Rom stared, mouths open. The elder Ferengi was

 furious, which didn't bother Jake in the slightest, but he

 did feel a twinge of conscience at Rom's reproachful

 look. "Um... sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

    Quark straightened his coat of many colors. His ears

had turned pink, almost glowing in the darkness of the

cargo bay. Starlight from the open bay door, covered

only by a forcefield, illuminated Quark's lobes from

behind and picked out the blood vessels.

    "We've been running from the Klingons for hours,"

Rom said almost apologetically.

    "Well me too!" said Jake defensively. Then his shoul-

ders slumped. "Oh, never mind. Guys, what are we going

to do? Is there a runabout here?"

    Quark snorted, sounding remarkably like Constable

Odo. "If there were, do you think we'd still be here?"

    'T uh, think the Ktingons took them," Rom said. "All.

Some time ago. This is the third cargo-launch bay we've,

ah, investigated."

    Great. Another brilliant Jake-Sisko idea shot to hell/He

sat on a box, tucking his long, thin legs beneath him and

resting his chin on his knees.

    Suddenly, Quark jumped to his feet. In the dim light

of distant suns, Jake saw the Ferengi's eyes go wide,

staring over Jake's shoulder, as if he was looking at a

ghost.

A Klingon ghost? "Oh, cut it out, Quark!" said Jake.

A monstrous paw suddenly grabbed Jake's shoulder.

The boy blanched, his breath stopping in his throat, as

the insistent power of the huge, bearlike hand gripping

his flesh rotated him all the way about to stare at a

lightless figure that loomed between Jake and his escape.

 "It was all RotnS' idea--"

 'Tll be happy to inform--"

    Jake didn't waste his breath shouting. He lashed out

with all the pent-up fury produced by hours of terror,

helplessness, and the destruction of everything he had

called home since he was a young boy. His fist struck the

assailant full in the face, numbing Jake's arm and nearly

splitting his knuckles wide open.

    The figure stepped back, blinking, otherwise unaf-

fected. "What a peculiar greeting you humans have for

fellow freedom-fighters," said Garak, contemplatively.

  "You're not a Klingon," announced Jake.

    "I would have expected a bit of leaping about, clap-

ping on the back, cheers and such. Or perhaps a re-

served, Cardassian smile and bow."

Jake squirmed. "Garak, could you let me go, please?"

"Ah, 1 might have known the Ferengi would manage to

evade capture. They've always been so... practical."

Garak let go of Jake's shoulder, allowing the boy to

slump backward and almost stumble over a launching

stanchion. The Cardassian was dressed in a thoroughly

practical Cardassian military jumpsuit, but ~ithout the

battle armor that, for example, Gul Dukat would wear

over it. Garak smiled, and Jake immediately felt an urge

to step back uneasily; he suppressed it.

    "Garak, I'm really, really glad you're here," gushed

Jake hesitantly. He thought for a moment and added

what the Cardassian probably wanted to hear, "Good

thing we have someone experienced in, ah, resistance

fighting now."

    Quark was in a sneery mood. "Oh yes, we're just

brimming with military effectiveness now... a poet, a

tailor, an innkeeper, and a nitwit! We'll send those

Klingons packing in two hours."

    They sat in the dark talking in hushed tones, while

Jake stared out the bay door at the stars slowly rotating

past his view. He said little, grunting agreement now and

then or adding an observation, while Quark, Rom, and

Garak filled in what had happened so far in the invasion.

They diagrammed Deep Space Nine on the floor using

the tailor's chalk Garak carried, and Rom and the

Cardassian sketched where the forces had moved: the

Klingons were following a quick but pedestrian invasion

route, starting at the hub, the Promenade and Ops, and

working outward and down toward the habitat ring at

one extreme and the lower engineering levels down to

the reactor room at the other.

    Jake said nothing about his most important and

controversial observation, but he knew he would have to

spill it eventually. Still, he cringed like a Ferengi when

Rom raised the very point that Jake was hoping to avoid:

"Uh, I know Odo's off the station--"

      "Everyone knows Odo is off the station," interrupted

Quark, rolling his eyes. "But..."

 "But what, Brother?"

    "But where's, you know, Commander Worf. I mean, if

Klingons are invading the station, shouldn't Worf be

fighting?"

 Jake winced. "Well, he is fighting, sort of."

 "Where is he fighting? I haven't seen him."

    Garak smiled mysteriously. "Would you like to tell

them, Jake, or shall I? Nothing to say? Well, Rom, Worf

is fighting--at the head of the Klingon invasion!" Six

eyes snapped to the Cardassian.

     Quark broke the tension. "Worf is fighting with the

Klingons?" "He is."

    Rom sought clarification. "You mean he's fighting, uh,

leading the Klingons? Against the station?"

    "I know this is an unpleasant fact, gentlemen, but we

must face unpleasant facts. They don't go away by

ignoring them. Isn't that right, Jake?"

 The young man jumped. "Oh. Yeah."

    Garak of the cursedly sharp eye continued, "But you

don't seem very surprised, Master Sisko. In fact, if I

weren't sure you would never hold back such a vital piece

of information, I would almost say you already knew

that Worf was leading the Klingons before I mentioned

it."

    The Ferengi brothers turned accusing eyes toward

Jake, who pressed his lips together and exercised his

right to remain silent. As was usual, exercising the right

appeared to implicate him more thoroughly than a

denial would have--rightly so. "All right!" he confessed.

"I saw Worf on the Promenade, and it looked, I mean

sort of looked, like he was leading the troops."

    "I never did trust that blasted Klingon!" shouted

Quark, turning to kick a huge box labeled "Spare Repli-

cators." It was a mistake for which he paid, dancing and

swearing for several seconds.

    "Fortunately," announced Garak, "we have our own

weapon to use against them." He reached into his coat

pocket and extracted what looked to Jake like a small

comm badge, or comm earpiece, actually, connected to a

phaser-sized piece of electronics. "I managed to liberate

this from one of our friends out there on the Prome-

nade."

    "What is it?" demanded a peevish Quark, who had

removed his boot to massage his injured toes.

    "Uh, looks like a communications device," said Rom.

"Does it work?"

    "Well, in a sense." The Cardassian pressed a button,

and a pair of lights began blinking. All Jake could hear

was faint static, though he thought he picked up a

pattern within the static.

    "Encrypted," muttered Rom. He reached for the com-

municator, and after a short but gingerly struggle, got it

from Garak. "I, uh, think it's supposed to be run

through, ah, through a passkey system the Klingons wear

in their battle helmets. I think we're picking up the

transmissions but--"

    "What you're saying, brother, is that Garak's piece of

junk is totally useless."

    "Well, unless we can decrypt it somehow, yeah. Can't

use it."

    Garak was frowning. "After all the trouble I went

through to win it! Such gratitude."

    "Oh, you probably picked it up off the floor," accused

Jake, still smarting from having been exposed by Garak.

    "Off the floor!" The Cardassian drew himself back,

pressing his hand against his exquisitely tailored coat

and raising his eyebrows at Jake's effrontery. "Let me

tell you what I had to go through, the pain, the suf-

fering-"

 "The bolts of fabric," sneered Quark.

    "Please don't, Garak," said Jake, but it was no use.

The Cardassian tailor, whom Dr. Bashir always insisted

was a former member of the infamous Obsidian Order,

had already begun his epic narrative.

The Tailor's Tale

    For some time, I have been receiving commu-

nications from sources of mine that the Kling-

ons were preparing for an assault upon the

station. I know that Dr. Bashir believes I was

once a member of the patriotic, visionary order

you've all heard about, but I assure you that

even the lowliest tailor has access to more

intelligence information than you might imag-

ine. After all, people buying suits tend to talk;

you know how it is, Quark, in your position as

bartender! You hear things, and you cannot

always decide just how much credibility to

assign to the drunken ramblings of Morn, or the

tall tales of a merchant-fleet captain you've

never seen before in your life.

    But when you hear the same stories over and

over, after a while, you begin to lend them some

credence in your head. So it was that my sources

informed me for several days now that this

attack was imminent, and I was prepared, of

course, with several contingency plans: just as

would any good... tailor.

    When the attack itself came, I must confess to

being in a rather awkward, that is not to say

undignified situation, however; as one of your

human books says, no man shall know the hour

or the day, and there are certain duties to which

we each must attend once or twice a day, if you

know what I mean. Yes, Rom, I am aware that

you were attempting to fix the problem. It must

be embarrassing for Ops communications to

accidentally be rerouted to a public wash-

roombhowever did you manage that? As I said,

I was in a rather awkward position when I

realized the invasion had begun, but I extracted

myself as quickly as I could and rushed back to

my shop, where I had prepared my plans for

response to the impending assault.

    Well, as your human poet Burns wrote, the

best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. I

hadn't quite made it back when... Oh, all

right, Jake, gang agley, whatever that means.

No, I'm sure your father has the quotation

correct. I had not quite made it back to my shop

when the first wave of Klingons materialized on

the Promenade and began to lay down cover

fire.

    I saw right away they were not aiming, merely

shooting to force everyone down to the deck,

helpless, where the Klingons could dispose of

them at their leisure. Taking advantage of their

own tactic, I kept my feet and charged across the

deck directly at one of the attackers!

    Oh, it was a glorious fight, reminiscent of the

grand days of the Empire. In fact, I daresay I felt

a small surge of the patriotism that members

of--of that order must feel as they ferreted out

disloyalty, corruption, and treason among the

more libertine civilians of our populace, or that

a soldier in the front lines must have felt when

confronting the barbarians ship to ship, Cardas-

sian wits against Klingon bat'telhs! The Klingon

saw me coming, but too late! He raised his

disruptor and fired, just as I dove through the

air and rolled across the deck. I felt a tingling in

my back as his bolt o'ershot me.

    Coming out of my roll, I rose before him and,

remembering my training, I struck with--I

mean, my training in school, of course, Jake; I

know what Dr. Bashir thinks, but he is rather a

romantic soul--I was too close for fists or feet,

but remembering my schoolboy training in the

manly arts, I struck at the Klingon warrior with

my elbows and knees, knocking the wind out of

him right through his battle armor. And let me

tell you, were I some fragile species like human

or Ferengi, instead of a proud Cardassian, I'm

certain I would have done myself an injury!

    As it happened, though, I dropped him to the

deck and snatched up what I thought was his

disruptor. At that moment, the other Klingons

belatedly realized their danger, and they con-

centrated their fire upon me.

    Dodging disruptor blasts is quite an invigor-

ating exercise. I highly recommend it for, ahem,

sedentary bartenders, Mr. Quark. But I realized

that I was somewhat outnumbered--though

they were only Klingons, hence a little, shall we

say, thick--and decided discretion was the bet-

ter part of valor, an expression we civilized

Cardassians try to live by. I exited and circled

the Promenade to my little tailor shop. It was

only then that I realized that my talented fin-

gers, quite on their own initiative, had liberated

this particular piece of technology from my

assailant as I pulled him to the deck. Quite an

accomplishment! I only wish the good doctor

had been there to witness it. It amuses me to

feed his charming fantasy about the Obsidian

Order.

    I left a short hint to the doctor that I was

headed here. Now don't fret, Jake. I assure you,

the Klingons will never understand the message,

if they even find it. It will just be so much

gibberish to them. I only hope Doctor Bashir is

as subtle as he wishes and more subtle than he

appears!

    And that is my tale. And if Quark does not

immediately cease rolling his eyes so rudely, I

shall surely do him an injury!

CHAPTER

      13

EN ROUTE TO Cargo Bay 4, Miles O'Brien hesitated before

entering the long, dark crossover bridge connecting the

hub of Deep Space Nine with the habitat ring. "I don't

like the look of this," he said. "Why are the lights out?"

 "Maybe the Klingons like the dark?"

    "Very funny, Julian. It looks like the perfect place for

an ambush." Glaring at the doctor, who retained his

semipermanent smirk, O'Brien led the way into the tube,

walking along the catwalk that fronted the turbolift

shaft. The chief tried to watch ahead and behind simul-

taneously, which resulted in a headache. Human eyes

couldn't point like that.

 "Urn, chief?."

 "Yes, Julian?"

    "What happens if a turbolift uses this particular tube

while we're in it?"

    O'Brien hesitated a long moment. He had hoped the

doctor wouldn't think of that particular eventuality.

"You'd better hold on really tight, sir. At that range, the

damned turbos will probably shake your eye-teeth loose."

    Bashir stared at the chief. O'Brien could barely see the

discomfort in the doctor's face in the waning light from

the tunnel mouth. "Oh don't worry, Julian. What are the

odds that it'll happen in the exact half hour or so we'll be

in there?"

    Truer words were spoken every day and twice on

Federation holidays. No sooner did the reassurance leave

O'Brien's lips than he knew he had just sealed their fate:

what god of mischance would pass up such an opportun-

ity as the chief had just handed him?

    By an incredible stroke of inevitability, they were a

third of the way along the shaft when Chief O'Brien

began to feel a rumble in his feet. He crouched, putting

his hand against the Cardassian steel-mesh to feel the

vibration. "Wonderful," he announced, "absolutely per-

fect timing!"

    Bashir stared wildly around. "Chief, there's no place

to hide! There's nothing to hold onto!"

    "Damn, there's a spar a hundred meters up, but we'll

never make it."

 "They'll see us!" shouted the doctor.

    O'Brien blinked in the darkness--that was a side-

effect he had not even considered. If the Klingons saw

them in the shaft, they could stop the lift using the

emergency socket-kill, assuming they could figure out

how to use the Cardassian circuits, then step out and

blast doctor and maintenance chief into oblivion.

    "Quick, lie flat, Julian. Unless they're sharper than

they have any right to be, they won't even notice."

    Bashir and O'Brien threw themselves down to the

mesh and tried to flatten against it, the vibration became

unbearable, then finally turned into sound, a low-

frequency roar that reminded O'Brien of the fusion

reactors in the bottom level of the station.

    Momentarily, a bright halogen beam cut the black-

ness, seeking them out in their hide-in-plain-view posi-

tion. The single, unwinking eye of the turbolift washed

the walls of the crossover bridge white, so bright it

painted over the colors that lesser illumination picked

out: the beam was bright enough to reflect off every

water droplet, every smooth segment of wall, dazzling

the chief.

    He averted his eyes from the direct glare. The reflection

fi'om below the catwalk silhouetted him like a scarecrow

against the rising sun, and he lay perfectly still, hoping

Bashir didn't succumb to the temptation to raise his head

and stare: the Klingons would see, and the doctor

wouldn't... not for hours while his eyes recovered!

    Then the vibration turned to a shake, and O'Brien

gripped the railing to hold himself from being shaken off

the walkway. The turbolift galloped past, a herd of a

thousand horses with bright flame snorting from nostrils

and lightning flashing in their hooves. He gritted his

teeth to hold back the scream as the lift, which ordinarily

would be rerouted if a crewman were known to be doing

maintenance in the crossover bridge, scraped past not a

meter distant at a horrific velocity.

    At that speed, it was past them in a fraction of a

second, and O'Brien cautiously raised his head. He

froze: the instant he moved, he realized it was a stupid

reaction of premature relief--the blood-red tail lamp of

the turbolift caught him in perfect relief, and Miles

O'Brien stared into the startled eyes of the tail-gunner

Klingon looking aft through the cracked doors of the

Promenade-to-habitat express.

    The Klingon recovered quickly, raising his disruptor

for a shot at the chief. He missed, of course. It would

have been the bull's-eye of bull's-eyes if he had hit them

on the draw from the rocketing platform. But it made

little difference. Klingons would be in the habitat ring in

seconds, and they would call in reinforcement and sweep

the crossover bridge on foot. "They can't miss us,"

O'Brien bitterly concluded after explaining the situation

to Doctor Bashir.

    For a long moment, the pair stared at the receding dot

until it stopped. They could not see Klingons getting off,

but they knew they were. They couldn't hear them call

for backup, but it was moments away. Think, think,

think! thought O'Brien, but the only plan that suggested

itself was a pell-mell dash back the way they had

come... and surely the Klingons would swarm the

crossover bridge from both ends, anticipating just such a

retreat. "Damn it, there's got to be somewhere to go!" he

said, half aloud.

    Bashir had a peculiar, faraway look on his face.

"What?" demanded the chief, grabbing the doctor's arm

to bring him back to the here-and-now.

    "Chief, how tight is the forceshield around this sta-

tion?"

    "What?" O'Brien scowled. "Julian, what are you on

about now?"

    "Does... does the forceshield that surrounds Deep

Space Nine fit exactly against the outer hull? Or is there a

gap?"

    Chief O'Brien's frown deepened. How did Bashir

always manage to find a safe spot? "Normally there

wouldn't be any gaps, but this station is a crazy-quilt of

Cardassian technology with--"

 "So there are gaps," Bashir interrupted.

    O'Brien's eyes narrowed, then suddenly widened.

"Oh, you're not thinking about... You're crazy!"

    Bashit raised both eyebrows. "Wouldn't it work?

Couldn't it?"

    O'Brien ran through the technical specs in his head.

There were a few places where he'd been keeping the

fields extended. Bloody hull always needed some repair

or other. The chief understood what Bashir was suggest-

ing. It was just crazy, though!

    Yeah, crazy like a fox. "Come on, Julian, we don't have

all day!"

 Miles O'Brien led the doctor along the tube toward the

habitat ring. Spaced evenly along its length were various

access ports for maintenance, and the nearest was twenty

meters outward. O'Brien took the top and Bashir the

bottom as they untogged the pins, then the chief rotated

the wheellock at the center of the hatch. He rolled the

door back toward them, then pulled it open.

    They stared out at the stars whirling past as Deep

Space Nine rotated majestically on its axis. "Uh, after

you, sir."

 "WcI1, it's your station, Chief."

    "Excuse me, but it's your idea, Julian." O'Brien insis-

tently gestured with his hand. The doctor gritted his

teeth, grimacing, and edged through the hatch to the

outside of the station.

    Chief O'Brien followed. As soon as he cleared the

hatch, he was jerked around and found himself hanging

from the lip of the access port, for "down" was now

directly outward toward the habitat ring. They were

outside the jurisdiction of the artificial gravity genera-

tors, propelled now by the momentum of the station's

rotation.

    The chief stared outward at the spinning stars, down

at his feet and the habitat ring, up toward the core of

Deep Space Nine. A terrible, reasonless panic gripped

him: Outside without your pressure suit, bucko! It was

every spacer's worst nightmare. But there was a thin

envelope of air surrounding the skin of the station,

trapped by the forceshield and simply part of the station

enwronment, as far as the environmental controls were

concerned. But the thin hull that separated O'Brien and

Bashir from the crossover tube may as well have been an

iron curtain between living and dying in the chiel"s

bruised psyche.

    Cautiously, holding tight with both hands and wedg-

ing one foot in a handrung, O'Brien extended his left

foot in front of him, like a Ferengi Lobette. When he saw

the shimmering ripples surround his foot, he yanked his

leg back. They had about half a meter, no more, between

the hull and a messy death: blood boiling, lung alveoli

bursting, skin and eyeballs freezing solid.

    His boot wasn't cold--it had only been in the vacuum

of space for a second and hadn't had time to lose heat.

Paradoxically, the sweat on his trousers had boiled away:

in vacuum, any temperature above freezing is automati-

cally boiling, because there's no air pressure pushing

down on the water to keep it liquid. "Freeze-dried

laundry," he mumbled. Bashir didn't answer.

    Doctor Bashir clung to the handholds, looking fright-

ened and more than a little sorry he had ever thought of

the idea. Straining himself, O'Brien did a pull-up,

reached in, and pulled the hatch door to. Just in time.

Looking through the tiny, pillprick porthole, the chief

saw a light bounce past, swing high to illuminate what

once was the ceiling, then sweep side to side: Klingons,

bearing flashlights.

    "All right, here they come," said the chief. His voice

sounded a little distant, as the air pressure was lower in

the "bubble" than inside the station, but it was perfectly

discernible.

    "Can--can they see us?" stammered the doctor; he

looked pale. I probably look even paler, thought O'Brien.

     "I don't know, Julian. It's kind of bright out here,

what with the floods and all." "Can we kill the lights?"

"Oh, that wouldn't attract any attention, no sir!"

The doctor remained silent. O'Brien kept his own

mouth shut, grateful for the chance to worry uninter-

rupted. He stared through the porthole as the Klingon

search party got closer, their dozen torches casting bright

beams in every direction, swirling spotlights looking for

the little men who were not there.

I saw a man upon the stair,'

A little man who was not there;

He wash 't there again today;

Gee, I wish he'd go away/

     Then he heard the faint tramp of boots, ironshod

 boots of warriors unafraid to be seen and heard. The

 sounds were faint through hull and in the thin air of the

 pocket, but they approached, and O'Brien ducked his

 head until just one eye cleared the porthole. A mob of

 Klingon warriors rolled past, looking in every direction,

 including under the catwalk and "overhead," which was

 actually sideways from O'Brien's viewpoint.

    Then the chief saw a sight that caught his breath: in the

midst of the enemy invaders was one very familiar

Klingon face. Lieutenant Commander Worffs grim vis-

age appeared among the mob, floating "above" the

others (Worf was the second tallest Klingon O'Brien had

ever personally seen). Worse, it was evident from the

body language, though there was such a confused babble

of sound that the chief couldn't distinguish words, that

Worf was leading the assault on Deep Space Nine.

    Worfa traitor? O'Brien forgot himself and his predica-

ment and actually rose to stare full-faced through the

porthole, fury overwhelming good sense. You bastard!

You treasonous snake/"So it's war you want, is it, lad?"

he said aloud, "have the decency, at least, to take off

your Starfleet uniform before you dishonor it!" But it

was absurd, and O'Brien abruptly felt the uneasy inde-

cency. Worf could never betray them. Somethingm

something--must have happened to the Klingon...

something horrible.

    Worf looked up toward the porthole. For an instant, it

almost seemed as if their eyes met. In Worf's face, O'Brien

saw only a cold, emotionless determination, an inhuman

but thoroughly Klingon savagery that spoke of imperial

fantasies and glorious dreams--Worf the Magnificent!

Worfthe Terrible/Worf the traitor was making his name in

the Empire by sacking his own former post! The pain

struck O'Brien like the sharp point of a bat'telh beneath

his ribs, and he realized he was clenching his teeth so hard

his jaw throbbed. No, it's stupid. Worf couldn't be a

traitor--it's not possible for his Klingon brain.

    But Worfgave no sign of recognition. He did not smile

and wink, or call the troopers' attention and bang

outside to fire on the two men. Instead, his eyes passed

along without a moment's pause, without even a flicker

of surprise... either Worf had never seen O'Brien, or

else he had a promising career as an actor.

    Lieutenant Commander, now Brevet Colonel, Worf

scanned the crossover corridor, hoping not to find who he

was looking for. From the description given by the corporal

of the guard, there was no question the corridor had

moments before contained Miles O'Brien and some other

person, probably a female, judging from the physique.

    O'Brien.t Worf silently cursed his luck that he, Worf,

wasn't safely aboard the Defiant when the attack had

come. It wasn't cowardice or lack of confidence that he

would somehow be able to thwart the invasion, it was

the certainty of what his "treason" was doing to his

honor. Comrades in arms at each other~ throat, he

thought bitterly, with my blood-brother pulling the

strings. I shouM enjoy it... it is a Klingon opera/

    As the soldiers made happy, grunting noises rooting

around for the Federation escapees, Worf tracked his

eyes up and down the corridor, wondering where they

had managed to hide. Perhaps he could contrive to miss

the spot in his search? Then he turned to glance at the

porthole, and the sight he saw nearly stopped his heart:

O'Brien was outside looking in--without a pressure suit!

    It was absolute, utter madness. I have gone insane, and

now I see ghosts and hallucinations/It took every erg of

willpower the Klingon possessed not to make a sign,

gesture, or even just stare. He managed, barely, not to

give any outward indication of what he had seen.

    "There is nothing here," snarled Worf, shoving the

nearest man into a group of soldiers bending over. Two

of them toppled, but they forbore to challenge his

authority. "Go away! Kleeg and Drach saw shadows of

their own bloodlust--there are no Starfleets here!"

    After conferring, Worf moved the soldiers further

down the corridor, leaving Bashir and O'Brien hanging

tight. "They're gone," said the chief, trying to force his

shoulders to untense. It was impossible, and they began

to spasm.

    "Now what?" asked Bashir. He seemed in better

spirits now that the Klingons had passed and the pair

were still free and alive.

    O'Brien took a deep breath, feeling explosive pressure

behind his eyeballs. It wasn't decompression. The force

came from his sinuses, and behind them, his brain, what

he had just seen. Reluctantly, he told Bashir what he had

seen: Worf, leading the expedition! Worf, hunting for

them at the head of a pack of Klingons! "That's ridiculous!"

 "You think I'm lying, Julian?"

 "Of course not!"

 "But I saw him--Worf is leading the invasion."

     "Of course not! Chief, there has to be another explana-

tion. Did he have a disruptor to his back?" "No."

 "A frightened expression on his face?"

 "Not in the least!"

 "Well, how about a dour and angry expression?"

 "Of course; he always has that."

    "Well, there's your answer! They threatened him with

something."

     "Julian, he looked... determined. I saw him when he

looked right at me: he wasn't scared; he was efficient."

 "He looked right at you?"

    "Through the porthole. I guess he couldn't see me

through the glass. But I'll never forget that expression; he

was absolutely grim and determined--Julian, he really

is behind this whole thing!" The chief pressed his head

back against the outer skin of the station. He can't be. He

can't be. Maybe Julian can think of an explanation.t

    "You're bounding from one ice-floe of conclusion to

another," grumbled the doctor. "But what next?"

 "I already told you, Julian. This is war. Worf's asked

for it, he deserves it." You don't truly believe that, Miles!

  "My God, Chief. You've known him since your Enter-

  prise days. What are you saying? You think he has

  anything to do with this? You know he's no traitor!"

    O'Brien looked down at the thin, wiry doctor, once

again feeling the pang of jealousy at everything Bashit

had that the chief didn't: good looks, thin waist, a license

to cut and paste, women dripping off of him. But he

doesn't have Keiko, thought O'Brien, or Molly either.

And they're worth fighting for. "Comrade once, maybe,

but he showed his true colors pretty damned quick!

There are some things, Julian, you simply don't forgive."

The chief shook his head. "I don't know... maybe he's

been drugged or hypnotized. It seems pretty damned

incredible, if you ask me." O'Brien shook his head.

"What next indeed? If Worfcan be seduced by his dark

side, any one of us could be next."

    Bashit rolled his eyes. "I meant, Chief, what do we do

next right now? Worf has no dark side. Put aside your

emotions and think more logically. He must be--I don't

know, setting a trap for the Klingons? Maybe?"

    O'Brien shook his head. "God, I hope you're right. I

just can't picture Worf as a traitor to Starfleet, but if he

is, we're in a quadrant of hurt. Come, we'd better rush,

pop back in behind them, and make a run for the habitat

ring. You really think anyone's going to be waiting for us

in Cargo Bay Four?"

    "You can rely on it," said Bashit, sounding an awful

lot more certain of himself than he looked.

    O'Brien gently opened the door, careful not to slip and

"fall outward"; that would get him to the habitat ring an

awful lot faster than he wanted, and it would be a chilly

cold trip. He struggled himself up to a half-pull-up.

"This used to be so much easier a few years ago!"

    "You mean a few kilograms ago," retorted Bashir. The

chief pretended he hadn't heard.

Struggling into the crossover corridor on his belly, he

turned to help the doctor, but Bashir whipped himself up

and vaulted inside, landing on his feet. O'Brien glared,

but said nothing. He led the way along the catwalk,

sneaking as much as possible with hard-soled boots on a

metal grill.

    "Well, maybe that explains one thing," said Chief

O'Brien, as they peeked cautiously around the lip of the

turbolift shaft, looking for patrols. "What explains what?"

    "Why the Klingons haven't been killing us, Julian. It's

Wore Even if he's playing the traitor to fool the invaders,

he wouldn't actually murder his crewmates."

    Bashir raised his eyebrows. "That makes sense. Surely

something is staying their hand. I've never seen a kinder,

gentler Klingon assault."

