16

JULIAN FINISHED HIS BRIEFING AND WAITED FOR QUESTIONS, RUNNING over his report for any holes he might have left open, any nuances he might have failed to imply. Those gathered—Kira, Ezri, General Cyl, Sam Bowers, Ro Laren, Nog, and Shar—were still digesting what he’d said, he could see it in their faces. They stood in security’s well-shielded cell area, along with Hiziki Gard, still in custody; Gard, too, was silent for the moment, his eyes narrowed in thought. Taulin Cyl had apparently requested that Gard be kept in the loop, and it seemed that Kira had acquiesced. Julian couldn’t help wondering if avoiding the guarded wardroom might also be a reason for her decision to meet at the security offices; there were certainly any number of Starfleet or Cardassian personnel on board who might question an unscheduled officer’s briefing. Julian noted Admiral Akaar’s conspicuous absence, but didn’t pursue it. He had other things on his mind.

Julian was exhilarated by what he’d discovered, but subdued, too, by his inability to save the queen’s host. Tigart Hedda, the carrier, was dead. Figuratively speaking, she’d been dead before security had brought her to the lab, but that hadn’t made Julian’s job any less distressing, his efforts any less resolute. He’d been given the go-ahead to transport the parasite from Hedda’s brain stem immediately, of course, but the operation had hastened the middle-aged Bajoran’s inevitable demise, as he’d suspected it would, as precedent had implied. In addition to the slightly larger female parasite that had rooted itself at the base of Hedda’s brain, there had been twenty-seven “soldier” parasites at varying stages of growth inside of her; the internal injuries had been severe. It was a wonder that she’d remained functional as long as she had, really, yet he still felt the loss as a personal failure. His ego, he knew, vanity, arrogance—they all applied, but he had still hoped to save her. She’d had no husband or children, but had left behind a sister, a cleric on Bajor to whom she’d been close.

“So they communicate telepathically with one another,” Kira said, finally breaking the silence.

“The queen does,” Julian said. “The females are higher functioning, and presumably make the decisions for the colony or colonies as a whole. There’s no evidence to suggest that the soldiers are capable of it. It appears that a female has limited pheremonal contact with the ‘soldier’ parasites, one that allows her to send simple messages—return to a collective, perhaps, or be alert to danger—but to communicate with other females at a distance, they seem to use a kind of mental imaging. Not thought so much as picture, I believe.”

“More Klabnian than Betazoid,” Shar interjected, and Julian nodded. A number of lower-order life forms on Klabnia, a somewhat backwater Alpha swamp planet, employed such a type of telepathy; Julian had looked it up, while studying the female parasite.

Shar was also the first to grasp the obvious implications of the gross anatomy rundown. The specialized haploid cells necessary for sexual reproduction were absent. “And if neither the female nor the male have reproductive organs

“

Julian nodded. “The female parasites are born gestational, with a finite number of offspring already implanted. Each female is fully capable of setting up a colony on her own, and as the soldier parasites lack the transmitters that would suggest dominant or even independent behavior, the female ‘leader’ for each grouping probably communicates with other females. There’s no telling what their range is.”

“So

what produces the females?” Kira asked.

Julian shook his head. “Nothing we’ve seen so far,” he said. “And likely not on the station; if the hive or colony structure is consistent with other parasitic species we’ve encountered, whatever it is would be capable of a mass spawning, suggesting a being much larger in size. Perhaps something on Bajor. That would explain Shakaar’s transmissions.”

“Based on the Enterprise’s reports, if we kill this female, the soldier parasites it commands will die, is that right?” Ro asked.

“The data suggests that the soldiers would exit their respective carrier bodies before they expire,” Julian said. “But yes, the offspring are somehow dependent on the continued life of the mother, possibly through the telepathic link.”

“So what are we waiting for?” Ro asked, looking at Kira.

“If we kill the female, any other females in the vicinity will know it,” Julian said. “I don’t know how much information would be passed along, but it could be a serious security risk.”

“The risk is to the people carrying those things around,” Ro said, but didn’t push it any further. Her point was made.

