13

As soon as they transported, Kira raised one hand, circled in the air with her finger, then pointed down. The grid they were on was exactly that, although the holes were small and spaced far apart; they would have to move to the edge and look over the railing to see the level below.

They had materialized on grid 21, one of the many mesh walkways that surrounded the secondary plasma channel in a series of reinforced metal arcs. The brilliant, glowing mass of moving energy was gigantic, an elongated column suspended through the middle of the lower core shaft and held in place by forcefields. The combined energy from the reaction chambers was still only two-thirds of what the station was used to, it had been since the attack, but the destructive potential was no less. If the core were to overload, the station and anything within a hundred kilometers of it would be blown to atoms.

The twenty -first level of open walkways and platforms was closer to the base of the channel than to the top; the clear conduit extended high over their heads, at least eighty meters of it, and another twenty below. The air was cold, the vast chamber strangely lit by the brilliant spire of white-flame- colored, pulsating power. A deep, throbbing hum resounded throughout the shaft, providing a blanket of white noise that seemed to vibrate the very air.

Together, Kira and Vaughn leading the way, the team sidled toward the railing, only five or six meters from the outside of the glowing tower. At various intervals up and down the core shaft, red alert panels flashed silently, their blinking crimson light barely noticeable in the vivid blaze of the massive conduit.

Kira darted a glance over the side, looking down and to the left, tightly gripping her phaser-and there he was. Unshrouded, kneeling in front of the first bank of reactor panels, Kitana’klan had his arms thrust into an open vent near the bottom of the system capacitance section. A phaser lay on the platform next to him … and only a few meters away, the broken body of an engineer, obviously dead. A male Bajoran she didn’t recognize, probably one of the techs who’d come in on the shuttle.

Kira felt a sudden surge of hate for the Jem’Hadar, sick with the fact that she had been even partially fooled by such a creature; he’d surely been on one of the attack ships, already responsible for mass murder. He had killed two young officers and perhaps Julian in his escape, and now a civilian, a man who had voluntarily come to the station to lend

his skills, to help rebuild what Kitana’klan had already tried to destroy once.

And there he is, efficiently working away to finish us off, oblivious to everything else. Kira had tried hard in her life to learn forgiveness for, or at least understanding of, her enemies, but Kitana’klan didn’t deserve his life. She wanted him dead, and the sooner the better.

She looked at Vaughn, who held up his own phaser, nodding, his eyes narrowing as he took another look at the unknowing saboteur. Safest to kill him outright, then undo whatever he was doing to the reactors.

Kira jabbed a finger at Sergeant Wasa, beckoning for him to take aim; Wasa Graim was probably the most accurate shot on the station, and had trained half of the security force. A mostly solemn man in his early fifties, Wasa edged to the railing, carefully raised his phaser-and before he could fire, Kitana’klan was moving, scooping up his own weapon as he threw himself sideways into a shoulder roll, so fast that he almost seemed a blur as he disappeared under their grid. Wasa took a shot before the Jem’Hadar was entirely out of sight, missing the soldier’s heels by scant centimeters. The phaser blast skidded harmlessly across the metal grating.

Damn! She didn’t know how he’d known, but it didn’t matter now, they had toIt happened so quickly.

Kitana’klan was suddenly in sight again, dancing out from beneath the grid just long enough to fire, disappearing before any one of them could get off a shot-or get out of the way.

Wasa went down, dead before he hit the floor, a

blackened circle appearing almost dead center on his chest. And with a single running step back across the platform, Kitana’klan ducked among the banks of machinery again. If he stayed low, they wouldn’t be able to spot him from their position.

“Back, get back,” Kira whispered harshly, thinking fast, remembering something that Vaughn had said when they’d first starting talking, about the superiority of a Jem’Hadar’s reflexes. He was fast, and deadly with a phaser, and now Graim was no more; they couldn’t hope to outshoot him.

A trap, something he won’t suspect … She looked down at Graim and offered a silent prayer, fighting not to think of his two teenaged daughters.