    "Well, here's at least where we get to even the odds a

bit." He sidled to a weapons-storage locker, leaned close,

and whispered "Emergency lock-override, O'Brien ro-

delta-omega." Silence; the locker did not respond.

"Pickup must be off," he muttered, tapping at the circuit

with his finger.

    "All right," said Dr. Bashir, "any more brilliant

ideas?"

    O'Brien stared, then pounded the locker with his fist.

"They must've scrambled the damned codes! What

vicious bastard thought of that7"

    "Oh come on, Chief, it's not hard! If you're invading a

station, you don't want the inhabitants shooting at your

back."

    "Of course. That makes perfect sense." The chief

paused for a beat, then lunged at the door, yanking on it

and hissing obscenities that made the gentlemanly

Bashir blanch and put his fingers in his ears. It was, of

course, a weapons locker: built to take a knocking and

keep on locking.

    "Perfect!" snarled O'Brien, punching it one last time.

"What else is going to go wrong?"

 The locker between chief and doctor abruptly lit up

like a Yule tree, and sparks showered off the shell into

O'Brien's face. He whirled to face the Klingon, twenty

meters distant along the habitat ring main corridor and

sighting his second shot.

    Instinctively, O'Brien threw up his hands to cover his

face, and the disruptor struck his right palm. He yelped

once, then clenched his teeth--his hand was on fire! In

fact, his hand itself was numbed and the nerve endings

spasming in agony, it was his sleeve that was actually

aflame. He smothered it against his stomach as Bashir

shoved him away from the Klingon, who, having failed

with aimed shots, was now attempting spray-fire.

    Fortunately, he was no better at that mode--an unco-

ordinated Klingon! what're the odds?--and neither esca-

pee was struck. They quickly lost the soldier in the maze

of twisting hallways and corridors, led by O'Brien,

surelooted even while gasping in agony. Cargo Bay Four

was another hundred degrees along the circle of the

habitat ring, only a few minutes away--unless the next

Klingon sharpshooter they ran into had actually passed

the marksmanship test.

0

CHAPTER

      14

JA}~E TOOK ms turn at guarding the cargo bay from a

position some distance from the bickering Ferengi. He

didn't want to hear them, and he felt like a voyeur at a

family spat.

    Quark and Rom never seemed to tire of sniping at

each other and each had his own technique. Quark

would overtly insult his brother: "You're such a profit-

able ambassador for the Ferengi, Rom; you go to work

for a hu-man, your son joins Starfleet, you join a strike in

my bar, and you get our entire family declared outlaws!

What's next? Will you visit Ferenginar and make the sun

go nova?"

    Rom, in response, would play the "dumb Ferengi"

while more-or-less subtlely hinting that Quark was a

half-witted failure, all accomplished while cringing in

the proper Ferengi style of junior to senior brother: "Uh,

sorry, brother. I don't mean to be such a disappointment

to you. I shouldn't have kept you here, where it's so hard

to make a profit. Uh, is the bar doing any better, now

that you don't have to pay me?"

    Jake rolled his eyes. He was so distracted by the

bickering that he almost missed the faint creak of metal

on metal. He leapt up from his seat, a box labeled

"Danger! Highly Explosive? and fumbled with the huge

phase-wrench he had rustled up. It was as close to a

weapon as he could find.

    Turning wildly in every direction and hissing for

silence, Jake finally located the noise. It came from a

vent high over his head, at least four meters off the deck.

The vent bent outward, then, with a loud click, it

detached from its mounts and dropped noisily to the

metal floor, followed by the soft cursing of Chief

O'Brien.

    The chief dropped reasonably lightly into the room,

but one arm dangled limply. He was followed immedi-

ately by Dr. Bashir.

    Garak stepped from the shadows in which he had

secreted himselfi "Welcome, Doctor! I see you got my

message."

    O'Brien stared at Garak, then Bashir, then back at the

Cardassian. "You're not serious, are you? That really

was a message from you?"

    Garak bowed stiffly at the waist. "It brought you here,

didn't it?"

    Jake stepped forward. "We haven't seen any other

survivors. I think--I think they're all..." He couldn't

say it, the lump in his throat prevented further speech.

    "No, they're not," said Bashir, smiling and putting his

hand on Jake's shoulder. "The Klingons have been quite

assiduous about not killing any of the residents of the

station, so far as I can tell. At least, they threw me into a

pile of stunned bodies--stunned, not dead--and when a

Klingon patrol shot at us, they were using their disrup-

tors on the lowest setting. Otherwise, the chief would be

looking at limb-regen now."

    The youngest Sisko stared at Bashir. His heart felt

as if it froze in his chest then began to pound at twice

the normal rate. Alive.t "They're--all alive? All of

them?" He suddenly remembered to breathe and

gasped for air.

    "I think so," confirmed O'Brien. "We haven't found

any corpses. I think they put everybody in porta-cells

inside the Promenade shops."

    Jake bit his lip, wondering if he should say something

about Worf, but Bashir and O'Brien had a right to

know--and in any event, neither Quark nor Garak had

any love for the Klingon security officer. "Chief," he

began, but O'Brien was engaged in a cheery reunion with

Rom and wasn't paying attention. "Dr. Bashir? I have

some bad... I mean, I saw something that I think you

should know. It's about a certain Klingon we all

know--"

    "The one leading the assault? Yes, we saw Commander

Worf somewhat earlier."

    After a moment, Jake remembered to shut his mouth.

"Well, what are we going to do about it?"

Bashir looked confused. "Why are you asking me?"

Garak smirked. "Because, my dear Julian, you are the

highest ranking officer--in fact, the only commissioned

officer--in our little resistance group."

    "But... but you, Garak! You're in the--I mean, you

were in the Obsidian Order! They practically invented

covert warfare. Can't you--?"

    "Doctor, I am but a humble tailor! You are the man

with pips on your collar."

    Dr. Bashir hesitated only a moment. "Well, I suppose

I am. All right, let's gather our resources together and see

what we have. Does anybody have a weapon? Quark?"

     The Ferengi scowled and kicked another explosives

box. "I had a weapon, a phaser rifle." "Excellent!"

    "Except that somebody seems to have drained it

completely and left a nasty note in the battery receiver."

 Bashir's mouth pursed, and he grunted in annoyance.

 Jake held up his wrench. "I have a club."

     "Club!" exploded the chief. "That's a fine, precision

 piece of equipment, Jake!"

     "Well," said the doctor, "unless we find a bit of wiring

 that needs to be adjusted, it's a club."

    Hesitantly, Rom stepped forward, showing O'Brien

the encrypted Klingon handset he had unsuccessfully

tried to rewire. "Uh, Chief, can you decrypt this comm

link? I think that static is, um, the Klingons talking to

each other. Maybe we can get a fix and avoid them."

    "Or track 'em down and shoot 'em," muttered

O'Brien, taking the handset from Rom with his good

hand. "Oh. Yeah, I can pick this thing with Julian's

tricorder. Or rather, I could, if I hadn't been shot. Rom,

you're going to have to be my hands."

    The chief turned to Jake, who was trying to follow that

conversation and the one between Bashir and Garak

about resistance strategy simultaneously. "Jake, I have a

bit of wiring that needs adjusting, and I think I'll be

needing that phase-wrench now. That is, if you don't

need it to hammer nails or crack walnuts for the next few

minutes."

    Wordlessly, Sisko the Younger handed it to the chief

and pointedly went to sit next to Quark; the Ferengi

appeared not to appreciate the company. Jake allowed

his mind to wander, and he found himself back on Earth,

in his grandfather's restaurant. He sat in a booth at the

back eating jambalaya and writing about his adventure

on a deep-space station under attack by Klingons. It

always seems so much more survivable in novels and

holo-plays.

    No, not Klingons. Klingons were so... outre. Or is

that passe? Always get those two mixed up. Nobody's

going to believe Klingons, not in this day and age. Jake

squirmed deeper into his fantasy, relieved at not having

to be scared, for just a few moments, at least. Aliens,

unknown, faceless aliens. Power suits. Oh, wait a

minute--this is good! They use some really horrible

weapon, not a nice, clean death ray like a disruptor. but

a--He grinned. No, it was too perfect. The aliens would

use some super form of firearm! An actual gunpowder

weapon that fired bullet after bullet, tearing up the

station: faceless monsters in power suits with--what was

the word?--with machine guns. "It could work," he

mumbled aloud. Except that in real life, of course,

everyone would have to die. In fiction, the author could

brazenly bring them all back to life again. Ah, that~ why

I don't write science fiction, he sighed.

    He was jolted from his reverie by O'Brien's trium-

phant crow of "That's it, you've gotten it, Rom. Here,

gather around. Let's listen in on the Klingons."

    Dr. Bashit took back his tricorder and leaned over the

handset. The Kiingon messages were as far from fasci-

nating as they could be. The officers spoke tersely,

moving squads and four-man teams around the station

to hunt those few defenders remaining free. "Maybe if

we listen long enough," said Jake, "we can start mapping

where they are?"

    "Excellent idea, Jake," said Lieutenant Bashit.

"You're in charge of tracking the Kiingon troop-

movements."

    Jake almost objected, but he caught himself. He'd

opened up his big mouth and "volunteered" himself for

the duty. Besides, it was certainly more interesting than

standing between Quark and Rom during one of their

familial spats. Jake Sisko fished in his sealed pocket [or

his KlipRite and stylus and activated the station route-

mapper. Every few minutes, whenever a Klingon officer

sent some warriors on a mission, Jake would attempt to

figure out where they were going: the invaders didn't use

the standard, Starfleet designation for the rooms and

areas of the station, of course. He marked the troop

concentrations on the map as best he could.

    It was difficult writing or even viewing the screen in

the gloom of Cargo Bay 4. It was especially tough to

continuously strain his ears to listen to the chatter on the

Klingon comm link, rather than listen to the boistrous

discussion that had sprung up between Garak and Chief

O'Brien. "Damn his Klingon hide)" snapped the chief.

"What the hell is he up to? Why doesn't he tell us what

he's doing?"

    "That is simply the way they are," said Garak, shaking

his head.

    "They? Which they do you mean?" O'Brien's voice

held an undercurrent of irritation.

    "Klingons, of course," said Garak, failing to notice the

looming shift in Chief O'Brien's body position. Jake

smiled to himself; despite his smug certainties, Garak

really knew very little about humans. When a man calls

his comrade a bastard, the worst thing you can do is agree

with him/

    Having stepped into the quicksand, the tailor contin-

ued to stand pat, oblivious to the fact that he was sinking

fast. "Well, I'm sure we've all learned a lesson about the

so-called honor of Klingons. Perhaps in the future, you

will listen to this older, wiser head when he tells you that

the two things you can rely upon in this quadrant are

that quality will rise to the top and that Klingons will

betray you the first chance they get."

    Jake tried to return to the map. The Klingons were

following a strange, almost random search pattern.

Something seemed out of kilter about it, but Jake wasn't

sure exactly what was wrong.

    He was just about to ask the chief what he thought

when O'Brien turned on the Cardassian in sudden

vehemence, slipping in an instant into the role of court-

appointed counsel for the defendant. "And just what is

that supposed to mean? Let me tell you something, Mr.

Obsidian Order. I would trust Worf with my life--with

my family's lives! And I wouldn't trust you as far as !

could kick you!"

    "Well, that is certainly the attitude I would expect

from a Federation subject." Garak folded his arms and

chuckled. "You have eyes, but you do not see. Chief,

Worf is leading the invasion. You saw him yourself in the

crossover tunnel. When will the Federation grow up and

accept reality for what it is? It's a Cardassian trait you

would do well to emulate."

    Now O'Brien began to get angry. He stepped well

inside Garak's "zone" and confronted the Cardassian.

"Well how do you know what hold this Klingon general,

whatever his name is, has over Worf? Did you ever think

that maybe he's holding Alexander hostage, or he's

threatening to blow up the station if Worf doesn't

cooperate?"

    "That may explain, but it doesn't excuse," lectured

Garak.

    "And how do you know Worf isn't really on our side,

going along with the invasion until he's in a position to

do something about it?"

    Garak snorted, shaking his head. "The human capaci-

ty for wishful thinking never ceases to amaze. I certainly

know enough about betrayal by friends to--" "Oh, I'm sure you do!"

    Frustrated, Garak was just about to respond when

Jake thought he heard something important over the

handset. "Quiet)" he shouted. "Dr. Bashir, can you

make everyone shut up for a moment?" Jake listened in

silence, hoping that some Klingon on the other end

would request clarification or repeat of the orders.

    At last, the disembodied voice over the handset con-

tinued to detail the patrols: "Search the cargo bays on

the outer ring," she said, "starting with the one opposite

the prison cells."

    Desperately, Jake scrolled the map up and down,

trying to find Odo's office and the attached brig. At last,

he located it and tacked directly outward to the corre-

sponding spot on the habitat ring: the Klingons were

searching Cargo Bay 3, and depending on whether they

decided to go clockwise or not, their own hiding place

might be the very next one searched.

    Julian Bashir began issuing orders in a crisp command

tone, hoping he sounded an awful lot more confident and

full of "military bearing" than he felt. "Chief, find us a

way out of here other than the main doors. Everybody

else, pick up any evidence of our presence here and hold

it or stow it on your person. We can't let them know how

few we are, or even that we were hiding here!"

    O'Brien ran first to one side of the bay, then the other,

hunting for an access vent low enough that they could

reach. The one he had Bashir entered by was obviously

far out of reach. At last, he whirled in frustration.

"Julian, the only thing we can climb up into without an

antigrav unit is a dead-end storage locker."

  "It's better than here, Chief."

  "But if they have a tricorder--"

    "I can hear them right outside the door!" stage-

whispered Jake, who had stationed himself near the

entrance.

    "No choice, Chief," Bashit ordered. He had a sinking

feeling that his command was to be short-lived. O'Brien

was right: all the Klingons would need to do was sweep

the room with a tricorder, and they would find the

escapees in a moment.

    The chief made a step with his hands, hoisting the

Ferengi up first because they were the lightest, then Jake.

Then O'Brien and the Cardassian began doing the "after

you, no after you" routine. After two rounds of this, an

exasperated Garak picked up the chief bodily and

hoisted him into the hole, leaping up to scramble inside

himself. Ah, the advantages of Cardassian musculature,

sighed Bashir to himself. He barely made it up after his

troops, pulled by Garak and O'Brien together, when the

doors slid open and a platoon of efficient-looking

Klingon warriors entered the room.

 They fell into a defensive phalanx, searching the room

visually before moving from their spot near the open

doors, ready for a quick retreat if there had happened to

be an army of occupation-resisters lurking inside. Bashir

stayed in the shadows, watching them. Not even Klingon

eyes were able to see in total darkness, he knew, but then

the non-corn in charge snarled, "Tricorder, scan the

room."

    Bashir snorted. He had a fleeting impulse to leap from

his hiding place and charge across the room, hoping to

draw the platoon's attention. But he knew it wouldn't

work. Klingons didn't fall for the old misdirection trick.

One or two of them would cut him down, and the rest

would search the hole he had just left.

    "We're dead meat," muttered O'Brien, who had also

heard the order, evidently.

 "Not if I can help it," said Garak mysteriously.

    A warrior stepped from behind the other six and

unlimbered a clumsy, wicked-looking Klingon toy. He

started at one comer and began a slow, careful scan,

arcing counterclockwise. Bashir gritted his teeth and

tried to smile reassuringly, not that anyone could see

him.

    There was a movement behind the doctor. He heard a

faint whirring noise begin. Dimly, from the corner of his

eye, Bashir thought he saw a flicker of amber before the

light was quickly hidden by a hand. The noise was very

high frequency and quite faint, but it seemed to pulse.

    When the Klingon's tricorder was pointed directly at

them, the faint whirring behind the doctor rose in pitch

and intensity markedly, and the Klingon continued right

past! The warrior saw absolutely nothing on his tri-

corder, despite it being pointed directly at three humans,

two Ferengi, and a Cardassian tailor holding a hissing

light soume cupped in his leathery hands.

    The Klingon finished his sweep. "No humanoid life-

forms except for ourselves," he reported in the guttural

language of the invaders, instantly decoded by the

universal-translator implant in Bashir's ear.

    The troops milled about a little, turning over a few

boxes and shining hand torches on the ground to look for

telltales of recent habitation. Evidently finding nothing

to interest them, they moseyed off, disruptors held at

port arms as they marched. The door shut, and silence

reigned once more in Cargo Bay 4.

    Bashir stared after them for a moment, then back to

Garak. The Cardassian crouched directly behind the

doctor, watching with wide-eyed intensity; he held noth-

ing in his hands. "Garak, what was that thing you used?"

    "Thing? Dr. Bashir, could you perhaps be a bit more

specific?"

    Bashir grew annoyed. "That device you just used to

nullify the tricorder field! I've never even heard of such a

thing. Where did you get it?"

    "Doctor, I really have no idea what you're talking

about. I'm a simple tailor. I have no access to super-

secret tricorder suppressors. I'm not an intergalactic

spy!" He leaned close, whispering conspiratorially in

Bashir's ear, "or am I?"

    "Garak, I don't know whether anybody else saw you,

but I saw, and I know what you just did."

    "When a man has kicked around as long as I have, he

picks up certain, shall we say, toys, tricks of tradecraft,

so to speak. Is that entirely unreasonable?"

    "So you admit you're a member of the Obsidian

Order. You still even have spy paraphernaila--a tri-

corder field-suppressor, for goodness's sake!"

    The Cardassian winked. "Well, let's just keep it our

little secret, shall we?"

    "Keep what a secret?" asked Jake, crawling from the

back of the L-shaped storage locker.

    "Never mind," said O'Brien. "Sir, hadn't we better get

out of here, before that patrol comes back?" Bashir

didn't quite like the way O'Brien had been saying "sir"

since the doctor took charge, but he let it slide.

 "On the contrary," said Bashir, "this is probably the

safest place on the whole station right now. Why search a

space that you've just cleared?"

    Quark, who seemed already to have grown tired of the

novelty of creeping around the station like a cat burglar

interrupted. "So we're staying here for a while? Does

anybody have anything to eat? I guess we can't use the

replicatots." Rom opened his mouth, but Quark glared

his brother into silence.

    "We're staying put for now," agreed Bashir. "But it's

time we stopped running and started coming up with a

plan to beat that--that traitor Worf." There, I said it.

Bashir waited for a retort from O'Brien, but the chief

just stared downward, sullenly fascinated by the deck-

plate design. O'Brien couldn't deny his own eyes.

    "Chief, you know Deep Space Nine better than any

man here," continued the doctor. "Where can we go to

override the forceshield that's stopping communica-

tions, so we can somehow send a message to Bajor?"

    "Well, ultimately we might have to don pressure suits

and go outside. The whole subspace emitter superstruc-

ture is obliterated. The Klingons drove their bird-of-prey

right through it."

 "So how can we send a message?"

    "We can't. Not without the subspace emitter. It's the

only structure large enough to stick outside the field.

That's why they sheared it off, I suppose." "Then what's your idea?"

    The chief hesitated. "Well, maybe if we could get some

transmitter outside the range of the communications

shield, something that could broadcast automati-

cally-"

    "You mean like a probe?" asked Bashir, seeing some

solid hope.

    "Exactly. Except a probe wouldn't work. The electron-

ics would light up all the sensors on the bird-of-prey like

Bajoran festival bushes."

 "So," summarized Garak, "the Klingons would detect

it and blow it to constitutent atoms before it even cleared

the blanking field. Nor, of course, have we any access to

such a probe. And the Klingons control all the launch

facilities anyway. A brilliant plan, Chief O'Brien!"

    "Well, I admit it has a few rough spots," mumbled the

chief.

    "Please, gentlemen, we're still in the brainstorming

phase," said Bashir, trying to take charge of the situa-

tion, as the manual instructed. What a truly awful

feeling... being in command when there~ nothing one

can do! "First, let's see if we can't figure out the pattern

of the Klingon searches, so we know where they're going

to be looking."

    "But that's just it," said Jake. "I was tracking them

before, on my padd, and I noticed that the search parties

keep crossing and recrossing the same areas, and missing

other areas completely. It's really a stupid, mixed-up

search pattern. I can't figure it out."

    O'Brien suddenly grinned so wide, the corners of his

mouth nearly met behind his head. "I was right. I was

right!"

  "Right about what, Chief?." asked the doctor.

    "It's Worfl He hasn't betrayed us... he~ leading

them in circles!"

    At once, reality began to fall in place. Julian Bashir

hadn't realized just how painful was the feeling of

betrayal until it began to dissipate. He had never quite

accepted the image of Worf as traitor, despite his words

(and despite what the conflicted Chief O'Brien had

seen). Now, Bashir clutched at the offered straw, praying

he wasn't simply yielding to sentiment. We've got a man

inside! For the first time, he had a realistic hope that

resistance might not be so futile after all.

0

CHAPTER

      15

J^KE SISKO LOOKED at Dr. Bashir. The doctor's eyes were

unfocused, as if he were staring at a point several

kilometers away from the station. Jake turned to Chief

O'Brien, who bored a hole in the deckplates with his

scowl, a study in red intensity and gray strategy. Garak

stroked his angular chin, shifting his eyes left and right.

The Ferengi looked at each other, puzzled--Rom

scratched his lobes absently, while Quark fingered the

buttons on his glittery teal jacket.

    There was no longer any question of Worf's loyalties.

The question was, what should they do about it? What

would Dad do? that was how Jake phrased it to himself.

    "We've got to send him a message," said Jake, looking

down at the beckoning handset. Yeah, that~ what Dad

would do/

    "Saying what?" asked Garak in more or less of a sneer.

"Good luck betraying your Klingon pals."

Jake's face grew hot, and he closed his mouth firmly,

not wanting to say the first thing that popped into his

mind. Besides, the Cardassian's point stung, since Jake

had no more idea than Garak of what they could say to

Worf.

    Rom was not quite so tongue-tied. "Uh, maybe we can

tell him to shut down the environmental controls," the

Ferengi gingerly suggested. "That ought to slow down

the Klingons."

    "Oh, brilliant idea!" retorted Quark. "Then we can all

suffocate and float around the cargo bay like balloons!

But we'll have the satisfaction of knowing the Klingons

are just as dead as we."

 "It was just a thought, brother."

    "And so typical of your real-world understanding,

Rom!"

 "We could get into pressure-suits."

    "Rom, shut-up. Let the rest of us common-sense

adults work on it. You go sit with Jake."

    Jake bristled, almost jumping up to confront the

Ferengi barkeep, but then Rom, too, looked toward Jake

with irritation, as if the son of the captain were still the

thirteen-year-old chum of his own son, Nog. Angry but

helpless, Jake settled down to listen with an ill humor.

    "The handset idea is good," said the doctor, breaking

silence at last. "But what in heaven can we say that will

help him in any way?"

    O'Brien shrugged. "Another of your secret messages, I

suppose."

    "Oh, there~ a good suggestion!" It was Garak again,

and Jake smiled in spite of himself.

    The chief got a little heated. "Oh come on! Let's not

shoot the messenger before the message is even deliv-

ered. How about a code of some sort--tell him we're

here and where we can rendezvous."

    Bashir snorted. "Not a Klingon military cipher, I

hope! He's surrounded by Klingon military personnel,

for heaven's sake."

    "And," added the Cardassian, "no Federation code is

safe either. I'm certain the Klingons have long since

cracked them all."

    "And what makes you say that?" O'Brien still hadn't

forgotten Garak's last comment, Jake surmised.

    But the chief walked right into Garak's verbal snare.

"Because we did, Chief O'Brien. And the Klingons may

be a bit slower than the Obsidian Order, but they do

eventually get where they're going."

    Quark spoke up, surprising everyone--especially

Jake--with a suggestion that actually made some sense.

"How about a pun?"

    "Another one?" muttered O'Brien. Jake puzzled over

the chief's remark but couldn't make sense of it.

    Doctor Bashit smiled. "Yes... I like that. That will

work, Quark--good suggestion!"

    "Julian, Klingons don't have a sense of humor," said

the chief.

    "But Worf has been living among humans and Ba-

jorans and Trills, and all the rest of us, for years now!

Ever since the Khitomer destruction. He's Klingon, and

he tries to act like a typical Klingon, but for heaven's

sake, he must have more of a sense of humor than the

rest of them."

 "All right, all right! I give up."

    Jake tired of sitting silently in the spectator's gallery.

"You've got the form," he said, "but where's the con-

tent?"

 "I beg pardon?" asked Doctor Bashir.

     "We're going to send the message as a pun, but we still

have to figure out what message to send." "Oh. Yes, of course."

    Everyone fell to musing. But Jake already had the

answer, and a chance to pay Rom back for the little

betrayal earlier, when he had looked at Jake as if Quark

were banishing Rom to sit at the little kids' table at a

party. "I know what message we can send," said Jake.

    Dead silence. All eyes turned to the young man, who

reveled in his moment, drawing it out to the breaking

point.

    "Well?" demanded Garak, impatient despite his years

as a Cardassian spy, "are you going to tell us telepathi-

cally? Or perhaps spit out a word or two, to help us

simple souls along?"

    "We should tell him to turn off the environmental

controls. That ought to slow down the Klingons."

    Bashir and O'Brien looked at each other, nodding

appreciatively, and Jake felt a sudden pinprick of guilt.

Rom said nothing. His idea had been expropriated, but

somehow, Jake realized, no one had taken it seriously

when the far more qualified Ferengi had made it. Jake

caught Rom's eye and tried to apologize with a look, but

it only made things worse.

  "I like it, Julian. I like it a lot!"

  "This could be the key we're looking for."

    "But I don't think Worf would have any opportunity

to shut down the controls. They must know he's the

weakest link in their chain, even if they haven't figured

out he's actively fighting against them. This General

Malach won't let Worf get anywhere near the environ-

mental controls."

    Garak spoke up. "Ah, but we have a certain freedom

of movement, assuming we don't get caught."

    Bashir nodded appreciatively. "Garak knows what

he's talking about. This is right up his alley. We'll shut

off the artificial gravity ourselves." Then Bashir smiled

and got cryptic again. "Aren't you glad now, Falcon, that

we spent so much time training for this mission?"

    O'Brien rolled his eyes, evidently understanding the

message that eluded Jake. "All right, then we'll shut

down the gravity and evacuate the station. But we have

to warn Worf to--"

    "Whoa, hold that thought, Chiefl Evacuate the sta-

tion? You mean, dump the air into deep space?" Bashir

sounded taken aback, which made sense: Jake was

horrified.

    "Julian, if we just cut off the station gravity, what good

will that do? I'm sure the Klingons train as much in zero-

G, or more, maybe, as we do."

    Quark was glaring daggers at his brother. At least one

person remembers whose suggestion this was originally,

thought Jake with another slice of guilt. "If I may

interject," said the Ferengi, "I repeat my question: if you

cut off the gravity and pump out all the air, won't that

leave us just as dead as the Klingons? Not to mention the

Federation prisoners."

    "Chief, that's just my point," exclaimed the doctor.

"What about the prisoners? We must think of the

prisoners! Even if we get into pressure-suits, what about

them?"

    O'Brien looked stumped. "Well, if we warned him

what we were going to do, wouldn't he get them into

some kind of protection?"

    "Don't you think it would be a tad suspicious," said

Garak, "if Worf were to issue pressure-suits to all the

prisoners, but not to his own troops?"

    "I didn't mean suits! I meant a forceshield of some

sort... level four, it would have to be, to protect them

against vacuum."

    "But why would they use level four, Julian? If they're

just keeping prisoners from escaping, they would set up a

level two or maybe three, wouldn't they?" Again, the

chief was stymied.

    Jake cleared his throat. "May I make a suggestion?"

He waited until he had everyone's attention. "Why don't

we send the message. We still have time to decide

whether we'll dump the air or not, right Chief?."

    O'Brien shrugged. "I guess so. Don't have to decide

until we're down in the environmental-control level.

    "Then, why don't we work on the message? Doctor

Bashir?"

    Bashir looked at O'Brien, who looked at Rom, and the

glances went all the way around until they came back to

Jake. The doctor nodded. "All right, then. Let's work on

that message."