“More queens

” Kira murmured. She looked up. “Is there a way to communicate with her?”

“I don’t—Not without a host body,” Julian said slowly. “And introducing the female to another host is out of the question. Her ability to fully integrate her chemistry to a humanoid’s CNS is fast and practically irreversible.”

“All humanoids?” Cyl asked.

Julian didn’t hesitate. “I believe so.”

“But a being adapted to joining,” Cyl said, looking to Gard, who looked at Ezri. She turned her wide blue gaze to Julian, searching his own for the truth.

Don’t. He could feel all of them looking, and though he’d thought to lie if it had come up, had planned to, he found that he couldn’t. Not with Ezri watching him, demanding his honesty by her own. “If it tried to bond with a symbiont rather than a Trill host, there might be a way. I could run a benzocyatic depletion, lower the isoboramine levels

but I can’t recommend it. It would be extremely dangerous, to the host as well as the symbiont.”

Cyl was nodding as though he hadn’t heard the warning. “You could use a deFeguo spark line to protect the symbiont, surround it with an electrical pulse network.”

“That should keep her from settling in,” Ezri said.

Kira actually seemed to be considering it. “We have to communicate with it, find out what it wants. At this point, it’s all we’ve got.”

Ezri’s expression made Julian try again. “Again, there’s the security factor to consider,” he said. “Once she’s conscious, she’ll be able to communicate her capture to the others.”

Kira looked at Shar. “Could we shield against it?”

“Uncertain,” Shar said. “Most telepathies can be inhibited, but the materials and circumstances necessary to do so vary widely. It’s possible that if I were to study Dr. Bashir’s data, I may be able to determine the conditions necessary to block the queen’s telepathic signals outright.”

“Nog?” Kira asked.

Nog was nodding, looking around the crowded cell room. “If Shar comes up with the specs, I can pull off the tech, no problem. We could even do it here.”

“I’ll do it,” Ezri said quickly, and Julian’s heart skipped a beat. It was like a nightmare, what he’d dreaded most since hearing what had happened to Audrid’s husband, to the Vod symbiont.

“No,” he said, more forcefully than he’d intended. “It’s

There are other options.”

Ezri stared at him. “Like what?”

Julian grasped for something, for anything. “Perhaps we should kill it, as Ro suggested. The station would be cleared, at least, we’d have a safe base from which to continue our defense.”

It was weak reasoning, and he didn’t try to justify it any further. Kira was right, they all knew it; if such a covert infiltration could even be called a war, the parasites were winning it. Ezri stepped closer to him, her face filled with an understanding that made him angry, that made him feel entirely helpless.

Cyl turned to Kira, his face set in grim lines. “Colonel, I volunteer for implantation. In fact, I insist on it.”

At Ezri’s rising frown, Cyl shook his head, his tone insistent. “I’ve spent my life preparing for this, Dax. Don’t think you can step in and take it away, just like that.”

There was a beat of silence, the others in the room shifting uncomfortably. Julian didn’t want anyone to be implanted, he didn’t think it was safe, but he also couldn’t help hoping that if it had to happen, Kira would agree to Cyl’s demand over Ezri’s. The thought made him feel ill.

For the first time since the briefing had begun, Gard spoke. His voice was low, but it carried. “I’ve spent all of my lives preparing for this. It’s what I do. If she’s going anywhere, I’m taking her.” He looked at Kira. “It’s the least I can do.”

Kira was still hesitating. Seeing that she hadn’t quite decided to go forward, Gard added a final push.

“How long do you think it will take for the soldiers to realize that their mother isn’t around anymore?” he asked. “The lockdown is over, Colonel. Don’t waste what little time you have left.”

Kira nodded once, sharply. “All right,” she said, turning to Julian. “Do what you need to do. Nog, Shar, get the room ready. Ro, I want security standing by

. Dax, contact ops, make sure Nguyen fields any incoming calls from the admiral. Have him say that I’ll

that I’ll get back to him ASAP.”