Kira huddled with Vaughn and the four security guards against the shaft wall, silently commending the team for the determination she saw in their grim faces. Vaughn spoke first, his voice low and hurried as he addressed Kira.

“He’s going to stay there, to protect his work for as long as he can or as long as he feels is necessary. If you can distract him, draw his fire up here, I might be about to circle down and get behind h im.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Kira said. “But I’m going.” The walkway they stood on led to platforms on either side, those connecting to more extensive passages across the core-and several ranged ladders, in addition to the four half-caged lifts that ran the length of the shaft.

“We should both go,” Vaughn said. “Or three of us, but not together. He’ll expect one or all of us to go straight at him, not two or three coming from different directions.”

So if he kills one, he’ll think he’s safe. She didn’t want anyone else to die, but if it meant saving the station, she was ready.

Kira nodded, glancing at the others, deciding that she and Vaughn would try it alone; more people meant more noise.

“Make it look good, revolving shots, not a constant barrage,” she said. “Don’t hit any equipment. Keep firing until we get to the banks.”

They were all nodding, but she could see the question in their eyes, as plain as stars at night.

“If we don’t make it, call for additional security,” she said, answering what she knew no one would ask. “We have to stop him, we have to disable whatever he did to the main controls.”

Although if Vaughn and I don’t get him, it may be too late. She wasn’t sure what Kitana’klan had done, but he must have known they’d find him within minutes of his escape. Whatever his exact plans, he was obviously confident that he wouldn’t be stopped before he saw them to fruition.

With a silent prayer that the evacuation was going well, Kira and Vaughn separated from the team, heading away from Kitana’klan’s position toward the other side of the cavernous shaft. Behind them, the team began to fire.

When they reached the first of the wall ladders across from the team, hoping that the tower of transforming matter would block them from the Jem’Hadar’s sight, Vaughn signaled that he would take it, that she should pick another route down. Whoever reached the lower platform first was more

likely to be hit. He didn’t have a suicide wish, but one of them had to go first, and Kira commanded the station, her surv ival was more important than his.

Kira must have realized it, too. She didn’t look happy but she didn’t hesitate, either; she nodded, pointing at herself and then at another ladder several meters away, near one of the lifts. If she was afraid, he hadn’t seen it. Kira Nerys was cooler under pressure than some Starfleet admirals he’d known.

Still holding his phaser, Vaughn stepped down onto the rungs, quickly and quietly one-arming it to the bottom. When he reached the lower grid he turned, deciding the bes t approach to the reactor bank area. Neither way looked promising, the walkways and platforms all open, the only real cover provided by the power conduit; heading to the right seemed fractionally safer, there looked to be a secondary reactor station, a few solid control banks that could act as a temporary screen.

Vaughn looked up, and saw Kira waiting to see which way he would go, her face a pale, half - shadowed oval by the light of the central conduit. He pointed to himself and then to the left; she nodded, then disappeared from view. Above them, more phaser fire erupted. Kitana’klan wasn’t firing back, and Vaughn seriously doubted it was because he’d been injured or killed.

Let’s do this. His heart was pounding, his body itching with adrenaline. No matter how many times he’d walked into deadly situations, it was never something that one could get used to. He’d known other humans who’d insisted they felt no fear, but as

far as he was concerned, they were either lying or fools.

Crouching, Vaughn sidesteppe d his way to his left, alert to even a hint of sound or motion. The constant thrum of the reactors would cover any small sounds, but even well -trained Jem’Hadar weren’t known for their subtlety. If Kitana’klan took him out, he’d make enough noise so that Kira would at least have an idea of his location. And even a shrouded Jem’Hadar couldn’t hide from a phaser sweep.

Vaughn edged around the conduit, the main reactor banks sliding into view. He could see the dead man and the console that had been tampered with, but no Jem’Hadar. Another volley of brilliant phaser fire stabbed down from above, the shots still too wide; the security team hadn’t happened across their target yet.

Go, now!

