12

After an overlong meal break, Shar had returned to ops feeling a new heaviness in each step, imagining that people were already looking at him differently. He knew that it was unlikely in so short a time, but couldn’t help it. It had happened at the Academy, and again on the Tamberlaine, as soon as it got around who his “mother” was.

You ignore the real issue, he scolded himself, entering ops without looking at anyone, going straight to the science station. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know his relationship to Charivretha, but what he wanted wasn’t all that important, not to his family. There were times he felt it never had been.

He wished he had more time now, that he could afford to continue avoiding thoughts of his future, but knew that he was being irrational. Zhiavey’s call, the first since he’d come to the station, had forced him to face the immediacy of his situation. He didn’t

like it, but couldn’t pretend any longer that it did not exist.

I can, however, avoid thinking about it while I’m on shift. It was inappropriate for him to bring personal troubles with him to his work; it was what the Academy taught, and Shar thought it was sound instruction. He was in ops to keep working with the internal and external sensor arrays, to fine-tune and test all of the readjustments that had been made in the past few days. People depended on him to do his job well; he would not founder because of his own problems.

As soon as he finished looking over the array results from the past few hours, Shar logged a requisition for a new console to be installed in his quarters. He didn’t list a reason, and hoped he wouldn’t be questioned about it. As Nog had pointed out over their drinks, Shar didn’t talk about a lot of things … but he didn’t lie, either.

Ops was quiet, most of the manual repair work finished, the stations occupied but the colonel’s office empty. He considered visiting the Enterprise after his shift ended. It was, after all, the ship that Data, Soong’s son, served on, and Shar had always wanted to meet the android. But the idea failed to excite him; his violent outburs t after the call from Zhavey had been draining, but the shame that had followed had been much worse, stealing even the carefully restrained satisfaction he took in his work. For the first time since he’d come to the station, he hadn’t wanted to go to his s hift. He knew it would pass, but knew also that until he could tell his family what they wanted to hear, the situation would only get worse… .

Shar felt his chest constrict with unhappiness, and he did what he could to forget all of it, his family, home, what was expected of him. If he could not enjoy his work, there was no point to all of his struggling.

He was almost an hour into checking the external sampling arrangement, so focused that nothing else existed, when Kira called tactical, issuing an internal security alert-the Jem’Hadar soldier had escaped.

Ops was suddenly in motion, everyone contacting their department teams and securing orders, struggling with backup communications as each worked to account for his or her people and equipment.

Within seconds, Shar went into a state of calm efficacy as his body adjusted to the circumstances, his thoughts refocusing to the tasks at hand. Tracking the Jem’Hadar could best be done from his console. Ignoring the internal visual arrays, he worked with the station’s sensors to focus on energy fields and spatial displacement, starting from the cargo bay where the soldier had been held and extending outward. Unfortunately, without knowing which way the Jem’Hadar had gone, he couldn’t exclude most of the stat ion, nor could he rely decisively on what he was getting; there was nothing keeping the soldier from doubling back to an area that had been scanned, it was the same problem they’d had

running the internal sweeps after Kitana’klan had been discovered, and with the station’s energy shortages, blanketing large areas was practically impossible.

“Kira to sciences.”

“Ch’Thane here,” Shar answered.

“Shar-we’re going to attempt to pick up Kitana’klan’s trail by manually testing for graviton

residue. I want you to focus on us, and stand by to search for Kitana’klan’s shroud signature as soon as we establish direction.”

“Yes, sir,” Shar said, finding the team at the cargo bay before she’d finished speaking. There were eight lifesigns, one human and seven Bajorans , and they set out almost immediately, heading for the cargo transfer aisle that ran to the outer Habitat Ring.

Kitana’klan had been held in one of several storage areas at the base of pylon one, and when the team passed the pylon’s main turbo shaft, Shar removed it from the search zone. It made no sense for the Jem’Hadar to go up pylon one, as there were no ships docked there … although that was assuming he actually meant to escape.

“Shar, are you still with us?” The colonel again.

“Yes, sir.”

“Take upper pylon one off the possibility list, and start-wait, just a minute …”

Shar waited, the reason for Kira’s hesitation glowing on his schematic in soft red. The team had reached a maintenance tunnel in the crossover bridge, moving toward the hub of the station. When Colonel Kira spoke again, he could hear the gathering apprehension in her voice.

“Stay with us. Keep narrowing the perimeter.”

Watching the path they were following, Shar understood her trepidation. He heard Ensign Ahzed, at the engin eering station, tell Kira that Lieutenant Nog was standing by at one of the cargo transporters, only waiting for the word to send the team to Kitana’klan’s location.

Which is becoming clearer with each step they

take. Shar made no assumptions, but the trail was unwavering in its course, and he was fairly sure even before the colonel told him where to concentrate his efforts.