Ezri and Cyl had moved to Gard’s cell, were talking to him about the implantation. As Julian turned to leave, Ezri shot him a look, one that suggested they’d be talking later about his attempt to dissuade her, but he didn’t care. What mattered was that he wouldn’t have to put her in harm’s way.

We’re not going to be able to work together for much longer, he thought, and buried it before it could go any further, determined not to muck things up between them, aware that it was already too late. He loved her, and that had changed everything.

For the fourth time in a week, Benny and Eli had their lunch together, and stayed in the dining hall after the others had wandered away, the two of them alone at the end of one of the long tables. A janitor walked by pushing a mop and bucket, smiling at Benny as he passed them, Benny smiling back and tipping a half salute. Though he’d already been there almost a month—or six weeks? strange, that he couldn’t remember exactly—Eli continued to be amazed at how casual the staff was when it came to Russell; except for his own set of keys, Benny seemed to have as much run of the place as any of the doctors or nurses.

The large room echoed with sounds from the kitchen—the metal clang of trays being dumped, water splashing, the occasional burst of laughter or conversation between the janitor and the cooks. Benny and Eli sat in companionable silence for a few moments, Eli not thinking about much of anything at all. He’d found it was easier to get through the days that way, just existing, surviving, going through the motions of being a man; he even found some enjoyment in the false reality. Between his numbness and the distraction of Benny’s amiable personality, he could forget himself for hours at a time. At night, though, when he was alone in his mind, in the dark, listening to the snores and gasps and rustlings of the other men in their cots

then, he still had to think about what he’d done.

“Do you have children, Eli?”

Eli looked up from his cold coffee, feeling a flicker of self-hatred at Benny’s innocent question. He cleared his throat, nodding once.

“A daughter,” he said. He thought about saying more, thought he should say more—some qualifying statement that made it clear what kind of father he’d been to her. Absent was the word. Ruri had never complained about his position’s unlikely hours, that his postings had taken him away from her and the baby for months at a time. The baby, the little girl, the teenager

the young woman who surely despised him now. God knew she had reason enough, even before what had happened with Ruri

What I did to Ruri, he thought, forcing the thought to stick.

If Benny noticed his discomfort, he didn’t show it. “I have a baby on the way,” he said, a proud smile breaking across his face. “My girl, Cassie

she’s expecting any time now.”

Eli smiled hesitantly, not sure what to say. How long had Benny been in? Had he even told him? From the way he came and went, Eli had had the impression that Benny had been there awhile. Longer than nine months, anyway.

And as proud as he must be, she’s out there. He’s stuck in here, with the rest of us.

“That’s nice,” Eli said, stepping carefully. “So, ah

Cassie is your girlfriend?”

Benny didn’t answer directly. He sat back from the table, sighing. “I miss her, very much. I thought I’d be okay here, but knowing that she’s waiting for me at home, about to have our baby

I don’t know. It’s important for me to be here, but

but relationships don’t go on hold. People keep moving and growing, and if you spend too much time away, you miss things. You miss life.”

The way he spoke

Eli was struck anew by the peculiar phrasing that Benny so often chose. It was as if he felt he had some choice in the matter, as though staying at the sanitarium was optional.

“What’s your daughter like?” Benny asked.

Eli tried to shrug it off. “Women. You know.”

“Not really,” Benny said. “How is it, having a daughter? What kind of baby was she?”

A clear, perfect memory surfaced, of looking into her tiny face, at her dark eyes, so like Ruri’s, the baby gazing back up at him, lips pursed, a hint of a frown creasing her silken brow. As though she wasn’t sure what to make of him, wasn’t sure if he was entirely trustworthy.

“She was

she was perfect,” Eli said, barely aware that he was speaking. “A perfect baby. She looked like her mother, but acted more like me, I think. She was careful. Watchful.”

“And now?” Benny asked.

“She’s got some of her mother in her, some of me, I suppose,” Eli said, picturing Pria’s lovely face, a crooked smile across her fine mouth. “But she’s mostly her own. Stubborn as a mule. Smart. Beautiful. She’s got an impulsive streak in her, too.”

