had wandered and that she was still speaking to Weyoun.

 

 

"Nomno," Weyoun resisted, almost whispering. "I wouldn't want to bother him. Good day, Major.... " Quite plainly, Kira had had enough of Weyoun's pandering. She made no response to his pushed courtesy, but just exited as quickly as the space between her and the door allowed.

 

 

Dukat stepped closer to Weyoun. "Fascinating woman, isn't she?" "I wouldn't know," the Vorta said. "But I do know we need her as an ally." Damar's boots clunked on the floor as he approached them. "The Bajorans will never be our aliiess" "Out!" Weyoun barked suddenly. When Damar stopped abruptly and glanced at Dukat for support, the Vorta quickly said, "Don't look at him. I'm telling you to leave. Now!" His thick face suddenly as chalky as a Jem Hadar's, Damar failed to mask his irritation. Among Cardassians it was customary for the adjutant to voice his concerns. Weyoun's strange authority as the Dominion's representative here made Damar's position questionable, and Damar didn't understand where he stood in this arrangement.

 

 

That alone kept him from pulling the Vorta's banana-shaped ears off and stuffing them down his mellow throat. Instead, taking a sturdy glance of support from Dukat, the adjutant drilled a silent threat at Weyoun, then simply left the chamber just as

 

 

Kira had, with the same cloud of smoke drifting behind.

 

 

"I find him useful," Dukat said before Weyoun had a chance to tell him to dismiss Damar for his insolence. He knew what was happening--Weyoun had lost the moment's attempt to define authority, so he pushed the point of Damar's having to leave. Dukat considered the slight to be a further win.

 

 

"In the future," Weyoun warned, "it might be prudent to include me in all decisions relating to station policy. Now, what about the wormhole? You assured me that you would dismantle the mine field within a month. That was two months ago." "I admit that work is proceeding more slowly than expected," Dukat cannily told him, monitoring his tone carefully. "But these aren't ordinary mines.

 

 

Every time we destroy or deactivate one of them, its neighbor replicates a new one." "Self-replicating mines," Weyoun mused. "I'd like to meet the Federation engineer who came up with that.... " "I'd like get my hands around his neck," Dukat offered, playing the game.

 

 

"We have to take down that mine field and reopen the wormhole." "And we will... but there's no need to panic.

 

 

We're winning the war." "For the moment, yes. But to defeat the Federation, we're going to need reinforcements. And new supplies of ketracel white... soon." "! said I'd deal with the mine field," Dukat claimed, "and I will."

 

 

Weyoun gazed at him in a piercing and plumbing manner. For a moment Dukat felt his insides crumple. Did Weyoun suspect his ulterior motives? The pressure of those milky alien eyes was undeniable.

 

 

Dukat raised his chin a little and nearly leaned forward into the wind of Weyoun's silent accusation and the tides of suspicion. There was no evidence for what Weyoun might be thinking. Dukat had been careful to keep engineers working on the mines, but not the best engineers... not yet. Those working on the mines continually reported that the Federation devices were indeed tricky and clever, dangerous and quirkish.

 

 

And so they were. So they were.

 

 

"I hate them. I hate Dukat. I hate Weyoun. I hate myself." "Calm, Major, calm.... " "You be calm, Odo. The Vorta thinks you're a deity.

 

 

You can at least be aloof around him and he pretty much leaves you alone. I hate the way he tries to make peace between Dukat and me when the last thing the Dominion really has in mind is peace. Certainly not peace with Bajor, anyway. They're just using us, and here we are letting them." Kira had a drink in front of her but as yet hadn't taken a sip. Ordinarily she didn't like Quark's bar very much, but lately it seemed the only place where there was respite from the constant overlording of the Cardassians and Jem Hadar.

 

 

Oh, there were Cardassians in the bar, of course, clustered around tables, drinking and playing vari-

 

 

ous games of chance, but they weren't as irritating in here as they were manning the station's controls or trying to pretend they liked having Kira and Odo around.

 

 

There were some Jem Hadar soldiers in here too, which was bizarre, since they neither ate nor drank, and they didn't seem to enjoy the tables. They just sat around and glared at what everybody else was doing, while their tubes of ketracel white bubbled placidly on their chests. All they needed was that stupid stuff. Why didn't they just go someplace else and suck on it?

 

 

She had her back to most of the bar, preferring the sounds to the sights of these current occupants. At least she could pretend they were somebody else.

 

 

Gazing at her from the seat on her left, Odo sat placidly, and of course since he was a shapeshifter he neither ate nor drank either, but somehow she knew he would like to. That helped. Unlike the hammerheaded Jem Hadar or the stubborn Cardassians, Odo would've been very happy to simply be one of the normal, living crowd.

 

 

"You should've seen Weyoun," Kira suffered on.

 

 

"So sticky and obsequious.... The only reason he wants to get along with the Bajorans is because you're here, wearing that Bajoran uniform and he thinks he can get in good with you." "Are you complaining?" Odo asked.

 

 

"No, no, I'm not complaining... exactly. I'm griping. I don't like getting what I want just because Weyoun's a prancing puppet. Eventually he'll get

 

 

tired of that or the power structure'11 shift, and then where will we be?" "Of Dukat and Weyoun, who do you think has the most power?" "I don't know.... Dukat didn't seem too intimidated, but he didn't push too hard either. I think Weyoun's getting annoyed that the mine field's still up and they can't get supplies or reinforcements, but I don't know how that plays for Dukat. Doesn't make him look very effective.... I don't know, really. I can't imagine what they think of each other. I'm telling you, Odo, Dukat has only one thing on his mind and that's revenge. He can't stand the thought that Bajor defeated Cardassia." "You think he wants to re-open the labor camps?" "Eventually." "Then," Odo said, "I suppose we should be grateful he has Weyoun looking over his shoulder." "Maybe. Weyoun's a hard one to figure out. I don't really trust him, but I do trust him more than Dukat." She almost pinched herself. Did that make sense?

 

 

Trust the devil she didn't know more than the devil she did? Went against all reason.

 

 

Odo watched Quark as the Ferengi barkeep wandered through the crowd, grumbling at the Jem Hadar, making gestures of irony and frustration.

 

 

"Weyoun knows that it's in the Dominion's best interest to honor its treaty with Bajor. They want to prove to the rest of the Alpha Quadrant they're true to their word."

 

 

Kira nodded in agreement, though they both knew that Weyoun's word and the Dominion's word only meant something as long as they needed it to mean something. "Weyoun asked me about you. He seenled very concerned about what you thought of him." "I try not to think of him." "He'd be hurt to hear you say that." Kira allowed herself a little grin. "I'll have to mention it to him." The grin grew into a smile and the warmth of the moment gave them both some comfort.

 

 

Odo watched her musingly. "I'm glad you can still smile." "Only when I'm with you," she admitted, knowing that might be a little dangerous given the way he felt about her--that and the agreement they had made in private to keep any burgeonings between them in the background until this struggle was won. Or lost.

 

 

"That's kind of you to say," Odo told her. He seemed genuinely warmed by the fact that she wasn't pushing him away entirely.

 

 

"It's true," she said, "When I talk to you, things don't seem as bad. Though every time I think of Dukat sitting in the captain's office... or the fact that the Federation seems to be losing this war and we're here doing nothing..." Her bitterness, her anger, the sourness of having to swallow her rebel leanings and cooperate with the Cardassian presence--all bubbled out in her words.

 

 

Kira felt her eyes sting as she looked around the bar at the Jem Hadar, the Cardassians, and Quark serving them.

 

 

She flinched--but it was only Odo putting his hand on her shoulder, a rare and welcome gesture of support.

 

 

"I share your frustration, Major," he said. "But right now, there's really nothing we can do except bide our time. It's like Captain Sisko said... Bajor must be kept out of the fighting." Embarrassed by her flare, Kira forced her shoulders down. "And who am I to argue with the emissary?" She smiled again, feeling a flush in her cheeks, and was about to say more when Quark approached and she stayed silent.

 

 

"Thank you for waiting," Quark said, casting a sour look back at his other clients as he deposited a tall drink in front of Kira. "Things have been a little busier than expected. This one's on the house." After picking up the drink Kira glanced at the golden liquid, then looked up at him. "What do you want, Quark?" "The usual. Peace, love, understanding, not to mention a generous profit margin, which I'm happy to say is looking more and more likely. You know, I never expected to say this, but as occupations go, this one's not so bad." "I suppose that's true," Kira said, "if all you're worried about is your monthly balance sheet." Quark surveyed his realm.

 

 

"I'm not just concerned about profit, Major," he said with a touch of candidness. "Look around. Do you see any ghetto fences dividing the Promenade? Or exhausted Bajoran slave laborers sprawled on the ground after a grueling day in the Ore Processing

 

 

Center? Do you hear the cries of starving children? I don't. Now don't get me wrong--I miss the Federation too. All I'm saying is... things could be a lot worse." Leaving with that thought, he departed to take care of a paying customer who signaled him.

 

 

Kira didn't want to be left with that thought. Maybe that was part of the problem here. Things weren't bad enough.

 

 

"I hate to say it," Odo uttered, "but he's right. The Dominion seems determined to show it can be a friend to Bajor." "If it's such a good friend, then how come there are no Bajoran security officers on the station?" Odo let her troubled question fall into the muttering of the bar crowd. Kira couldn't blame him--they both knew the answer. The Dominion wasn't friends with Bajor. The Dominion was using Bajor. And the Romulans and the Cardassians, the Tholians and Miradorn--everyone who'd made a non-aggression treaty with them.

 

 

But maybe Quark was right. Maybe things could be worse.

 

 

Maybe.

 

 

"All right, General, what have you got?" ';4re you sure this is a secured channel?" "Yes, and I'm relatively certain neither of my shoes is a spy. We have to move fast, before Starfleet suffers another big loss. The Federation might not be able to survive losing another hundred ships."