While they were firing, Vaughn ran, taking advantage of the fact that Kitana’klan wasn’t likely to stick his head up to take a look around. There was a narrow storage locker only a few meters from the reactor bank platform, situated at a widened section of the walkway. Vaughn reached it and squatted in its shadow, darting another look at how the reactor banks were situated.

Three long rows, say seven meters each and four individual units, nothing taller than two meters … Kitana’klan would either be somewhere he could fire on anyone approaching his handiwork, or close enough to the front row to attack physically. Either way, going straight in was definitely a risk, and one they had no choice but to take. Time was a factor.

So take a risk. He could run past the ends of all three rows, firing down each. If he stayed low, he might get lucky …

… but the odds are a lot better that he’ll get me, first. Vaughn would have to hesitate before each shot, just long enough to be sure that Kira wasn’t in the line of fire-but that fraction of a second would be all that Kitana’klan needed.

And my death would be all that Kira needs to find him. He wasn’t sure where Kira was, but she was certainly close by now. If his sacrifice meant saving thousands of lives, the choice was simple.

When all of the security team members started firing again, he launched himself from behind the cabinet, crouch-running for the rows of equipment, phaser ready.

Vaughn had just reached the first machines when he heard Kira cry out in surprise and pain, the sound cut off a second later when he heard a deep and loud, echoing crunch, and something landed heavily on the platform.

Kira was behind a low console not far from the main banks, and was just readying herself to make a run across the open platform when she saw Vaughn. The commander was making a break for the equipment banks, crouching low, a look of fierce determination on his face.

If they both ran at Kitana’klan, wherever he was among the reactor instrumentation, he could only kill one of them at a time.

Go! Kira launched out from behind her shelt er-and felt brutal, shocking pain as invisible claws

punctured her waist on either side, the crushing force of the grip stealing her breath.

Kira swung both of her arms forward, hitting only air, behind me-and before she could fire into the space behind her, before she even got her arm up, she heard at least one of her ribs snapping as the shrouded creature squeezed, a terrible, internal bone -sound. She started to cry out and then she was in motion, flying, the console rushing up to meet her face as Kitana’klan threw her into the secondary bank. She felt the right side of her head hitting solid plasticine, she felt something in her upper right arm give way in a wave of dark painVaughn spun around, the sound coming from near the secondary station where he’d sent Kira so that she might have a better chance-and that was also effectively blocked from the security team’s line of fire. They’d stopped firing anyway, as soon as Vaughn had reached the main banks.

He leaned against the end of the front row and shot a look around the corner, silently cursing when he saw Kira’s boots sticking out from behind the low console. Acting on reflex, he triggered his phaser and swept it across the open platform a meter and a half off the floor, the bright beam searing the shaft wall before crackling brilliantly across the conduit’s forcefield.

Nothing. Kitana’klan would have unshrouded if he’d been hit. Behind the console? Circling around the core? Vaughn couldn’t randomly fire, couldn’t risk damaging the vital contro ls of the fusion reactors, and the soldier could be anywhere.

He needed to get to the machine that Kitana’klan

had worked on, his instincts screaming that time was running out. He’d have to call the security team down, even knowing that some or all of them would be killed trying to get to the sabotaged controls. Beyond that-beyond that, I call Picard and Ro and tell them to get the hell away from here.

Vaughn reached for his combadge-and felt a hot breath on the back of his neck, and knew he was as good as dead.

With at least twenty platforms to descend, he’d been too late to stop Kitana’klan from hurting the Bajoran Kira Nerys. Once again, he had not anticipated correctly. His failures had already caused enough death; the obvious recourse was to ceas e failing. Taran’atar quickly moved to be near the silver-haired human, understanding that the whelp would try to kill him next. The human’s uniform indicated he was a Starfleet commander with a specialty in command or strategic operations, and therfore a priority target.

Only Jem’Hadar could sense the di’teh, the aura of the shrouded, and even then only if they were physically very close. But he remained undetected as he held his position next to the commander; Kitana’klan was too distracted, too intent on his next victim to sense Taran’atar’s presence. It was as close as they’d been since their arrival, the best opportunity he’d had with the consistently wary soldier; even as the Starfleet human tensed, Taran’atar was in motion.