Eli smiled, remembering. “When she was twelve, she decided she wanted to go to the beach for the day. Her mother told her that she was too busy to take her, so Pria actually took Ruri’s car. Just borrowed the keys and drove off, happy as you please. She made it three blocks before running over a curb; ended up in a neighbor’s rosebushes.” He shook his head. “She could barely reach the pedals, didn’t even know where the beach was, but thought she’d give it a shot.”

Benny was grinning. “I bet there was hell to pay when you got home.”

“No, I was out of town,” Eli said, his own smile fading. “Ruri told me about it a few days later

I was in the middle of a conference, I think. Or

no, I was traveling, on my way to a meeting in D.C

.”

He looked at Benny, surprised that there was a sudden knot in his throat, surprised into saying what he actually felt. “I missed a lot of things, Benny. I was providing for them, I told myself—I thought I was doing the right thing, doing what I was supposed to do. But I missed it, I missed all that time, all those memories, and there’s no way to get any of it back.”

Tears were threatening, and Eli swallowed them back, hard, covering with a cough and a forced smile. For a change, Benny didn’t return it.

“You’re right,” Benny said, but he wasn’t talking to Eli, Eli could see that by his distant gaze, by the wash of concern on his strong features that was entirely personal. “You can’t get it back.”

Eli felt a flush creep up the back of his neck. Listen to him, going on about missing his child’s life when Benny was about to be a father; open mouth, insert foot.

“I, ah

I’m sorry,” Eli started uncomfortably, but then Benny was smiling, back to his usual self.

“Don’t be sorry, Eli,” he said, his sincerity real. “I’m glad you said what you did. And I’m glad you’re here.”

It was an odd thing to say considering where they were, but somehow, Benny could get away with it. Eli understood what he meant, and was relieved.

“Just don’t forget that you still have a daughter,” Benny added. “And just because you missed part of her life, doesn’t mean you have to miss all of it.”

“She’s—” Eli hesitated. How to explain? It was complicated

but the bottom line was simple enough, wasn’t it? “She doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

Benny reached across the table, patting the back of Eli’s hand. “If my child didn’t want to see me, I’d keep trying. I’d try until one of us stopped breathing, just to let that child know that I loved them.”

Eli felt a kind of warmth flow through him at Benny’s touch, warmth and

hope? But no, there wasn’t any hope. He pulled his hand away, grabbed his cup and finished it off in one cold, bitter swallow.

“Guess we should get out of here,” he said, setting his cup back on the table and pushing away. Benny watched him stand, his gaze thoughtful.

“Guess we should,” Benny said.

It took less than an hour for the cell room to be readied, for Julian to prep Gard for the implantation, but Kira could feel time slipping by, fast, too fast. The mother parasite was in stasis; how long did they have before her brood figured out what had happened, if they didn’t already? What would happen when they found out?

And Akaar will be back soon. Any minute, probably. The admiral had beamed out to meet with the first minister literally seconds before Kira got the com from security, that Ro had been attacked; he’d wanted to “touch base” with Bajor, to reorganize the defense network, to call a meeting with Macet, with HQ, with Lenaris Holem. He’d planned to return to DS9 as soon as preparations were made. The second she’d learned of the attack, Kira should have called him back immediately, should have held that holomeeting with all of the Bajoran and Federation officials standing by, to weigh the situation, to make decisions about the next step.

And instead, I make a snap judgment to risk my career and possibly jeopardize the entire defense web we’ve established thus far. That was probably—hopefully—an overstatement, but she had to be willing, at least, to assume the worst. She would see what her own people could do with the situation, first, before she called in the administrators. Ideally, she’d learn something vital, something big that she could pass along to the admiral as she passed “the buck” along, as Benjamin used to say—something so beneficial to the UFP’s defense that her neglect to make that immediate call might be overlooked. Practically, there was a better chance that she would gain nothing but the wrath of Starfleet, along with the outrage of every major dignitary currently aware of the parasite situation. She’d be stripped of rank, removed from her position, perhaps even judicially prosecuted. And yet try as she might, she couldn’t talk herself into making that call, not yet. Her people were being taken over, the people of her homeworld, the people she worked with every day. By the parasites, of course