 

 

"Agreed. Your instincts were sound. The Argolis Cluster is peppered with sensor stations. They can watch the maneuvers of our fleets over many sectors with such a span. It must have been the source of their knowledge to ambush the Seventh Fleet so effectively." "It's got to come down then. The array would see a squadron approaching, but might not pick up one assault ship." "But the fighters guarding the array certainly would." "Which means, General, that the fighters must be enticed away. We've got to create a diversion or a distraction, make trouble someplace else.

 

 

hopefully real trouble, not just shadow trouble....I wish I could talk to Dax or Worf about this...." "We made a pact, Captain. This wouM be between you and me. Times are difficult when we cannot trust the chairs we sit in." "Don't worry, Martok, I'm not going to break the pact. I'll stick to our bargain. I'll come up with something to pull those fighters away from the sensor array. With the mine field in place at the wormhole, the Dominion is short of arms and they'll have to reassign those ships if something hot pops up in another area. After all, they think the array is disguised as repair depots. General, do something for me--pass this information along to Starfleet Intelligence and recommend it go to Admiral Ross. If it comes through me, it'll be too obvious." "You want Ross to get this?"

 

 

"Yes. I need as much as possible of our plans to run through him, because then I'll have some control over suggestions and possible special maneuvers." "I hope you have a warrior~ luck, Captain, for this is a badly balanced bat'leth with which you fight." "You're right about that, General, but what else can we do?" "Most true... what else?" CHAPTER 7

 

 

Starbase 375

 

 

"I'M OLAD YOU made it back in one piece, Ben." "I was lucky. We lost a lot of good people." "Yes, we did... and we're going to lose a lot more before this is over." The office was small, gray, functional, and starkstaring empty except for the desk and chairs. On one wall was a large screen set with the United Federation of Planets great seal, a silver-rimmed circle with a starfield of major member systems, framed by a stylized leaf diadem. A couple of other static monitors, a small padd, and that was all. There was a leftover scent of cleaning fluids, very different from the scents of constant use Sisko was used to from DS9.

 

 

Admiral Ross was no older than Sisko, in fact he was a couple of years younger, but he already seemed tired and worn out. Sisko knew Ross had been a desk

 

 

officer all his life, a good but uneventful administrator, had fit the role well, and somebody had to do it.

 

 

As much as the cadets and the public relished grand stories of adventurous officers in the teeth of danger, anyone with sense realized that the firm platform from which those people jumped to their adventures was the administrative grid that kept the ships supplied, staffed, and effectively deployed. As an administrator of sorts himself for the past five years, an intermediary and an active duty officer with a hot desk to fly, Sisko had come to appreciate even more the so-called "desk jockey" admirals.

 

 

And he felt sorry for Ross, under whose flag the Seventh Fleet had flown.

 

 

The truth was heavy upon Ross as he spoke those words--many more losses would come and they both knew it. Keeping a confident face forward was getting harder by the day. At this rate, they'd be sending out kamikazes within a month.

 

 

"I hope you'll find this office satisfactory," Ross said.

 

 

Sisko fought to keep himself from reacting too much and made sure to appear bewildered. "I wasn't aware I'd be needing an office. I thought I was here for an assignment briefing." "I'm afraid you're going to be here longer than you think, Captain," Ross said somberly. "As of right now, you're no longer in command of the Defiant." Give him a little sense of shock....Ask the right questions, but not too many.

 

 

"Relieved?" Sisko responded with a measured note

 

 

of protest. "Have I done something wrong? I mean, other than losing a station at a critical location and negotiating a treaty between one of our allies and the attacking enemy?" Ross smiled, and after a moment chuckled. "You've got the oddest sense of humor.... You and your people also figured out a way to effectively mine that wormhole and buy us time. You can't squiggle out of the fact that you did okay, given the circumstances.

 

 

The station's still there, Bajor's not blasted to rubble--" "Admiral, don't tell me how wonderful I am while you take away my ship." "Sorry. I lost my adjutant, two vice-admirals, seven commodores, ninety yeomen, and thirty-one Starfleet Intelligence tacticians. I'm not saying it's permanent, but we need you available here at least part of the time, for a while." "A while..." "Just till we can rebuild the tactical core." Sisko tried to cough up another protest, but couldn't read Ross well enough to know how far to push. Better not push at all. "What's my job?" "You'll be my link to Starfleet Intelligence. I wasn't going to do this, but for some reason they suggested you specifically. Probably because you can help them figure out what to look for back in that sector you've been babysitting for the past five years.

 

 

What the Dominion's weak points are, how to take advantage of those--you know more about Cardassian space than most of us, and that's where they've

 

 

got their fleet and support systems staked out. See if you can conjure up some hits. Don't get me wrong, now, you'll be able to take the ship out on special missions, which you'll help develop. You won't be going out with the fleet, though. Would you mind breaking the news to your crew? I'll do it if you want--" "No, sir, I'll do it." "Okay. Sorry about this." "Thank you, sir. You can be assured I'll get right to work. Sir, who's the SI contact for sectors Bravo and Echo in Cardassian space?" "You don't waste time, do you?" "We don't have it to waste, Admiral." "That's why you're here." "Oh... I know."

 

 

"Relieved of command? Why?" "Admiral Ross didn't say. All he said was that we'd get our new assignment at sixteen hundred hours." Sisko sat in his new chair, not looking at Dax as she paced his office and grilled him with a steady gaze that might see through him if he looked her in the eye.

 

 

"At least the crew's staying together," she sighed.

 

 

"We are staying together... aren't we?" "Count on it." "So what do you plan on doing for the next couple of hours?" Oh, the temptation to blurt what was on his mind!

 

 

But he'd made a pact with Martok--just the two of them.

 

 

"I hadn't given it much thought," he said. Instantly the irritation of lying to his oldest friend took a toll at his core. Keep the bigger goal in mind-- "Maybe this would be a good time to contact your father," Dax suggested. "Maybe." "Benjamin," she said, pressing her hands to his desk and leaning toward him, "you haven't spoken to him for months. Jake is his grandson." How do I explain to him that I evacuated every Federation citizen off Deep Space Nine except his grandson?" "You'll think of something. You always do." "Grandson," Sisko mused. "The word brings up an image of a ten-year-old with a fishing pole or a baseball mitt. I still see Jake that way too... but he's not ten years old anymore. He's a grown man. Is it like this for all parents? Look at those long legs and broad shoulders, look him right in the eye after having to bend my neck for most of my life, but suddenly he's as tall and I am and telling me what he's going to do with his life? Is that normal?" Dax smiled. "It's very normal, judging from every parent I've ever talked to. It's a big shock to realize you're not going to be the prime mover in your child's life anymore--he is." "He is," Sisko echoed, "or the Dominion is. I wonder if he really knew what he was doing when he refused to get on one of the transports.... He wants

 

 

to be a journalist, some kind of investigative reporter, and he thinks he has to be in a trench with bombs going off over his head. Who am I to say he's wrong?

 

 

I veered off from my father's plans and ended up in the same trench. Why do I feel as if I abandoned him?" "You're torturing yourself on purpose," Dax flatly said. "He stayed. It was his choice. Your father's going to be mad about it. Some things can't be changed. Deal with it, Benjamin, and don't let it eat at you. Everybody leaves the nest eventually.

 

 

Everybody on that station and everybody on every ship is somebody's child... even Odo had parents I think." "Quit making sense." Sisko shifted in his chair.

 

 

"Get out of here while I call my father and get this over with. Go back to the ship and tell the crew about the command change." "They won't like it." "That's too bad." "Right. See you at sixteen hundred."

 

 

"You did what?" On the main screen, a steamy kitchen looked warm and welcoming, much more so that this cold, moldpressed office. Whatever was bubbling on the stove in the background--Sisko could almost smell the aroma of one of his father's excellent concoctions. Joseph Sisko was famous in some circles for his soups and stews, a rather old-fashioned talent that had come around into favor again. Stuff that could be ladeled

 

 

somehow melted the coldest core. At least one little comer of the quadrant wasn't on rations.

 

 

"Dad," Sisko attempted, fielding the glare of the gaunt dark face on the screen, "it's not quite as bad as it sounds." Resentment for the patronization flared in his father's face. "You mean you didn't leave my grandson at the mercy of a vicious, bloodthirsty enemy?" The little boy with the mitt in one hand and the fishing pole in the other made another quick appearance in Sisko's mind.

 

 

"Well, no... I did." "Then it certainly is as bad as it sounds," his father reasonably accused.

 

 

"Look, Dad, it wasn't my decision," Sisko told him--pretty flimsy. "It was Jake's choice to stay behind--" "Oh, so now you're going to blame this on Jake!" "I'm not blaming Jake, but he's not a child anymore. He has to take responsibility for his own actions." Should he bother explaining again--this would be the third time--that he hadn't known Jake was still on the station until it was too late? That Jake had certainly been given a half dozen opportunities to escape? That Sisko personally assigned Jake to a transport to make sure he had a place in the evacuation? Was it worth going over again or would he just be whining? His father wasn't stupid.

 

 

Joseph Sisko tried to be angry and unreasonable, but through this pause in their discussion something

 

 

changed. The elder Sisko gazed over the light-years between himself and his son, looked over the edge of his disappointment that they couldn't be together, and made a clear effort to mellow his tone. "You think he's all right?" Ben Sisko ran through all the facts and theories in his mind--how the Dominion would treat the son of the Bajoran emissary, tolerate or antagonize himwno point cattailing himself again.

 

 

"I hope so. I'll get him back, Dad, I promise." Ridiculous. What was he promising? To sacrifice his duties, his resources, his contacts, his markers, and everything else he could affect to change one situation which he probably couldn't affect? What kind of desperate idiot made that kind of promise?