    You know, Jake realized to his surprise, I'm suddenly

the most qualified man here/Words were Jake's business,

not anyone else's. Environment, he thought to himselfi

Gravity... a grave situation--the gravity of the situa-

tion. Yeah, that's it, something about the gravity of the

situation/ "Doctor, I think I've got it! Or almost,

anyway."

    Lieutenant Commander, now Colonel, Worf called yet

another arbitrary twist in the search pattern, sending the

entire platoon of thirty-two Klingon warriors back into

the very same rooms they just searched. When Gunnery

Sergeant Komanek and Lieutenant "Rodek," Worf's

erstwhile (brainwiped) brother Kurn, protested that they

were searching very inefficiently, Worf roared and bel-

lowed, "Are you challenging my authority?" He accom-

panied the threat with a vicious blow that sent Gunnery

Sergeant Komanek reeling backward and caused him to

twist his ankle. Worf couldn't bring himself to strike

Kurn--Rodek. Fortunately, the warrior backed down.

    The rest of the platoon wisely kept their mouths shut,

while Komanek hopped away to beam back to the bird-

of-prey for medical care. As Worf led the search team

over what he already knew was old, empty territory, his

comm link buzzed in his ear.

    It was General Malach, Worf's blood-brother and the

leader of the assault on Deep Space Nine. He spoke over

the universal comm link to every Klingon on the station.

"Heroes, I have just discovered that one of our guards

was incapacitated and his handset was taken from him.

He has been appropriately punished and shall remain

forever nameless now."

    "There is no compromise in our plans. The handset

was properly encrypted, and there is no way that the

rebellious subjects can listen in on our transmissions or

confuse us with their own propaganda and disinforma-

tion. All the same, I am ordering my heroes to stay off the

corem link unless it is a matter of victory or defeat. That

is all."

    A bright flame of hope glimmered in Worfs brain.

O'Brien... it had to be O'Brien! Who else would have

thought of that? More to the point, if it were someone

else, then Malach was right: it would do the defenders no

good at all.

    But Malach did not know Miles Edward O'Brien the

way Worf did. The Klingon knew with utter certainty, as

only a Klingon can know, that if O'Brien indeed had

gotten hold of the handset, he could decrypt it and

probably already had. Worf decided he must operate

under the premise that Chief O'Brien had done so. It was

the only hope "Colonel" Worf had to repel the invasion

before Gowron decided Malach was victorious and

deserved reinforcements.

    Almost immediately, a voice spoke over the forbidden

comm link. Worf did not recognize the voice, though it

spoke in Klingonese. "General Malach, I do not under-

stand the gravity of the situation regarding this handset."

The speaker clearly overemphasized the word "gravity,"

raising Worf's suspicions.

    For several hours, Worf had contemplated the best way

for the remaining Federation defenders to turn the tables

on the Klingons, at least long enough to broadcast an

emergency message to the Bajorans, but he had arrived

at no satisfactory battle plan. Now, something about the

message tickled the back of Worf's brain.

    "Who said that?" demanded Malach angrily over the

same comm link. "You buffoon, switch off your guard

frequency if you want to communicate with me or any

other officer--that goes for all of you! Switch off the

guard channel immediately/"

    Worf smiled: the guard frequency was a separate

channel used only for emergency broadcasts. It was

always monitored, but no one would broadcast on it

unless he were extraordinarily stupid and incom-

petent-or he did it intentionally. If the broadcast were

intentional, Worf had a very good idea who must have

been behind it.

    And that meant there was a hidden message behind

the words, and it was meant for Worfs ears alone.

    Another message sputtered in Worf's ears. "My apolo-

gies, General. In this harsh environment, I neglected to

check my handset frequencies... a grave error, sir."

    This time, there was dead silence. It seemed Malach,

too, was mulling over the possibilities of who sent the

message. Worf continued sending his men searching in a

ludicrous and inefficient pattern while his brain churned.

If the message was meant only for Worf--it was not

O'Brien's voice, but surely the chief was behind it

somehow--then it must have been said in a way that no

other Klingon would understand. This thought led im-

mediately to the realization that they had gone to some

pains to find someone who could speak unaccented

Klingon--obviously to disguise the origin, but also,

perhaps, to direct Worf's attention to the language of the

message?

    Worf, of course, after so many long years among

humans, spoke the standard language of the Federation

as well as he spoke his native tongue. He tried translating

the message into the language of his adopted parents,

and, abruptly, much fell into place. In that language, the

word for seriousness, "gravity," was also the word for

the accelerative force created by matter and artificially

generated by the station. It was what the humans called a

"play on words"--the charms of which had always

eluded Worf, but he had, at least, studied such subjects

while living in the Federation if for no other reason, then

for self-protection against secret ridicule at school.

    Gravity... the station ~ gravity? Worf quickly remem-

bered his own painful, nauseating experiences with zero-

G training at the Academy--and he remembered that

such instruction was not taught in any Klingon military

academy he had researched. Worf could barely keep a

grin of triumph off his face as the full meaning of the

message popped into his head entire: the defenders were

going to kill the station's gravity generators!

    Perhaps not the full meaning, he amended. There was

still that equally mysterious broadcast about a "harsh

environment." The speaker had seemed as anxious to

broadcast that clue as the other.

    But now, the painful part: Worf would have to inform

O'Brien, or whoever had the stolen handset, that the

message was received and understood, and that meant

he would incur the wrath of Malach, and perhaps even

reveal his own intransigence.

    Switching his own command-set to include the guard

channel, Worf broadcast his own supposedly "private"

message to the general. "Perhaps it was simply an

untimely levity on someone's part," he said.

    "Worf, you idiot.t" snarled Malach on the private

command-circuit. "You are broadcasting to the entire

station! You, too, are echoing on guard frequency!"

    "My deepest apologies," rumbled Worf, cutting off the

guard echo. Once more would push credulity to the

breaking point.

    The Klingon strike force had quickly rounded up a

small number of Federation prisoners of war--and some

merchants unlucky enough to have been caught

napping--and placed them, at Worfs suggestion, in a

makeshift brig made from forcefields in shops along the

outer ring of the Promenade, where they would be out of

harm's way. By sheer good fortune, not because Worf

had anticipated the Federation plan, the brevet colonel

had gone beyond the call, demanding not just that the

warriors of the Empire place a forcefield across a corner,

trapping the prisoners against the walls of the stores, as

they normally would have. Instead, Worf had insisted

that gas-tight forcefield walls be placed around each

entire room, all six sides (four walls, floor, and ceiling).

"To prevent any harm coming to them in the event of a

counterstrike by the Federation," Worf had growled in

response to Malach's raised eyebrow, and in that he had

told the direct, honest truth: whatever Starfleet chose to

do, Worf hoped to safeguard the hostages as well as he

could.

    It turned out to be the most fortunate serendipity that

the forcefields would also prevent the prisoners from

suffocating if something catastrophic were to happen to

the environmental controls, for Worf began to speculate

that that might be the second half of the Federation

message--presumably from O'Brien, regardless of who

spoke. Alas, the hint was too vague: "harsh environ-

ment," indeed! It could mean anything.

    Worf listened through a long silence following his own

broadcast over the guard channel. Even as a young boy

of eight, Malach was mentally quicker than virtually

anyone else, adults included, in Emperor Kahless Mili-

tary City. "Worf, Worf, my little brother," he said at last.

"So there is still a little bit of rebellion left in you!

    "I do not know what secret code you are trying to

convey--I will have the computers aboard the Hiding

Fish work on your message--but it is of no consequence.

The few remaining defenders are scattered and helpless

before my heroes. You may as well stay off the guard

channel and not make an even bigger fool of yourself."

Worf did as instructed. He could not possibly get away

with another message.

    He said nothing more; there was nothing more to say.

Either O'Brien knew that Worf understood, or else, by

the time Starfleet found out about the loss of Deep Space

Nine, it would already have been reinforced by Gowron

himself'. for the raid was a test. At that point, Starfleet

Command, faced with the prospect of a major assault on

their own station (with its own contingent of a thousand

photon torpedoes), would probably back down and

negotiate for some face-saving exchange. Gowron and

Malach would have won.

    The resulting animosity between the Federation and

the Empire might well be enough to allow the Dominion

to play one side against the other, despite Malach's best

intentions for a strong defense. For all of our sakes,

thought Worf, I hope the chief is at least half as smart as

he thinks he is.t

    Worf gathered his bored, straggling platoon. They had

figured out that the new colonel had made a stupid

mistake, but were reluctant to offer the improving criti-

cism for fear of joining the gunny back on the bird-of-

prey's infirmary. "It is time to search in a brand, new

location," commanded Colonel Worf. "First stance.t

Right turn! Forward, step.t" Worf started the platoon

marching toward the exact, opposite side of the habitat

ring. I have a feeling, he thought, it is going to be a good,

long, slow march.

    Worf smiled. It was now time to eliminate one thom in

his side, and at the same time send one more assurance

to Chief O'Brien. Colonel Worf summoned Major Kru-

gus, the eyes and mouth of Malach, and pulled him back

from the rest. "Do you see that turbolift, Major?" As if

to emphasize the point, "Colonel" Worf harshly grabbed

the back of Krugus's head and wrenched it around to

look in the correct direction.

    "Yes, I do have eyes, Colonel!" The warrior was the

eleventh child of an old and honorable house. He was a

fearsome warrior, and were it not for the accident of

birth order, Rimakag Aganandaf would surely have been

elevated to general officer by now. But in Gowron's rigid

caste system, an eleventh child struck his glass ceiling at

major.

    Annoyed as Krugus was at Worffs assumption of

superiority, he did not even notice that the hand lingered

just a bit too long on Krugus's battle-helmet. "I want you

to find General Malach and repeat the following message

word for word, exactly as I give it to you."

 "I will obey, O grotesquely mighty one."

 Worf snarled and clenched his teeth at the back-

handed slur, but he held his temper. The man was a

master at saying just enough without saying too much, at

baiting young superior officers into striking him--

which, under Klingon law, was the only action that ever

allowed a major to strike back at a colonel.

    "This is the message: The weight of our assault should

focus on the habitat ring, where we have left too much of

a force vacuum."

    The major nodded curtly and left. Worf returned to his

platoon and led them in another clumsy, ill-thought,

meandering search of the decks for escapees, who surely

would have heard the newly minted colonel barking

orders loudly enough to be heard in the next quadrant.

    Some minutes later, Worf was gratified to hear his

comm link sputter to life. The major loudly repeated the

confusing message Worf had given him, because he was

speaking, he never noticed that every word was being

broadcast over the same guard frequency that Worf and

the first, unknown, voice had accidentally used... the

same frequency he had accidentally activated on Kru-

gus's helmet comm link while "accidentally" switching

the broadcast mode to "hot mike," which broadcast

everything spoken to the entire station.

    A moment later, Worfs personal headset whispered in

his ear, a sibilant hiss that he knew was not being echoed

anywhere. "So, what treasonous ice are you skating

across, my brother? Can this be some prearranged sig-

nal?" Malach paused for a moment, thinking deeply.

"No. I cannot imagine you would have guessed such a

plan as mine was possible. But you are conveying our

every move to that Starfleet pig who stole the

handset... a swine I am now convinced you somehow

gave the decryption code. I have, of course, taken care of

your treasonous ally, Major Krugus, though how you

turned him, I confess I cannot imagine."

    "Are you calling me a traitor?" Worf demanded of

Malach in an outraged tone of voice. He broadcast only

along the command circuit.

    "But it makes no difference. It does not matter. Hear

this, my brother!" Worf heard a click, then a slight buzz.

He realized that Malach had just widened the broadcast

to include every Klingon on Deep Space Nine. "Atten-

tion, heroes of the Empire! Our comm link has been

compromised. Upon pain of immediate discommoda-

tion, there will be no more broadcasts. All further

communication will be conducted by hand-signals and

runners. Any voice you hear besides mine will be an

enemy attempting to befuddle. That is all."

    The buzz stopped, and Malach returned to the private

command channel. "As a boy, you were no match for my

intellect, Worf. And even as a man, you fall short. I have

given you a chance at redemption from your own people,

do not cast it away to honor those who are without

honor!"

    "I will not tolerate being called dishonorable!" bel-

lowed Worf.

    Malach did not rise to the bait. "You are a noble hero

of a noble house. Come back to us; come back to your

people. Gowron is like an angry father who must disci-

pline his son but still loves his son." "I am not a child!"

    "He opens his arms to you, Worf!. The Empire wel-

comes you back. Do not push us away. Do not push away

the plate of honor untasted."

    But despite his defiant words, Worf felt himself weak-

en, perhaps he was wrong after all. Maybe his duty to the

Empire was greater than his duty to the oath he swore as

a Starfleet officer. After all, it was not like the bad old

days of expansionism, when the Klingon Empire wanted

nothing less than despotic rule over the entire Alpha

Quadrant.

    What was Malach asking, was it really too much? He

wanted--Gowron wanted--a strong defense against the

most dangerous enemies they had ever met, Federation

and Empire alike. The Founders were shapeshifters, and

without a rigid screening process that would make a

mockery of the Federation's soft-hearted (soft-headed,

Worf corrected) ideas about "freedom" and "individual

rights," the Founders would gradually replace more and

more of the Federation's leaders, until one black day, the

entire Alpha Quadrant woke up to realize it had "softly

and suddenly vanished away," to be replaced by a new

province of the Dominion.

    Worf had already seen what decades, centuries of

peace and indolence had done to--what was the phrase

he had read in the letter?--to the grasping tentacles of

the Federation, stretched infinitely far, infinitesmally

thin. Today, the same people who had many times

beaten back the massed warships of the Empire could no

longer handle even a few raindrops on their precious

pleasure-planet!

    Take away their phasers and replicatom and holo-

suites, their transporters and medical miracles, and

deposit them naked on the surface of a world no more

dangerous than their own had been a few centuries ago,

and how many of the highest-ranking officers in Starfleet

would even survive, let alone be able to rebuild a

civilization? Try as he might, Worf could not imagine

anyone referring to the "heroes of the United Federation

of Planets," unless in cold sarcasm.

    So was Malach, his blood-brother, really so wrong

after all?

    Worf shook his head and ordered his platoon to

double back upon itself to search the other end of the

habitat ring. The resulting traffic jam among the ranks

and file occupied his men for several minutes. The

problem with an Empire of heroes and warriors, he

realized, is that none of us wants to be servants or

soldiers. Right or wrong, Worf could never imagine

himself living his life to bring glory to another...

Malach or Gowron. And that, after all was said, was

what heroing was all about: who eats and who is eaten.

The ultimate futility of that philosophy, more than his

oath, was what had made Worf a Starfleet lieutenant-

commander rather than a Klingon hero.

    And that was why Malach was truly wrong after all.

After two centuries, the Empire had become the antithe-

sis to the Federation's thesis, with the Alpha Quadrant as

the synthesis of the two--if the Federation became the

Empire to save the quadrant, or if Empire turned into

Federation, it would destroy the synthesis, and neither

confederation of worlds could stand.

    Sighing, Worf overtook his platoon and led them from

the front, as befitted a hero of the Empire. He begall a

slow circuit of the habitat ring, desperately hoping that

Chief O'Brien would turn out to have somewhat more of

a sense of humor than he ever had demonstrated in the

past.

0

CHAPTER

      16

GARAK MADE ^ sour face. He hates speaking in Kling-

onese, realized Jake, more even than the rest of us. The

Cardassians had had their own troubles with the

Klingon Empire, long before the Cardassians ever met

the Federation.

    "Well," said Chief O'Brien, his brogue thicker than

usual. "Well, that's two responses, as I make it. One from

Worf himself, one from someone saying he was speaking

for Worf. Is that good enough for you, Julian?"

    The doctor shook his head. He was still reticent about

evacuating the station, and Jake couldn't blame him. If

Worf had somehow missed that part of the message, and

if the prisoners were in unprotected, low-force pens, they

would all die! It was a terrible gamble, but Jake Sisko was

convinced where Dr. Bashir was not yet.

    "I said you could say we were going to pump out all

the air, Chief. I haven't yet decided whether we really

can do it."

 Quark had looked more and more incredulous as the

discussion continued. "Surely you're not--not serious!"

he sputtered at last. "Even in pressure-suits, what are we

going to do? We'll be balloons, I tell you... air-filled

balloons bouncing helplessly around the station!"

    Rom said nothing, and his back was turned to his

brother, but that gave Jake a perfect view of a huge,

wicked grin of sharpened snaggle-teeth. Rom was enjoy-

ing his brother's discomfiture!

    O'Brien tried one more argument. "Julian, it's the

only thing we can do... and if we don't do something,

we're going to lose this station and probably everybody

on board anyway."

    The doctor shook his head, eyes closed. "We don't

know that, Chief. But, we have sat here long enough

contemplating our navels. I suggest we..." Bashir

shrugged and gestured toward the door.

    Jake moved toward the front of the column without

thinking, but Bashir gently pulled him back behind

Chief O'Brien, who was a few centimeters shorter, but

made a wider target than the younger man. O'Brien

approached the door, which snapped open without a

care in the world. 'Twas Cardassian, then Federation,

and now Klingon, and had been slave to thousands. The

tiny brigade filed out. O'Brien looked carefully both

directions, and Jake couldn't resist a quick left-right

himself.

    Jake still held on to the now-useless handset. He

looked at his school padd, unfocusing his eyes to men-

tally superimpose the station diagram on their present

position. "Sir," he said to Dr. Bashir, "last word we got,

there was a heavy Klingon troop concentration two

levels below us, working up. They could be here by

now."

    Garak looked at the padd as Jake held it up. "Chief, is

there any way we can get down to the level of the

crossover tunnel without crossing any major ladderwells

or turbolift shafts? We really don't want to run into

Worf's patrol. He might not be able to stop them from

stunning us."

    O'Brien looked pensive. "Well, ordinarily I would say

sure, if it were just me and Rom. My arm has finally

stopped tingling, no thanks to our good witch-doctor."

Bashir snorted, sounding almost as officious as Odo; the

chief took no notice. "But I'm not so sure the rest of you

can climb an unprotected ladder down four levels."

  "Unprotected?"

    "I mean no fall-guards, like staggered platforms. Our

Cardassian friends didn't see much need for safety

features."

    "That is because we Cardassians assume our crewmen

and servants to be competent and free from disabling

phobias," sniffed Garak. "I would have no trouble

climbing the antenna-well ladder, if that is what you

mean; I've climbed it several times before."

    "You have?" asked the doctor. "Now why would a

Cardassian tailor find occasion to use the antenna well to

sneak through a Cardassian station without detection by

Gul Dukat?"

    Jake smiled. The chief always enjoyed baiting Garak.

By now, he thought, everyone on DS9 must know Garak

was a Cardassian spy.

    Garak smiled lazily, evidently enjoying the game as

well. "Private fitting," he said. "And who said it was

during the Cardassian tenure of Terek Nor?"

    "Yeah," said O'Brien. "I mean the antenna well. You

think you're all up to it? Jake, Quark?"

    The elder Ferengi rolled his eyes. "If my brother can

climb the ladder, then certainly I can! Rom isn't exactly

Mr. Dexterity."

    Jake just nodded. In fact, he did not at all savor the

thought of climbing four levels--Cardassian-sized levels

at that--down a naked ladder spaced for Cardassian

limbs. But his only options were to stay behind alone or

compromise the entire team's effectiveness, and these

were no choices at all.

    The mob headed for the door, trotting as quietly as

they could, even Quark ceased grumbling and walked in

subdued silence as they entered the dead, silent corri-

dors of Deep Space Nine. After a few moments, Jake

heard the sounds of guttural speech, the words indistin-

guishable but the tone of voice unmistakable. He pushed

the mental picture of a mob of angry Klingons from his

mind and followed behind the doctor, the tailor, the

maintenance chief.

    Down the black-dark corridor and through an unob-

trusive doorway, hopping over a series of holes in the

deckplates (where Rom had been working a day earlier),

squeezing between a bank of cyan-glowing tubes that lit

the company with an eerie phosphorescence, O'Brien led

the sapper squad to a scaffold that only Jake and Garak

could reach unaided. The pair clambored up and pulled

the rest after. It took the two of them, plus Bashir on the

bottom, to pull up the chief. Jake began to sweat. The air

vents this deep in the bowels of Deep Space Nine never

did work well--they were Federation add-ons--and

there was no workable way to drain off the excess heat

generated by humanoid bodies and radiate it to space, as

there was in the rest of the station. But Jake was also

shaking, and he had to force his teeth together to prevent

them from chattering, and neither of those latter two

reactions could be explained by too much heat, he noted

wryly to himself.

    But at last, a gasping O'Brien dragged his forearm

across his dripping hair, plastering it back against his

head, and pointed wordlessly to a black shaft, black as

pitch, empty as the space between galaxies. Jake swal-

lowed; moving closer, he saw a narrow ladder, the rungs

spaced too far apart, leading into Stygia, or perhaps

Tartarus.

    Garak smiled grimly. "I see that the Federation does

not believe in performing maintenance on the lighting

systems," he gloated. "I would have thought better of

you."

"It's hardly a high priority to light a ladderway that

nobody uses!" objected the chiefi

    "Besides," added O'Brien's assistant engineer, Rom,

"we haven't had time to do any maintenance, and, uh, it

was next on my list after I corrected a slight problem

with the comm system. I can show you the work orders if

you don't--"

    "Don't show this tailor our work schedules, Rom! It's

no business of the Obsidian Order how we maintain this

military outpost."

    "Oh. Right. Sorry, Chiefi" Rom cringed politely, but

O'Brien ignored the Ferengi ritual. Quark reached across

and pinched Rom's right lobe hard enough to elicit a

yelp, and the assistant engineer looked grateful. Evi-

dently, that was the Ferengi response he sought. Garak

rolled his eyes, looking very Odo-like, and then he

snorted. The constable is contagious! concluded Jake.

    The young man edged to the shaft and peered down-

ward. "Careful," cautioned Bashir.

    Straddling the dangerous pit, Jake fumbled in the back

of his padd and extracted the emergency hand-torch. He

shone it down the shaft, but the illumination petered out

long before lighting the bottom. "Jeez, that's a long way

down."

    "Four decks," said O'Brien from right behind Jake,

"and not just short decks. I mean it goes from the top of

the habitat ring to the bottom--forty-two meters--and

halfway in between is the deck that connects to the

crossover tunnels."

    Only forty meters? thought the younger Sisko. It looks

deeper, but that~ probably the darkness. He smiled; it

was plenty deep enough to smash him into a pile of

pumpkin remains at the bottom of a hole.

    No, it's not just the fear of falling. There~ something

else, something I don't want to think about. Try as he

might, Jake was unable to dredge up his real fear, but he

knew it had something to do with his shameful behavior

on Ajilon Prime. Something was pinching his cowardice

nerve. There was something he was afraid of, but he

couldn't put it into words yet.

    "I'll take point," said O'Brien, and he plunged into the

darkness without hesitation. Jake was impressed with

the chief's aplomb. Rom affixed a lamp from a nearby

storage locker to his waist and went next. The Ferengi

was short enough that he practically had to hop from

rung to rung, dangling at the end of his hands and

stretching to touch one toe to the next rung down. Jake

was amazed he could reach it at all.

    Dr. Bashir gently pushed Jake forward, and he took

the third position behind Rom after tucking his padd on

his belt. For a brief moment, he felt the familiar weight

of honest acrophobia; at least this fear he could under-

stand! But there still was something else behind the

simple adrenaline surge of being in a very high place

with nothing to stop him from slipping and falling to his

messy death: there was still a fear of not doing something

he should be able to do. But what?

    Garak, Quark, and finally the doctor fell in behind

Jake, and the entire procession proceeded very slowly

hand-over-hand down the ladder. Even moving cau-

tiously, O'Brien quickly got his bulky body ahead of

everyone else. His lamp shrank to a brilliant star, then a

pinprick, while his figure faded altogether into the black-

ness. Jake kept his eyes riveted on Rom, keeping pace

with the surprisingly wiry Ferengi. Young Sisko didn't

look up, so he had no idea how the company above his

head was doing.

    At last, after an eternity, during which Jake's arms

began to ache until he was honestly frightened that

fatigue alone would throw him off the ladder, he noticed

that the O'Brien star was moving inexorably closer: the

chief must have stopped at the hatch through which they

would exit the ladderway. At once, Jake felt his stomach

tighten with a sickening fear--and finally, he under-

stood what it was he was so afraid of.' it wasn't dying, it

was failing. Jake was afraid that once O'Brien and Rom

killed the station gravity, he would panic in zero-G and

humiliate himselfl

    He had never felt it in his life, and he knew from his

father's stories that many people, upon their first expo-

sure, became disoriented, nauseated, and completely

unable to function. Jake Sisko was terrified that he would

turn out to be one of those people who experience a full-

blown panic attack, that he would disgrace the Sisko

name.

    The fear of panic itself almost made him lose control.

He wrapped both arms around the ladder, hugging the

metal and swearing softly, every obscene word that

Captain Sisko never would allow him to utter.

    Naturally, Bashir, directly above him, made things

worse by completely misinterpreting the problem. "Jake,

there's no need to be frightened. You're almost there.

You're not going to lose your footing now."

    Jake said nothing, not trusting his voice not to quiver.

Garak tried again. "Do you want me to climb down and

help you?"

    "No," croaked the youth. It was all he could manage.

Garak hesitated, presumably wondering whether to ig-

nore the answer and climb down anyway. But Jake,

desperate to avoid letting anyone get too close to him at

that moment, forced himself to continue. He pressed his

lips tight together and envied the Starfleet training that

supposedly made the officers fearless. What I wouldn't

give for that/Anything but my writing talent, that's what I

would give. Nobody made him an offer, unfortunately.

    He made himself look down. O'Brien had already

gotten the hatch open and disappeared inside. Rom's

torso was already within and, as Jake watched, the

Ferengi's legs slithered through the hatch.

    Then Jake got close enough to see the hole in the wall

they vanished through: again for no reason, mindless

terror threatened to rise and engulf him. Jake was not

afraid that the zero-G would hurt him; he was afraid that

it would make him lose control and panic, forcing his

squadmates to waste precious time and energy quieting

him... maybe even causing them all to get caught by

the Klingons!

    He waited a few moments for the overwhelming

performance anxiety to subside, then, taking advantage

of the brief lull, Jake practically slid the last few meters

and slithered around to the inside of the ladder. He bent

forward into the opening in the side of the shaft. For a

brief moment he dangled, perfectly balanced between

the access hatch and a fall to his death. Then he

squirmed forward a fraction, and the balance shifted

decisively toward the hatch. Within ten seconds, he was

inside, rising shakily to his hands and feet in the narrow

hatchway.

    With the immediate danger past, Jake started to calm

down somewhat, but his apprehension at how he would

react to zero-G and being trapped in a spacesuit grew

with every stoop-shouldered step forward, slouching

toward the crossover tunnel, the engineering levels, and

ultimately the environmental controls.

    They came at last to a grating that effectively screened

them from passersby in a busy corridor. The pedestrians

were all Klingons, of course, and Jake quickly realized

that it was Worf's lost patrol, trooping up and down the

same corridor, by sheerest accident, that Bashir and his

roughnecks had to cross! It was a rotten example of

rotten luck, and Jake decided he never would have put it

into a novel: too stupid for words, he raged, to come all

this way, climb down that damned ladder, and get acci-

dentally boxed-in by our own secret ally/

    Meanwhile, O'Brien worked steadily and silently on

the mag-clamps holding the grating against the power-

coupling tube they crouched inside. He depolarized each

magnet in turn with a slim tool extracted from the

emergency kit Rom carried, and soon the grill was held

against the lip of the tunnel by nothing more than the

chief's knee-pressure. O'Brien gestured at the grating

and raised his eyebrows in the doctor's direction, as if to

ask, Now what?

    Bashir gestured to Rom and Quark, then pointed at

his own ears. The order was clear enough to Jake: the

doctor was telling the Ferengi, with their notoriously

sensitive hearing and monstrous earlobes, to listen for

footsteps or other signs of approaching guards.

    Quark pursed his lips and scrunched smaller than his

already diminutive frame, then he closed his eyes and

slowly swung his massive head back and forth like a

deep-penetration sensor array. He held up his hand,

gesturing for the crew to stay where it was. Rom,

meanwhile, simply scowled, making himself look less

intelligent than Jake knew him to be, and appeared to be

listening intently to something he almost heard.