and by the great devouring machine that was the Federation, that was bureaucracy and talk and more talk. The Federation was a good, even necessary union, a strong, just ally, beneficial to the worlds it accepted into its membership; she believed that, wouldn’t have continued to work toward Bajor’s induction if she didn’t

but she was a good commander, too. DS9 was her command, Bajor was her home, and she was through playing politics with them. Politics had taken away her religion, had sidestepped her authority in making the simplest of decisions for the greater good of the men and women she led, had made it impossible to be up front about what she knew, when she knew it. If the people up top were going to take her down for being good at her job, for making the decisions that needed to be made, she didn’t want to work for the Federation. It was high time to take a few risks, to gamble at getting ahead of the parasites, and talking to one of the queens might be their best shot.

She watched as Julian strapped Gard to a gurney, as Shar and Nog hooked up computer screens and gestured at patch boards and conduits. Nguyen was at ops, and Ro had moved back into her office, but it was still crowded in the small holding area. Ezri and Cyl stood near Julian, watching over his preparations. The female parasite was in a stasis chamber on a tray stand near where Julian worked, frozen in a clear field of static energy. As the room was readied, Kira walked over to look at her, repulsed and intrigued by the tiny creature that seemed so intent on dominating and destroying the humanoids it encountered.

It was small, barely the size of the palm of Kira’s hand, a mottled orange-brown color with a sliver of blue on its pointed tail. Its compact body had six short legs and an oversized pair of pincers at its head, that seemed to be its head. Kira couldn’t make out eyes or a mouth; according to Julian, there weren’t any. The tail was a kind of gill that expelled spent gases taken from the host’s blood, absorbed through pores in the parasite’s exoskeleton. The thought of volunteering to have something like that put inside of you

“Not very appealing, is she?”

“The Enterprise report described the queen differently,” Kira said. “A big, bloated thing

“

“That was the gestational body,” Julian explained. “When the soldier parasites are ready to begin maturation, the queen grows a temporary second body for that purpose, connected to the main body at the brain stem by an umbilicus.”

“And there was one of those inside Tigart Hedda?” Kira asked.

“I’m afraid so, Nerys,” Julian said. “She was beyond saving. I think her death came as a mercy.”

Kira looked up, saw that Gard was watching them. Julian had moved off to talk with Ezri and Cyl about something, and Shar and Nog were finishing the environmental readjust on the other side of the cell. Kira smiled at Gard, at the man who’d killed her lifelong friend and former lover, and shook her head.

“Are you sure about this?”

Gard nodded. “Absolutely.”

He hesitated, then spoke in a slightly softer tone. “I’ve already talked to the doctor, but I want you to know, too. If things start

going badly, don’t worry about my host body. But save the symbiont, if you can.”

“It won’t come to that,” Kira said firmly. “We’ll take her out before we let either of you get hurt.”

Gard nodded again, though he didn’t seem convinced. Kira searched for something more reassuring to tell him, but was still searching when Julian turned around and stepped to the gurney’s side.

“We’re as ready as we’re going to be,” he said.

A nod from Nog, and Shar tapped at the environmental controls. Kira felt the faintest tickle across her skin as the cell filled with unseen energy. Shar had theorized that the particles would be proof against the queen’s ability to communicate with her brood.

“Let’s do it,” Kira said, and Gard took a deep breath, closing his eyes.

“This won’t take long,” Julian said. He reached over to a medical padd, typed a few commands, adjusted a setting switch on the stasis chamber

and an instant later, the female parasite was gone, transported out of her box in a brief sparkle of light.

Kira held her breath, looking down at Gard. Julian said he would place the parasite where the cerebellum met the spinal cord, where they typically nested

and also where the Trill symbiont’s neuro-chemical pathways intersected with the host’s. He didn’t have an estimate on how long it might take for the female parasite to be able to communicate, if at all—

Gard opened his eyes, and was different. Kira could see it, they all could, his dark eyes muddy now, bleared with some unidentifiable emotion or sensation, there was no way to know which. He stared off into space for a moment, his gaze sharpening—and then winced slightly, his eyes blearing again. This repeated twice more—an expression of awareness crossing his features, a wince, then that look of dazed confusion again.