 

 

"When?" Joseph Sisko shot back.

 

 

"I don't know," Sisko admitted. "It might be a while. I'm about to be given new orders and I don't know where they're going to send me." Good--great. Twice in ten minutes he'd lied to two people he was close to.

 

 

"Tell them you want to go get your son," his father challenged.

 

 

"It's war time!" Sisko was forced to tell him. "It's not up to me. I go where I'm sent!" To get off that subject as fast as possible, he changed the subject and almost gave himself whiplash. "How's the restaurant doing?" "All right," his father conceded. "It's been three weeks since I poisoned anybody. Are things really as bad as the news service claims?"

 

 

His father apparently wasn't going to be either fooled or misdirected.

 

 

"Maybe worse," Sisko admitted.

 

 

"You certainly know how to comfort a frightened old man." The weight of deception grew heavier. "You didn't raise me to be a liar." "I raised you to be a chef," his father shot back, "for all the good it did me. You know, there's something I just don't understand. You're always telling me that space is big, that it's an endless frontier, filled with infinite wonders." "It's true--" "Well, if that's the case, you'd think there would be more than enough room to allow people to leave each other alone." "It just doesn't work that way. It should, but it doesn't." For a moment, both men coveted a universe that didn't exist. They both knew perfectly well that a simplistic grade school approach of a complex galaxy just wasn't any kind of reality. The full tapestry of commerce, struggle, hopes, goals, efforts, and power shifts just couldn't fit into a nursery rhyme.

 

 

"I'd better be going," his father said. "The lunch crowd's coming in. You watch yourself, Ben, and bring me back my grandson." "I will." "I love you." "Love you, too." The comm clicked off, but only because Joseph

 

 

Sisko turned it off on his end. Well, that was done.

 

 

Lies on top of lies, for as yet unseen goals. This was harder than Sisko had anticipated.

 

 

"Captain Sisko," the comm voice cracked from the deputy secretary's office.

 

 

"Yes?" Sisko answered.

 

 

"It's fifteen fifty-five. Admiral Ross, Commander Dax, and Dr. Bashit are here." "Have them come right in. Why didn't you tell me they were waiting?" "Sorry, sir." The door opened and his two crewmen came in with Admiral Ross. Ross nodded a quick greeting, then went straight to the nearest wall monitor and shoved in a computer cartridge. "Here's the analysis of your information from Echo Sector, Ben. That was fast work on your part." "Thank you, sir." Sisko came out from behind his desk and joined them at the monitor, exchanging brief glances from the perplexed Bashir and the evermellow Dax.

 

 

A stellar cartography map showed up on the screen, saving him from having to say anything to them or answer their silent questions.

 

 

"This is a great piece of information," Ross said.

 

 

"Captain Sisko has isolated one of the Dominion's main supply depots for support of Jem Hadar troops." "The Defiant is ready for a mission," Dax offered, anticipating the reason she had been summoned here.

 

 

"I know," Ross said, "but you won't be taking the Defiant." Bashir scowled. "Then why are we here?" "Captain Sisko had to be relieved of Defiant's command. It's because, with all the requests for command status coming in to us, we couldn't justify giving one person command of two ships." The admiral paced across the star chart. "Starfleet Intelligence has discovered what we believe to be their main storage facility for ketracel white in the Alpha Quadrant, right here, deep within Cardassian space. We need to destroy it." "Without the white to sustain them," Bashir offered, just thinking aloud, "the Jem Hadar won't be able to function." "Without the white," Ross clarified, "the Jem Hadar will die." "I won't shed any tears," Dax said, "not if it helps win this war." "It may be the only way we can end this war," Ross told her grimly, "other than surrendering." Bashir, still lingering back, offered, "But how do you expect us to infiltrate Cardassian territory without the Defiant and its cloaking abilities?" Sisko capped a grin that might've given him away.

 

 

"I was wondering the same thing." "You won't need a cloaking device," Ross said. "We have something even better." He tapped a panel and the monitor changed to a live view of a Jem Hadar crab-shaped advance-attack ship hovering in a Star fleet docking bay. "It's the one

 

 

you captured last year, Captain. Now you get a chance to see what it can do." Julian Bashir turned to Sisko. "Do you even know how to fly that thing?" "Not yet," Sisko told him. "But I intend to learn."

 

 

Sisko scheduled the mission for two weeks and would hear of no extensions. Still adjutant to Ross, he had managed to maneuver Ross into thinking that Sisko was the best operations commander for the ketracel raid, on the logic that nobody else would know about this. His own crew from Defiant would man the captured Jem Hadar attacker, further tightening the circle of knowledge about the mission, even though such secrecy required risking the life of Nog, a cadet. That was neither standard nor very wise operating procedure, but these were hard times. All support personnel from the Defiant had been isolated, then transferred to the attacker and had not been allowed to contact anybody since the move.

 

 

For two weeks Dax and O'Brien had been figuring out the systems and training the crew to run them.

 

 

Not optimal, but it could be done in a pinch. Nobody on board would be an expert at everything, or anything, but individuals would understand a panel or two. The element of teamwork would be less available, but innovation might make up for it. The guidance matrix, thrusters, sensor fees, reactor core, induction, phaser coils, resonance emitters and the subspace grid had been made priorities--everything needed to make the ship go forward and fight if it had

 

 

to. They just had to run the attacker, not run it particularly well.

 

 

The only major change was acceding to Bashir's request to install an infirmary and stock it with medical supplies and a limited-use diagnostic couch and sterile screen. Other than that, the Jem Hadar ship didn't even have a chair to sit in.

 

 

Sisko had refused requests to install anything else, even a food replicator. He didn't want any notable hardware changes that might be picked up on diagnostic sensors and give away the fact that any beings other than Jem Hadar were manning the attacker.

 

 

During these two weeks, as hard as it had been, Sisko deliberately didn't board the Jem Hadar ship very often or stay very long. If he were on board, the crew in training would turn to him with questions or for ideas, and he didn't want them to turn to him. He wanted them to figure things out on their own, because in the middle of action they couldn't be turning to him. Trial by fire didn't do any good if nobody got scorched.

 

 

On the fourteenth day, Sisko walked onto the bridge of the Jem Hadar ship, with DS9's favorite Cardassian shadow, Garak, tagging behind him, grinning like a clown at having been asked to come along.

 

 

They were going into Cardassian space. Made sense to have a Cardassian face to offer up on a monitor if necessity dictated.

 

 

Nobody saw them enter. Garak remained a step behind him, and blessedly remained silent. For a few moments, Sisko simply stood at the lift vestibule and

 

 

watched the crew whom he would soon be taking into the jaws of desperate danger. He watched, and listened.

 

 

"Guidance matrix, check," Dax was saying, standing rod-straight at the tactical controls. "Aft parabolic thrusters... check. Sensor feed... check.

 

 

Chief?" At the engineering station, O'Brien was wrist deep in an open panel. "Reactor core... check. Induction stabilizers, check. Phaser coils... check." "Nog?" "Resonance emitters, check," the young Ferengi recruit chittered. He always sounded nervous.

 

 

"Subspace field grid, check, signal processors, check--I think.... " O'Brien looked up. "What do you mean, 'you think'? We've been training on this ship for two weeks." The frustrated cadet glanced up. "I'd like to put a Jem Hadar soldier on the Defiant and see how well he does after two weeks. These controls are very.

 

 

different. They take time to get used to." Sisko smiled sadly, but still kept quiet, and gestured Garak to wait.

 

 

O'Brien picked at his board. "We don't have any more time. We're about to take this ship into enemy territory and we can't afford any slip-ups." "I don't intend to make any, Chiefi" "Good." Nog shifted uneasily on his feet. "I still don't see why we couldn't install a few chairs on the bridge."

 

 

"Because the bridge wasn't designed for chairs," O'Brien told him drably.

 

 

"Well, my feet aren't designed to stand for long periods of time," Nog said. "They get tired." "Then maybe we should leave you behind." Suddenly even more nervous, Nog bent to his work.

 

 

"My feet might like that, but I wouldn't." "Believe me, Cadet," O'Brien drawled on, "it's not your feet that you need to worry about. It's your stomach. Maybe you haven't noticed, but there isn't a single food replicator aboard this ship." "That shouldn't be a problem. Captain Sisko says we'll have plenty of rations." O'Brien laughed. "Try eating nothing but field rations for three weeks, and then tell me it's not a problem!" Dax looked around at them. "You want to know what is a problem? No viewscreen. Who builds a bridge without a window?" Good point--Sisko glanced around, noting how closed-in the Jem Hadar command area really did feel. Even Defiant's tightly packed bridge felt less like a box cave than this place.

 

 

He was about to speak up, notify them of his presence, when Julian Bashir appeared out of a back bay of the bridge and handed a padd to Dax. "The same people who build a ship without an infirmary.

 

 

That's the list of all the medical supplies I brought on board. They're in my quarters, for lack of a better place." Scanning the list superficially, Dax said, "We'll try

 

 

not to have any medical emergencies while you're asleep." "I'm glad you find the lack of proper medical facilities amusing. But if trouble breaks out, it's not a viewscreen or a chair or even a sandwich you'll be wanting. It's a bio-bed with a surgical tissue regenerator." Was there an edge to his voice? Sisko glanced at Garak, who was the doctor's friend, and felt as if the Cardassian were confirming his suspicion. Bashir had been notably colder, more blunt, and less easygoing since Dax and Worf announced they were getting married. Though it had seemed outwardly that he had long ago retired any hopes about himself and Dax, some things had a hard time dying a final death.

 

 

"Maybe," Dax flowed over the harshness, "but right now I'd settle for a viewscreen." "Or a chair," Nog threw in.