    "Nothing, and... nothing," said Quark. "I think it's

safe."

    Garak chuckled from behind Jake, as if he knew

something no one else knew. Sisko ills attributed it to

typical Cardassian smugness.

    Bashir smacked O'Brien on the shoulder, and the chief

extracted the grill without making too much noise. He

unfolded himself and staggered into the corridor, hop-

ping and shaking his leg in sudden pain. "Damn thing's

fallen asleep!" he whispered, as Jake and then the

Ferengi hopped down beside him. O'Brien's arm still

wasn't up to full range of motion, notwithstanding his

earlier claim. The lingering effects of the Klingon disrup-

tor seemed to still plague him.

    Disaster struck just as Bashir was unlimbering himself

from the shaft. A door slid open with a hiss, and four

Klingon warriors stomped out, looking cross--even for

Klingons. They halted and stared at the three humans,

two Ferengi, and one Cardassian. For a second, they

merely blinked, nonplussed. Then they reacted, grabbing

for their weapons.

 Garak reacted quicker than a pan of hot grease could

spit. He lunged toward the Klingons and shoved the first

one backward hard with a well-aimed, open-handed hit

to his center of gravity. The Klingon stumbed back into

his comrade, who fell back onto the third. The fourth

Klingon decided to charge at the same moment, and he

tripped over the other three, sprawling across them.

    But Garak was already pounding down the corridor in

the opposite direction before the first hit the ground. By

the time the Klingons untangled and leaped to their feet,

Bashir's mob had already put fifteen meters between

them and the Klingons, Garak leading the rout.

    When the action started, Jake had stood, frozen,

watching everything as if it were a holoplay staged for his

amusement. The result was that he found himself tail-

end of the snake as it slithered down the corridor. When

the Klingons opened fire with their disruptors, Jake

ducked involuntarily, feeling an itch in the middle of his

back where he expected to feel a disruptor beam any

moment.

    He saw the crossover tunnel ahead--O'Brien was

angling toward it! They might just make it... except for

the disruptors. The Klingons were finally getting smart.

Rather than try to aim each shot, they thought of

holding down the fire-button and sweeping the beam

across the floor, where it couldn't help but brush across

them.

    Then they heard a very familiar voice booming behind

them: "All warriors, "bellowed Worf, "draw and fire upon

the escapees/"

    For a moment, all Jake could think was, Betrayed/

Then he spared a glance back and realized the genius of

WorFs order: the Klingons now filled the corridor several

ranks deep! As expected, when the rear echelon opened

fire, the front echelon, including Worf himself, instantly

became irrelevant to the fight.

    "You shot the colonel, traitorous dog. t" shouted an

angry voice from up front. In the ensuing donnybrook,

the Federation "escapees" made it to the crossover

tunnel and dove inside, and Jake never did get to see the

outcome of the friendly fire fiasco. O'Brien said some-

thing about "missing the train this time," but Jake again

couldn't make heads or tails out of it.

    The core of Deep Space Nine loomed a few dozen

meters ahead. Within a few minutes, they would kill the

station gravity and environmental control. Jake was

about to find out whether or not he was truly worthy of

the family name.

O

CHAPTER

      17

CHIEF MILES O'BRIEN slipped down the last, slanty Jef-

fries tube, skinnying into the bottom well of the engi-

neering level--below the level, actually, in the area

beneath the metal-catwalk flooring that few persons

apart from the engineering crew of the station even knew

existed. He looked up and saw the steel-shod boots of a

dozen Klingon warriors directly overhead, in the "low-

est" official level of engineering above the reactors, and

felt a terrible temptation to cringe back against the wall

out of sight. But he knew well that the level above was

much better lit, and from up there, the environmental-

controls well looked like a Stygian cave.

    Dr. Bashir leaned close to the chief and whispered

something in his ear. "What?" bellowed O'Brien, enjoy-

ing the shocked look on the doctor's face. Bashir made

an urgent shushing noise, which was lost in the rumbling

cacophony of the atmospheric pumps and recirculators

and gravitic generator itself--a low throbbing that

sucked sound from the air as easily as the tide sucked

away the wash from the waves. O'Brien shouted directly

into the doctor's ear: "They can't hear us down here!

They can barely hear themselves talk/Trust met"

  "What~ the plan?!"

    "There g the master control/The banks of blue buttons

control the station gravity! There ~ a failsafe! You have to

push this bank and that bank simultaneously!"

  "What?!"

    O'Brien cleared his throat, then repeated the instruc-

tions at top volume. He glanced up involuntarily, but the

Klingons were not looking down at them, just shouting

at each other, even their heroic howls drowned out by

the machinery.

  "We need another pair of hands!"

    It turned out they needed two other pairs. O'Brien

grabbed Rom and pulled him close, pointing wordlessly

at the banks of turquoise-lit lamps labeled "Gravitic

Generator Circuit"; the chief held up his hand showing

three fingers, then two, then one in rapid succession.

Rom squinted a moment, then nodded happily.

    Looking over the rest of the mob, choosing between

Garak, Jake, and Quark, O'Brien reluctantly gestured to

the boy to come close. '?'m going to give a visual

countdown/" yelled the chief. "At zero, touch the bottom

of all six of these slidebarsl All at the same time/Got it?f"

    Jake stared at the board full of buttons and slidebars,

shaking his head slowly from side to side. Feeling an

increasing unease, O'Brien elbowed his way next to the

lad, grabbed Jake's hands, and physically dragged them

right above the proper slidebars. Jake was trembling. He

kept licking his lips and dry-swallowing. Please don't

bollox it up, lad! thought O'Brien to himself.

    "Everybody else!" screamed the chief, 'yind something

solid to hang on/ Here we go!" He wasn't sure they

understood his warning; neither Quark nor Garak acted

as if they even heard him. On the other hand, O'Brien

didn't particularly care whether they went for a sail or

not... in fact, with those two, it might be quite the

bonny sight.

    O'Brien opened a console and typed for a long inter-

val, giving coded responses to a series of security queries.

He had to type, since not even the computer could pick

out his words in the din, even if it hadn't been compro-

mised. At last, he successfully circumvented the

maintenance-security subroutines and was ready to in-

troduce a note of levity to Deep Space Nine.

    Chief O'Brien held up his hand and waved it to grab

the attention of his surrogate fingers. Three! He held it a

long moment, making eye contact so he could assure

himself that each person was watching.

 Three!

 Two!

 One!

    Where zero should have been, O'Brien brought seven

well-spaced fingers down sharply on the bottom of the

slidebars. Evidently, the others did their jobs as well, for

he began to feel light-headed immediately.

    It was a horrible feeling, as if he were falling, falling!

O'Brien flashed back to the eerie, shattered hulk that had

started the horrible adventure, the hollowed-out shell

collapsing in on itself. His own pulse skyrocketed, and a

burst of adrenaline pushed through his circulatory sys-

tem. Panic! It was purely physical, the body screaming

out in fear that it was falling. But even knowing it was

just the transition to zero-G, Miles O'Brien could not

calm himself down. The unreasoning fear welled up and

seized hold, and he almost let go the slidebars, which

would have been a disaster: without constant pressure,

the safeties would kick in automatically, restoring full

gravity.

    His entire body began to lift against the slight pressure

of his feet against the deck, his hands against the

controls. Just at the point where he could no longer hold

his fingers down without simply pushing himself away,

the gravitic generator control passed the "point of no

return," whence it would continue by itself down to

zero-G.

    It was a horrible sensation, worsemfar worse!--than

floating in the derelect ship, for this was his home, his

own. This world was never supposed to be so torn apart.

Topsy-turvy, topsy-turvy... the inadequate words ran

through O'Brien's head like the tolling of some great bell

signaling disaster, the Dire Tocsin of the Irish village,

crying fire, flood, a terrible squall off the coast among the

fishers/

    Then the nausea crawled "down" his throat--no "up"

or "down" left--into his stomach. He tasted the bile

first, felt it ooze along his esophagus to slowly over-

whelm his guts. A raging, terrible sickness far worse than

he had felt in the dead hulk, because this was Deep Space

Nine, and it was never meant to be this way.

    Chief O'Brien's ears burned, and he knew if he could

see them, they would first be pink as boiled corned beef,

then red as a bowl of strawberries. He felt a terrific

itching in his throat and ears, and dizziness shook him

like a fever-chill. He noticed he was floating "upside-

down" with respect to the console he had just been

pressing, and he flapped his arms, trying to right himselfi

He had been so intent upon killing the gravitic generator

that he had forgotten to secure himself to something

solid.

    Garak grimly clutched a chair hooked into a track,

and, curiously enough, Jake Sisko had wrapped his

gangly legs around the railing surrounding the wellm

true son of a captain that he was. Bashir was as loose as

O'Brien, but the young know-it-all seemed as unper-

turbed by the turn of events as he had been earlier in the

ship.

    Thank God at least Quark looks as sick as me, and

Rom too, thought the chief in unbecoming bitterness

that startled even himself. It's the spacer's revenge, he

told himselfi It's making my head funny.

 The doctor was talking, but O'Brien needed every bit

of attention to keep from dry-heaving uncontrollably

and truly disgracing himself. His skin felt clammy, and

he knew his flesh was as gray as the fat-scum floating in

the boiling water atop the corned beef... soon to be

white as the cream poured over the strawberries.

    Suck it up, he commanded himself, and stop thinking

about food/He forced himself to pay attention to the

young pup with the pips on his collar. "Listening to me? Chief2."

    "I'm--sorry, Julian. I was--thinking." O'Brien swal-

lowed several times. He suddenly realized that he could

hear Bashir; most of the engine noise had stopped,

leaving only the whine of the air pumps. All it wouM take

is one, little twist of the pressure-regulator...

    "Glad to see you're still among the living. I said,"

repeated Bashir, "what are you going to do next?"

    "What we... already... decided. Vacuum... envi-

ronmental controls."

     "I was afraid as much," said the doctor, wincing at the

thought. "I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that."

 "But why--"

    "Chief, think of the prisoners! What if Worf didn't

figure it out? What are they supposed to do then, suck

vacuum?"

    Chief O'Brien rolled his eyes, a signal of disgust that

cost him dearly in the fragile sense of balance he had

constructed from visual input alone. "Julian, Worf

said... force vacuum. Must're figured it out... must

be safe."

    "Safe how? Did the Klingons issue them all pressure-

suits, just in case some damn fool discharged the atmos-

phere out a porthole?" Bashit had drifted close enough

to a railing to grab hold, where he fluttered gracefully, a

flag on a blustery day. O'Brien found the movement

disturbing enough that he began to hyperventilate. He

stared away, focusing on the Ferengi. They were still

bouncing slowly around the room like slow-motion

balloons, waving their arms and legs and bleating.

    "I don't know!" shouted the chief, too late remember-

ing that the Klingons probably could hear him now that

the generator was offiine. "On the Klingon ship or

forceshields--something! Worf wouldn't have said vacu-

um part if they would die."

  "Maybe he didn't think of it!"

    Chief O'Brien remembered in time not to roll his eyes

again. "Known him longer than known you... sir. Not

make... mistake like that!"

    At last, by sheerest mischance, O'Brien drifted face-

first into Bashir's boots. He grabbed hold with both

hands, climbing along the lieutenant in a successful, if

disturbingly familiar, drive for the railing. He latched

onto the bar in a death-grip and faced the doctor from

half a meter away.

    This close, O'Brien saw that Bashir's own skin had

grown pale. He realized that the doctor was anguishing,

trying to decide whether to flush the atmosphere and risk

killing every man, woman, and child held hostage

aboard the station, which would be the result if Worf had

somehow missed that part of the message after all, or

else do nothing and, in essence, surrender the station to

the Klingons. The zero-G was a nuisance, but not

disruptive enough by itself to prevent them from holding

their conquest until reinforcements arrived from the

Empire. Without the evacuation of the station atmos-

phere, the six of them could not hope to overwhelm the

Klingons.

    Bashir hesitated on the precipice of decision, too

perfectly balanced to go either way. But the chief knew

what to do, perhaps because, of all things in the world,

he trusted Worf not to be as thick-skulled and humorless

as his Klingon brethren. The problem was, how to

persuade the doctor? For obvious reasons, the potential

death of the prisoners was far more real to Julian Bashir

than was the joke-getting ability of a Klingon he had met

for the first time just a couple of years earlier.

 For a moment, O'Brien was at a loss, then abruptly,

the words jumped into his mouth almost before they

appeared clearly in his brain. "Julian, you said it your-

selfl"

    "Said what? What?" shouted the doctor, staring back

and forth between the chief and the environmental

control panel.

     "You said yourself that the Klingons were moving

heaven and earth not to kill anyone... you said it!"

 "So-o-o?"

    "So they know there's going to be a counterattack by

the Federation. There has to be! And the only place the

prisoners would possibly be safe on a station under

bombardment is behind a level-four forcefield!" When

he finished the thought, the chief noted with surprise

that his nausea was almost entirely gone, even though he

was still dizzy and disoriented; the pressure of logical

thought calmed him down.

"Maybe they just plan to release them when--"

"No, I mean that's what Worf must're argued with

them, that's how he got them to store the prisoners

behind the forcefields, even before we broadcast the

warning. That's why he told us so quickly to go ahead

and do it!"

    It wasn't much. There were logical arguments that

might be advanced against the point, if Bashir were

looking for them. But it was just enough to tip the

balance in the doctor's mind, the one, final stick that

broke the logjam. "Yes," said Dr. Bashir quietly.

 "Julian?"

    "Yes, Chief, I believe we can. Chief O'Brien, get

everyone in pressure suits. What Worf said about the

station atmosphere... make it so."

    "Aye, sir!" Now that he wasn't thinking so hard about

the lack of gravity, his Starfleet training reasserted itself.

He spun around, using his hand on the railing as a pivot

point, and kicked across the room toward the bank of

storage lockers. One contained ESO pressure suits for

Extra-Station Operations in the unlikely event that such

a thing was required; it hadn't been in all the years

O'Brien had been aboard Deep Space Nine.

    Fortunately, the lockers were too old to have been

connected into the station computers, therefore, the

combinations were not scrambled as were the rest of the

locks. O'Brien punched his own code, and the locker

snicked open with the cold efficiency of Cardassian

machinery.

    Garak materialized by O'Brien's side. "Do I take it we

are about to embark upon an invigorating swim to

Bajor?" he smirked.

    "Take it any way you want. Just stay out of my way."

In the closet were eight Starfleet pressure suits and,

miraculously enough, two Cardassian suits left over

from the old days. "Here," mumbled the chief, extract-

ing one of the latter and launching it toward Garak. "I

wouldn't want you to be underdressed."

    "It would spoil my image," agreed Garak, efficiently

shedding shoes and outer garments to slither into the

suit.

    O'Brien turned around and gave one suit a gentle push

in Bashir's direction. If he can kick my butt at darts, he

can bloody well catch this damned thing. t Then he slipped

into a suit himself.

    "Chiefl" hissed Jake Sisko from a few meters away.

The lad dangled at an impossible angle from the cage

separating their deck from the one that used to be

"above," a concept now meaningless. "Chief, what are

we supposed to do with those?"

    "Watch!" commanded O'Brien. He kicked off his

boots--they were included in the suit, of course--and

gently pulled apart the front seam of the suit. Maneuver-

mg it so that the chest opening just touched his feet,

O'Brien slithered his way into the tight-fitting,

accordion-jointed, head-to-toe jumper. Pulling his arms

inside and ducking his head into the helmet, O'Brien

pressed the chest seam together again and dialed the

mode-select to seal. He heard the soft thunk as the suit

pressurized itself to three-quarters station normal, and

his ear cracked at the sudden change.

    Holding three suits, he reset his feet and launched

toward the Ferengis, who were still bumping around in

the corner. He stretched and handed-off one ESO to Jake

en passant. When O'Brien reached Quark and Rom, the

bartender turned reluctant revolutionary was already

eyeing the suits with horror. "Chief O'Brien, you had

better not be telling me that/have to wear one of those!"

    "Here you go, Rom. No, Quark, I wouldn't be telling

you anything. Leave it off if you think it might clash with

your teal jacket, I don't care."

    "Oh, right," sneered Quark. "So I can die and allow

Rom to take over my bar? Not for a Ferengi's grace

period!" Quark snatched the remaining suit, which was

marked for a supervisor. "But don't you imagine for one

microsecond that I'm going to forget about this cross-

species humiliation!"

    Humiliation? What the hell is he on about? Then the

chief saw Rom squirming into his own suit, and he

understood immediately. When the young Ferengi fi-

nally managed to get himself inside and work the air

seal, it was all O'Brien could do to avoid actually

laughing out loud at the absurd picture of a tiny Ferengi

inside an ESO built to accommodate a burly human: the

arms and legs flopped uselessly, and Rom could barely

see over the lip of the helmet. The assistant engineer

looked like an egg stuffed into a sock.

    Quark, when he struggled into his suit (with help from

Rom), looked even more ridiculous. Unlike his brother,

Quark tried to look dapper and dignified and succeeded

only in making himself look like Molly playing dress-up

in Keiko's clothes.

    But it was good enough; everyone was secured inside

the pressure-suits. The moment of truth had arrived.

    O'Brien kicked gently back toward the environmental-

control panel. He plucked a delicate probe from his

pocket and carefully bypassed the final security subsys-

tems, literally rewiring the environmental interface to

delete the interminable requests for passwords and

superuser status. The environmental-control password

system had been designed by the Cardassians to prevent

some idiot from accidentally purging all air from the

stationmor a Bajoran terrorist from doing it on

purpose--but they had no time for it now!

    But now it was O'Brien who hesitated, nervously

stopping his hand just a centimeter away from the purge.

Do I really have the guts? Was I right about WorJ? Was

Worf right about the Klingons not wanting to hurt the

prisoners or use them as human shields?

    He hesitated for three seconds, then looked up to see

Bashir staring at him with such intensity, O'Brien jerked

backward, almost pushing himself away from the con-

sole. "Have to move," he muttered to himself, too

quietly to be overheard through the helmet. "Some-

body's got to make the decision, and that somebody's

me."

    He sighed a long, resigned breath, then flexed his digits

the final two centimeters and poked the "Emergency

purge" touchplate. At first, O'Brien heard nothing inside

his suit except for his own breathing, loud in his ears,

then he started to hear the roar of escaping gas as the

mighty circulation system began the eight-minute proc-

ess of evacuating all the air from the station in an

emergency, crash-priority purge. Accompanying this was

the red-alert warning shriek and an insistent voice

warning of imminent doom from hard vacuum. O'Brien

quickly reached into the open control panel and slew the

sound effects. When the wind-roar reached its peak, the

chief had to grip the console tightly to avoid being

sucked toward the nearest air vent.

    Gradually, the external sounds became faint and tin-

ny. He heard horrified shouts from the level "above."

Glancing up, he saw four Klingons caroming off the

walls of the engineering level in panic, searching for

pressure suits, oxygen masks, something to save them-

selves! They finally located a locker and blasted it open

with disruptors, but it was too late for all but one

Klingon, who flung himself into a suit in a desperate

frenzy.

    He made it... barely. But his comrades were dead,

by the most horrible means O'Brien could imagine: slow

suffocation as the atmospheric pressure plummeted.

    The remaining Klingon was alive, but incapacitated by

the trauma to his lungs and tissues. The Federation

counteroffensive had finally begun.

CHAPTER

      18

JULIAN BASmR BEGAN to get cold feet as the air pumped

from the rest of the station. The dimly remembered

manual insisted they had another ten minutes before the

larger spaces in Deep Space Nine were evacuated, and he

determined to make use of those precious moments.

"Jake, give me the handset," he said. The boy looked

blank until Bashir remembered to say "Open comm link

to, ah, pressure suit 224A, codename Jake Sisko." He

repeated his request for the handset, and Jake fumbled

the recovered Cardassian communicator to the doctor.

    Licking his lips, Bashir activated the device. "Open

comm link to handset. Scan for frequency squawk, link

to broadcast." The commands were unfamiliar, but

then, he had never tried to link from a pressure-suit to a

Klingon communicator before. After a moment, he

heard a fast click-click in his ears that he presumed was

maintenance shorthand for "link established," and he

breathed a sigh of relief.

 "Attention General Malach. This is Lieutenant Julian

Bashir, commanding officer of the Deep Space Nine

defense forces." Bashir paused. He had deliberately not

mentioned that he was a doctor--let him sweat at the

thought that we're trained counterterrorists! "We are

evacuating all air from this facility. The process cannot

now be reversed. You must immediately move all Fede-

ration prisoners to airtight confinement or they will die,

and Starfleet will hold you personally, and the entire

Klingon Empire, responsible for the deaths of all men,

women, and children under your control!"

    Nothing but static. Bashir waited thirty seconds and

was just about the try again when the voice he recog-

nized as "Malach" came over his suit comm link. The

general sounded as though he were whispering directly

into Bashir's ears. "If you value the lives of your fellow

Federations, you will instantly restore the atmosphere of

this station!"

    "Negative, the process cannot be reversed. It is beyond

our control now. Only you can save their lives... and I

demand that you do so or suffer the wrath of the

Federation for all time to come--against you and your

house for all eternity!"

    The ruse having failed, Malach responded immedi-

ately this time. "The prisoners are safe. We wish to

discuss terms of your surrender. You will not be

harmed."

    "Oh, we have no intention of surrendering, Malach."

Bashir deliberately did not use the term 'general.' "We

shall fight to the last man. I suggest you pray that your

Klingon warriors have trained as assiduously in zero-G

vacuum warfare as we have. We are coming for you,

Malach. Today will be a good day to die... for you." He

thumbed off the handset broadcast switch and listened,

but Malach did not respond.

    Bashir looked up to find the entire company staring at

him, each from his own peculiar attitude in the weight-

less environment. "Maintain open comm link with pres-

sure suits 224A, 228A, 172A, 173A, and 175A."

Click-click. "Men, I have just informed Malach that we

are evacuating the station, and ordered him to get the

Federation prisoners to airtight spaces."

    "Yeah?" demanded Quark aggressively, "and what

about the non-Federation prisoners, like Morn and Cap-

tain Kobei?"

    "Malach has no reason to suddenly start killing them

now, Quark. But we need a plan of action--he knows

we're coming for him, but he has no idea how many we

are or how heavily armed. He only knows we're here and

we can monitor their communications."

    "And he knows that Worf is on our side," added

O'Brien, who floated directly "above" Bashit and

upside-down from the doctor's point of view. "I hope to

hell Worf knows the game is up!"

    Bashir said nothing. His own breath was loud in his

ears. Quark and Rom were still flailing, and Rom's

helmeted head struck a bulkhead. Bashir jerked when he

heard the thump loud and clear over the comm link.

    Malach's voice returned in the doctor's ears...

everyone's ears, presumably, with the open circuit: "We

had no choice. The Federation does not understand that

this is the greatest crisis ever to face the Empire--the

entire Alpha Quadrant. More even than the Borg! Some-

body had to act."

    "We have the advantage," Bashir nearly shouted,

ignoring the Klingon. "Let us strike quickly, while

they're still getting their sea-legs, so to speak. We must

retake Ops and get a message through to Bajor!" The

handset did not broadcast, so Malach heard only silence

in response to his evident urge to rationalize. Good, let

him sweat for a change.

    "We want no war with the Federation. We are not

asserting control over your territory, do you not under-

stand? We saw a leak, and we moved to plug it. You

would have done the same, if you would have allowed

your warriors to act. Lieutenant Bashit, listen to me. We

are not your enemies. Our mutual enemy lies beyond

this gateway in the Gamma Quadrant. Listen to me.t"

    Bashir found a solid railing with his feet. Grace under

any condition, including zero-G, came easily to the

doctor; always had. He launched himself toward the

hatch that mediated between the "upper" and "lower"

levels of the engineering department, though the terms

were meaningless now. Garak followed close at his heels,

and Jake and the chief took a moment to retrieve the

squawking, flapping Ferengi and tow them along behind.

    Arriving at the hatch, Bashit gripped the ladder with

his legs while he worked the manual override--not an

easy task in zero-G, since it had never occurred to the

Cardassians who built the station that anyone would try

such a damn-fool stunt. But by bracing himself and

applying dynamic tension in opposite directions simul-

taneously, he managed to twist the screw and dial back

the bolts. The door opened, and Bashit wriggled

through.

    He spared barely a glance at the four }Clingon soldiers

who had guarded engineering: three clearly were dead,

but he couldn't tell about the fourth. You're a doctor,

damn it, insisted one part of his brain, but another part

screamed, No time, no time! Feeling a wave of guilt, he

bypassed the possible patient and pushed toward the

next level up.

    "Lieutenant Bashit, I do not want to fight you. Join

me--join us in glorious defense of the Alpha Quadrant

against these invaders from the Dominion. Join the

Empire, and arm-in-arm, we shall repell the Founders

and secure our borders. Lieutenant, answer me! You

dishonor me by this stony silence. I require an answer. I

demand an answer.t"

    Major Kira Nerys tensed when Dax said it, tensed

though she was expecting it, ready for it: "Wormhole

ahead," said Dax, dry-mouthed enough to have to clear

her throat. The normally irrepressible Trill seemed to be

entering in the general spirit of doom and anxiety that

gripped the rest of the bridge crew of the Defiant.

    Kira tensed and licked her own lips. Her fingers sought

out the torpedo controls, and though they trembled with

anticipation, she knew, if the order came, she could fire

cleanly and without hesitation. Passing through the

wormhole, she scanned constantly for a hidden invader.

The realm of the Prophets seemed an especially blasphe-

mous place to plant an ambush, hence quite attractive to

a would-be Klingon enemy. But nothing happened in the

wormhole itself.

    As usual, she felt a twist wrench her guts outward, like

tidal forces, as they passed through. The wormhole was

neither here nor precisely there, nowhere in particular, in

fact. It was everywhere along its route at once, and

nowhere with any great specificity. In fact, she felt no

passage of time, per se, just the vague, disquieting sense

of being where she came from and where she was going

all at the same, drawn-out instant. She felt foreboding,

too, and that emotion at least was new for her.

    "Exiting the wormhole, Benjamin," announced Dax,

as though she were saying Leaping out of the J?ying pan,

Captain.

    Kira held her breath. This is it, she thought; if there

were to be an ambush, this was where it would have to

be, so close to home. But no ball of energy met them, no

cascade of disruptor blasts to pulverize the cloaked but

unshielded skin of the ship. There were no torpedoes,

disruptors, large rocks, or buckets of sand flung into

their path.

    Butrebut we're not alone, she realized. She felt the

squeezing fist in her belly that always told her whenever

there were a Cardassian patrol lurking nearby, back in

the bad old days. The fist clenched tighter as the Defiant

exited the wormhole, accompanied by the usual, spectac-

ular starburst pattern that she had seen so many times

from aboard the station. "Great," she muttered, "may as

well fire off a flare gun to announce our arrival."

    "I am sorry, Major," said Captain Sisko, "but I didn't

quite catch that."

    "I mean, sir, that it's frustrating to be running silent in

a cloak and pass through the wormhole with an an-

nouncement loud enough to be seen three sectors away!"

Suddenly, something didn't look quite right. "Stand by,

Captain. Dax! Check for... check for warp signatures.

There was nothing recent when we left, remember?"

    "Checking. Uh-oh... Kira, there has been somebody

here, snooping around."

    And there definitely was something different about

Deep Space Nine. "Hail them, sir?"

    "Negative," said Sisko immediately. "Did you notice

the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, Major

Kira?"

 "Huh? What dog?"

    "The dog did nothing in the nighttime, Benjamin,"

said Dax with a mysterious sing-song quality, as if

quoting.

    "That was the curious incident," remarked Benjamin

Sisko.

    Riddles, always riddles with those two/"Oh, I get it: we

just came through the wormhole. Why didn't they hail

US?"

    "Exactly, Kira. Let's poke around here for a while

until we understand what's going on."

    Kira brought the station up on the viewer and began

systematically examining the image from top-left to

bottom-right. Definitely, something was wrong. Now she

had to find it.

    A presence loomed over Kira's shoulder. "Now this is

funny," said Constable Odo, her closest friend among

all the inhabitants of Deep Space Nine, "there's no

chatter."