Julian manipulated the keys of the padd and spoke in a low voice, almost to himself. “Cyatizine levels down twenty-one point one, cortical proteins at functional count

“

“Is it working?” Cyl asked quietly, frowning as Gard started again.

Julian ignored the question for a few beats, then nodded slightly, not looking away from his screen. “She’s trying to attach, but can’t integrate. She may not have actual control of Gard’s speech, but he’s in contact with her on a basic chemical level.”

Kira leaned in, tried to look Gard in the eye. His gaze blurred, focused, blurred again. “Gard? Can you hear me?”

“She’s here,” Gard said, his voice so hollow, so dead that Kira shuddered. It was Gard’s voice, but sounded nothing like him. “She knows what’s happening.”

“Will she hear what I say?” Kira asked.

Gard’s gaze cleared. “Yes,” he said, the tone dead but the shine in his eyes glittering and spiteful—and then the shine was gone again, lost to that tiny wince as Julian tapped at his controls.

Kira cleared her throat and prayed for guidance. “I’m Kira Nerys. I’m in command of DS9.”

“We know who you are,” Gard said, faltering on the last word, not so much drifting in and out of awareness as being jerked, like a fish on a line. “We know what you represent.”

“Then you must know that none of this is necessary. The Federation would be willing to help you, to help your species find an alternative solution to whatever problems you and your kind face,” Kira said. “Stop your attack on Bajor. We don’t wish to fight with you.”

Focus and blur, in and out. “It’s too late. We’ve already won.”

Kira’s jaw clenched. “What do you mean?”

“We know, now,” Gard said, a hint of a smile touching his lips before fading away, that glitter of malice there and gone again. His empty, toneless voice continued to skip and falter. “We know everything. You will destroy Trill. You will leave us the wormhole, and withdraw from this space. You will give us the bodies we need, or we will obliterate all that you hold sacred, and take what we want. Tell them.”

Kira’s heart was pounding with anger. “You won’t succeed. I won’t let you do this, do you understand?”

“I’m taking him, now,” Gard said, and his voice was no longer so hollow, so devoid of emotion. A kind of hard brightness had crept into it, a false and frightening good cheer. “You’ll have to kill him. Kill us, it doesn’t matter. We’ve waited for the time and it’s happening, now. You will all be taken.”

“Julian?” Ezri sounded scared, as frightened as Kira felt.

“She’s working her way around the pulse line,” Julian said quickly, looking to Kira. “I have to pull her, now.”

Kira didn’t hesitate. “Do it.”

Gard was grinning, a wide, soulless grin, his gaze finding Kira’s, his back and limbs arching against the gurney. “Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t—”

The restrained Trill gasped suddenly, his eyes widening in shock. Julian jammed a hypospray against his arm, injected, snatched up a handheld scanner and checked vitals with a practiced eye.

Silence, tense and taut, as they all waited, Gard staring at the ceiling, unmoving. Every muscle in his body seemed to be flexed—and all at once he relaxed, his eyes closing, head rolling to the side. Behind them, the female reappeared in her box, her body convulsed, frozen.

“Report,” Kira snapped, her voice sounding far away against the rush of blood in her ears.

They waited, the few seconds like years before Julian spoke. “Neither symbiont nor host appears to have sustained any permanent damage.”

Kira let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “And the queen?”

Julian checked the stasis chamber. “She didn’t survive the separation.”

Gard rolled his head back, opened his eyes slightly. His lips moved, but his voice was barely a whisper. Kira crouched next to him.

“She’s

” Gard rasped. “They’re

She’s

There’s only one. She sees the artifacts

“

“Who? What artifacts?” Kira asked.

Gard’s gaze flickered. “Mother. Bajor. Tears.”

His eyes closed again.

Tears

Kira chewed at her lower lip. Was he talking about the Orbs? The Tears of the Prophets were at the monastery, where Opaka was staying. Commander Vaughn, too, until he got some rest.