 

 

And O'Brien--"Or a sandwich." Sisko took a deliberate step forward, making sure that his movement was big enough to quell the banter.

 

 

O'Brien saw him instantly and piped, "Captain's on the... I guess it's a bridge." "All right, people," Sisko broadcast firmly, "prepare for departure." Bashir, who would be manning the long-range sensor monitorsmat least until there were casualtiesm asked, "Come to see us off, Garak?" "Not quite," the Cardassian said.

 

 

"I've invited Mr. Garak to join us," Sisko told

 

 

them. "Considering we're going into Cardassian territory, he might prove useful." With unshielded joy at his friend's presence, Bashir patted Garak on the shoulder as he stepped past him toward the long-range station.

 

 

Garak smiled at the welcome. "It's been known to happen." From behind the picket-like stand of cylindrical monitor housings at the engineering station, O'Brien drawled, "Pull up a chair." As Sisko crossed over to the command position, the lack of any place to sit down became irritatingly obvious when he had no command chair to slip into. He felt half undressed.

 

 

"We're cleared for departure, sir," Nog reported.

 

 

At the helm, Dax was watching him and waiting.

 

 

He nodded to her. "Take us out, old man." "Aye, Captain. Aft thrusters at one-half." As the Jem Hadar prize pulled out from Starbase 375 and quickly left the star system behind, Sisko put on one of the virtual headsets with which the Jem Hadar crew operated their vessel. Creating a pinching sensation inside his head as its signal connected directly with his brain, the little screen immediately gave him a view of the stern of the ship and the beautiful construction of the starbase receding into the distance. When they cleared the last planet in the solar system, they were automatically clear of the Starbase-approach spacelane and were free to maneuver.

 

 

"Bring us about," he ordered.

 

 

The ship made a sudden and very harsh tilt, and the virtual-view of rushing space in front of Sisko's eye abruptly took a tumble. Judging from the wobbling of the crew, everybody else was having the same problem with equilibrium and recovery as Dax's hands shot across the helm and recouped her control.

 

 

"Just wanted to make sure everyone was awake," she claimed.

 

 

"We are now," Sisko said. "Let's keep it nice and easy, all right?" "I can try.... " "Set a course for the Cardassian border, heading zero-five-four mark zero-nine-three. Warp six." "Yes, sir." Starbase 375 was in a fairly well protected area, but also was one of the most distant starbases from Earth in this direction, putting them functionally much closer to Cardassian space than to the inner Federation sanctum. It took only a matter of hours at warp six to enter the patrol zone of the strongest fighting ships Starfleet had left and finally tease the Cardassian border, which in this area was not cleanly delineated. Many of the lines were in dispute. Sisko had no way to guess who might come popping up out of a cloud--Jem Hadar to welcome them "back," Cardassians who might be more savvy and demand to board, Starfleet who would probably open fire on an "escaping" enemy vessel, Klingons who might not care even to answer a hail before blasting away--anything could happen.

 

 

And something already had. His head was exploding.

 

 

He'd tried to deal with the headaches until the pain became so bad that he could scarcely see the view fed directly into his brain by the Jem Hadar virtual scanner headset. What good was this device if it gave him headaches so severe that he didn't care what it was showing him on its screen?

 

 

A hiss against his neck told him that Dr. Bashir had arrived with the hypospray to treat the headache, but Sisko didn't respond much. He was leaned over on one of the consoles, listening to the kettledrum in his skull. Not exactly jazz.

 

 

"There," Bashir said. "I wish I had more time to study the side effects of wearing that headset." "Well," Sisko moaned, "at least we know one side effect... headaches." "The headsets were designed to be worn by Vorta or Jem Hadar, not by humans." "Captain," Garak interrupted, "may I make a suggestion?" Keeping his eyes closed as the muscles in his neck began to unknot, Sisko moaned, "Only if you talk.

 

 

softly." "We saw Dukat wearing one of those headsets during the attack on Deep Space Nine. Perhaps Cardassian physiology is more compatible." "Are you volunteering?" "I suppose I am... the ship carries two of them. If I wear one, you won't have to. At least, not all the time."

 

 

"I agree with Garak, Captain," Bashir nearly whispered. "The less you wear it, the better." Without moving much, Sisko picked up the other headset and passed it to Garak, who put it on.

 

 

"It's like having a viewscreen inside your brain," the Cardassian commented as he scanned the little vision being projected directly into his retina. Then he took a quick breath, seeming at first to be a reaction to the sense of reality he was experiencing, but an alert from Cadet Nog proved that more was going on.

 

 

"Sir, there's a Federation ship off our starboard bow, bearing one-five-seven mark zero-nine-five--it's the U.S.S. Centaur.t" Sisko almost put the headset back on, but hesitated.

 

 

"That's Charlie Reynolds' ship--" "I see it!" Garak gasped.

 

 

An instant later, a phaser blast rocked the ship, and they knew they were the enemy.

 

 

CHAPTER 8

 

 

ARMED, SHIELDED SHIP OR NOT, Starfleet phasers were still good.

 

 

Sisko put the evil headset back on. He had to see what was happening. Despite the twisting of his gut, he wasn't surprised at all. This was what he'd been afraid of from the moment Charlie Reynolds had said, "Cardassian border." Here was Sisko and his crew in an enemy ship, trying to execute a covert mission, unable to tell a damned soul about it without risking the security of the mission.

 

 

Luckily, Charlie didn't have a soul.

 

 

"Cadet! Open a channel to the Centaur." Sisko had let the Jem Hadar ship take a couple of hits before deciding to do that. It meant opening the circle a little wider and letting Charlie Reynolds and his crew know that this was a Starfleet covert opera-

 

 

tion. Might not be smart, but it was expedient. They had to go into Cardassian space with a ship that hadn't taken too much damage, or they might never get out again.

 

 

"I can't--" Nog's Ferengi face crumpled. "Our comm system's down!" Good hit. Garak offered, "Then perhaps you should consider returning fire." Bashir snapped him a glare. "We can't do that!

 

 

They're Starfleet." Another hit rocked across the deflectors, shuddering through the ship and almost knocking them off their feet. This standing up all the time was awkward.

 

 

"You tell them, not us," Garak warned.

 

 

Another hit--definitely war time, because nobody was taking any chances. Hit before you get hit.

 

 

"We'd better do something," O'Brien suggested, but made no specific claims to know what that something should be.

 

 

In a way the comm's being down was lucky. If they lived to get out of this--and they had to let themselves be killed before they would kill a Starfleet crew doing a good job--then the circle would remain tight.

 

 

"Dax," Sisko ordered, "get us across the border, maximum warp. Let's hope Charlie Reynolds knows better than to follow us into Dominion territory." Reynolds--why did it have to be Charlie right after they'd just said hello after fifteen years? Twelve.

 

 

Whatever. Reynolds had never been very clever but he was stupifyingly stubborn. He'd gotten through the Academy because he just never gave up, even though

 

 

everything took him twice as long as it took most other captain candidates. Once he finally learned something, he never forgot it. He had limited knowledge, but his knowledge never faded like most people's. He knew his failings, knew his strengths, and dealt accordingly. And he was a genius at picking crewmen who made up for those failings. As a result, he had a deadly team over there.

 

 

But Sisko had a slight advantage--he knew who his opponent was. His former simulation partner. Unless Charlie had grown an improvisation muscle in the past twelve years, Sisko would still know Charlie's moves.

 

 

On the little painful screen in his head, a Starfleet patrol ship packed with special agents from Intelligence raced after them in hot pursuit, spitting fire.

 

 

Ironic--working for Starfleet Intelligence, Charlie wasn't just protecting the border, but, like Sisko, was probably more worried about protecting his ship's secrecy. If he and Charlie knew about each other's tasks, they both had reason to keep their mouths shut.

 

 

If only the comm system were working-- "How long before we cross the border?" he pestered.

 

 

Working furiously at the helm on evasive maneuvers, Dax gave him the cryptic answer. "We just did." And the Centaur wasn't breaking pursuit. Reynolds was chasing them over the border. That confirmed Sisko's suspicion that Reynolds had authority to eradicate anyone who could spill the beans about Centaur's presence.

 

 

"The Centaur's still with us," Nog confirmed.

 

 

Sisko glowered. "Charlie never did know when to quit," he said halfheartedly, knowing he was under an obligation to keep mum about Reynolds' assignment, even to his own friends.

 

 

O'Brien reached to compensate for damage. "I hope he knows what he's doing.... " "The question is," Garak reliably mentioned, "do we know what we're doing?" The ship rocked and gulped under them as the Starfleet vessel hit them again.

 

 

"Captain," Dax reported, "that last hit damaged one of our guidance thrusters." In that split second he reversed his logic. If he and his crew were killed, there would be no Jem Hadar capture with which to sneak into Cardassian space.

 

 

Starfleet would lose its chance to destroy the ketracel white processing station. If the ketracel stores and the station that made more could be destroyed, the Jem Hadar would be on much more critical rations than anyone in the Federation and they didn't handle that very well. Suddenly the situation turned over like a pancake in Sisko's mind and the mission he and his crew were on became more important to the big picture than Charlie and his crew.

 

 

An ugly truth, but he accepted it in a moment. He would take his chances.

 

 

"Drop out of warp and come about." He turned to O'Brien. "Prepare to return fire." Shocked and hesitant to fire on one of their own ships, the crew reacted with an exchange of disturbed glances.

 

 

"Yes, sir," O'Brien uttered.

 

 

Dax scanned her readouts. "The Centaur's followed us out of warp." Now at impulse, the two ships slipped past each other, exchanging fire, but it was easy to see that O'Brien's heart wasn't in the shots. He was hitting the Centaur, but only on the upper skin. No deathblows.