The Jem’Hadar was almost certainly in the lower core, where the fusion reactors were, where the multiple plasma conduits were still being repaired; the station had been on the less secure secondary system since the attack, the engineering teams creating a single central conduit surrounded by forcefield. It wouldn’t take too much effort to completely obliterate the station by explosive overload, assuming one was so inclined; an increase in plasma density in the deuterium slush flow could create a cataclysmic overload in a matter of minutes.

It only took a minute and half for Shar to find the Jem’Hadar, but he’d already had more than enough time to tamper with the reactors; it had been nearly six minutes since the red alert panels on Shar’s console had started to flash, and he didn’t know how long Kitana’klan had been free before his absence was noted.

In his current state of enhanced objectivity and heightened awareness, Shar wasn’t capable of fear for himself. But for the rest of the station, he grew more worried by the moment.

They were in a scarcely used service corridor at lower mid-core when Kira found she could no longer avoid th e obvious. She halted the team, realizing that if she was right, they needed to start a full -scale evacuation immediately.

“Search the lower core,” Kira told Shar. “Concentrate

on paths to and from the reactors, and around the fusion core.”

Kira turned to face the others, calculating time and necessity, hoping that she was wrong but seriously doubting it. Kitana’klan was going to try and blow up the station; she could think of no other reason that he would have run to the lower core. He’d lied about everything, and she’d wanted so badly to believe him that she hadn’t taken enough precaution. And they were all going to suffer for it.

Blame yourself later.

“Ro, head to ops,” she said, working out plans as she spoke. “I want you to begin emergency evacuation procedures on the way. Call in everyone you need to get it done as quickly as possible. Have communications contact every ship in our immediate vicinity except for the Tcha’voth and tell them to get out of blast range, assume full-scale. Have Shar coord inate with the Enterprise and the Tcha’voth for whatever evacuation transport they can provide, we’ve got seventy -five hundred on board, and between the two of diem, they can …”

Kira trailed off, staring at Ro, who gazed back at her with a kind of terror-struck awe, her usually impassive face expressing a depth of feeling that Kira had never seen before. Seventy -five hundred, give or take. Something like a thousand on the Enterprise, nearly two thousand on the Tcha’voth”Ten thousand,” Ro breathed, and Kira felt a deep chill hearing it said aloud, one that went into her bones. She’d assumed the prophecy had meant ten thousand Bajorans-it said that ten thousand of the land’s children would die, but between the two starships

and the station, the number was too close. If only a half-dozen escape pods made it out, the number might even be exact.

But it’s heresy, part of her objected, and Kasidy is on the station, the rest of the prophecy can’t come true if she dies.

Maybe she won’t die. Maybe she’ll be saved. Maybe it’ll just be the rest of us.

“Go,” Kira said. It was the only answer. They had to stop Kitana’klan, whatever he was doing. DS9 was not going to be lost because of one soldier. Or one heretical prophecy.

Ro nodded, her anxious expression hardening to determination. “Yes, sir.”

She turned and hurried away, already talking into her combadge.

Kira turned to Vaughn. “Commander, it might be a good idea if you-“

“All due respect, Colonel, but I may know more about the Jem’Hadar than anyone else here,” he interrupted, his jaw firmly set. Kira wasn’t going to argue.

“Colonel, I have him,” Shar said, and the five guards immediately moved closer together, Vaughn and

Kira both stepping in with them.

“It appears that he’s at the fusion core, on grid twenty -two,” Shar added.

Where the primary reactor banks are.

“Get us to twenty -one,” Kira said, pulling her phaser, nodding at her team. “Set phasers on maximum.” Seconds later, the corridor sparkled away.

When Ahzed in ops told him that the soldier had escaped, Nog didn’t feel vindicated. He felt nauseated and angry and afraid, telling the ensign that he would handle the security team’s transport personally before hurrying from the Defiant to the closest docking-ring transporter system. He informed ops that he was standing by at one of the larger cargo transports, and someone sent him the team’s signature signals, and then he could only wait and worry, alone. He felt cold and shaky, his stomach strangely empty -feeling, the rims of his ears burning with anxiety.

I was right, nobody listened but I was right all along, he told himself, staring blankly at the CPG controls, his hands trembling just a little. Still, no sense of self -righteous indignation, no glimmer of smarmy satisfaction beneath his fear. As he waited for the word, he thought that he would happily forswear all material wealth for the rest of his life to have been wrong. The monster was loose, and when the destination coordinates for the team flashed across his console’s screen, Nog actually groaned out loud.

The core! And only one level above the main reactor banks. With the six reactor conduits still offline, the energy flow to the station was coming from a single, central channel. Easier to sabotage and with more explosive results.

“Energize,” Ahzed said, and Nog did it, promising himself that he would never again back down when he knew he was right, wishing that he’d learned that particular lesson a long time ago.