He unshrouded as he grabbed Kitana’klan by the throat, holding on tight and diving for the floor. The

unsuspecting young soldier was thrown off balance. He bit the platform awkwardly, half on his back, becoming visible as he struggled to get free of Taran’atar’s grasp, his concentration faltering.

Kitana’klan was strong and fast but too young, unaware that his lethal rage wasn’t enough. Still holding him by the throat, Taran’atar swung himself over the youth’s thrashing body, straddling his chest.

Kitana’klan snatched at Taran’atar’s throat and face, kicking at his back, his pale eyes shining with murder. The blows were powerful but poorly executed, barely effective. Taran’atar looked down into the young soldier’s twisted, ignorant face, and saw himself a long, long time ago.

“Accept death,” Taran’atar said, but Kitana’klan still fought. A good soldier. Taran’atar moved his hands to the sides of Kitana’klan’s pebbled skull, took a firm grip, and twisted, hard. There was an audible crack, a sound of tearing muscle, and Kitana’klan ceased to be.

The battle had lasted only seconds. Taran’atar smoothly rose to his feet, nodding at the silver-haired commander, whose eyes never wavered from his.

“I take it you’re on our side,” the human said.

“I am,” Taran’atar confirmed, matching th e commander’s scrutiny. Silver hair usually represented older age in humans, he thought. Perhaps he was wise.

“Good to know,” the commander said. “We can talk about it later.”

The man shouted up at the four others not to fire as he hurriedly dropped to h is knees in front of one of the machines, opening a wide panel. Taran’atar crouched next to him, ready to offer his assistance.

He thought they might be too late to stop whatever destructive plan Kitana’klan had set in motion; the light of the power channel had started to change, getting brighter, and there was a growing sound, a sound like machinery that was dying, but perhaps the commander could stop it in time.

Taran’atar hoped that it would be so. He could not atone for his mistakes if they all died.

The machine was Federation and it adjusted plasma density. Looking at the numbers on the small internal screen, Vaughn saw what Kitana’klan had done almost immediately. Behind them, the light was growing stronger, and Vaughn thought that the chamber’s powerful hum was incrementally higher than before.

Damn damn damn!

The Jem’Hadar had instructed the system to increase density by twenty percent and then shorted the boards, including the alarm sensors. The structural integrity of the fusion reactors had been compromised, and the data indicated that the station’s power grid had ceased to accept the unbalanced flow of energy. A buildup was already under way, but if Vaughn could get to the venting system, there might still be time to release the mounting pressure.

The Jem’Hadar who was not his enemy squatted at his side, and when Vaughn stood, so did he. Vaughn shouted up at the security team as he ran to the second bank of machines, the Jem’Hadar still with him.

“Evacuate!” Vaughn yelled, recognizing that they probably only had minutes, wondering why there weren’t a hundred other alarms going off. “Get out

of here, now, and tell everyone at least two hundred klicks away from the station!”

He didn’t bother to see if they’d gone, hunting for the exhaust cone controls. He wasn’t familiar with DS9’s setup, but the equipment was all recognizable, and the hum was getting louder; it might already be too late to vent before the core went supercritical.

“I will aid you,” the Jem’Hadar said, just as Vaughn spotted the controls for the cone.

“See if Kira’s alive,” Vaughn snapped, scanning the console’s panels, feeling sweat run down his chest. There, emergency functions! Vaughn hit the key and a grid of options scrolled across the monitor. He saw the overload strip and jabbed at the touch square, praying for success-and the screen went blank.

No.

Vaughn saw the board access panel and yanked it open, already knowing what he would see. From the convoluted tangle of broken cables, he was surprised that the monitor had worked at all. Alarms weren’t going off because it seemed that the Jem’Hadar had smashed the reactor sensor arrays all to hell, or at least the ones that would have triggered an overload alert.