 

 

Even with the turn of events, the Centaur came about for another broadside and maneuvered for the superior position, above and just aft of Sisko. Dax managed to duck hard over and just briefly confuse the other ship.

 

 

"Target their weapons array," Sisko said, glancing at O'Brien. "Avoid their engines. I don't want to leave Charlie stranded on the wrong side of the border." "We're coming about for another pass," Dax narrated, showing Sisko her intents.

 

 

"Charlie likes to swing for the fences," Sisko said, "so stay in tight. Attack pattern Omega." In response, Dax maneuvered the Jem Hadar ship in a sharp turn to come in low, under the Centaur and O'Brien quickly strafed the other ship's underbelly as it flew by, scrubbing the sub-lateral weapons outlets.

 

 

The Centaur made a wide banking turn back toward them as before, then suddenly changed its mind and angled away.

 

 

"The Centaur's going to warp," Dax told them with a quiet victory overlying her relief. "It's heading back to Federation space." "Yes?' Nog cheered.

 

 

Garak turned to O'Brien. "Nice work, Chief." At the confirmation that he wasn't going to have to kill an old friend, relief poured over Sisko.

 

 

O'Brien didn't seem as comforted. "Thanks," the engineer said, "but I didn't know I'd scored a direct hit." Sisko looked around for anyone who had an answer, because somebody would-- "Maybe you didn't," Dax spoke up. "I'm picking up three Jem Hadar ships headed this way." Stepping to her helm and looking at the monitor, Sisko said, "Charlie must've seen them." From one tension to another.... They watched as the three Jem Hadar ships streaked toward them, carrying enough combined firepower to turn an outpost to toast. Sisko braced for whatever might happen. Would they demand an inspection? Want a conversation?

 

 

The three ships roared in and sailed right past them.

 

 

Amazed, Nog said, "They went right past us." Dax picked at her controls. "Without even bothering to say hello." O'Brien scowled at his monitors. "They're too busy chasing the Centaur." Gripped by concern, Bashir asked, "You think Reynolds will outrun them?" Sisko drew a tight breath, but couldn't give them the answer they wanted. He couldn't give the order to turn and protect their comrades at the expense of their secret and their mission. Like them, Captain Reynolds was on his own.

 

 

"Charlie's been in tight spots before," he told them.

 

 

"He'll make it." What else could he say?

 

 

"I wish we could help," Dax murmured.

 

 

"We can't. Chief, get our comm system back on line. Dax, return to course.... Warp seven."

 

 

"They're opening fire! Targeting our engines." "Engines?" "Confirmed, engine target this time." "Aft shields, quick! What took 'em so long? Get back over the border and we'll see what we can do.

 

 

Continue evasive, Randy." "Evasive, Charlie!" "Don't shout." "Okay." "Chief, what's our engine status?" Charlie Reynolds waited for an answer, and when nothing came he turned and squinted through the Centaur's smoke-choked bridge at his chief engineer, who was bent over the console with half his body down inside a hatch-trunk. Unconscious?

 

 

Reynolds pushed out of the command chair, stepped to the rail, reached over it and caught the engineer's elbow. "Fitz, you all right?" "Yeah, don't pull on my arm. I got a hot phasic adaptor in my hand." "Thought you passed out." "Not yet." "How bad is it?" "Pretty bad." "Can we keep up warp speed?" "We better." "Don't suffocate in there." "Yeah, yeah.... "

 

 

"Randy, go to warp six. Get us out of here. Roger, fire at will and keep it up. Don't let them get another engine shot or we're cooked." "Warp six, aye." "Firing at will, Charlie." Reynolds stepped over the unconscious form of their tactical ensign and noted that the kid was at least breathing. He'd only been assigned yesterday.

 

 

The only way to save him was to save everybody, and that meant the ship.

 

 

"Randy, warp seven if you can make it." 'Tll try." Helmsman Randall Lang brushed a hot spark off his sleeve and bent to his console. "Six point four... five..." Reynolds reached forward from where he was standing next to the command chair and brushed a few more sparks off Lang's shoulder as a reassuring gesture that they were all still taking care of each other. Little things counted.

 

 

He liked his small ship and his small crew. Most of them had been together for more than five years, since the first major crew transfer to Blue Rocket. Nobody paid much attention, so nobody bothered to transfer anybody out of there. Blue Rocket had been a wellkept secret for most Starfleet people out there.

 

 

Occasionally somebody wanted to leave and requested a transfer, but Starfleet almost never called with new orders for anybody. It was a nice, secure posting.

 

 

Great for a guy with eight kids and a sense of neighborhood.

 

 

Till the war hit. Now, they were all out here on this limb, hoping to stay together. A few deaths, a few new

 

 

recruits, but so far they were still mostly together.

 

 

From day to day, though, they were nettled by a sense of impermanence.

 

 

He was their only anchor to getting back to Blue Rocket and reestablishing everything they'd given up.

 

 

So far he'd managed to think, and to keep his crew thinking, that all this was just a temporary juncture.

 

 

To keep them distracted, to keep the ship relevant and necessary, to make sure nobody even thought of breaking them up, Charlie Reynolds had snapped at every chance for active duty. At the moment that meant infiltration. And that meant running hot before three Jem Hadar guard ships.

 

 

"One of 'em's veering off, Charlie." Science Officer Geraldine Ruddy had both hands on her console as she turned to him. "Vectoring back over the border." "We're only worth two," Reynolds commented.

 

 

"Keep tabs on that one till he's out of range, Gerrie.

 

 

What're the other two doing?" "Full speed, direct pursuit course. If we keep up this speed, they probably won't be able to get around us to ambush us." Reynolds swung around to the navigator. "Any obstacles in our way?" At the helm beside Lang, Roger Buick chewed on his perpetual toothpick and shook his head. "No, Charlie, we're full and by. Nothing but straight, straight, and more straight." "Hear that, Rand?" "I heard," Lang responded, his black hair plastered to his forehead, spiking over his eyes as he concentrated on his helm. "Throttle's up."

 

 

Prowling the command center, Reynolds churned with both curiosity and frustration. Why hadn't that first Jem Hadar ship opened fire on them right away?

 

 

Why had a single Jem Hadar tried so hard to escape a single Starfleet cruiser that was in fact several metric tons smaller and notably less armed? They hadn't read any significant damage on that ship, so what was going on?

 

 

When that ship did fire, why did it only target the Centaur's weapons array? Why were the shots so clumsy and halfhearted? Jem Hadar were predictable in their methods--full-out all the time, constant and untended aggression, shoot to kill. Why hadn't they done that?

 

 

"Maybe the ship was crewed by Cardassians," he murmured aloud, furrowing his blond brows.

 

 

"Gerrie, did you get a scan on that ship?" "Which one?" "The first one. The one by itself on the other side of the border." "The one we attacked?" "Right." "What kind of scan? Bio?" "Yeah. Who was inside?" "I didn't get that, Charlie. Their sensor shields were already up." "If they didn't see us coming, why were their sensor shields up?" "With the energy drain from that, I don't have any idea. You wouldn't run with it unless you had a reason, would you? I mean, would they?" Reynolds shook his head. "They're ugly, but they're

 

 

not stupid. Something's going on. Where are those two ships now?" "Same," Randy Lang said, "but still closing." "Fitz, can we dump something to slow them down?

 

 

Fitz!" At his sharp call, the upper engineering trunk regurgitated Mohammed Fitzgerald, a handsome and perpetually young warp engineer with striking brown eyes and flaming red hair that was actually burned in a couple of places. Fitzgerald's face was pink with rushing blood and glazed with sweat. "You call me, Charlie?" In spite of everything, Reynolds chuckled. "I think you burned your nose." "I can't feel my nose." "That's okay. If you get us out of this, I'll buy you a new one. You got anything we can dump on those two ships after us? Anything to slow them down, give us a couple of light-years? Coolant? Antimatter?

 

 

Radiant-" "Anything we could dump would cause us to have a corresponding slack in forward thrust," Fitzgerald said. "And it might also give us a surge off course, which would give them the edge instead of us. Why don't we just keep going straight and keep our aft shields doubled?" As if in answer, a fierce hit from the Jem Hadar weapons struck the Centaur so hard in the port quarter that Reynolds was thrown bodily over the rail and Fitzgerald slammed backward to crash into the trunk he'd been trying to work in.

 

 

"Charlie!"

 

 

That was Randy Lang.

 

 

A hand gripped Reynold's arm and pulled him to his knees. He grasped the rail, then squeezed Lang's hand and said, "I'm fine. Drive the ship." "Your head's bleeding." "Drive, Rand, drive." He tried to get to his feet, but he couldn't find them.

 

 

He'd had them a minute ago. Oh--there's one.

 

 

The ship heaved again. Another hit?

 

 

"Captain's on the bridge, literally. Up you go." Fitzgerald hauled him to his feet.

 

 

All Reynolds had to do now was stay up. His head took a few seconds to clear. By the time he could think again, he was standing braced against the rail and the ship rumbling with another enemy strike.

 

 

"That was stronger. Are they getting closer?" "One of them is," Gerrie Ruddy confirmed. "The other one's losing ground. We've still got a pit bull on us, though. We're well over the border, Charlie.

 

 

They've got a lot of nerve to do this." "The Jem Hadar don't care from nerve. They just go, go, go." Lang glanced up from his helm. "You mean they'll just follow us until they catch us?" "Or until somebody comes to head them off and help us." "What if nobody comes?" The cold answer needed no voicing, but Reynolds shrugged and blew it away with, "Then we'll crash land on Earth and take shore leave on Tobago, what else?" To his relief, everybody laughed. Even the ensign on the deck moaned and grinned up at him with an annoyed expression. Taking that as encouragement, Reynolds asked, "Fitz, you sure we can't make 'em skid?" Fitzgerald turned a spanner over and over in his hands as he thought about that. "Well... you know, there's no reason we have to drop energy on them, is there?" Reynolds dared take one hand off the rail as he turned to face Fitz. "Like what else? Something solid?