 "No what?" she asked.

    "Humans--and Bajorans--are the noisiest mob of

people I have ever encountered, Major. It's a constant

source of irritation to me, having to filter out the

incessant chattering you people do all the time: Bajor to

the station, the station to Starfleet, the station to ships in

the area, wanted smugglers to Quark and vice versa."

  "All right, so we talk a lot. We like to keep in touch!"

  "But Kira, there is no chatter."

"No chatter? You mean, no communications? At all?"

"Ordinarily, at any one moment, there are three

comm links between the station and Bajor. Even re-

cently, with the station blessedly quiet and even Quark

starved for want of criminal enterprise, we should have

seen some idle chatting in the ten minutes since we

entered the station's space. But there hasn't been a word,

not a single communication from the station. The Ba-

joran high council just sent a new batch of wanted holos,

and nobody in my office even acknowledged receipt!"

    "Captain!" cried Kira, "I've got it! Look at the main

emitter... there's just a great big hole where the anten-

na used to sit." She tapped rapidly at her keyboard

console. On the main viewer at the front of the Defiant, a

red circle appeared circling the jagged scar where the

emitter array used to squat.

 "Can we beam onto the station, Old Man?"

"No chance, Benjamin. The station shields are up."

"I do not like the looks of this at all," said Sisko

quietly. Abruptly, he sat bolt upright in his command

chair and said, "Dax, take us around the station, but

keep the impulse engines below a quarter." The captain

rose, absently stroking his beard as he stared at the

forward viewer. "We're not alone," he said at last.

    The words sent a shiver through Major Kira, and she

almost began sneezing again, though it was months

beyond when the pregnancy should have stopped caus-

ing that reaction. "A cloaked ship," she said, not particu-

larly surprised. "Klingon?"

 "Who else?" asked the constable, who had not moved

from his spot behind Sisko's chair. "The station is

compromised," added Odo. "The Klingons have cap-

tured it in our absence and thrown a communications

shield around it so the survivors cannot call for help."

    "That does seem the most logical solution," said the

captain.

    Kira felt her stomach clench even tighter into a ball at

the icy, emotionless tone of the statement. Jake's on

board! she thought. She did not dare say the words aloud.

"Do they know we're here? Oh. Stupid question."

    Dax snorted. "Even if they weren't looking for a warp

signature, they sure couldn't miss our spectacular floral

arrangement a few minutes ago." She was referring to

the opening of the wormhole, which Dax claimed resem-

bled the flowering of some monstrous, cosmic tulip bulb.

    "Should we send a message to Bajor?" Kira's hands

hovered over the console.

 "No!" said Sisko sharply.

    The major jumped. "Why not? We need reinforce-

ments to--"

    "Because opening a channel is like clicking on a hand-

torch in a dark room. They'll decloak and fry us before

we get two syllables out."

    "How about making a speed-run toward Bajor?" sug-

gested Constable Odo. "Once inside Bajoran space,

surely the Klingons wouldn't shoot."

    "They're cloaked, Odo," reminded Dax, a mere sec-

ond before Kira would have.

    "They can burn us and cruise quietly away," added the

major from Bajor, "with no one the wiser. We're like two

black cats," she continued, "maneuvering around a

pitch-black room, stalking each other. Playing cat-and-

cat."

 "Play ball," muttered Sisko.

    Kira wasted no time staring out the viewer as they

rounded the station, hunting for the Klingons. The ship

was cloaked, as were they, and would be invisible to the

naked eye. Instead, she watched for the tiniest fluctua-

tions of energy readings on her threat-board: faint

changes in temperature, a flicker of the cosmic back-

ground radiation as the enemy ship passed between

them and the rest of the universe. A star that suddenly

moved the slightest amount, detectable only by astro-

gational instruments, would indicate a slight refocusing

of the image of the star due to the fact that the cloaking

shield was not equally thick all along its length--the

effect was like holding an ancient contact lens at arm's

length and finding it by the visual distortions it caused.

Any of these would give the Defiant a bearing but no

range on the Klingon ship--or ships!

    "Run us closer," said Sisko, sounding and looking

completely calm, but Kira had enough experience with

professional killers during the Occupation to recognize

the mark of the beast beneath his skin and behind the

corneas of his eyes. "Run us right in and among the

pylons, Old Man. Let's see how badly that...

gentleman wants to play hide-and-seek."

    "Heat surge bearing one seven zero mark plus fifteen!"

called out Major Kira, almost before she realized herself

what she had just seen.

    "Come about, all engines stop!" snapped Sisko. The

viewer spun sharply as Dax turned the Defiant 170

degrees, so that she pointed directly at the heat source

Kira had spotted. The major performed an extremely

sensitive, passive scan of the immediate area, but she

found nothing. The surge was gone.

    "They must're banked their own engines," she mut-

tered. "If they tamped them down to a quarter

impulse--well, make that a fifth impulse, with that noisy

Klingon ship--they'd be a silent as we are."

    "They spotted us the same time you spotted them,"

said Odo. The captain grunted in disappointed agree-

ment.

    "All right, keep moving, Old Man; in and around the

pylons. Perhaps we'll get lucky again. Major Kira, con-

sider this a wartime situation. Don't try to hail them,

don't give them a chance to surrender. We've been fired

upon already, and we're within our rights to blow them

out of the sky without warning." "Yes sir," she grinned.

    Kira forced her eyes off the viewer, enticing though it

was to watch Dax's skill as she threaded the needles of

Deep Space Nine. The major stared intently at her

targeting computers, her fingers hovering lightly over the

fire key... though that was quite an arm-stretch, con-

sidering how far the baby-on-board made her sit from

the console. But she couldn't help catching the looming

obstacles in her peripheral vision, just enough to gasp

every now and then as the captain's "old man" cut a turn

a little too close.

    "Heat flume!" called out Kira. "Wait, neg that. "It's

from the station." A moment later, she added, "For

Prophet's sake, there goes another. They're getting pretty

careless with the outgasing back there."

    With the sixth venting, she began to get suspicious.

"Hands of the Prophets," she whispered. "Captain, the

whole station is lit up like a Bajoran festival bush in the

infrared... they're leaking atmosphere from every joint

and seam!"

    "Leaking atmosphere?" said Sisko, sounding, if any-

thing, even colder and more controlled. He's living

through hell right now, she realized; even she couldn't

help but picture the slowly suffocating residents, drop-

ping to the ground and grabbing their ears as the

atmospheric pressure plummeted. "Dax, where's it com-

ing from?"

    The Trill shook her head. "From everywhere, Benja-

min! It's--they're purging the entire atmosphere! Benja-

min, this is crazy... it's going to take them hours to be

able to restore it again, and there're not enough pressure

suits for even a third of the station population, even

considering how few people are left?

For the first time on the mission, Captain Sisko almost

lost control. He jumped to his feet and shouted, "Son of

am" He swallowed the rest of the statement, choking on

a long string of ear-burning obscenities that Major Kira

dutifully supplied in her own mind. The captain

clenched his hands so tightly, she could hear the knuck-

les crack from where she sat. After a moment, he sat

again with exaggerated calm, false control. "The situa-

tion has become urgent, Kira," he said, not even bother-

ing with the formalities of rank. "Secure the station.

NOW."

    She could not stop her eyes from staring up at the

viewer, despite the fact that her sensors were far more

sensitive. Her gaze bored into the screen as if to rip right

through it and penetrate the Klingon ship by force of

will. As though some force held her vision and wouldn't

let her look away, she stared, unblinking, riveted, and she

saw the ship. She sucked in a breath. The Prophets had

answered her prayer, for the Klingon ship had become

visible! Then it flickered from view again, and Kira's

brain finally caught up with her eyes: she knew what she

had seen.

    "Captain! It's the air--the steam--I mean, frozen

water droplets in the venting atmosphere, and they look

like steam, like fog, and the damned Klingon ship is

swirling through the fog! I can see it! I can target it!"

    Lieutenant Commander Dax's cold voice suddenly cut

through Kira's mounting excitement. "Computer, over-

lay forward viewer with thermal imaging." The viewer

color-palate suddenly shifted to shades of red from the

ruddy black of cosmic background temperature of three

Kelvin to the pinpoint white of the station nuclear

reactors; the visible-light outline of the station, still

visible behind the thermal image, showed as a stark,

metallic base surrounded by a deep amber, almost burnt

umber, that represented the normal heat-radiation of the

station skin.

    But dancing all along that skin at regular intervals

were fountains of prismatic beauty, rare rubies spouting

plumes of fiery spirals, like fire-flowers or the swirl of a

dancing Firebird's tail. The hot atmosphere escaping

from a dozen joints and nozzles turned the entirety of

Deep Space Nine into a miniature galaxy in yellowing

red: the streams began in electric yellow at their core,

where they sprouted from the station arteries; they

spiraled around the rotating station, darkening through

orange, umber, and finally turning the color of bright,

oxygenated blood as the venting atmospheric gases

cooled, darkening along tile yellow-red color axis on the

viewer.

    There were several breaks and eddys in the scintillant

image, too many! Kira almost fired a torpedo at the

station's own ventral sensor array before she realized

what was causing that particular disturbance in the

pattern. She looked from ripple to cut, identifying each

one as a normal piece of the station disrupting the fluid

flow, like rocks forming cascades in a rushing river. She

was looking for the singular, inexplicable splash that

would signify the presence, not of just another rock, but

of a hidden fish lurking beneath the surface.

0

CHAPTER

      19

MAJOR K~ NERYS stared at the slowly rotating swirls,

thinking of the sunberry ices they sold on the streets

back home. They're here, they're here somewhere, the

bastards, can't sit still forever, have to move sometime.

Come on you cowards move somewhere! Don't be fright-

ened of the gases that are going to kill you in the end. Just

cut through them, just get up and move from one side to

the other and I've--

    Except, for all her staring, it was Constable Odo who

spotted the moving disturbance with the telltale bow

wake. "There!" he shouted, running forward to the

viewer to point directly at the track. For a moment, he

seemed to forget himself, and he kept stretching his arm

as if still a changeling, able to turn the limb into a

telescoping pointer.

    "I see it!" snapped Kira, desperately bringing her fire-

control sensors to bear on her best guess, based on

Klingon bird-of-prey profiles, of where the bridge

would be. But--no, that's impossible/Don't do that/

"It's moving behind a pylon! Our own pylon is in the

way!"

    "Fire, Major," said Sisko calmly, having regained his

sense of self.

 "But we'll shoot--"

"To hell with the pylon--take the shot, soldier!"

Kira obeyed without another moment's hesitation, but

she shifted to phasers, since a photon torpedo would

merely hit the pylon and stop. The phaser struck the

metal protuberance six meters from its end. After a

moment, the heavy blast sheared through the pylon and

continued to the next target in its line of sight.

    For an instant, the thermal image on the viewer

burned as white as the snows on Mount Turyeil Bajori.

Then the filters adjusted, shifting the color-palette to-

ward a lower frequency, and Kira could see the ghostly

image of a burning hole, streaming hot gas and black

specks that must be metal debris. The Klingon ship was

silhouetted black against the eye-straining yellow-white

of hellish heat. The bird-of-prey's power plant had

ruptured, spraying a stream of antimatter into the swirl-

ing oxygen and nitrogen, where it reacted, producing

enough heat to swamp the infrared sensors.

    "Computer," said Captain Sisko, his command-tone

cutting through the ice of fascinated reverie that gripped

the bridge crew, "remove thermal imaging, restore for-

ward viewer to normal visual light reception."

    At once, the viewer went nearly black, so quickly that

Kira still saw the afterimage of the burning hole in the

antimatter-containment shell. Yet the hole was still

visible, the antimatter stream still reacting brightly

enough to produce a monstrous arrow pointing directly

at the bird-of-prey. The Defiant began to roll and vibrate

as it was buffeted by the shock waves from the initial

explosion and the subsequent matter-antimatter reac-

tions. The inertial dampers mostly compensated, but the

ship still pitched and yawed like an old-fashioned sailing

vessel of centuries past.

    Kira grabbed her console and held tight. Dax and

Sisko likewise rode it out, and Odo reacted more quickly

than a human would have and braced himselfi But the

two ensigns were neither so quick-thinking nor so lucky.

Taryak Amar was thrown out of his chair by the first jolt.

When he struggled up against the shaking a minute later,

Kira noticed he was cradling his left arm, which did not

move, and his face was bone white. Ensign Janine

Wheeler had been standing at her post near the astroga-

tion console, but now she lay on her side, unmoving, her

head against the bare-metal railing separating the upper

from the lower bridge.

    Kira tapped her comm badge. "Medical emergency on

the bridge, send a head-trauma team, blue alert."

    If the captain noticed the casualties, he didn't have

time to fret about them; he was still in the middle of a

battle. "Drop cloak and raise shields, Old Man. Keep the

pylon between us. Is he shooting or running?"

    "Both," answered Dax. A pair of photon torpedoes

launched directly at the Defiant, followed by a narrow-

beam disruptor blast. It was a standard Klingon tactical

trick: fire the torpedoes, then shoot the shields to punch

a hole for them to push through. It never worked

perfectly--but then, it didn't need to. The disruptor

burned a hole partway through the shields, and before

they could compensate, the photon torpedoes over-

loaded the system and crippled the ship.

    Kira ducked involuntarily as the disruptor beam

washed across the forward sensor array, then she re-

turned fire with an identical spread of two torpedoes and

a phaser blast to light their way. "Damn," she muttered,

"they got their shields up."

 "But they're badly hurt!" shouted Dax.

    "So are we! Shields damaged, I mean, not the ship, not

yet --"

    "Containment breach on the bird-of-prey has turned

into a hull breach, and they're turning tail."

 "They're shooting as they go," added Kira, "and our

forward shields are still trying to recover. Captain,

they'd better not shoot us or we could be cooked

rajelah. "

    Demanding control from herself, she maintained an

even strain by meditating upon the Fifth Fire-Verse of

the Prophets:

The gentle breeze dies,

But the gale builds in passionate intensity;

The fire is ever in the breaching,

Not the building.

    "Never mind, Benjamin," said Dax. "They're not

even targeting, just popping shots over their shoulder.

Hundred to one against them hitting--"

    Kira continued to monitor her sensors. "Incoming/"

she shouted, before even realizing what she saw: torpedo,

constant bearing, decreasing distance... it was coming

right down their throats!

    "Shields!" barked Captain Sisko, but Kira could only

look back at him and sadly shake her head. "Brace for

impact," said the captain. "Lie down if you're

standing."

    Dax evaded, but the Klingon torpedo tracked. If the

initial shot hadn't been so perfect, so lucky, the tor-

pedo's eye could not have found the Defiant in time.

Unfortunately for the Starfleet crew, the Klingons had

thrown the dice and rolled a double. Dax swerved and

bucked, but the torpedo exploded three thousand meters

off their port bow, where the shields were still weak from

the two-pronged assault of a few seconds earlier.

    The Defiant shuddered with the initial shock. The

white whale breached by a harpoon, thought Kira, who

was working her way through the great human literature

of centuries past. The ship took the blow badly, bucking

and yawing so that it was all the major could do to wrap

her arms around the mast and not be cast into the sea

with Ahab. The jerky visuals were making her sick, so

she shut her eyes, unable to block the inner vision of

another ship, the Pequod, tossed in the water by a living

leviathan, rather than the shock waves from matter and

antimatter crashing together in the froth of energy that

drove Kira's own vessel.

    Sisko stood, glaring at Dax. "Good call on the odds of

a hit, Old Man."

  "Oh come on, Benjamin! That's not fair."

  "How fast?"

    "The leak? Oh, we're not going to be sucking vacuum

in the next hour. But we're not going anywhere, either.

We could wait and hope we drift out of the communica-

tions containment shield, then call Bajor for help."

    "No time, we have more important fish to fry," said

the captain. "Prepare to beam the entire crew aboard

Deep Space Nine."

    "Benjamin, the shields are up, we can't transport. And

the station is in hard vacuum and zero-G," said the

science officer, staring at her sensors. "And there are

forty-three live Klingons aboard!"

    Sisko thought for a long moment, eyes closed. "There

is one place on the station you can beam to," he said, lips

curling into a marrow~freezing smile. "Target the pylon

that Major Kira so kindly tore up with her phasers. I'll

bet good latinum the pylon shield is compromised."

    "Oh! Um, yeah. I suppose it is. What do you know?"

Dax's face turned a pinkish shade, and Kira couldn't

stop a quick smile.

    "Kira," barked Captain Sisko, "break out pressure

suits and issue phaser-rifles. We're going in. Instruct the

ship to break outside the corem-blanking field and send

a priority-one distress call to Bajor after we--"

  "Can't," said Dax unhappily.

    "Are you saying, Old Man, that you can't program the

Defiant to leave the station and send a subspace mes-

sage?"

 Dax sat heavily. "Yes, sir."

    "Aye, Captain," said Kira, finally able to respond to

the order for suits and phaser-rifles. She rose and began

cranking open emergency lockers.

    Sisko seemed to notice the fallen ensign for the first

time. The medical team had arrived up the turbolift, and

the ship's medic crouched over Janine Wheeler, doing

something to her skull. "Senior Chief," said Captain

Sisko, his voice softening now that the crisis had passed,

"is she going to be all right?"

    The MedTech looked up blankly, unsure who had

spoken. "That depends," she said, "can we get the ensign

to the station infirmary?"

    "This is not possible to determine just yet," said the

captain, elaborately casual, but again, Kira could tell

that inside, Sisko was ready to explode.

    "Then I can't say whether she'll be all right, because

that's what she needs, sir. I can't do anything else. I

immobilized her head, but there's brain trauma from the

cranial impact: pupils not equally reactive, with the left

barely responding at all; no coring response, no response

to verbal stimuli."

    The other MedTech, a petty officer second class,

indicated Ensign Amar, who had taken the captain's

advice to hit the ground before the torpedo impact.

"This one has a busted wing, but that's it."

    "Suits and phaser-rifles, Captain," said Kira, laying

them across the railing. She stared at the suit, then felt

her bulging abdomen, wondering whether she would fit

into it.

    Sisko grunted and nodded, evidently not trusting

himself to speak. "All right, everybody except the medi-

cal personnel and the injured--oh, and except for you,

Major; sorry about that--suit up and grab a rifle. You've

all been drafted onto the away team." Kira started to

protest, then realized that Miles O'Brien might very

possibly be dead, and if that were so, what Kira carried

would be all that Keiko had left of her husband.

    The away team--Sisko, Dax, Odo, and nine other

crew members--slid into their ziplock suits and headed

down for the transporter room.

    At first, Worf thought his weight-loss was only his

imagination. He had desperately been hoping that

O'Brien would catch the rather broad hints the Klingon

had thrown out, at great danger to himselfi For a few

moments, Worf was certain it was merely wishful

thinking.

    He was double-timing his squadron around the perim-

eter of the habitat ring, dragging them behind in an ever-

more raggedy formation as they struggled to keep up,

when he realized that every long stride in his march-step

was bouncing him higher into the air than the last. The

sign was unmistakable--the sometimes stubbornly

thick-headed chief had finally gotten it! And if O'Brien

had figured out the rest of the message, then Worf had

better start looking for an emergency pressure-suit lock-

er immediately.

    Without saying a word to his alleged command, Worf

shifted his gaze left and right as he walked. There were

not that many lockers, it had never occurred either to the

Cardassian construction crew or the new Federation

landlords that depressurization was a likely emergency.

Not surprising, since that particular emergency had

never happened in thirty years, except as a result of ship-

to-ship or ship-to-station combat.

    Within a few more strides, Worf was feeling decidedly

light-headed, but he wasn't sure whether that was be-

cause of the low-gravity or a drop in the atmosphere.

Then he began to pant from the faint exertion of fast

walking, and all doubt disappeared. "We are under

attack/" he bellowed, paying for his air expenditure with

a dizzy spell that almost dumped him onto the deck.

"The enemy is on the other side... break ranks and

charge/"

    Worf himself led the charge, pounding along the

corridor, bounding higher and higher until his head

began to graze the overhead with every leap. He gasped

for air, seeing sparkles before his eyes. Colonel Worf--

No, Lieutenant Commander/--began to laugh at the

absurdity of everything. He slipped and fell, sliding

across the deckplates like an ancient Farak disk across

the ice, with gravity a tiny fraction of normal, friction

was proportionally diminished.

    Worf laughed until the tears rolled, then he felt a wave

of unreasoning terror, and finally, the rational thought

rolled lazily into his brain that he was experiencing the

narcotic effects of oxygen-deprivation: his brain simply

wasn't getting enough oxygen because of the plummeting

atmospheric pressure, and the rational faculties were

shutting down.

    The terror transformed suddenly to rage and hatred,

emotions never too far from the surface anyway in a

good Klingon warrior. He spun as quickly as he could in

the low-G, ready to confront the devil-Klingons behind

him with bloody-minded ferocity.

    But the troops, his erstwhile command, had their own

problems: they were tearing into each other like a pack of

starving gravka beasts. Some had drawn their short-

bladed d'k tahg knives, but others were using hands and

feet. Their flesh varied in color from ashen gray to white

with blue highlights around the lips. Several had col-

lapsed and lay still. Worf had run them into uncon-

sciousness, perhaps death.

    Worf turned away, another thought drifting into his

feeble excuse for a cerebral cortex: I must find a pressure~

suit or I shall die. The thought aroused no particular

emotion, neither fear nor glory in a heroic death--and

that lack of emotion frightened him a little, galvanizing

the Klingon to action.

    He pushed himself to his feet and staggered onward,

struggling against unconsciousness, which lapped at his

mind--waves along the seashore, gently tugging him

toward the vast deep. Ahead, he spied the symbol he had

been looking for: the stylized pointy cylinder with a hose

snaking from the top and around the body, which meant

"pressure-suits inside"--something the other Klingons

would probably never figure out until it was too late.

Humans, who dominated the Federation, prided them-

selves on their "universal" emergency symbols, which of

course no one but a human could decipher.

    Worf tried to leap the remaining distance, but he fell

over instead and bounced face-first into the bulkhead.

His head jerked, as ifa giant held it in cupped hands and

yanked to the right and up, over and over. Nausea

overwhelmed the warrior, and, for a moment, he was so

sick and dizzy, he forgot that he was also quickly

suffocating to death.

    Time... I have time.t I have five minutes before

permanent brain damage. The words echoed inside

Worf's skull. He squirmed along the ground, a sick and

dying rodent headed for the comfort of a hole in which

to die.

    For a moment, blackness claimed him. The room

spun, but Worf no longer cared. It was over. Death

wasn't so bad after all. Sto-vo-kor. More words, but this

time from another time, another voice: But that will not

help the Empire much. Or the Federation.

    Who said that? He could not remember, but it had

something to do with a war, or a raid, and blood entered

into the transaction, as it always did. What happened to

the lights? Oh. Eyes closed. Open them.

    Still not much, but it was enough to see by. Worf saw a

pointy cylinder with what looked like a rope coming out

of one end. It was painted onto a door his hand was

almost touching.

    With effort bordering on that of the heroes of old,

Worf struggled back to a shadow of consciousness and

was rewarded by another wave of nausea. He was float-

ing now, all the station gravity gone: he was held against

the locker door only by the station's spin, which im-

parted a slight acceleration outward--one thirtieth of a

G on the habitat ring. Less than fifty Newtons held him

against the pressure-suit locker; he could push himself

away by flexing his hand.

    Problem: the doorplate required far more than fifty

Newtons pressure to open the door. Worf stretched his

feet back as far as they would go, and his groping toe

faintly brushed the opposite bulkhead. A smaller man

would never have been able to reach. He shifted his

fingers, centering them on the touchplate, and pressed

outward simultaneously with fingers and toes.

    The plate depressed silently, and the door slowly

rolled back, its grating noise lost in the filmy wisps of

atmosphere. When it was halfway open, Worf pulled his

hand back and pushed once again, hard, with his foot.

He drifted into the opening, shoulders barely clearing

the doorframe.

    He wasted no time on a full pressure-suit. He had one

overriding, desperate need. He grabbed the back of a

helmet and twisted the air-flow valve full forward, then

he opened the helmet and stuck his face into the

neckhole. His lungs were heaving, gasping at the noth-

ingness that surrounded him. He felt himself blacking

out again, and this time, there was no stopping the

sensation.

    He blinked, wondering where he was, what he was

supposed to be doing. Who he was. In panic, he realized

he did not even know his name.

    He blinked. Any minute now, I will remember who I

am. He heard a rushing in his ears that meant... that

meant something. Any minute, I will remember my

name. I know this--I shouM know what this is/

    Wo-ooo-ooooooo-orfl The name whooshed back on

the North Wind, but a second later, it was followed by

the most violent headache ever to batter his skull--a

bat'telh caving into his cranium from behind wouldn't

have brought so much agony! Worf gritted his teeth,

refusing to scream and disgrace himself, a Klingon

warrior.

    Klingon... warrior. He shook his head--big mis-

take. A wave of nausea hit him full force, as all his

memories rushed back at hurricane force. Lieutenant

Commander Worf was floating in the pressure-suit

locker, his arms wrapped in a death-grip around a

helmet, his face pushed against the neckhole, whence he

sucked the life-giving oxygen into his lungs, clearing his

head.

    Dressing in a pressure suit in zero-G was hard enough

without also having to stop every few seconds to suck

another lungful of air from a detached helmet. His

head still pounded from the oxygen-pummeling his

brain had received, but at least the nausea retreated

under the onslaught of urgent action. It took the Kling-

on a full fifteen minutes to struggle his way into the suit,

but when he did, he was fully in command of himself

again.

    Malach was screaming in Worfs ears, the voice com-

ing over the command headset: "... the prisoners be-

hind force shields, now, you lazy--!" The rest of

Malach's order could be represented in Worf's mind only

by a long string of vile dashes, language appropriate to a

gunnery sergeant, perhaps, but not a commissioned

officer from a fine, old house. In the flush of the crisis,

Malach's lack of true breeding was leaking through,

confirming what Worf had always dimly suspected about

the "noble" lineage of the house of Razg.

    Worf did not know exactly where Malaeh was. The

"general" could be anywhere. Worf smiled, but I know

where you are, O'Brien my comrade. The environmental

controls could only have been monkey-wrenched from

one of two places, and there was no way that the chief

could have fought his way through to Ops. Therefore, he

was in the lowest level of all, the bottom of the engineer-

ing section--or had been, at least.

    Worf grabbed a phaser rifle from the "upper" section

of the pressure-suit locker and set out for the nearest

crossover tunnel. It was time for hammer to meet

anvil--with several dozen Klingon warriors in between.

0

CHAPTER

      2O

LIEUTEt~ANT COMMANDER WORF, shucking off the ersatz

rank of colonel, bounded clumsily through the crossover

tunnel, cursing himself for not taking extra time practic-

ing zero-G combat in the holodeck on the Enterprise, or

even in Quark's holosuites on the station! I shall rectify

that immediately, should we retake the station, he told

himself. Thinking, forming words and sentences, helped

stave off the persistent effects that zero-G had on his

middle-ear: vertigo, dizziness, nausea, and a pervasive

and clearly clinical sense of impending doom.

    His only consolation was that everyone else must be

feeling the same set of symptoms, and Worf at least had

recent experience with it in the derelict hulk. Except the

doctor, he corrected darkly. Dr. Bashir never seemed

bothered by anything.

    At first, the Klingon warrior struck his helmet with

virtually every "step," until he forced himself to stop

jumping up and instead to point himself the way he

wanted to go and jump straight. By the time he figured

out the technique for double-timing in the weightless

station, Worf had managed to give himself a concussion

right through his helmet, or at least a headache angry

enough to fell anyone but a Klingon.

    Worf saw the airlock at the inner end of the tunnel

looming. He flapped his arms and legs and slammed into

the titanium door with a loud clank, head-first. Fortu-

nately for the mighty warrior, the pressure-suit helmet

was built to withstand asteroid-mining accidents and

cargo-bay misadventures. Seeing stars, Worf braced his

legs and twisted the manual release on the airlock door,

which had sealed automatically when it detected depres-

surization.