Vaughn couldn’t know how much time they had, he didn’t know the core capacity or how well the station’s systems worked, but he guessed five or six minutes at the outside. They still had time to get to a ship, to get away, but he could hardly see the point; even if the evacuation had been running like clockwork, he doubted very much that more than a few thousand people had managed to get out Leaving the doomed station, leaving thousands more to die as

they commandeered a private ship, seemed cowardly and arrogant.

Vaughn slammed his fist against the useless console, feeling just as useless.

There was no way for anyone to stop it. DS9 was going to explode.

Someone was touching her face.

Kira swam up from the dark sea, feeling terrible, feeling as though she was going to vomit from the pain in her head. The left side of her body felt strange, far away, and when she tried to move, her right arm went white -hot with agony.

She opened her eyes and saw Kitana’klan bending over her, the back of one cold, scaled hand pressed against her forehead. She tried to move away, but her body wasn’t listening, her motor skills malfunctioning.

Kitana’klan spoke, but his voice was garbled, only a few clear words reaching her.

“… station … not … killed the … fusion …”

The station. She remembered parts of what had happened, but her head hurt so much, and she didn’t understand what Kitana’klan was saying, let alone why he was talking to her at all, and there was a high-pitched whine in her ears-hum, rising hum, Kitana ‘klan was at the reactor banks-overload?

The thought was more important than her pain. She struggled to sit up, ignoring the torment of her upper right arm, and there was Commander Vaughn, next to her, next to Kitana’klan.

“Help me up,” she said, but her voice didn’t

work, her own words as foreign as the Jem’Hadar’s. She tried again, and was now aware that the light around her was getting brighter, that things might be very bad.

“Help … up,” she managed. Her voice was slurred, and she understood that she’d taken a blow to the head, but did n’t care. She didn’t care that her assailant, along with Vaughn, was gently easing her into an upright position, and she didn’t care about the pain. The station, she had to know what was happening.

“… core overload, the … won’t vent,” Vaughn babbled.

Kira concentrated as hard as she could, understanding that things were bad, they were critical. There had to be something …

… get away from it. Get it away.

If there wasn’t any way to stop it from happening, there was only one option left.

“Get me up,” she slurred. “Lift. Eject it from the top, my voice. Jettison. Up, we go up.”

She must have made sense, Vaughn was talking to the soldier excitedly, and although she didn’t want Kitana’klan to touch her, she couldn’t stop him from picking her up, cradling her like a child. But she didn’t care about that, either.

The station. The station.

Colonel Kira Nerys spoke, her words vague but her voice strong with urgency. Taran’atar understood each word, but didn’t know what they meant. The commander apparently did.

“We have to get to the top of the shaft, now,” he

said, no less urgently than the colonel. “Can you pick her up?”

Taran’atar did so. The colonel was light in his arms, and obviously suffering from a head injury. He could see the swollen flesh just above her right ear, and her eyes were blurred with pain; he thought her arm was broken, too. It was bad, that he’d let this happen.

“Hurry, to that lift,” the commander said, and Taran’atar held Kira Nerys tighter, running to the caged platform. The rising sound of imminent overload and the now sickly -white light that bathed the shaft lent him speed; death was close for them all.

The colonel gritted her teeth against the jostling motion, but did not cry out or lose consciousness. A

good soldier, for a Bajoran.

Odo had not exaggerated her strength.

Vaughn slammed the lift controls as soon as they were inside-and the open platform, surrounded by a waist-high railing, began to move up, slowly, very slowly. It would take almost a full minute to reach mid-core. He could call for transport, but wanted anyone at the transporter controls to be concentrating on the evacuation. And by the time their moving signals were locked on to, considering the signal interference that was surely being caused by the power build, they’d have already reached the top.

The growing whine of the imminent overload was joined now by a recorded loop, a woman’s voice explaining that there was an emergency situation. Her calm voice resounded through the core chamber.

“Warnin g. Plasma temperature is unstable.