 

 

Those cable bundles?" He and Fitzgerald stood looking at each other for several seconds, as if memorizing each other's faces.

 

 

The engineer finally shrugged. "Why not?" It was a fatalistic why not, but it gave them hope.

 

 

Bundles of cable meant for delivery to another ship, to be sent off someplace for some reason Reynolds didn't even know about, lay stacked in their durable and well-used hold. Centaur wasn't really a cargo ship or a fighter, but more Starfleet's idea of an all-purpose truck, used in the past for everything from transport to defense, mining to support, intelligence to the notvery-intelligent.

 

 

"You want to really mess things up?" Gerrie suggested. "Unspool the bundles before we jettison." "Oh, what a great evil idea! Call below! Do it! Have the security team do it. Send some ensigns down there to help. Tell 'era to make it fast, not neat. Speaking of ensigns, somebody get that poor kid off the deck." Since the navigating was done for this particular straight-line, Roger Buick stepped out from his seat, reached under the rail, and pulled Ensign Aryl from

 

 

the upper deck through to the command deck and sat him on the edge of a step. "You hurt, kid?" Buick asked.

 

 

Reynolds kept one eye on them and one on the monitor showing the Jem Hadar pursuit ships as two gray dots dead astern.

 

 

"Of course he's hurt," he commented. He wanted to say something comforting and call the kid by his first name, but Aryl was Argelian and they only had one name.

 

 

"No, I'm not hurt," Aryl countered, which was just what Reynolds was going for. The kid pressed both hands to his face for a moment, rubbed some life back into his expression, pressed back his debris-dusted brown hair and pushed to his feet. "I can work, I'm not hurt.... " "Next time you see a console explode, don't rush right over there. Take your post. Roger, you too." "Aye, sir," Buick responded, and slid back behind the nay station, not that he had much to navigate. On a ship this small, he was their comm officer, too, but he also had nothing to comm. So he sat there and manned weapons they probably weren't going to expend unless they had to turn and fight.

 

 

Backing into his command chair, Reynolds tapped the comm. "Hold, tell me when you're ready with those spools." "Almost ready. We've got about six of them unrolled.

 

 

Four to go. They're just in piles, Charlie. That what you want?" "That's it, Narhi. Make it good and messy. I want a big tangle."

 

 

'7 think we can accommodate." "Fast." "Understood." "And see if you... Rand, keep the speed up!" "It won't--I'm losing power!" The helmsman hammered at his controls, then glanced fiercely at Fitzgerald. "Fitz, do something!" Fitzgerald plunged for the part of the engineering console that was still blinking and jabbed at the panels, then looked around quickly. "Fall-off, Charlie! I can't stop it." Reynolds swung back to the command chair.

 

 

"Hold, it's now or never. Shove everything into the aft loading bay and jettison." There was no response, but Reynolds resisted demanding one. He'd suddenly given them an order to get busy and he hoped that was what they were doing.

 

 

At the last moment he added, "Pitch the crates out, too, Narhi. And your tools." Still no answer. Speed was slipping. The hits from the firing Jem Hadar pursuit ship now rocked Centaur every four or five seconds. Shields were flickering.

 

 

the whole bridge lit like a holiday tree with alarm lights and electrical surges. Couldn't last much longer.

 

 

Geraldine Ruddy slammed a fist on her science console and watched the aft-view screen. "Jettison!" CHAPTER 9

 

 

CH~am~ Re~q,~OLDS rushed to Science Officer Ruddy's side, and was instantly joined by half the bridge crew.

 

 

He glanced around ridiculously just to make sure that Randy Lang hadn't been lured from the helm or Fitz from the engines, but they were both watching one of Fitz's monitors, showing the same view of their aft space and the pursuit ship.

 

 

And then, all at once, a cloud of wire, cord, cable, spools, and parts of metal crates blew out into view and instantly hovered at the back of Centaur in a great wad.

 

 

"Get some speed, Fitz, anywhere you can," Reynolds said quickly. "We've got to outpace it!" "I can tap the shields, but that's--" "Do it!"

 

 

"Okay, increasing speed. Rand, take whatever you can get." Lang sweated over his console, but his silent determination told them there was some thrust coming into his helm.

 

 

On the screen, the wad of tangled wire moved away from them and the distance between the Jem Hadar ship kept closing very swiftly. The enemy ship kept coming, then suddenly tried to veer off.

 

 

"Look!" Gerrie cried. "They've seen it!" "Even if they miss it, we'll gain ground," Reynolds told them. Had to keep those spirits up.

 

 

But at the last instant the Jem Hadar ship's port wing caught just a hair of the floating tumbleweed.

 

 

That was enough. The wad of wire and cable whipped instantly around and snagged the entire enemy ship, whirling in a sharp and slashing tornado. As it slammed into the ship's hull at fabulous velocity, it cut cleanly through several hull sections and halved the weapons and sensor arrays. Compromised in a dozen ways, the enemy ship whirled like a plate on a stick, round and round, gathering more and more wire and cable, and finally colliding with the pieces of metal crating. The metal smashed the ship surgically as well as any meteor shower.

 

 

Falling off from both speed and direction, the Jem Hadar ship heaved up vertically and started tumbling through space as if it were rolling down a rocky hill.

 

 

"Damn, what a great wreck! Rand, reduce speed.

 

 

Conserve that power. Buick, call the Starfleet Sector Guard and tell 'em where to pick up another captured ship and a really embarrassed pack of jar-heads!"

 

 

The crew cheered, laughed, and rushed to their duties, clearly surprised that they'd survived at all, never mind made a capture.

 

 

Rather stunned himself, suddenly dizzy, Reynolds pressed a hand to his aching head and let his skull throb for a few seconds. Just letting it hurt somehow helped a little.

 

 

When his thoughts began to clear, he dropped into his command chair and opened his eyes. "Gerrie..." "Yes?" "Also put in a call to Starbase 375 as soon as we clear silence radius. I want an appointment." "Who do you want an appointment with?" "My old pal the flag admiral. I'm going to walk into his office, climb up on top of his desk, look down at him from on high, and demand, 'All right, Rossm what's going on?'"

 

 

"The ship ahead just transmitted a message to the asteroid's storage facility.... They're requesting to be resupplied with ketracel white." "Looks like we've come to the right place." After making her comment on Garak's observation, Dax readjusted her helm, taking greater care now that the captured Jem Hadar beetle they were hiding in was traveling in Jem Hadar space and any mismanagement of the vessel might be noticed. Sisko appreciated the effort.

 

 

Garak continued monitoring the communication between the other Jem Hadar ship and the facility on the small asteroid they were approaching. This was it--one of the "special missions" he had wheedled

 

 

out of Starfleet Command, thanks to Vice-Admiral Warner's pressure on Admiral Ross's depleted fleet condition. The ship ahead of them wanted a new supply of ketracel white to keep its crew alive, and thus moved into tighter orbit around the asteroid.

 

 

"I just saw a security net flash around the asteroid, Captain," Garak reported. "They just let that ship inside the net to be restocked." "Keep watching, Garak," Sisko told him, battling the temptation to put a headset on and see for himself. "Don't miss any details--" "That ship beamed down a hundred and ten empty canisters," Garak reported. "And now the storage facility is beaming up a hundred and ten full ones." Quickly Sisko tapped his combadge. "Everything ready, Chief?." Over the comm, Miles O'Brien answered, "I've got eighty-three empty canisters standing by... and one not so empty. Ninety isotons of enriched ultritium shouM take out the entire storage facility and everything else within eight hundred kilometers." "Then we'd better be nine hundred kilometers away when the bomb goes--" "The other ship is leaving orbit," Garak said.

 

 

Sisko turned. "Dax?" "The entire exchange," she said, "took ninety-two point three seconds." Quickly Garak tapped on his panel. "I've asked for eighty-four canisters of ketracel white....Excellent!

 

 

They're acknowledging my request." Ah, the wonders of redundancy. Watching all this go on, seeing his crew exact his orders with such fluid

 

 

efficiency, and having the processing station down there be so accommodating, Sisko appreciated the convenient predictability of the Jem Hadar.

 

 

He held his breath as his beetle-shaped prize moved in for its own replenishment, ticked off a few seconds, then said, "Chief, set the detonator for three minutes." "Detonator set." "Three minutes?" Bashir turned to him. "If it takes us ninety-two seconds to make the exchange, that doesn't leave us much time to get away." "It doesn't give the Jem Hadar much time to detect the explosive either." By this, Sisko clearly made the doctor understand that their survival wasn't the main idea of this mission, as it may have been in other recent maneuvers. Bashir fell quiet and didn't protest as Sisko looked at Dax and said, "Beam down the canisters." "Canisters away." Nog looked up from his set of cylindrical monitor housings. "I hope whoever's in charge down there hasn't take a lunch break." Nervous, Bashir uselessly said, "The Jem Hadar don't eat, Nog." "That's good," the cadet responded. "How do we know they're Jem Hadar?" "Relax, cadet," Dax told him. "Everything's on schedule. They've just beamed eighty-four canisters of white into our cargo hold." Garak tapped his controls again, as he had been instructed to do. "I've acknowledged receipt and requested clearance for departure."

 

 

"Good," Sisko said. "Prepare to go to warp." "Standing by," Dax responded.

 

 

"Captain, I think we have a problem--" Garak tensed abruptly. "They've raised their security net!" "Repeat our request for clearance." Tap, tap, tapm "They're not responding." Stepping close to Sisko, Bashir lowered his voice and quickly said, "If they don't drop the net before the bomb goes off, we don't stand a chance!" Reliably Dax reported, "One minute thirty seconds to detonation." As Chief O'Brien hurried onto the bridge, Nog gasped, "You think they found the bomb?" "I doubt it," O'Brien told him, "not this fast." The doctor looked at him. "Then why aren't they letting us go?" "Good question." Sisko clenched his fists.