    The door retracted; it was silly, actually, there was as

much hard vacuum on the inside as the outside, so what

good was an airtight seal? But Cardassians were known

for following rules and maintaining good discipline, not

for subtle logic. Worf dialed the door until it was open

enough to admit his bulky frame, made even bulkier by

the pressure suit. Then, dragging his phaser-rifle behind

him, he twisted his body into line with the door's

"pupil" and propelled himself into the Promenade level.

    A spate of pressure-suited Klingon warriors, none

lower in rank than staff sergeant, waited to greet him.

They had set their ambuscade halfway between cross-

over tunnels two and three, since there was no way of

knowing which he would take. But there was no question

they were floating in ambush for Worf, because they

opened fire on him as soon as he shot into the Prome-

nade.

    But these Klingons were not as well trained as most in

the art of zero-G combat, and they didn't expect Worf to

rocket into the huge cylinder and continue all the way to

the inner bulkhead. Their disruptor shots passed the

pressure-suited projectile.

    "Fools," muttered Worf, before realizing his mike was

probably hot. It was clear what had happened: Malach

had figured out that Worf really was a traitor, and he had

 cut Worfs headset out of the communications loop.

 Thus, Worf had never heard the orders sending a hit-

 squad to the Promenade to intercept him.

    He struck the inner bulkhead, ironically crashing into

the door to Constable Odo's office. The squad was

already coming after him, clumsy in their movements.

At first, he thought it was because they were trying to

move and fight in unfamiliar, Federation pressure-suits

they had managed to don, but then he realized there was

an even more ridiculous explanation.

    Are they trying to walk? he wondered in amazement.

Indeed, the battle-hardened warriors were trying to keep

their feet in contact with the deck! They windmilled

their arms (against what?), trying to find a balance that

of course no longer existed. Their middle ears screamed,

Falling/Falling/And they desperately needed an "up"

and a "down" to avoid the terrible feeling of vertigo that

still lurked at the back of Worf's brain, as well.

    But the lieutenant commander had a huge advantage:

he had already had a dry run in zero-G ops just four days

earlier. And Worf remembered his lesson well.

    While the hit-squad advanced slowly, struggling to

maintain familiar contact with the deck, Worf took the

opposite tack: he aimed himself at what would have been

the ceiling of the Promenade, nearly ten meters "over-

head," and pushed off with his friction boots against the

constable's door. He soared in the airless, weightless

environment angling slightly toward the crew. He calcu-

lated well, ending up directly "above" the squad. Only a

few of the warriors had even seen where he went. The

rest stared and pointed, presumably shouting that Worf

was over there or hiding behind that kiosk.

    As Worf headed toward the overhead, he fumbled at

his phaser-rifle. His normally nimble fingers were ham-

pered by the thick, insulated gloves. Even so, he man-

aged to click the phaser beam-dispersal to the widest

pattern, the power setting to the highest level.

 He twisted his body and opened fire on his erstwhile

comrades even before he struck the ceiling. The combi-

nation of high power and wide beam dispersal created a

cone of stun-force phaser shot. The Klingons felt like

pu'tahk lizards on too hot a rock. Nine jerked and

spasmed, sending themselves careening through the

Promenade on random courses, unconscious and likely

to stay that way for several minutes. Only three reacted

quickly enough to grab hold of a bench and slide

themselves under it for cover.

    The Klingon shooters returned fire with their disrup-

tors. Just then, Worfpassed the upper-level catwalks, the

same perch from which Jake Sisko and his Ferengi

cohort, Nog, used to spy on the people below. Worf

made a grab and managed to hook one hand on the

railing, yanking himself to a halt. He rotated through

270 degrees around the railing, striking the catwalk on

the opposite side from the Klingons, far "below." The

metal mesh of the walk partially shielded him from the

disruptor blasts, and what little destructive energy got

through dissipated around his pressure-suit, which was

shielded against cosmic particles and gamma radiation.

    Alas, the same could be said of the three warriors still

left unstunned below. Abovemwhere Worf hung on to

the top of the catwalk to avoid drifting away with the

slight movements of respiration and twitching--the

weapons officer fumed at his lack of weapons. His

opponents were behind a wall too thick for his depleted

phaser to cut through. What I really need, he grumbled

to himself, is a photon torpedo instead of a phaser

running low on power.

    He stared at the station core in frustration. He had to

link up with O'Brien and whichever station personnel

the chief had managed to rescue. But if he made a dash

for the inner bulkhead of the Promenade, he wouldn't

get even halfway before the massed disruptor fire of the

Klingons tore him to shreds--or stunned him into

submission, if Malach's no-killing order still stood.

  He stared through the grillwork, knowing that his

counterparts were staring up at him. Their eyes might

even be meeting, though none of the parties could

possibly tell. And a thought occurred: what he really

needed was a photon torpedo, and what was he holding

in his hands but a potential bomb? Like any other

phaser, with a little electronic surgery, the rifle could be

cross-wired and made to overload and explode.

    There was one small drawback, of course: it was a one-

shot weapon, after which Worf would be disarmed, save

for his d'k tahg knife, which of course, was inside his

suit! On the other hand, if he didn't take the chance, he

could stay on the catwalk all day and all night, or until

enough reinforcements arrived to take him out by a

swarm attack.

    Worf was a Klingon warrior, and that meant that a

decision was quick in coming and was always followed

immediately by action. He turned the rifle over, popped

the case, and pried open the power-pack. He held on to

the catwalk with his feet, hoping they were too small a

target for the sharpshooters to notice.

    "Worf, Worf," sounded a mellifluous voice over his

headset. He jumped, startled by the unexpected resump-

tion of communications from his blood-brother. "I

know you believe your treachery is irretrievable, and

perhaps you believe it is now an affair of honor. But it is

not too late. You can still come back to me, back to your

people."

    Worf sighed. "You are not my people... my

brother."

    "The final triumph of the Empire is inevitable, Worf.

Do not find yourself on the losing side of an impossible

war."

    For a moment, Worf said nothing. He struggled to

remember his engineering year back at the Starfleet

Academy, where a classmate had showed him one night

how to overload a phaser. Needless to say, it was not a

skill taught officially in the curriculum, nor could it be

found in the standard Federation engineering manuals

on the weapons. If the chief were here, he could not help

thinking, he wouM have finished this task in thirty

seconds.

    He realized he was sweating and biting his lip, not an

auspicious reaction for a mighty warrior of the mighty

Empire. "I cannot predict about the war, but you are not

going to win this battle, Malach. You must withdraw

with what honor and dignity you can. Starfleet must

have already sent a ship to discover why the station

stopped communicating."

    "They will wait, Worf. They have already been in-

formed about the communications failure and in-

structed that all is well. When the Starfleet ship finally

arrives, it will find a surprise. Worf, once we have the

station and can decrypt the weapons-lock, we can use the

station defenses themselves to defend our station from

Starfleet. Starfleet will relent and negotiate, as they

always do."

    "Your plan is flawed and will never work. The captain

will return and will not negotiate with terrorists and

madmen."

    "Mad? You call me mad?The general who pulls off the

greatest feat in recent military history must surely be the

sanest man in the Empire!" Malach's voice rose to a

crescendo, and Worf paused in his labors. I struck a

nerve, he realized with a chill. Malach is terrified that he

is losing his mind! That, Worf realized, might have been

a major motivation for the stunning attack on Deep

Space Nine.

    "They all said you were mad, did they not, my

brother? You told them your plan, and they laughed at

you, told you it was insane. But you showed them, blood-

brother. You showed them all."

    "You see how alike we are?" whispered Malach in

Worf's ear, a disturbing intimacy that angered the lieu-

tenant commander. "You are the only one who ever

understood me. They thought I was mad even when we

were children--Commandant Gacht'g told me so him-

self, right to my face! Where was honor then, eh Worf?.

You have been my rock, my support all these years that I

had to hide myself in simple service to the Empire as a

mere major. The one friend I could depend upon. Now, I

am the general, and I shall remember your support.

Come back to me!"

    Worf frowned. He found the wires he thought he

wanted, but hesitated before crossing them: if he had

guessed wrong, rather than overload for eight seconds

then blow, the phaser would melt in Worf's hand,

probably taking half his arm with it. So either way, I

shall be disarmed, he thought grimly.

    Malach's delusional state was more advanced than

Worf ever imagined. He had had no contact whatsoever

with his "blood-brother" since they both left Emperor

Kahless Military City. Yet, evidently, Malach had fanta-

sized a whole relationship that never existed, visualizing

his boyhood friend into his adult ally. Then another

thought struck Worfi as a mere major? Like Major

Krugus?

    "I am sorry to disappoint you," said Worf, then

realized with a start that it was quite true. "I am no

man's rock. I walk my own path, and that path does not

include your... invasion of this station." At the last

moment, Worf changed his mind; he had been about to

say ')~our mad scheme."

    Taking a deep breath, Worfcrossed the wires. The rifle

did not melt. Instead, it began to emit a high-pitched

noise over the corem link; its frequency at the extreme

edge of Worf's auditory range. He was committed. The

wires, once crossed, could not be uncrossed. As he

leaned over and gently pushed the phaser rifle toward the

floor of the Promenade, he thought about blood-

brotherhood, wondering whether it, too could never be

uncrossed.

    Abruptly, another revelation crossed Worf's mind, this

one purely tactical: it was clear from his conversation

with Malach that WoWs own comm link had not been

disabled. He was still able to hear and broadcast. He had

been cut out of the communications loop between

Malach and the other Klingon warriors, and probably

they could not hear him, having been instructed to

accept only communications preceded by a digital code.

    But the handset that O'Brien had--was proven to

have by his response to Worf's hints--had no such filter.

The chief can still hear me, Worf realized, and filed away

the datum for an unexpected tactical advantage...

later.

    The rifle drifted lazily "downward," tumbling end-

over-end, but neither gaining nor losing velocity. He had

not timed the push perfectly; the phaser exploded before

it struck the ground. But it turned out to be close

enough. Two Klingons were flung to the sides by the

force of the explosion. They jerked in agony at their

violent injuries, then they began convulsing in earnest,

clawing at their Federation helmets, as if tugging them

off their heads would allow them to breathe the vacuum

more easily. The suits had been breached.

    Worf waited until they stopped moving. Odd, he

thought, I thought there was a third... But no one else

reacted to the blast. Tentatively at first, Worf pulled

himself over the catwalk rail and pushed off toward the

floor. No one moved to impede him, either by disruptor

fire or by grappling with him as he bounced past. Worf

decided to enter the core through the doctor's office, so

he headed in that direction as quickly as he could in the

zero-G. Malach evidently had nothing more to say--for

the moment.

    Once again, Miles Edward O'Brien, in a long life of

such violent encounters, found himself fighting Klingons

hand-to-hand, a torn iron stanchion against a bat'telh--

they weren't supposed to use them.t screamed his brain--

kicking stomachs and trying to tear holes in Federation

pressure-suits that now protected the enemies of the

Federation. My God, doesn't it ever end? They fought in

zero-G, worse yet! And with every blow, the Klingon foe

would shoot one direction while O'Brien tumbled the

other in a perfect demonstration of Sir Isaac Bloody

Newton's Second Law of Mechanical Physics.

    Garak seemed to be swarmed, the brave little tailor.

He ought to be able to kill seven at one blow, thought the

chief, his mind wandering at the hopelessness of their

plight. There were too damned many Klingons! They

were everywhere! They came out of the woodwork,

though admittedly, the Resistance (as O'Brien termed

the six of them) encountered more dead Klingons than

live, pressure-suited warriors.

    The Resistance had barely made it up three levels--

though "up" was a relative term--and were still mired

in the higher levels of engineering. Whatever monkey

business General Malach had worked on the computers

still eluded the chief's ability to undo, so there was no

multilevel communication except through the handset,

which had ceased receiving useful information. Malach

himself had gotten online more than once, however, and

patiently explained to the "rebels" why they couldn't

possibly win. So the device still worked, it was simply

locked out of the comm loop. The suit communicators

worked, so long as everyone was in one room together. If

there was no line-of-sight, the Klingon jammers pre-

vented a relay.

    "Chie0." bellowed Bashir, making O'Brien wince. The

doctor couldn't get it through his head that when speak-

mg over a comm link, even inside a pressure-suit, a

whisper was as good as a shout, and it didn't matter how

far apart they were, so long as Bashir was in direct line-

of~sight with the chief.

 "I'm here, for God's sake, Julian! Stop screaming."

    "Chief, I'm trapped! They're pressing me back

through the number two access port!"

    The Resistance had been driven sideways, into the

outer edge of the large engineering deck, in a section

connected to the main engineering deck by only two

doors and whose outer skin was the outer hull of the

station itself. O'Brien and Garak perched at one door,

beating back the Klingons whenever they tried to force

their way inside. Bashir and the Ferengi were at the other

door, with Jake Sisko shuttling between the two camps as

the "reserves," lending what assistance he could to

whoever was being driven back most quickly.

    This is futile/Another never-ending war, another...

O'Brien blinked. The germ of an idea sprouted in his

backbrain. Across the room, Jake Sisko plowed into the

marauding Klingons with a torpedolike swoop. Directly

in front of Chief O'Brien, the Klingon with the bat'telh

abruptly stiflened, then drifted slowly to the side--

stunned by his own non-corn, who still remembered the

"no kill" order of General Malach.

    O'Brien barely slammed the door in time to avoid the

sergeant's second shot, which would have stunned him.

The chief's thought grew, and in a moment, he had the

answer... "The Resistance can win!" he muttered.

    "What'swwhat's that?" gasped the doctor, leaning

against the door. The Klingons on his side had with-

drawn to regroup, as they had on O'Brien's. Garak

grasped the remaining piece of stanchion from which the

chief had torn his weapon. The Cardassian gasped huge

lungfuls of air and looked distinctly blue.

 "Julian, I've got it!"

 "Got what? A plan?"

 "Yes, we just keep fighting!"

 "Oh. Well, that's simply wizard, Chief."

    An angry Quark piped up from the comer into which

he had drifted. "Oh thank you, Chief, for that insightful

analysis!" Because of the size of their suits, the Ferengi

could control either hands or feet, but not both at once.

Quark had a mini-phaser found in a locker, while the

more technically sophisticated Rom was using a disrup-

tor taken from the body of an atmospherically chal-

lenged Klingon warrior. But neither Ferengi could

control where he drifted or which way he pointed, not

while operating a weapon. So they ended up spinning

lazily, taking pot shots whenever they happened to rotate

to a good field of view.

    "No, you don't understand, either of you. We just keep

fighting, keep them fighting every minuterowe should

open these doors and start shooting."

    Jake gasped in understanding. "Chief, I get it! You're

thinking about the oxygen, aren't you?"

    O'Brien grinned. It was good that at least one other

person had seen it before he explained; it was a good test

of the idea. "The kid's got it right, fellas. We keep the

Klingons moving, keep them active and fighting. Julian,

you should know this. They've got a larger lung capacity,

right?"

"Yes..." admitted the doctor, evidently still puzzled.

"So if we keep their lungs pumping, shouldn't they run

through their air tanks much faster than we will?"

    Silence. Then after a long several seconds, Bashir's

voice over the comm link. "Good Lord, Miles--that's

brilliant!"

    "Well, Quark? Does this plan meet with your appro-

val?" O'Brien threw every gram of sarcasm into the

question he could muster. Of course, the Ferengi took it

seriously, instead.

    "Yes, Chief, that's inspired! It's almost... Ferengi.

Have you been reading the Rules of Acquisition re-

cently?"

    "No, Quark, and I wouldn't touch 'em with a three-

meter positronic discharge tube. Now let's open the door

and not give them time to rest or, God forbid, change air

tanks!"

CHAPTER

      21

TuE moHv WAS furious, but didn't last long. Quark was

torn by his natural tendency to stay out of barroom

brawls, a technique mastered after years of running a

haven for the scum of the quadrant, and a very un-

Ferengi-like urge to leap to the defense of his comrades

in the Resistance. Weighing against the latter option was

the fact that his hands and feet, even at maximum

stretch, came far short of the gloves and booties of the

gargantuan suit into which Quark had crammed himself

in panic as the air vanished: at first, he literally could do

nothing but flap his arms and legs and squawk in

humiliated rage over the comm link. His only consola-

tion was that Rom was in the same boat. Then, he had

figured out (though Rom tried to grab credit) that he

could clumsily operate a phaser two-handed with his

hands at the elbow joints of the pressure-suit, but it was

undignified and not terribly useful.

    The Klingons swarmed all over Bashir, O'Brien, and

the Cardassian tailor. Even the boy was swinging a steel

pipe, despite his earlier peculiar insistance to Nog (who

told Rom, who told his brother) that he was a total

coward. Why not phasers? wondered Quark, then real-

ized that the suits were probably tough enough to deflect

the low-powered hand phasers and hand disruptors,

which were all either party had. Nobody had rifles.

    There were four Klingons to four Resistance fighters,

but because of O'Brien's tactic of using the hu-man boy

as reserves, shuttling back and forth between Garak and

the O'BriemBashir tag team, the Klingons ended up

being outnumbered in both fights.

    The invaders fought lustily and recklessly, however,

and might still have won, had the chiefs plan not finally

worked. Even from his upside-down vantage point, as he

fired the occasional, relatively useless phaser shot, Quark

was able to see Klingon heads gulping for air and turning

a bluish-purple as they found themselves inhaling noth-

ing but their own exhalation. O'Brien was right: Kling-

OhS, with their bigger, more powerful lungs, used much

more oxygen than did their hu-man (and Cardassian)

counterparts. The warriors had sucked their tanks dry

when Quark's pressure-gauge showed a full hour and

thirty-four minutes of air left!

    And then the battle was over before Quark could work

up a sufficiently greedy argument to compel him to find a

wall and launch into the thick of the fray, to strike at

least one blow for his economic right to cheat customers

in hi6 own bar, his own way. The Klingons went down

fighting, every one. They died rather than surrender. The

only injury was to O'Brien, who got his arm wrenched

and the sleeve of his suit torn. The last was by far the

more serious "injury," and everything stopped while

Bashir frantically tore open every drawer and locker in

the engineering deck before finally finding a pressure-

patch, a thick piece of plastieized cloth with very sticky

glue on one side, to seal up the chiefs torn sleeve.

    While patching the chief, Bashir conducted a hurried

conference, with O'Brien, the hu-man boy, and the

VENGEANCE

Cardassian (each at his own angle, which made Quark's

head spin more even than the zero-G). Nobody thought

to fetch the Ferengi and include them, though of course

Quark could hear and participate via the radio. It was

disconcerting to collude while rotating slowly on his

axis, however.

    "This isn't going to do it," said O'Brien. "We can't go

from deck to deck, fighting Klingons with no plan. It

stands to reason we'll be clipped, taken out finally, and

Malach will win after all."

    "You're so cheery," griped the doctor, his pride

wounded at O'Brien's grim assessment. "Isn't it a bit

early for a dirge7"

    "Julian, it's a mathematical certainty that long before

we overcome them, we'll be captured--or killed, even

accidentally. There might be as many as forty Klingons

still left aboard!"

    "I'm afraid I must agree with our esteemed chief,"

chimed in Garak. "I'm not averse to risking death or

imprisonment in order to defend the station, but isn't it

a terrible waste of spirit and manpower?"

    "Thanks, Garak, for that vote of confidence in my

leadership."

    "I have nothing but the greatest respect for your

leadership, Dr. Bashir! I'm simply pointing out a few

realities, unpleasant though they may be: we're not

getting anywhere, to put it bluntly. What's our purpose7"

    "Jake," asked Bashir, "what's your take? You're as

much a part of this as the rest of us."

    "Hey, remember me?" demanded Quark, at that mo-

ment facing directly away from the huddle in the center

of the room. "Isn't anyone interested in my take on

strategy?"

    "Quark, I'm terribly sorry... you don't feel left out,

do you?"

    "No, Doctor, I'm simply filled with gratitude when we

move from room to room, and Chief O'Brien says 'don't

forget to bring the beachballs!' How come everyone but

 us gets to hatch plans? Ferengi are very good at schem-

 ing, you know! It's one of our best traits. Isn't that right,

 brother?"

    "Uh, yeah. Quark's right. We really are good at it,"

confirmed Rom. He didn't sound particularly convinc-

ing, though, not even to Quark's lobes.

    "All right, Quark," said the chief. "Do you want to

scheme? Fine, then come up with something, some plan.

Oh, and I'm sorry about the beachball crack, but you

really do look funny, you know."

    "Well it so happens," said Quark, with all the frozen

dignity he could muster, "that I have thought of a plan.

Actually, you said it yourself a day or so ago, but I think

you thought you were joking."

    "If you would care to enlighten us," purred the

Cardassian tailor, "I'm certain we would all be eternally

grateful."

    "It's very simple. Obviously, the Federation has no

idea what's happened to the station, right? They must

have bought Malach's crude lie about the comm grid

being offiine for repairs."

    "Unfortunately," said Bashir, sounding petulant,

"Starfleet appears to be so uninterested that they haven't

even bothered to come over and scan us."

    "And if Malach can secure this station and send for

reinforcements from the Klingon Empire--Gowron, is

it?--then by the time the Federation gets off its butt and

comes out here, they'll have to fight a Klingon fleet and

their own station. Am I right?"

    "That's Malach's theory. It appears to be logical...

again, unfortunately."

    "So our best chance of stopping him is to get a

message to the Federation, or to Bajor."

    "But we can't," explained O'Brien with ill-disguised

impatience. "We can't get a message through the comm

shield the Klingons put around us. We could have used

the subspace emitter, since it sticks out quite a ways

~ LN~LANI..L

from the station, but that was the first thing the bastards

took out. I think they sheared it off with their ship."

    "But chief," asked Quark, "why does the emitter need

to be attached to the station?"

    "Don't be an ass, Quark! How's it going to broadcast if

it's not--"

    "Chief, what if the transmitter were intelligent enough

to broadcast all on its own? And suppose you could get it

far enough away from the station that it was outside the

communications damping field. Wouldn't that work?"

    Quark had finally rotated around on his axis to look at

the assembled "Resistance." It was a scuffy-looking

bunch, even by hu-man standards. O'Brien was staring

at him. Even though the helmet faceplate, Quark could

see the chiefs typical look of annoyed puzzlement. "I

don't have the resources to build an intelligent transmit-

ter, Quark. And the Klingons would detect the electron-

ics and blow it apart. We've been through all that!"

"You idiot, I'm talking about launching one of us!"

Dead silence. For a moment, Quark became terrified

that his comm link had suddenly died. Then Bashir

spoke. "One of us? One of us here?"

    "Of course! What else? You don't need a computer,

Chief--you just need to open an airlock and throw one

of us, probably Jake Sisko, in the general direction of

Bajor. As soon as he clears the damping field, he starts

transmitting. Chief, can you boost the gain on these

cheap, little comm sets in the suits?"

    "Quark!" exclaimed Garak. "That's... that's bril-

liant! I never knew a Ferengi had such potential." Quark

was losing sight of the conference out his peripheral

vision as he continued to rotate. He harbored a desper-

ate hope that he would drift close enough to a wall that

he could grab it and stop his slow spin.

    "Oh, my brother is too smart for the Ferengi Alli-

ance," bragged Quark's brother. "That's, uh, why they

wouldn't let him back on Ferenginar."

 "Shut-up, Rom?

    "Quark," said Bashir patiently, "I cannot allow one of

my--"

    "No, Julian, it's a great idea! You wanted a plan? Well,

here's one dropped right in your lap. We get to the

Promenade, where the emergency airlocks are; I short-

circuit the computer locks; we stick Quark inside, and

when the doors open, he kicks out away from the

station!"

 "Perfection itself," said the Ferengi.

 "But, how long can he survive just in his suit?"

    "A Ferengi?" asked the chief. "Oh, six hours, easily, if

he takes it slow and doesn't make any unnecessary

movements. The suit has a transponder. The Bajorans or

a Starfleet vessel can pick Quark up anytime after the

Klingons have been subdued."

    Something odd had happened. Quark couldn't quite

put his finger on it, but the hu-mans had gotten some

aspect of his plan terribly wrong. He scowled, replaying

the conversation in his lobes, listening for the mixup.

    "Wouldn't the Klingons just shoot him before he

broadcasts?" asked the good doctor, fretting about the

humanity of it all.

    "How would they even know to look for him? They've

got all the runabouts, they've got the bird-of-prey. They

know we don't have a subspace emitter antenna because

they sliced it off; they know we can't even communicate

with each other out of line-of-sight, because of the

damping field. And we can't use the station comm links

or computers even if we got to them, because it would

take a couple of days to break the encryption scheme...

without access to a starship computer, I mean.

    "Julian, they think they've already won! There's noth-

ing we can do anyway. How vigilant do you think they'll

really be? Are they likely to spot one tiny Ferengi in a

spacesuit, zooming through space under a communica-

tions blackout? It's not like he has enough electrical

activity to ring alarm bells on their sensor arrays!"

    Like a puzzle, the fine strands came together in the

center of Quark's mind. Abruptly, he realized the terri-

ble flaw in the implementation of his plan. "A tiny

Ferengi?Wait! Wait! How did/get to be the one who--"

    Jake Sisko chimed in. "Quark has a point, sir. Maybe I

should be the one to--"

    "Oh Jake, really! Do you think your father would

allow me to keep my head, let alone my collar-pips, if I

allowed you to take such a terrible risk with your life?"

    "Such a terrible risk?" screamed the impressed volun-

teer. "Let the boy do it! He's much more the heroic

type... I'm an idea man, a thinker, not a doer!" Quark

struggled wildly, flailing his arms and legs like an agi-

tated rodent. He twisted and tried to swim in the air, but

he couldn't manage to give himself any faster of a spin or

turn himself around. Something to do with conservation

of angular momentum, he glumly decided.

    While three hu-mans and a Cardassian tailor, all quite

unsympathetic to Ferengi in general, debated the life and

all-too-likely death of Quark, the subject of their discus-

sion could only stare helplessly at a very uninteresting

bulkhead, his back to the roundtable. Beads of perspira-

tion popped out on his face, where they stuck. In zero-G,

there was no "down" for them to run. It was the most

uncomfortable feeling in the world, piled on top of the

general zero-G-induced sickness: warm, salty drops of

sweat glued to his flesh. He couldn't wipe them away

because he couldn't get at them! The helmet shielded

Quark's face from all possible relief.

    Not that Quark's discomfort mattered to anyone, oh

no. Though he often thought himself the only sane

person left on the station, since the departure of the

Cardassians--who were admittedly cruel and cold-

hearted, but so what? was that a crime?--he was gener-

ally treated worse by the inmates than the Cardassians

used to treat Bajorans. Harassed at every step by Consta-

ble Odo, prevented from making a decent living, not

allowed a moment's respite, subject to being hauled into

Odo's security office at any moment when the call went

out to "round up the usual suspects."

    Quark sighed, but no one caught the subtle hint. By

the time he rotated around to face the mob again, they

had reached a consensus. Whether by voting or by

Bashir's exercising dictatorial fiat, Quark couldn't care

less. The unchangeable upshot was that they would

happily accept Quark's idea, but Quark would be the

expendable one!

    "Do your worst," he snarled, and they did. For the

next hour, the self-styled Resistance battled its way up,

so to speak, level after level, until they were only two

down from the Promenade. The Promenade was the

nearest level that had an airlock. Not that an airlock was

strictly necessary. With the station in vacuum, Quark

was grateful they didn't simply break a window and

defenestrate him.

    But there, two levels below the Promenade, they stuck

fast: they ran into a pocket of resistance that quite

outnumbered them, twelve Klingons to their four (plus

two involuntary noncombatants), and they had to re-

treat behind a door the opening circuitry of which Chief

O'Brien shot out with a phaser blast, jamming it.

    "For God's sake, Chiefl" shouted the doctor, straining

to hold the door shut by bracing his feet against one side

of the jamb and pulling back on the door's emergency

manual bolt. "Isn't there any other way up to the

Promenade.'?"

    O'Brien was exhausted. He drifted loose, gasping for

each breath, probably grateful for the zero-G. Unlike

Quark, who still cursed the stupid chief for his brilliant

idea. Garak looked grim and alert, but the Ferengi's

years tending bar made him extraordinarily sensitive to

falsity, and the Cardassian tailor's heart pounded so

hard that Quark's sensitive lobes could actually pick it

up through the line-of-sight comm link.