“Do you think he meant the Orbs?” Ezri asked.

“Another mother parasite, maybe?” Cyl added. “Or maybe the mother the doctor hypothesized. The matriarch.”

Before she could answer, Kira’s combadge chirped. She tapped it, shaking her head at the questions.

“Kira.”

“Colonel, there’s a medical crisis—we’ve got reports from the Promenade, from engineering decks five, seven, eleven—two more at the docking ring—”

It was Nguyen, in ops. His voice was high and strained. Even as she rattled off locations, Julian’s badge bleated, an emergency signal, and Ro stepped into the cell room, her cheeks high with color.

“Colonel, I’m getting reports from all over the station—people are collapsing, at least nine incidents so far and six alien sightings. The parasites are leaving their host bodies.”

Julian had grabbed a med kit. “Colonel, he’s stable and I’ve got to—”

“Go,” Kira said, nodding. She turned to Ro. “Get your people out there, coordinate with Vlu’s teams to track the parasites, top priority. We need crowd control

Get ID verification on everyone, oral or visual, we need to know where our people are.”

She spoke into her badge, already moving. “Stationwide address—red alert. Alien presence on board, lockdown status. Describe invaders as small, insectile, extremely dangerous—”

At Kira’s pause, Nguyen interrupted, a new note of worry in his voice. “Colonel, something’s happening on Bajor. General Lenaris is reporting

he’s receiving news that a number of skirmishes have broken out

“

“I’m on my way up,” Kira said, the cold grip of responsibility knotting her insides. This female’s death may have released the victims on the station, but what about Bajor? Killing the queen had set off something much bigger in motion, Kira was sure of it; the telepathy block hadn’t worked. It only remained to be seen how far-reaching the consequences would be.

She snapped off instructions to Shar and Nog to help Ro organize the general quarters detection, to find O’Brien, brief him, and get him involved; the chief’s ship should be docking any minute, if it hadn’t already. She told Ezri to get back to the Defiant and stand by, and asked Cyl to escort Gard back to the infirmary, all as she strode for the door. By the time she reached Ro’s office, she had instructed Nguyen to alert the Cardassian and Federation ships standing by that the parasites were moving, and to arrange extra security on the few dignitaries still aboard the station. She’d call Akaar personally, he should still be with Asarem, I can tell them both. They could string her up if they wanted, they probably would, but later.

The alert status loop went off as she hurried out onto the Promenade, the computer’s cool voice informing the station’s residents that they needed to get to their respective crisis positions. Most of the people she passed were already moving, running to or from a large gathering of people just past Quark’s, a woman shouting that someone needed a medic. A security team ran by, began working its way through the crowd, but Kira was already trained on the lift, her mind running a mile a minute. Was Cyl right? Had Gard been talking about the parasite matriarch? The Tears could only be the Orbs—he’d said artifacts—and if the monastery wasn’t safe, she had to get word to Vaughn, to protect Opaka.

“Colonel Kira.”

A short gray alien stepped in front of her, blocking her way, female, dark eyes. Kira blanked on the name for a half second, then remembered. She’d seen the girl a number of times recently, usually with Taran’atar.

“Wex,” Kira said. “Now isn’t a good time. If you’ll excuse me—”

The girl nodded. “I understand, but it’s important that we talk. I may be able to help you. I want to help.”

Wex’s expression was blank, almost stoic, but her eyes seemed to reflect some deep inner feeling. Kira couldn’t place it, wasn’t about to stop to figure it out.

“You want to help? Find Taran’atar, tell him to report to Ro,” Kira said. She sidestepped the girl, headed again for the lift, calling back over her shoulder. “You can go with him.”

“I know you’ll want to hear what I—” Wex began.

Kira reached the lift, stepped on and turned to face the girl as several others climbed aboard. “It’ll have to wait,” she cut in, ordering the lift to proceed nonstop to ops, snapping off her override code. The last thing she saw was Wex’s upturned face, her dark eyes shining brightly, watching as the lift rose up and out of sight.