 

 

"Captain," Garak broke in, "they're responding.... They're ordering us to stand by." "For what?" "They're not saying." "One minute fifteen seconds," Dax ticked off.

 

 

Sisko turned. "Chief, can we punch a hole through that security net?" "Sure, but it'll take a couple minutes." "We don't have a couple minutes. What about disabling the net's power generator?" "The explosion'11 do that," Nog grumbled.

 

 

To which Garak commented, "That won't do us much good."

 

 

From Dax--"One minute." "Maybe it will," Sisko murmured. "When the generator is destroyed, the net'11 go down.... All we have to do is time it so we're moving fast enough at the moment of detonation to avoid getting caught in the explosion." Dax looked at him. "But not so fast that we smash into the net before it's deactivated." "It's tricky," O'Brien said--not exactly a dissent.

 

 

Sisko tried to sound positive. "Not if we time it right." Dax worked her console, feeding the idea and all the appropriate numbers into the computer. "Let's see... a radial geodesic in a thirty-nine Cockrane warp field contracts normal space at a rate of---" "We have to go to full impulse one point three seconds before the bomb detonates," Julian Bashit instantly calculated. Ah, the enhanced mind. Sisko looked up. "Dax?" "The computer agrees with Julian." "Of course it does," Garak quipped. "They think alike." As Bashir grinned modestly, Dax clicked her controls. "Turning over piloting controls to the main computer....Set." "Time?" "Twenty-two seconds until the explosion." Nog drew a sharp breath of victory. "Twenty-two seconds.... That's plenty of time!" "See, cadet?" O'Brien began. "There was nothing to worry ab--"

 

 

A booming ruckus throbbed through the ship and they were jolted hard, only staying on their feet because they were holding onto the consoles and the ship happened to tip up on its nose instead of spinning sideways. Every monitor erupted into a blown mess, recording the explosion of the facility they had just been in communication with.

 

 

The force drove the ship forward instead of incinerating it, but only because they had already been moving. Had the ship been halted in space it would've been cracked like an egg. Only their momentum in the direction of the blast saved them.

 

 

Over the roar of damage, O'Brien choked, "Must've gone off early!" Sisko clung to a console. "Dax, get us out of here!" On the monitors, they could all see the plume of explosion rushing toward them, then begin, with painful slowness, to pull back away from them. It was an illusion, of courserathe explosion was still rushing toward them and they were barely outrunning the main surge. The shock wave--that was something else.

 

 

It caught up with them in seconds, lifting the ship from underneath and stalling the progress just enough for the explosion to catch up. Raw flame and debris engulfed the tail of the Jem Hadar vessel and chewed relentlessly. Frustration gripped Sisko--he had to control himself and leave the driving to Dax.

 

 

For a ghastly moment he doubted her ability to get them out of this. Skill couldn't always beat physics-- sometimes luck was all he couldm

 

 

"We're pulling away!" O'Brien encouraged.

 

 

The ship righted itself suddenly, regained its crablike balance, and got an abrupt surge of power from somewhere.

 

 

"Not quite according to plan," Garak tensely said, "but I think Starfleet will find the results satisfactory.... " "I agree, Mr. Garak." Sisko offered Dax a nod.

 

 

"Well done, old man." Moving to O'Brien, he asked, "How bad is it?" O'Brien's hands moved across his diagnostics.

 

 

"Doesn't look good.... I'm going to have to switch to auxiliary life support... deflectors are down.

 

 

guidance system is shot and..." Reading the engineer's face with the advantage of familiarity, Sisko prodded, "What is it?" "The core matrix is fried....We don't have warp drive." A cold knot landed in the middle of Sisko's stomach. Feeling suddenly exhausted, he let his shoulders sag and turned toward Dax, but her expression was hardly helpful.

 

 

Garak, predictably and rather uselessly, postured, "Forgive my ignorance, but without warp drive, how long is it going to take us to reach the nearest starbase?" Good--all they needed was somebody to state the painfully obvious right out loud.

 

 

"A long time, Mr. Garak," Sisko told him, and confirmed what everyone was thinking.

 

 

"How long?"

 

 

What did they really need an on-board Cardassian for, anyway?

 

 

Saving Sisko the trouble, Julian Bashir offered a sour, unhopeful, utterly grim statement.

 

 

"Seventeen years, two months and... three days.... Give or take an hour."

 

 

The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be willing and able to pull his own weight.

 

 

Theodore Roosevelt

 

 

CHAPTER lO

 

 

Ca.raIN CI4~.s REYNOLOS stood over Admiral Ross with his hands on his hips and a fully armed unflinching glare. He'd asked his questions. Now he was waiting.

 

 

"What're you talking about, Charlie?" the admiral asked. "What's going on where?" "Border. Who're you got out there?" Reynolds swiped a hand at the star chart on the corner monitor.

 

 

"Who's working the Cardassians area where I thought I was alone?" "Charlie, I can't... I can't divulge other crews' assignments and you know it." "Ever since they made you an admiral you've been the stuffedest shirt in this sector, Hal. A Jem Hadar ship came by us and didn't even shoot, didn't pursue, didn't seem interested in engaging us at all. They

 

 

evaded like crazy and only fired back when we fired on them. Even then they took potshots at our weapons array like my son shooting his slingshot at birds.

 

 

My son hates to hunt, Hal. He cried all night when he winged a gull. They didn't fire on our engines, not our power source--that's not how the Jem Hadar work.

 

 

Who was in that ship?" "You didn't... you didn't, uh..." Ah-hah! Clue!

 

 

"No, we didn't kill them. We got chased out by three other Jem Hadar ships. And funny thing--real funny--good old number one never came after us at all. Never even tried. Didn't fire as we were retreating.

 

 

Nothing." "How'd you get away?" "Brilliance and genius and all those best-of-the-best things you hear tell about. Hal, I'm in Intelligence, remember? They don't put people there who don't have some. Fess up." Reynolds heightened his force, but lowered the level of assault by sitting down in the lounge chair before the desk. "I haven't melted lately or rearranged myself into a--here." Abruptly he picked up a small metal paperweight of a seagull on the desk and put the sharp pointed end of the wing against the palm of his hand. A little pressure, a downward swipe-- Ross jolted. "Charlie, don't do that! Stop it!" Blood drained down Reynolds' wrist and soaked into his uniform sleeve. As it pooled and began to drip onto the gray carpet, he looked at Ross and waited.

 

 

The admiral's expression had crumpled under the

 

 

duress of the moment, and the pressures of the entire war. "All right, all right, Charlie...."he sighed. "I know you're not a shapeshifter...." Widening his eyes, raising one brow and lowering the other, Reynolds gave him a look like a Halloween gargoyle, the kind he used on his crew when he wanted them to quit treating him like a captain and start treating him like somebody they actually respected.

 

 

"You guys at Command have a big bad secret," he said as blood dripped from his hand to the carpet.

 

 

"Gonna let me in on it or do I have to... ?" Ross seemed to feel cornered, or just worn down.

 

 

Reynolds ticked off a few seconds without saying anything, letting the silence work.

 

 

"Is your hand all right?" the admiral wondered, nervously blinking at the carpet.

 

 

Pushing a finger against the cut to get it to stop bleeding, Reynolds sat back and heaved an impatient breath.

 

 

The computer bleeped with some kind of incoming information, but neither of them even glanced at it.

 

 

Other than the subtle gurgle of a small aquarium on the far side of the office, there was no sound.

 

 

"It's Barnburner Sisko, right?" Reynolds prodded sharply.

 

 

Ross visibly flinched. "Charlie, why in hell would you say that?" "Don't you mean, 'what'? Brains, that's what!

 

 

Okay, here's what I know--stop me when I'm wrong.

 

 

I'm charging right at 'em. They target my weapons.

 

 

They got me boxed. Three behind, one in front, and

 

 

somehow I get past it. The front guy doesn't pursue me. Why not? That's not how Jem Hadar work at all, not even a little bit. They don't target weapons when they can hit engines. So I add up two and two, come back to the starbase, do a personnel search, and Ben Sisko's assigned to the starbase, but he's not here.

 

 

Why ain't he here, Hal?" "Charlie... you're a... pest." "Well, yeah!" Reynolds leaned back in the chair and shifted a couple of times. "Sisko's on a mission on my border, using a Jem Hadar ship so he can get inside and do something nasty. You guys aren't telling anybody because you're afraid your own shoes might be infiltrators." Before him, the admiral started to sweat. A clean sheen of perspiration appeared across the lauded brow.

 

 

Reynolds took that as a victory. "I could've shot the ship out from under him and his whole crew and never even known it. Cuss it, Hal, I don't want to be the one who takes out a Starfleet crew with friendly fire. Nor does anybody else want to live with that.

 

 

We're acting like a paranoid bunch of old widows instead of a coordinated military force and we're bound to pay for it the hard way. You guys at the top have got to get with the guys at Intelligence and figure out some way to know who's a shapeshifter and who's not. Or what's not, or pretty soon you're going to find yourself an admiral with nobody left to be an admiral for!" Sitting abruptly forward to the edge of his chair, Reynolds slapped his cut hand on Ross's desk smartly

 

 

enough to splatter blood across the shiny surface and the padd lying there.

 

 

"You've got to clear the way for covert missions.

 

 

Make some kind of code or something. Or isolate us so you know we haven't been infiltrated. Something!