 Jake Sisko made no pretense of spirit. He had pulled

himself into a upside-down fetal position and held the

top of the same manual bolt that Bashir braced without

trying to help the doctor. The boy was exhausted. Great,

another useless appendage better left behind, groused the

Ferengi, floating helplessly--as usual.

    For half an hour, they had done nothing more than

parry the Klingons' attempts to force the door, the only

door, thank the Divine Auditor. But all the while, the

sibilant voice of the Klingon commander whispered to

them through the captured handset. The voice was soft

in Quark's lobes through the jury-rigged relay O'Brien

had set up between handset and the suit corn-links.

    "You cannot win; the game is over. You have already

lost. Now is the time to surrender yourselves. You will be

spared, I give you my word of honor as Malach of House

Razg! Federation, there simply is no further escape. You

can go no farther, though the distance you have covered

and the warriors you have slain attest to your remarkable

courage and warrior spirit. But every battle must end,

and I have maneuvered sufficient force to prevent your

further advance. Surrender now, and I personally guar-

antee not only your own lives, but the lives and fleedom

of all the prisoners I hold!

    "The prisoners are safe. They are within forceshields.

Not one Federation or luckless neutral has been harmed,

I swear it! But you must surrender now, or I simply will

not be able to restrain my troops any longer."

    "Maybe he's right," conceded Chief O'Brien, finally

being sensible, though his voice sounded beaten and

discouraged rather than calculating. "He's not killed

anyone yet, at least not that I've seen. And he did shoot

one of his own men when the man almost knocked Jake

off the railing."

    "It's what we would do, surrender, I mean," said Rom,

surprising Quark with such a proper Ferengi attitude.

"Rule of Acquisition number--"

 "Oh, shut-up, Rom!" snapped Bashir, proving himself

as cranky as the rest of them. "Look, I will not surrender

my command, just because a bunch of punk Klingons

gain a little, temporary advantage over--"

    "Julian, face the facts! He's got twelve out there

already, he says there are more on the way, and I'm

inclined to believe him! We're only four--"  "Six!"

    "Four who can fight, Julian, and one of us is a teenaged

boy! What more can you expect us to do?"

    "Much as I loathe admitting it," said Garak, keeping

his voice remarkably steady, "the chief is being quite

practical. Now, had Malach been fighting the Cardassian

station of Terek Nor, instead of the Federation Deep

Space Nine, it might have been a different story."

    "Oh, yes," sneered the chief, "the Cardassians gave

them real hell when they overran your entire so-called

empire in a few hours!"

    But Garak's inevitable retort was cut short by another

crackle from the handset. When the voice sounded,

Quark was startled first to realize that it was not the

voice of General Malach, the only Klingon voice they

had heard since the Klingons realized they could be

heard. But the Ferengi bartender was utterly nonplussed

when he realized whose voice it was. It was the prune

juice, extra large!

    "You must do as General Malach suggests," said Worf,

his voice fizzing and popping like the hu-man drink

called root beer. "You cannot win this battle, and no one

will come to your aid if you burst through those doors.

This is not like Captain Sisko~ famous victory on the

glorious Kobyashi-Maru campaign. Surrender immedi-

ately, and do not even think about further resistance."

The coin flips once again, thought Quark in surprise.

Three voices spoke simultaneously, the first in tri-

umph, the latter two in complete baffiement: "You see?"

crowed the general who had masterminded the strike

against the station, "even your own spy and saboteur

agrees that you have no choice but to surrender this

station and accept my generous offer!"

    "Glorious victory?" exclaimed Doctor Bashir, "glo-

rious-victory?"

    And Chief O'Brien had his own contribution: "Ko-

byashi? Who the hell is Captain Kobyashi?"

0

CHAPTER

      22

DR. JULIAN BASHIR looked from one blank face to anoth-

er. Only Jake looked pensive, the others clearly had no

clue to the significance of what Worf had just said. No

clue? Bashir stared at O'Brien. "Chief, the glorious

victory of the Kobyashi-Maru! Don't you get it?"

    "Get what? Julian, it's just more gibberish. What the

hell is Worf on about? What's this Kobyashi Maroon

thing?"

    "The Kobyashi-Maru! Chief, the Koby--" Bashir

froze in mid-shout, feeling his face turn hot. Master

Chief Petty Officer Miles Edward O'Brien was so

damned useful around the station, included in so many

high-level meetings, treated like any other department

head, that sometimes, that nearly always, Bashir forgot

that O'Brien wasn't a commissioned officer. The chief

had never been to Starfleet Academy in his entire life!

    Of course he had no idea about the Kobyashi-Maru,

the secret exercise given to all cadets not once but many

times. The exercise that could not be won... that was

designed for failure. The purpose was so simple, it took

most Academy cadets their entire school career to figure

it out. Starfleet wanted to see how they reacted to failure.

What would the cadet and future officer do when every-

thing he tried, no matter how brilliant or unexpected,

still led to his ship exploding in a fiery death, taking the

cadet and all the crew with it?

    Glorious victory? The Kobyashi-Maru was so much

the opposite that there was no way Worf could be

mistaken or misremembering. It was a code, a deliberate

message.

    Unexpectedly, the boy spoke up from his disconcert-

ing vantage point at the other end of the tog-wheel that

Bashir was wedging shut, upside-down with respect to

the other three combatants. "Chief, the Kobyashi-Maru

is... well, let's just say it was an important battle, and

the Federation lost. Big time."

    "I never heard of it," retorted the chief. "I've studied

every military engagement listed in every casebook, and

I never--"

    "It's something they only study at the Academy. It's

not in the books. The--Starfleet is sort of embarrassed,

they don't want to let anybody know about it."

    "Which raises the rather interesting question," said

the doctor quietly. "Of how you, Jake, seem to have

found out."

 "Oh. Uh, I was... told."

 "By your friend Nog, I take it."

    "No! Urn, no. Nog wouldn't do that, not while he's

still at... I mean, my source was kind of higher rank

than Nog. A Starfleet officer."

    Bashir smiled sardonically. "Wouldn't happen to hold

the rank of captain, would he?"

    "Anything's possible," said Jake noncommitally.

"Anyway, my source waited until it was certain that I

would never attend Starfleet Academy. He wouldn't have

wanted to, ah, ruin the effect, if you know what I mean."

 "This is all charming," interrupted O'Brien. "But

what's the point? So Worfthinks a defeat is a victory. It's

probably one of those Klingon honor things. Big deal!"

    "No, Chief. It's decidedly more than that. It's a clue,

maybe the last clue he can give us--he called the

engagement a glorious victory, but it was a terrible

defeat. What does that mean?"

    Long, pregnant silence, during which Bashir strained

every neural fiber in his head to concoct increasingly

complex meanings for the bizarre faux-pas. The silence

was broken at last by the small, tentative voice of

Quark's brother Rom. Probably the most common-

sensical voice among u& Bashir told himself. "Uh, that

he means the exact opposite of whatever he says?"

    Thud. The Latinum dropped. Of course, when all else

fails, try the most obvious answer!

    "So, what else did he say? Anybody remember?

O'Brien, Rom, Jake?"

    "I notice you chose not to ask me," muttered Garak,

perhaps forgetting that they were all "hot-miked," and

everyone could hear every smallest utterance.

    "I can remember exactly," said Rom. "A Ferengi

businessman is expected to memorize his business ac-

counts going back five years--"

    "Yes, yes," said Bashir hastily. "We've been through

all that! What exactly did Worf say, besides the bit about

the... the famous battle?"

    "He said, 'You must do as General Malach suggests.

You cannot win this battle, and no one will come to your

aid if you burst through those doors. This is not like

Captain Sisko's famous victory on the glorious

Kobyashi-Maru campaign. Surrender immediately, and

do not even think about further resistance.'"

    "But that's it!" shouted O'Brien. "He said no one

would come to our aid if we crashed through the door--

he's saying he will come to our aid!"

    "'You can't win the battle,'" quoted Jake; "Worf's

saying we can win the battle if we make an all-out attack

right now, coming through the doors, and he'll join us,

and--and maybe Malach doesn't have the manpower to

reinforce those guards out there."

    Sensitive to the Cardassian's previous remark, Bashir

rotated to face him. "Garak? I know you have a lot more

experience in these matters than you like to let on. Any

thoughts?"

    "My only thought, my friend, is that we are doing

precious little good cowering here wishing everything

would get all better. At this point, I'm quite ready to die

of sheer boredom. Death by disruptor fire would be a

welcome relief?' Garak smiled, barely visible through

the faceplate of his pressure-suit, which was styled to

look much more imperial than the Federation suits, but

which was otherwise reasonably well-tailored. "Thank

you for asking, Dr. Bashir."

    Encouraged by the unanimity, Bashir twisted until he

located the two Ferengi, clutching an odd-looking wall

that he realized, on second glance, was a catwalk when

the station was under gravity. "Quark, Rom? Do we have

a consensus?"

    "Oh, you're bothering to ask the torpedo's opinion?"

sneered the former. "How civilized of you, Doctor.

Better watch yourself; you might start to recognize that I

have certain rights that are being--"

    "We think the plan is fine," said Rom, cutting off his

bitterly cynical brother.

    "Then," said Bashir, "on the count of three, here we

go. It's Armageddon time, troops."

    The sudden opening of the door caught the Klingons

flat-footed, or perhaps "randomly floating" was a better

term: they were huddled in a conference of their own,

helmets pressed together to speak too quietly for Malach

to hear on his channel. Presumably, they were discussing

their inability to break through the defenses of the

Resistance and deciding what they were going to tell the

general. One by one, they stared in surprise as the door

rolled quickly open (with both Bashir and Jake spinning

the tog, their feet braced as best they could manage). One

Klingon pointed and shouted something, then the

mighty Klingon warriors fumbled for their disruptors.

    Simultaneously with that motion, a red disruptor

beam lanced from a dark, shadow-painted tube--one of

the auxiliary power-conduits, Bashir reckoned. Two

Klingon invaders were tagged from behind before the

rest even knew they were fighting on more than one

front.

    Cleverly, the entire platoon of Klingons tried to rotate

to deal with the new threat--not an easy task in zero-G!

They grabbed each other, of course, and Conservation of

Angular Momentum insured that for every Klingon who

rotated to face Worf, the one he grabbed was spun in the

opposite direction!

    Bashir kicked away from the door and into the room,

taking hip-shots with his own phaser as he drifted. He

careened off one bulkhead, kicking again to make up for

the momentum absorbed by his body. Another shot, and

another, and finally a hit! Three of twelve Klingons

down, and so far, no casualties for the Resistance.

    It became instantly obvious that these warriors were

not as experienced as he in zero-G combat--and Julian

Bashir regretted every second he had spent badmouthing

Captain Sisko for requiring extra training! Klingon war-

riors used their comrades as launching platforms, kick-

ing off from one another, sending the launching pad

tumbling off in the opposite direction.

    Worse still: as they kicked off their compadres, the

launchees tried simultaneously to spin around to return

fire. But of course, they didn't stop spinning just because

they were pointing, for a moment, in the right direction!

Like any other object in a zero-G vacuum, once they

started rotating, they continued rotating, spinning like

gyroscopes and firing desperate salvos during the brief

intervals they could see their targets.

    Worf--it must be Worfl--crouched absolutely. still in

a dark comer, and he had the eye of a demon: every shot

was unerring. Of course, against enemies as disoriented

as these, even Julian Bashir could play Wyatt Earp,

picking off the Klingons as if shooting desperadoes in a

Wild West holonovel. Even so, even with O'Brien, and

with Garak--who, unsurprisingly, was quite a good

shot--and Jake, who couldn't hit the port bulkhead with

the starboard bulkhead, even so, without Worf, the tide

of battle would eventually have turned against them.

Worf alone accounted for half the casualties among the

Klingons. Caught in the crossfire, gyrating uncontrolla-

bly, and rebounding from walls and pieces of equipment

in unexpected directions, the Klingons had no chance at

all.

    The war was over virtually before it began. Twelve

Klingons floated about the cabin in various states of

incapacitation--sadly, up to and including death, sever-

al by suffocation when their suits were ripped open by

sharp projections they ran into. For a terrible moment,

Bashir was driven by his Hippocratic oath to want to try

to save those who were still alive, but dying. It tore his

guts out to float motionless, hand gripping a seat-back,

doing nothing--withholding medical care!Mwhile men

died around him, even Klingon warriors.

    But there were many others still on the station, prison-

ers folded into forceshields somewhere, whose air might

be running out, or who might be at risk of being

slaughtered if the Klingons became desperate enough to

forget their orders. Doctor Bashir had to make way for

Lieutenant Bashir, who had an entire station to tend.

    Or did he? Worf kicked from the opposite wall, aiming

at the tangle of seats and railings that decorated one wall.

Must be the floor when the gravity~ on, thought Bashir

lamely. The Starfleet Klingon rotated to crash into a

chair shoulder first, bringing himself to a halt. "Is there

any senior officer in your group, Doctor Bashir?"

 "No, Worf. I'm in charge."

    "You are in charge no longer, Doctor. I will take

command."

 "I beg your pardon, Worfl"

    "I am assuming command, lieutenant. We have no

time for this sparring! We must find a way to alert

Starfleet to the danger."

    "Well, begging the lieutant-commander's pardon,"

said O'Brien, with a decidedly sneering air, which he

relished good-humoredly, "but if he'll stop taking com-

mand for a couple of seconds and listen, we've got the

plan all worked out."

    Worf's face through his faceplate contorted in a brief

flicker of fury. I wonder whether the chief realizes how on-

the-edge his oMfriend is? Bashir thought of stories he had

read about people who had tried to domesticate wild

animals, only to be torn limb from limb when the beast

reverted, even for a moment, to its natural state. Then

the doctor flushed hotly, realizing how xenophobic such

an analogy would sound! But I didn't mean it that way/

    Worf was not an animal, and within a second, his fury

turned to mild annoyance. "Please tell me what your

plan is--Julian."

    Speaking in turns, Bashir and O'Brien explained

Quark's plan, careful to give credit, though Worf looked

incredulous at the thought of the Ferengi coming up with

something useful. O'Brien, meanwhile, was modifying

Quark's comm link, presumably boosting the broadcast

power.

    Feeling a terrible sense of urgency, Dr. Bashir urged

Worf to let him stay behind to offer medical care, but the

Klingon refused to waste time on the defeated enemy

and led them quickly "upward," toward the Promenade.

Under the circumstances, Bashir didn't push the point.

    "Malach still has quite a few soldiers roaming about,

at least twenty," Worf warned. "Keep your phasers out

and get ready for an excellent firefight, with plenty of

glory for us all. Today may turn out to be a good day to

die." Worf smiled like the hero of a Klingon opera in the

final act, before the entire stage was washed with the red

kazl syrup they traditionally used for blood.

  "God, I hate it when he talks like that," muttered

V I' NL~ t'Al~l~t'

O'Brien. Bashir didn't answer. He was too busy not

looking at the bodies of the patients he would not treat.

    Against all his expectations and every Ferengi rule of

survival, Quark discovered to his horror that he actually

liked being in the thick of things, even if his own military

contribution was minimal. He couldn't shoot well be-

cause his hands, when he stretched, reached only to the

wrists of the suit, which was too bulky to bunch up

further. He could grip a phaser halfheartedly by clamping

it between his flippers, but he couldn't aim well enough

to guarantee not frying his own comrades. At least Rom

is in the same stupid fix. he thought uncharitably, pleased

to feel a bit more Ferengi-like. It was intolerable on those

few occasions when, due to sheer, dumb luck, his little

brother ended up saving the day, while QuarKuselessly

flapped his arms like a bankrupt madman.

    They were still two levels away from the Promenade

airlock and had to fight their way through Klingon

forces. But soon, the battles blended into one another;

they were all so much alike. The so-called Resistance

would stumble across a lone Klingon, or maybe three,

and there would be a brief exchange of phasers and

disruptors, because the Resistance nearly always took

the Klingons by surprise, and had the advantage of cover

and concealment (tactics that were distinctly Ferengi,

not at all like the "scream and leap" tactics Quark

usually associated with hu-mans), they won with no

casualties each time. They walked through six invaders

that way, and only one time was there any real excite-

ment for the pair of Ferengi.

    They surprised a pair of invaders. One performed the

normal, expected, Klingon course of action when am-

bushed by a numerically superior band of enemy sol-

diers: he spun, grabbed some feeble cover, and began

spraying disruptor blasts as if he were at the Final Audit.

Worf and O'Brien took care of him quickly.

 But the other, a dangerously clever chap, did the

utterly unexpected: he got his feet behind him and

launched himself directly at the party. The shots from his

partner drew the fire of everybody else, and amazingly,

they didn't even see the Klingon swoop past their heads,

close enough to reach out and touch them.

    He made no contact with Bashir, O'Brien, Worf, Jake,

or Garak, but his trajectory put him on a direct collision

course with Quark and Rom! The Klingon fired a shot.

But he was agitated and tumbling slightly, and his shot

split the pair of Ferengi. Before he could fire another, he

collided first with Quark, then, on the rebound, with

Rom.

    Quark was terrified, but he never had the chance to

freeze. He reacted as his savage, precapitalist ancestors

must have: he wrapped his arms and legs around his

attacker, managing to catch the Klingon's throat in the

crook of one arm, and squeezed and jerked for all he was

worth in bars of latinum. Rom grappled the Klingon's

feet, taking a couple of brutal kicks to the chest. If there

were atmosphere, reflected Quark dully, he probably

would have heard the crack as one or more of his

brother's ribs broke.

    Then Quark's groping hand found the emergency-

release on the neck valve of the Federation pressure-suit

the Klingon wore. He tore it open and snapped the lever,

detaching the helmet, and that spelled the end of Mr.

Clever. It was Quark's only kill... and he had to split it

with his idiot brother!

    Two decks later, with Quark and Rom being towed

behind the rest like balloons behind a thoughtless child,

they finally reached their goal, the Promenade, and there

they found their reward: the main body of Malach's

remaining army, sixteen warriors, and the general him-

selfi Evidently, one or more of the ambushed Klingon

lookouts had managed a comm link call to Malach, and

the general knew just where they were coming. He had

set up an ambush, but then he allowed them to enter the

VENGEANCE

Promenade unmolested! Quark shook his head in

amazement--the arrogance of the Klingons!

    The bedraggled members of the rag-tag Resistance

fluttered like flags, rippling with every slight movement

of their anchor hands. Quark and Rom gripped an

ornate sign with both arms... ironically, the sign for

Quark's Place. If only this were one of those hu-man

holonovels! lamented the Ferengi, but Quark knew that

no cavalry would come to the rescue, and there was no

way out of the trap: Malach had them where he wanted

them.

    "You have done astonishingly well to get to this

point," allowed Malach, speaking through his own

comm link. His words were received by the handset,

forwarded to the receivers on each helmet. Quark

cringed at the cold cruelty behind the compliment.

Malach thought he had been made a fool of, and that was

not a healthy way to start a relationship with a Klingon.

    "But the game is played out, and, in the end, you see, I

wear the Empire crown." The general touched his hel-

meted head. Quark had the vague idea that Malach was

making a reference to some impossibly bloody Klingon

opera. General Malach, bulky even for a Klingon, nearly

as big as the frightening Worf, was stuffed tight in the

Federation suit he had "liberated."

    "We won't surrender," said O'Brien, who had patched

his own suit's transmitter into the handset as well.

"You're going to have to take us by force, and we'll die,

and you'll have a full-blown war with the Federation. Is

that what you want?"

    "No," admitted Malach. "I want only the station." He

smiled, visible through his faceplate, as his troops scat-

tered to all directions, as if by prearranged signal. "But I

will take what I can get and hold it against the enemies of

the Empire."

 "You said we weren't enemies!"

 Malach's face contorted in anger. "All who oppose the

right of self-defense for the Empire are enemies of the

Empire/" He seemed to catch himself, turning left and

right off his pivot-point. His right hand gripped the

sculpture near the turbolift and the aifiock... the air-

lock, whispered a very un-Ferengi-like voice in Quark's

inner lobe. "Surrender, and we shall be enemies no

more," continued the Klingon general. "Restore air and

gravity to this station. When we have sent you under

truce-flag to your Federation, along with the other invol-

untary guests, they shall not want war between us."

  "Stuff it up your... Jeffries tube."

    Quark cringed, waiting for the explosion; it never

came. Malach merely smiled again, unperturbed by the

rude suggestion. He raised his hand to give the order to

attack.

    Worf beat him to it. The lieutenant commander fired a

full-power phaser shot directly at Malach, but bad luck

dogged the Resistance still. By raising his hand, the

general had twisted his body inadvertently, and the

beam barely brushed his side. The pressure suit deflected

what little wash it took (at a bad angle), and Malach was

unhurt.

    The Klingons returned fire, of course, and the battle

raged. There was so much debris, so many metal bits and

protruding spars, that everyone had cover. The fight was

a standoff, beams lancing back and forth in eerie silence

in the vacuum, nobody hitting anyone. But Malach

dispatched five of his warriors to circle the Promenade

and flank the Resistance from behind. When that hap-

pened, there would be nowhere to hide--the Resistance

would fall!

    Minutes passed, and everyone stopped the useless

shooting. Garak and Bashir turned to face back the other

way, leaving Worf, Jake, and O'Brien to hold the main

force of Klingons tight behind their cover. But it was a

losing game of Moogie's Auction, where the asking price

started high and worked slowly downward until the first

person accepted the bid from the seller. You waited and

waited, and some altruistic clod always got the first bid

in before you could! Everyone was just waiting for the

flanking team to show up and catch the Resistance in a

crossfire. The game would be lost at that moment.

    Quark had just resigned himself to possible death and

was rehearsing his final tally for the Divine Treasury

when he saw the most amazing thing he had ever seen in

his life: the turbolift doors abruptly slid open, and half a

dozen beams of phaser fire flickered toward the Klingons

from behind--it was Malach caught in the same

hammer-and-anvil attack he had set up for the Resist-

ance!

    Quark stared wildly at the suited figures bursting from

the now-empty turbolift shaft. One looked familiar. The

figure twisted in mid-trajectory, shooting in every direc-

tion at once. Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax

grinned with a bit of battlelust as she decimated the last

remnants of Malach's victorious invasion force.

    Quark made a mental note to stock up on old hu-man

holoprograms... the cavalry to the rescue!

CHAPTER

      23

FUR AND PHASERS continued to fly in the airless, weight-

less, curiously peaceful war zone: without the noises

usually associated with battle--the shriek of phasers, the

snarl of disruptors, the screams of victims, the screech of

torn metal, the hiss of escaping air from ruptured hulls,

the bellow of ~'~rnmands, the the froth of curses, threats,

imprecations;-and insults, the ululation of a Klingon

battle cry, even the hysterical sobbing of terrified by-

standers. War just wasn't the same. Quark shook his

head, sighing to himselfi The party was over. Sisko was

back with Odo (of course) in tow.

    Ordinarily, the Ferengi would have cringed and cow-

ered in classic Ferengi fashion behind something thick,

solid, and opaque, but he simply had seen too much in

the past few days. The old fear-glands were bled dry. The

Ferengi adrenalyte had flowed so freely, it no longer

affected Quark's physiology. It was like the ancient

Ferengi story of the boy who cried "Audit!" once too

often, and nobody came when a real auditor showed up.

    He yawned inside his helmet, watching the battle rage

silently around him, above and below, left and right, all

directions being arbitrary, of course. The pincer maneu-

ver drove Malach and his warriors back about thirty

degrees around the Promenade concourse, but Quark

was too filled with ennui to follow.

    Abruptly, he was shaken from his reverie by a rude

hand grabbing him by the shoulder of his suit. "--Wake

up/" blistered Chief O'Brien, who evidently had been

calling him for some time. Quark continued to tumble in

the direction he had been jerked, spinning majestically

end around end toward the open turbolift doors. "God

Almighty, Quark, get your head out of the stars! How

much pull have you got on the tanks?"

    Disoriented by the spin, Quark didn't understand the

question at first. He crashed into the bulkhead next to

the doors and clutched a mapboard, stopping his tumble.

"Wh-what?"

    "Your air tanks! Your air tanks, you giant earlobe! You

just donned new tanks. How much air have they got left

m there?"

 "Uh--oh! Uh, it says seventeen point three."

 "Hm... that's enough for--"

 "Seventeen point three what?"

    "For about five hours, if you don't kick around much

out there. Yeah, that's plenty. All right, ,~,;ark, into the

lock!"

    "The lock? The lock! Chief, surely you weren't serious

about that idea! I mean, I could never--I would panic,

I'm sure--/can't hurl myself into empty space/"

    "I figured that," said O'Brien, nodding inside his own

suit. He had kicked across to join the Ferengi. "So I'll do

the hurling."  "You/"

    "Sure, it'll be just like throwing darts. Except with a

big, clumsy, pointless missile." O'Brien grabbed Quark's

loose suit and kicked, launching the two of them across

the Promenade toward the outer wall, directly opposite

the turbolift. They gently bumped into a small, innocu-

ous, recessed door labeled "Emergency Exit Airlock" in

Cardassian. Quark had never noticed it before, but then,

why would he have? He had never before contemplated

leaping into the endless void riding only a spacesuit!

  "You can't do this! I have rights!"

    Silently, O'Brien began to untog the door, one bolt

after another. After the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth

bolt, Quark felt a sudden chill of terror thrill through his

body and up his spine, driving away any lingering apathy

he felt.

    "Ha! ha! ha! He! he! A very good joke indeed. We'll

have a good laugh about it at the barmhe! he! he!mover

our synthalethe! he! he!" Quark was aware he was

losing it.

 "The synthale," said the chief.

    "He! he! he! He! he! he! Yes, the synthale. But isn't it

getting late? Won't they be waiting for us at Quark's

Place, Jadzia Dax and the rest? Let us be gone."

  "Yes," said O'Brien, "let us be gone."

  "For the love of latinum, Miles O'Brien/"

  "Yes," he said, "for the love of latinurn."

    Quark stammered wordlessly in reply, staring at the

door. Eleven togs; twelve; thirteen togs, and the door

rotated slowly to the side, rolling like the docking

airlocks in the station arms. After a few moments,

O'Brien looked impatient. "Quark!" he barked.

    No answer. He shouted again: "Quark!" No answer

still.

    Chief O'Brien shoved Quark inside the Cardassian

tomb and began to crank. Slowly, the door rolled back

into place, the airlock darkening to black, as there was no

working illumination. When only a crack remained, and

Quark stared at the world he had known for ten years or

more, probably his last glimpse of the station, O'Brien

spoke a final time. once the door was shut, there could be

no further communication. "You know what to do?

Don't waste your breath until you've got a good way

away from the station. Then start broadcasting. I've set

you to full gain on your comm link. And don't panic!

You've got five hours of oxygen if you don't panic ...

maybe two and a half if you waste it screaming or

thrashing about. Got it?"

    Quark stared dumbly, then, against his will, he found

himself nodding slowly. Chief O'Brien grinned a sadis-

tic, little smile (in Quark's opinion), and ground the door

the rest of the way shut.

    Don't panic/ That was a laugh. The Ferengi could

already feel his heart pounding so hard that his chest

already ached. The adrenalyte he thought was drained

rushed back like the returning tide, and his entire body

shook like a misaligned impulse engine. His extremities

were cold, heading quickly toward numb, and he was

dimly aware, in some corner of his mind, that he was

probably going into shock.

    He wasn't going to make it. You're going to die out

there, whispered a matter-of-fact voice in his inner lobe.

In the coldest, loneliest place in all of Deep Space Nine:

the great outdoors/He began to hear a hiss. O'Brien was

flooding the airlock with air... Quark was to be fired

from the chamber like a dart from a blowgun!

    Quark reached back to touch the bulkhead behind

him, the last, seemingly flimsy barrier remaining be-

tween himself and the starry abyss of emptiness. Defying

O'Brien's last orders, Quark made quite a production

out of wasting precious oxygen by screwing his eyes shut

and screaming for all his lungs were worth.