Engage liquid sodium loop at emergency venting. Capacity overload will occur in five minutes. Warning. Plasma temperature …” Vaughn tuned it out, willing the lift to hurry. The Jem’Hadar stood stiffly as if at attent ion, his impassive gaze fixed on Vaughn, Kira barely conscious in his arms. Vaughn hadn’t had time to wonder about the soldier’s fortuitous appearance, but as the lift slowly ascended, he remembered Kira’s account of the Jem’Hadar strike against the statio n.

Three ships firing, and one that tried to stop them. All Vaughn knew for sure was that he’d killed

Kitana’klan, and that made him an ally.

They were almost to the top, only a few more levels and the lift would reach the base of the station’s middle section.

Vaughn reached out and touched Kira’s pale face, hoping to any god or prophet who might be watching that she’d be able to function long enough to authorize the lower core break. Her eyes were shut and her forehead was creased, but whether it was in pain or concentration Vaughn couldn’t be sure. Her injuries were severe; it was astounding that she’d managed to speak at all. Her solution hadn’t occurred to him, DS9 hadn’t been built by Starfleet, but her stilted command had been clear

enough-although he feared her voice wouldn’t be, that the computer might not recognize her faltering commands.

“… loop at emergency venting. Capacity overload will occur in four minutes.”

Even if Kira could pull it off, how long would it take for the fusion core to reach a safe distance?

The lift passed the very top of the straining fuel tower, passed open space, rising through a mostly solid landing. They came to a stop in a circular room lined with blinking lights and flashing consoles. For the first time since coming aboard, Vaughn was struck by the true immensity of the station.

With an obvious effort, Kira forced her eyes open as soon as the lift stopped moving, as Vaughn slammed the low gate open and they stepped out. Ominous light filtered up from the lower core in shafts, the flashing red glow of the emergency panels combining to make unclean shadows.

“Master con,” she said, blinking hard. They almost couldn’t hear her over the now piercing whine of the overload.

Vaughn looked wildly around the room, spotting the main computer bank at eleven o’clock.

“Over there!”

Taran’atar ran at his side; Kira gritted her teeth against pain as they stopped in front of the master console.

“Down,” she said, and Vaughn helped Taran’atar lower her feet to the floor, both of them supporting her.

“… overload will occur in three minutes,” the computer noted.

Kira forced her eyes open and saw the controls. The station. The lower core. There was a horrible, wavering sound, high-pitched, like machinery that was about to burst apart from overheating.

My station. My people.

“Hit three-one -four -seven-zero,” she whispered,

and a hand reached out to the controls, hurriedly punching the code in. She wanted to crumble, to go to sleep, but Kitana’klan held her up and she knew that it was the end. One chance, and then it was over.

Concentrate! The voice of every teacher she’d ever had, every commander, the voice of authority shouting in her aching head. Do it, get this done, don’t fail!

“Computer, this is Colonel Kira Nerys, initiate … initiate lower core emergency separation,” she said. It took all of her energy to speak. “Authorization Kira Alpha … One Alpha.”

“Identity confirmed. Request additional authorization.”

Kira closed her eyes. “Override, Kira Zero-Nine. Disengage and initiate emergency launch… on my mark. Mark.”

Did it, got it done … Kira’s head rolled to her chest, too heavy to hold up, but she kept herself awake;

she had to know. And within seconds, she did.

There was a tremendous buckling beneath th em, the strange, fierce light from below swirling into shadow with a sound of immense destruction, of meter-thick support beams snapping like twigs, of

applied force and ruin. Kira tried to open her eyes and it was dark, she didn’t know if the lights had gone out or if she’d managed to open them at all-but that terrible screeching sound had stopped, and she knew that it really was over.

“Did it,” she mumbled, so tired that she thought she might sleep forever. And a minute later, when

the jettisoned core exploded some 120 kilometers away in a blinding and spectacular blossom of devastation, when what was left of the station shuddered and rocked in the dark, pushed from its position by more than a dozen klicks, Kira Nerys slept on. There were no dreams.