 

 

If Ben Sisko and that patched-together crew of his are on a search-and-destroy, you'd better tell me and let me clear the path so they can come back from it. Next time there might not be three Jem Hadar ships to come in and chase me away and I'm gonna take out anything and anybody that crosses my line of fire. So make up your mind." Ross groaned audibly, sighed hard, then shook his head. After a moment a smile crept across his lips and he leered over the desk. "You realize I have to kill you now.... " "Sure you do." "What do you want, Charlie?" "In." "In?" "I want in. Something's going on, and it's good that something's going on. It's about time something's going on! We can't keep backing up or we're gonna lose everything. Just like every other captain, I know we'd better do something sneaky and do it soon, because standing toe to toe with a guy bigger than you is a lousy way to fight and so far we been getting the stuffing stomped out of us, and even admirals can add." "Long sentence.... " "Yup, well, I specialize in long things, Admiral.

 

 

Long assignments, long marriage, long promises, long obligations, but I sure as blazes know I don't want to be involved in a long war. One ship with the right information and a clever plan can turn the course of a war in a way sometimes a whole fleet can't. So me and my crew want in right now while the fire's hot." "My crew and I," Ross droned.

 

 

"Yeah, them too. It's becoming real personal for us.

 

 

The Jem Hadar are almost to Blue Rocket. All our families are facing evacuation. Everything we built, all we got, it's going sour. I managed to make something that cussed few captains have for their children-an address, a real address. I want to keep it. I got eight kids, Hal. I don't want casualties and you don't want sixteen million prisoners of war to have to negotiate for. You need people like us. Me and my crew been out there on the other side. We're hardened. Everybody gutless already transferred out or died or something. We're just like Sisko and that bag of hardshelled nuts he runs around with. We unflinchingly risk our lives because we all know we're losing, and if there's some way to gain a foothold we'll all do it. We know how compartmentalized everything is because you're afraid of shapeshifters. So why risk telling somebody else? I already know. Can you tell me you have all that many people you can trust? Me and my crew, we're not kamikazes, we're not looking to die, but we're willing to. If we don't die, when it's all over I just want one thing--I want me and my crew to stay together and all of us stay assigned to Blue Rocket. You've all forgotten about us this long,

 

 

so just keep forgetting. What's it gonna be, Hal?

 

 

Speak, boy, speak." The office bolted to sudden silence as Charlie stopped talking and let his words ring and ring, and well they did. Instantly the soft trill of the working computer and the ever softer gush of the air conditioning system seemed to virtually roar.

 

 

Admiral Ross glared across his desk as Charlie sat in the chair and waited. Charlie could talk, but he could wait too.

 

 

That was all of life, wasn't it? Talk, wait. Talk some more. Wait longer.

 

 

The admiral's face darkened. His tired eyes were pouched deeply now, more deeply than a few minutes ago, and his cheeks had lost their ruddy color, strangely matching the wall to a shade. One more time he sighed. This time the sigh was punctuated by a little twitch of his left eye.

 

 

"Charlie Reynolds, damn your skinny hide....I wish you were a bad captain."

 

 

"You wanted to see me?" As the door to his office opened and Kira Nerys drummed in on stiff legs with her hands clasped behind her narrow body, Dukat quickly put Benjamin Sisko's little white ball back on the desk and hoped she didn't see him fiddling with it.

 

 

"I always want to see you, Major," he told her, trying to sound welcoming. "And therein lies the problem.... It's been three months since my return to this station and we've barely spent any time with

 

 

one another. Oh, I suppose you can point to the various meetings we've attended together... but they never seem to offer us the opporunity to venture beyond station business--" "I don't have time for this." Kira spun in place and aimed for the door.

 

 

"Major!" Dukat spat.

 

 

She stopped, slowly turned.

 

 

Deliberately softening, Dukat attempted, "I haven't dismissed you yet." Her eyes were like small dark stars, glossy and bright in the nebula of her pale cheeks and cropped auburn hair. "What do you want from me, Dukat?" Such a small question, so many answers. Dukat stood and went to stand before her, sensing that having her stand while he was sitting too clearly delineated the legal relationshipmnot at all the angle of their association he wanted to fertilize.

 

 

"Come now, Major," he began again, "have the last three months been that bad?" "Is that why I'm here?" Her voice was incendiary-sparking, but not quite burning yet. "To flatter you? Let you know what a good job you're doing and how happy we all are to have you back?" Ohmnow it was burning.

 

 

He moved closer. "Sarcasm doesn't become you, Major. It's your directness that I've always found appealing." A little smolder erupted from her throat. "Dukat, I've got better things to do than stand here and help you play out one of your little fantasies." Again she tried to move, but this time he was able

 

 

to block her way. One hand against the wall, and she was boxed in. Measuring his words, Dukat lowered his voice. "You feel I've betrayed you." "Not just me," she bolted back. "You betrayed everyone. Including your own people." Was that what she really thought? Did others think that? His skin grew colder.

 

 

"Cardassia was on the edge of an abyss, Major," he attempted. "The war with the Klingons turned us into a third-rate power. My people had lost their way. I've made them strong again." "At what price? You've sold Cardassia to the Dominion!" "A high price, to be sure," he agreed readily. "But look what we're getting in return. The Alpha Quadrant itself." "We'll see about that," she grumbled.

 

 

"Yes, we will," he said, then changed again and offered the most ingratiating smile he could manage.

 

 

He hadn't meant to strike the chord of future matters, but what else would work? "I could make things very pleasant for you here, Kira.... " Her hot eyes iced over at the change of intimation.

 

 

"You could start by doing something about your breath." Forcing a laugh, Dukat actually stepped back. "I'm a patient man. I can wait." Kira was simply boiling now, and Dukat wondered if that weren't part of her attractionrathe fact that she could be made angry so easily, those passions running so near the surface. He hadn't made her mad on purpose, yet he hadn't avoided it either. She was

 

 

indeed wonderful to watch, even through the veil of her hatred for him. When would that hatred melt?

 

 

"Wait for what?" she spat. "What do you think is going to happen, Dukat? You think you're going to wear me down with your charming personality? That I'm going to be swept off my feet by that insincere smile? Are you really so deluded that you actually believe we're going to have some kind of intimate relationship?" Her skin flushed at the cheeks. He raised his hand to brush the warm skin. "We already do." She slapped his hand away with the scythe of her arnl.

 

 

Able only to close the moment with a clumsy laugh that masked his nervousness, Dukat suddenly begged escape.

 

 

"Good day, Major," he said, covering his failure at the tender arts. "I'm afraid I have work to do."

 

 

While Sisko and Dax stood by, waiting, Garak and Bashir left the bridge to do an on-sight inspection of the lower decks, and O'Brien and Nog worked at one of the main control panels. Several other crewmembers assisted on the painstaking business of diagnosing what was wrong and what to do about it, in that order. Garak kept his headset on, scanning space for intrusion, and certainly there eventually would be someone coming here to investigate loss of contact with that ketracel white facility.

 

 

And they had no way to run away from the area.

 

 

"Come on, Chief," Sisko urged, "tell me something."

 

 

On the floor, O'Brien said, "There's not much damage to the main core, but the support systems that sustain it took some bad hits. It might take a few days--" "How many?" "About... three or four, I think... if I don't need to fabricate too many--" "Captain?' Garak came to life with a jolt. "One-- no, two Jem Hadar fighters heading our way!" Sisko swung to a monitor. "Chiefi" O'Brien shouted something at Dax, then Nog chimed in with his part, but Sisko was no longer paying attention to specifics. "Where are those ships now, Garak?" "Bearing three-one-zero mark two-five-one and still closing?

 

 

As Sisko grabbed for a headset and tried to focus the dizzying view that pierced his mind, his crew shouted back and forth about damned thruster arrays and gyrodynes and lateral matrices and damned something else. In Sisko's head the starscape whirled and spiraled, then finally got a grip on two incoming Jem Hadar ships.

 

 

"mauxiliary core--starboard console--" "realready tried that?

 

 

"No power--" "Dax!" Sisko interrupted. "There's a dark-matter nebula sixty degrees above the bow! Can we reach it?" "Yes, but that nebula's never been charted. We don't know what's in there." Garak sputtered something about weapon's range just as the Jem Hadar ships opened fire, rocking their

 

 

captured vessel with impunity. The jig was up. They'd been found out.

 

 

"Take us into that nebula, old man, full impulse!" Another hit rocked them just as Dax wheeled the ship full about on a warp strut and gunned the engines toward the dark-matter nebula. With systems damaged, Sisko could feel the sudden acceleration dragging on his body like a thousand sticky fingers.

 

 

Just when he thought they might get a new surge of luck, a direct barrage blew every console on the bridge. A wall of light surrounded Dax and her arms flayed out like an angel's wings. Then reality came rushing back and she was on the deck ten feet back from her helm. She didn't get up.

 

 

Sisko stumbled across debris and burned carpet and came down on a knee beside her. Moisture instantly soaked into his trousersmblood. Her midsection was laid open just below the ribs. First aid wouldn't do. Her eyelids fluttered and she fought for consciousness, but she was losing. Her only organized motion was to grasp for Sisko's hand.

 

 

"Sisko to Bashit--medical emergency!" The headset still pumped information into his mind, a ghastly picture of the dark-matter nebula surging toward them as the pilotless ship careened in wild flight on its latest course. The course was laid in, but there was no control. That meant the nearest source of gravity could easily yank them into it. A merciless barrage from the attacking ships knocked Sisko sideways and the headset fell off and tumbled into the rubbish that moments ago had been the helm.

 

 

Reality jammed into a blur.... Dax tried to speak,

 

 

Sisko uttered useless encouragements which instantly dissolved into forgetfulness, Bashir arrived and gave her something for the pain but obviously could do little here to mend the gash. The ship was kicked relentlessly again and again, then quite abruptly the attack stopped and another hard hit came, but this one was from forward.

 

 

How could that be? Had they hit a wall in space?