    When he finished, he opened his eyes. He was still in

the airlock, of course. Numbly, he grabbed hold of the

handle above his head, rotated his body until his feet

were planted against the place where O'Brien had walled

him intout. With no more warning, the outer door

exploded away from Quark with a loud bang. After

hours of silence in the vacuum of Deep Space Nine, the

noise of the explosive bolts made his whole body con-

vulse. Then he was pushed from the lock by one, single

atmosphere of force that felt like a thousand, enough

anyway to hurl him outward, spinning slowly on two

axes.

    After the brief surge of acceleration from the mini-

hurricane, Quark was surprised to discover that there

was not the slightest sensation of moving. Rather, it

looked like the station was receding from him, growing

more distant every time his spin brought it back into

view. It pulled away slowly, majestically: the stately core

fell away from his feet. After many minutes, the mon-

strous habitat ring passed before his face--it took a

hundred heartbeats to pass. Pressing far away were the

twin "coat hooks" of the pylons, sticking out either

direction from the ring. Another fifty meters to the right,

and he would have collided with the "lower" pylon (the

other looked severely damaged, as if someone or some-

thing had used it for target practice).

    Dimly, Quark tried to remember why he was where he

was, why he had been cast out to die among the stars and

the interstellar dust clouds. Something came back, a dim

memory hiding behind the evil, malicious grin of

O'Brien the Executioner. Something about a comm link.

    "Awk!" he said. "Ack--back--gack!" No, that wasn't

quite it... Quark snapped from his state of shock,

staring wildly around the inside of his helmet as if he had

never seen it before. It didn't look like the Divine

Treasury... could he have gone--to the other place?

    Wait, wait, there~ something I must--I'm supposed to

do...Quark convulsed. All the memory flooded back at

once, and he remembered who he was and why he was

drifting among the stars. The comm link! Sweat beaded

on Quark's forehead, turning icy in the recirculated air

of his pressure-suit. He felt a distinct nausea that he

thought he had banished hours before: the stars spinning

past his visor raised again the old specter of space

sickness. Quark closed his eyes for a moment, but it only

helped a little.

    A small fact had just occurred to him: if he couldn't

raise anyone on the comm link, then he would, without

fail, die the loneliest and coldest death in the universe: to

freeze or suffocate or die of fear a hundred kilometers

from the nearest air, light, and life.

    He tried to talk, to shout over the open comm link, but

his throat was frozen shut! He couldn't utter a sound...

he couldn't even breathe. Panic gripped him like a living

thing. He opened his eyes wide and thrashed and

bucked, trying to throw it off. His vision dimmed; the

bright pinpoint jewels surrounding him flickered and

began to fade. I'm dying ofhypoxia! he raged to himself.

    Then the scream he had been suppressing since kick-

ing off from the station finally forced its way up his

throat, breaking the data-jam. "Help met Help me, for

the love of latinurn! Please, somebody--Bajor, Starfleet,

anybody!"

    No answer. Quark breathed deeply, then his heart

almost stopped when he caught sight of his air gauge: 8.8/

He had already burned up half his oxygen, and he had

only been cruising for a few minutes, a couple of

seconds, a--he stared at the chronometer reading inside

the helmet--for two hours?

    Stunned, Quark watched the chronometer and contin-

ued to broadcast his distress call every ten minutes. In

between broadcasts, he tried to calm himself, breathing

slowly, shallowly, husbanding his air supply. He lowered

his air intake so dramatically--meditating upon an

enormous room, a whole station full of bars and strips

and shavings of latinum--that he actually began to see

stars and sparkles at the edge of his vision. His color

perception grayed-out, and it was difficult to see the

numbers on his chronometer. His mind wandered

through a fanciful corridor in the Divine Treasury, a

long, curving hallway that looped back into itself (swap-

ping inside and outside, like what the hu-mans called a

Klein bottle). Something tickled his lobes. He ignored it,

mechanically repeating his distress call over and over,

mumbling like an employee. The tickling grew louder,

more insistent.

    Words... a voice, a shape of sound. His lobes burned

cold, but they could hear perfectly well.

    He heard a sound, a voice, a response. "This is

Commander Tureilav of Bajor Naval Rescue. Vessel

calling distress signal, please identify/We cannot locate

you on our sensors."

    Quark blinked in surprise. Stunned, he realized his

mind was a total blank. For the first time in his long,

painful, profitless life, Quark had absolutely nothing to

say.

    Then he shook all over, as if he had just been granted

stock options in the Grand Nagus's personal corpora-

tion. Words popped into his head: "Quark! I'm Quark!

I'm Quark!"

    "Tureilav to Quark, what is the nature of your emer-

gency? We are en route from Bajor. What are your

coordinates?"

    "Commander Tur--Tureilav," said Quark with a sigh,

"you are not going to believe what I'm about to tell you!"

As the stupid clich6 left his lips, Quark had the terrible

premonition that it might turn out to be prophetic--

what if the Bajorans didn't believe him?

    But they simply had to believe... The most idiotic

altruist in the quadrant wouMn't make up a story this

crazy/

    "What have you done? Colonel Worf, what have you

done?" Malach screamed through his comm link, bring-

ing a grim smile to "Colonel" Worf's lips.

    "I cannot say for certain what Mr. O'Brien has done,"

answered the lieutenant commander, "but I can guess."

In fact, Worf did not have to guess; the stroke was

obvious (and brilliant) the moment Quark dove into the

airlock: Quark the ballistic hero/thought Worf, unusually

poetic for a tactical officer, but the grand scheme re-

VLNGLAN~L

minded Worf of one of his favorite Ktingon operas, and

the poetry came naturally to his brain.

    O'Brien, his back still to the hidden airlock that even

Worf had never noticed before, broke into the conversa-

tion through his own link in the Klingon communica-

tions chain. "I'11 tell you what I've done, Malach,

whoever the hell you are. I've put a stop to your daf'

scheme!"

    Malach ignored the chief and spoke directly to Worf.

"And what, exactly, have you had your man do to 'put a

stop' to my strike?" He smiled, exposing his teeth in a

gesture more fierce than friendly.

    "Worf had nothing to do with it, you--dishonorable

pig! I just sent out my own comm link, and by now,

there's nothing you or anyone else can do!"

    The general seemed to notice O'Brien for the first

time, holding the lip of the door to Quark's Place and

rotating to face the chiefi "You! You are a rankless man.

Who granted you this authority?" "Admiral Benevidez."

    Worf scowled, staring back at O'Brien. Has the combat

driven him mad? he wondered.

    Malach stared too, his eyes widening just for amo~

ment. "He is the senior admiral of Starfleet, is he not?"

    "Yeah, he's a good friend," explained O'Brien. "In

fact, he's been hiding in my closet ever since the attack

began. We keep in contact by subspace carrier pigeons."

    Worf, in a long and infamous career in and out of the

Klingon Empire, through more adventures than he could

count on fingers and toes, had seen more than his share

of angry, irritated, and downright furious Klingon faces.

General Malach's, however, was one of the angriest Worf

had ever seen. Malach's flesh turned white as the

pressure-suit he was wearing, and his eyes widened into

twin reflector dishes.

    Worf had seen Malach lose his composure now and

again during the long campaign, but it was nothing

compared to this time as Malach finally realized that a

L)AFYDD AB MUGH

tiny handful of Federation defenders had finally broken

the final campaign of "General" Malach, and almost

assured discommodation of whatever shreds remained

of the "noble" House of Razg. Malach screamed a long

string of threats and obscenities. However, the specifics

were left to Wort"s imagination, for Malach wisely sev-

ered his comm link before cutting loose.

    "Malach!" shouted Worfi When the general--Wori"s

blood-brother--failed to respond, Worf kicked the gain

to maximum and shouted again.

    Instead of answering, however, Malach abruptly

pulled his feet to rest against the doorframe of the bar

and kicked off, away from Worf and O'Brien. The

maneuver caught Worfby surprise. He is abandoning his

men! realized Worf, shocked. He never thought his

blood-brother could do such an un-Klingon-like thing. It

is only in the final extremity that honor and dishonor

show themselves unmasked, remembered Worf, quoting

an old children's proverb he had learned... at the

academy at Emperor Kahless Military City.

    But as Malach faded from sight, his voice came clear

and peremptory over the scrambled comm link: "The

fight was glorious, my brothers. The gods have turned the

dice, and the the victory goes to the enemy. But you

fought well and bravely, and with honor.

    "Those of you who joined my cause because your

houses were discommodated, you have the word of

Gowron that they are restored. Those who joined for the

sheer Klingon joy of battle are satisfied.

    "Honor is satisfied! There is no need for the rest of you

to commit Mauk toWor. Lay down your weapons, you

who are left alive. Yield as men do when they know the

fight is lost. We gambled; we lost. But we have shown

these spineless worms what it is to be Klingons! We have

shown them what face they must keep if they are to serve

effectively as the front line against the Dominion...

and that means we won, in the long view: we have helped

the cause of Empire, of Gowron, of Kahless.

    "To honor! To Empire! Stand tall until we meet again

in Sto-vo-kor. Farewell, of all my military commands,

this last was my greatest." Then Malach fell silent.

    Inside his helmet, rapidly running out of air, Worf's

mind worked furiously: following Malach would be

nearly impossible--one warrior with a disruptor could

certainly seal off tunnels behind him! No, not to

follow... Worf would have to reason where Malach was

headed.

He has gone to die, Worf knew, but where? How?

The lieutenant commander, in desperation, turned to

his closest friend on Deep Space Nine. Covering the

distance between himself and Miles O'Brien with a

blurry leap, impacting with a bone-jarring crunch, Worf

quickly killed the comm link--he couldn't have the

other Klingons overhear him--and instead pressed his

helmet directly against the chiefs. "He has gone to kill

himself," he explained tersely to O'Brien. "We must

deduce where!"

    "Worf, he just saw Quark go through the airlock. It's

got to be heavy on his brain! He'll throw himself out an

airlock, and we'd have the devil of a time finding him,

especially with so much of the station damaged, and not

knowing exactly where to look."

    Worf closed his eyes, putting himself into the heart

and spirit of his blood-brother. Yes... yes/That wouM

be his path. "But where, Chief?. Where will he do it? Is

there another secret airlock?"

    "Well if there were, how the hell would Malach know

about it?"

    Worf and O'Brien looked at each other and said the

obvious at the same moment--"The cargo bays." Of

course! With the station forceshields down and all the air

evacuated, Malach could crank open the main door of

any one of the cargo bays with his hands, and there

would be nothing stopping him from pushing off into

bright space beyond those doors. It involved time and

work, but Malach had no other appointments to keep.

L)AI~YLID All nu~PI

    "There are many cargo bays," said Worf. "I may find

Malach before he can get the door open, but this duty is

mine alone. You cannot say to my blood-brother what

must be said. Find the prisoners and make sure they have

air/That is my last order before turning command over

to Captain Sisko."

    Malach, when last seen, had been heading vaguely

toward Cargo Bay 2. Worf shot for the turbolift shaft to

intercept.

0

CHAPTER

      24

M^LaC, wAS NOT in Cargo Bay 2, not in Cargo Bay 3. One

advantage of zero-G was the speed with which Worf

could bounce, literally, from point to point around the

Habitat Ring. Worf continued on his trek, and in Cargo

Bay 4, he found Malach. The general had already opened

the cargo-bay doors, but he was waiting for Worf.

    "I see your deductive skills have not diminished with

age," said Malach. At the academy in Emperor Kahless

Military City, Worf had taken top honors in Logic and

Opera Appreciation; Malach had beaten him in Mathe-

matics, Military History, Military Bearing.

 "You knew I would come," said Worfi

 And Individual Psychology.

    Malach smiled behind the crystaline faceplate. "I have

six minutes of air left," he noted, glancing at the gauge at

chin-level inside the helmet.

 "There is plenty of spare air."

    "We have five minutes, Worf. I require one minute to

see the universe before I die." General Malach let go of

DAFYDD AB HUGH

the pile of lock-stacked cargo he was gripping--dolimite

for some colony in the Gamma Quadrant--and stared

hard into Worffs face. The general smiled. Contemptu-

ous, thought Worf, almost a sneer. Worf fought down the

instant Klingon-rage at the implied dishonor in the

look... this was, after everything, his brother--blood-

brother. "So this is what a traitor looks like," said

Malach.

    "I am not a traitor," answered the security officer of

Deep Space Nine. "I have a duty to Starfleet!"

    "Does it supersede your duty to your own people? To

the Empire?" Malach shook his head. He really wasn't

interested in the answer, Worf knew. He probably will

not believe me anyway.

    But Worf had to try. For the sake of what they both

had learned at Emperor Kahless Military City, where

Worfs father had sent the boy when he began to have

disciplinary problems at age five, Worf was desperate to

explain the "betrayal" to his blood-brother. "My father

died in the attack on Khitomer," Worfbegan. "It was the

year after he placed me in the academy. We had just

moved to Khitomer, and I resented being taken from the

academy after such a short time, when I had just found

my feet. I was still a problem--you remember how I was

when we first met--but I had learned much. For the first

time, brother, my father spoke to me with respect! You

do not know what that is like, since you never knew your

father."

     Malach merely smiled wistfully. He looked over his

 shoulder out the open door at the beckoning stars. "And

 the Romulan attack left no time for the happy reconcilia-

 tion, father and son. How mawkish, Worf. You have

 changed, and grown stupid, if you think that will make a

 difference to me. The pleading of traitors does not

 interest me."

     "Silence, Defeated One/" thundered Worf over the

 special command comm link. That did it, he thought,

VENGEANCE

that snapped his eyes back. Worf curled his lip. Worf had

invoked the sacred Klingon relationship of victor to

vanquished, and Malach was now honor-bound to treat

Worf with respect. "You owe me these minutes by our

witnessed blood oath, but if I cannot compel you to obey

a debt of memory, you will at least pay me the courtesy

of recognizing my victory!"

    Malach bowed, as much as one could in zero-G. He

inclined his head slightly, but still smiled with bitterness

and ill-humor. "Speak, now that you have recognized me

as your enemy, you cannot deny me a death with honor,

not by our past or your recent service. You have invoked

the Speech of Victory. You cannot retract it."

    "Underneath this uniformawell, the uniform I usu-

ally wear--I am still a Klingon! I obey the old ways. And

the core duty of old was the Sword Oath, is it not so?"

    Malach said nothing, nor did he acknowledge the

question. He was skating on brittle ice.

    "Do you not understand, Malach? I did not desert the

Empirethe Empire deserted met I had sworn an oath, a

Sword Oath, to Starfleet and to Captain Sisko, and

Gowron knew that! He could have given me dispensa-

tion under the Code of Houses--he did not have to

discommodate my House!" Worf realized he was shout-

ing with anger. Years of pent-up frustration and fury

spilled out of his heart into the cargo bay, globules of

cruel, cold disillusionment that floated, spinning, toward

his blood-brother. "Can you not see yet? I swore to

Captain Sisko as if he were my father.t"

    Worf fell to silence, shocked by what he had said. He

never would have dreamed of saying such a thing to

anyone on the station, not even Miles O'Brien. Malach

was the only person he could talk to about this dark,

forbidden subject... Malach, the last remaining link

between Worf and a time when his father, his real father,

was still alive and the focus of his aspirations.

 In so many ways, Captain Benjamin Sisko reminded

LJAFYDD AB HUGH

Worf of the father he had known for such a short while,

at once deep and lighthearted, poured from equal parts

grim determination and practical jokery. Worf often

heard his father's voice, whispering amusing stories, but

he kept them to himself, not out of fear for his dignity,

but out of simple selfishness: Worf wanted to keep all of

his father for himself, sharing none with his colleagues--

especially not with Jadzia Dax, who shared too much of

Worf's life as it was! He wanted just one thing that was

his and his alone, and that one thing was his father, still

imprinted on the lieutenant commander's memory.

    But now, he had shared... with a man he had just

formally declared his enemy. I am a fool thought Worf

bitterly, he will now use this weakness against me.

    "You fool," began Malach, echoing Worf's own

thoughts, but then, the broken general surprised Worf. "I

am not dying because a single raid failed! I have suffered

defeat before. I am not so fragile."

    "Then why? Why, my brother? Why have you chosen

Mauk to'Vor?"

    Malach sighed, looking deckward toward his feet. "It

is you who does not understand, brother. I lost a minor

raid. My men will be returned to the Empire eventually,

and so would I have been. Gowron will shout at his wife

and kick his personal aide, but I am not afraid of

Oowron's temper."

    The general paused, but Worf did not interrupt. He

had begun to realize what Malach was saying.

    "I lost a minor raid, Worf, but I have also lost my most

important campaign." Worf said nothing; there was

nothing to say. He knew what campaign Malach meant,

and it was not the raid, or even the chance to gain true

glory for House of Razg (probably for the first time,

thought Worf) that motivated Malach. It was me; I was

Malach ~ final campaign. He sought to bring me back...

and he has lost. Worf looked away, so as not to allow his

emotions to seize hold of his face.

             VENGEANCE

    "Fare well under your Sword Oath, brother," con-

cluded Malach, "as the Defeated One, I claim my

rights."

    Without speaking another word or waiting for Worf's

answer, General Malach pressed his feet against the lock-

stacked boxes and pushed himself backward. He passed

through the door a few seconds beyond the five minutes

he had planned. If he breathes slowly, thought the blood-

brother Malach left behind, he can still have his full

minute to appreciate the cold, unwinking brilliance of the

stars.

    Worf watched the body as it receded, until it was no

longer visible to the naked eye. Malach did not speak for

the last minute of life, but he did spread his arms in the

sign meaning, I journey to Sto-vo-kor with no weapon but

my warrior~ heart.

    Gowron would deny any involvement in Malach's

"scheme," Worf knew. He sighed. Young as he was, he

remembered a time when the High Council had enough

honor at least to admit their own misdeeds when caught

red-handed. But Gowron would insist he had no knowl-

edge of what Malach intended, the Council would back

him up, and the Federation, recognizing a feint but

having no evidence of anything beyond one renegade

Klingon warrior, would diplomatically conclude that

they had no quarrel with the Empire. In other words,

Worffs blood-brother Malach would have no more effect

in death than he ever did in life: it would be as if General

Malach of the presumed-to-be-noble and honorable

House of Razg had never even existed. As Malach faded

from view, he likewise faded from history. He became an

un-Klingon, falling down the infinite memory hole.

    Is that the end my destiny holds for me, too? What

place in history was there for a "traitor" to the Empire?

    Is it truly better, he wondered not for the first time, to

know one is an outcast? Or would it have been better to

live like his brother, his real brother--once Kurn, now

UAFYDD AB I-IUGH

Rodek--who had survived this battle uninjured, but

also undistinguished. And still unconscious of his true

heritage. Still bereft of his true self.

    When Worf could no longer see Malach, he turned and

headed back toward the Promenade, thinking more than

was good for him, for any Klingon.

    "There," said Master Chief Miles Edward O'Brien,

making the final adjustment to his portable field-

generator, "that should just about--" With a loud pop,

the small machine died and went dark. O'Brien stared

for a moment, then gave it a solid kick. The porta-gen

burped and flickered back to life. "Just about do it," he

concluded.

    "Com restored!" shouted Dax, and the ragged crew in

Ops cheered, except for Captain Sisko, who only smiled

as if he had known all along that the chief would come

through.

    Instantly, the message programmed by Major Kira on

the Defiant began to repeat, apprising Bajor that the

station had been seized by Klingons and requesting

urgent help. Until O'Brien activated his field-generator,

Kira's emergency beacon was swallowed by the Klingon

comm-damping field before it could reach even as far as

the station, let along Bajor. The Bajorans responded

immediately: "Evening Sky to Defiant, we're already on

our way; ETA twenty minutes. We detect no Klingon

ships near your station."

    Already on their way? thought Chief O'Brien, puzzled

for a moment, then he broke out into a broad grin. It had

worked! Quark must have gotten clear of the damping

field and caught the attention of the Bajoran planetary

defense perimeter! "So that's why our young general

finally gave it up," he muttered.

    "How's that?" asked Constable Odo, standing beside

the chiefi

    "Nothing. I'll tell you later. I have to keep this thing

constantly adjusted, matting out the comm-blanking

VENGEANCE

field, or we'll lose communications again." O'Brien had

generated a field the same frequency and amplitude as

the one used by the Klingons, but phase-shifted exactly

180 degrees. The net effect was to create pinpoint

"holes" in the field where waves perfectly canceled out

troughs, holes through which they could receive and

transmit comm signals--fiddled with static, but intelli-

gible.

    The repeating message abruptly ceased, and Kira's

own voice cut mto the corem link. "They're cloaked!

There might still be a ship... advise caution."

  "Major Kira? This is Jad Davas."

  "Captain Jad?"

  "Lieutenant colonel."

 "Davvi! When did all this happen?"

    "Kill the audio and monitor, Old Man," said the

captain. Dax cut the feed and allowed Kira privacy to

chat up her old chum. As soon as the loud ship commu-

nications ceased, they heard what at first sounded like an

annoying buzz. They could barely make out words.

    "Dax? What is that?" asked Sisko, leaning forward

and cocking one ear. He turned to O'Brien. "Chief, is

that insect-buzzing a voice communication?"

    You bet your sweet pips it is, thought O'Brien. "Yes sir,

and you can thank the insect himself for saving your

station."

 "You will explain that, won't you, Chief?."

    "Let me just isolate it and crank up the gain, sir. You'll

see what I mean." With gravity and atmosphere restored

and O'Brien safely ensconced in his engineering pit once

more, he set the computer to cheerfully contact each

comm circuit using the encryption key-code on the

handset, thus restoring normal functionality, then he

turned to the specific task of isolating Quark's weak

comm signal and boosting it to pull it through the

dueling comm blanking fields.

    Worf was up in Ops, and Dr. Bashir as well. In fact,

everyone who was anyone found a duty station (or at

least a seat) in Ops, wanting to savor every moment of

their sweet victory. The doctor had just joined them a

few minutes earlier, after stabilizing Ensign Janinc

Wheeler's concussion and healing Ensign Taryak Amar's

broken humerus.

    "Worf," asked the doctor, standing just behind

O'Brien, "how did you know I was with the chief?."

    "I did not know you were present, Doctor. I knew only

that O'Brien had taken a handset and decrypted the

signal."

    "But, why did you send the Kobyashi-Maru message,

then? What made you think Chief O'Brien would under-

stand the reference? He never went to Starfleet

Academy."

    There was a long, long pause, during which O'Brien

stopped working and tilted his head to hear better. Yeah,

what about that? I didn't have a clue what that was all

about.t

    When Wolf spoke at last, the voice was reluctant and

irritated, in that singular, "embarrassed-Klingon" way:

"Because, Dr. Bashir, I... forgot." The last word was

said so softly, O'Brien could barely overhear it.

  "What?"

    "Because I forgot that O'Brien never went to the

Academy.t Is that what you wanted to hear?"

    "Good heavens," muttered Julian. "Well, thank good-

ness for a faulty Klingon memory!"

    The chief's body shook with the struggle to hold back

three days of pent-up laughter. He finished extracting

Quark's message.

    "Help," said the listless, Ferengi voice. "Oh, don't

bother. I know no one can hear me anyway."

    Everyone stared at Dax for some reason. Dax stared

back at O'Brien, who shrugged and said, "It's Quark.

He's still out there, you know."

    "How much air does he have?" snapped Sisko, all

business again.

"Oh, couple of hours, I figure," said the chief, "unless

he's been thrashing about."

    "Advise the Evening Sky, Old Man. I think it's safe to

pick up Quark before they come here."

    "Aye-aye, Benjamin," said the lovely Trill lieutenant

commander.

    "Chief, open a channel to our ballistic hero. I want to

reassure him that he's going to be fine."

    "Wait, sir!" cried Odo, grinning like a... like a solid,

thought O'Brien. "I request permission to make the

Quark contact."

    Captain Sisko raised his eyebrows. "If you wish. Be

my guest, Constable." The captain sat back in his

command chair and crossed his legs, smiling in anticipa-

tion.

    O'Brien opened the channel, then gestured to Odo.

Before he could speak, however, the Ferengi's voice

came over the comm link again: "This is Quark, and I

know now I'm going to die. Out here! It's an outrage! But

there you have it; that's what comes from dealing with

hu-mans. All right then, I approach the Divine Treasury

with head high and pockets stuffed with latinum. Con-

sider this my final last will and testament, which super-

sedes the will of Stardate... well, whatever four days

ago would be.

    "I, Quark, being of fiscal solvency, a business owner,

and of sound mind--"

"That is debatable," sneered Odo over the comm link.

There was a long pause, then, astonishingly, Quark

began again.t "I, Quark, being of fiscal solvency, a

business-owner, and of reasonably sound mind, except

for an occasional auditory hallucination, do sol-

emnly-"

    "Quark, you idiot! This is no hallucination, this is

Odo, and we've restored full functionality of the station.

The Klingons are gone. You saved the day, much as it

pains me to say."

    "Odo... Odo! Is that you? No, scratch that, you're

the only person who could insult me and praise me all in

the same breath. Odo, you've got to get me out of here! I

mean, into there! For greed's sake, beam me back aboard

the station!"

 "Why Quark, you want to come back?"

    "Yes of course I do, you stupid cop! No, wait! I didn't

mean that! I just want--"

 "You just want me to beam you back aboard."

 "Yes."

 "Now."

 "Yes!"

 "Rather as a favor, would you say?"

  "Yes!"

    "Certainly, Quark... so, how much is it worth to

you?"

  "What?"

 "Everyone has his price, Quark. You could go insane

out there, all alone, just you and stars ....Just how

much is your sanity worth to you, Quark?"

"Just rescue me out of simple gratitude?

    "Well, that's not the Ferengi way, is it? How do you

expect me to get to, oh, the Divine Treasury if I got

caught doing free favors for every Tom, Dick, and

Quark?"

    "All right," gasped the Ferengi, defeat evident in his

voice even to O'Brien. "What do you want? Latinurn? I

have sev--I have three bars to my name. You can

have... one."

"Why, Quark! Are you trying to bribe a peace officer?"

"Of course I'm trying to--I mean, no! It's the furthest

thing from my mind! Uh, if you don't want latinum,

then, urn, what do you want?"

    Odo smiled, clasping his hands behind his back. "I

think I would like... a name. No, make that three

names, one for every bar of latinurn you intend to

fondle."

  "Names?"

      "Of three of your smuggler friends intending to pass

through this station in the next, oh, forty-five days."

 "But I don't know any smugglers!"

    "Have a nice trip, Quark. We're having a wonderful

time. I'd say, 'Wish you were here,' but you know I never

lie."

    "Wait! Wait! I think I might remember one or two, ah,

rumors I've picked up about... that sort of thing. Is

anyone else listening, Odo?"

    "No, Quark," reassured the constable. "We're entirely

alone." The rest of the Ops personnel snickered. Chief

O'Brien quickly filtered out the sound, lest Quark hear it

and clam up.

    "All right, then, and remember: you never heard it

from me. Here are the names..."

    While Odo took them down, O'Brien noticed the warp

signature of a Bajoran ship approaching fast. The Eve-

ning Sky swooped upon the station, closing on the

comm-source dot that the chief had already identified as

Quark. The dots merged, but still Quark hadn't said a

word. O'Brien scratched his head in puzzlement until he

realized that the ship must be nearly on top of the

Ferengi, but behind him, where he couldn't see.

    Not wanting to interrupt the entertainment, O'Brien

caught the captain's eye and mouthed the words, Ba-

jorans here now. Sisko nodded, as did Constable Odo.

    "Thank you ever so much, Quark," said Odo. "Per-

haps your 'friends' will understand the pressures you

were under. But just in case they don't..." Odo smiled,

closing his eyes. "You're about to be swallowed by a sea

monster, Quark. Perhaps you'd do well to stay inside and

let it digest you all the way back to Bajor." "What the--? What are you..."

    "Oh, just think of it as a leveraged buyout. Goodbye,

Quark. I'll let you know when it's safe to come back."

  "Signal just died, Captain," said O'Brien.

    Dax spoke up a moment later. "Evening Sky reports

one sputtering Ferengi requesting transport to Bajor."

    "Oh please," whispered Odo. "Don't let the alarm

clock ring."

    Chief O'Brien scratched his head about the bizarre

remark for a moment, then returned to the task of

rebuilding Deep Space Nine from the engineering levels

on up.