20

KIRA STEPPED ONTO THE TRANSPORTER PAD, HER THROAT DRY WHEN SHE swallowed. Her legs felt a little shaky, and her utility belt seemed unusually heavy around her hips. She was scared, but she’d make this work.

A plan would be nice, though, wouldn’t it?

She had a plan, just not a particularly detailed one. Find the queen and kill it. Find the hostages and help them. If the chief and Nog and Shar had managed to figure out a way to beam someone through a cloak, she could certainly come up with something, once she got down there. She had her childhood to thank for that. Resistance fighting was all about making do with whatever was at hand; planning had often been a luxury she’d gone without.

She turned, saw Dax watching, Nog and Shar working with an open circuit panel in the bulkhead next to the transporter console. Miles was at the controls.

“I’ve pinpointed the entrance to the underground chamber,” the Chief said, and Kira nodded, blowing out a deep breath, praying that she hadn’t misinterpreted Gard’s last conscious statement.

“There are a number of lifeforms near it,” he added. “I can’t get an exact count, the subspace fields are causing a lot of interference.”

The same reason he couldn’t beam her directly to the Orb chamber; there were lifeforms there, too, so many that he didn’t want to risk putting her in. The thought was an exceedingly unpleasant one.

One among many. She was going up alone against an unknown number of enemies, and from what she understood of the Chief’s theory, she might also end up scattered across Bajor’s outer atmosphere, a billion burning atoms turning to ash and gone.

She held phaser loosely in hand, nodding again, her adrenaline up. If he explained one more time that he wouldn’t be able to beam her back, she was going to throw up.

“Let’s do it,” she said. “I’m ready.”

Ezri straightened, looking as if she were about to speak, and both Nog and Shar looked up from their work, but Kira only nodded to the Chief sharply, not wanting to hear what any of them had to say. There wasn’t enough time, she could feel it.

“Good luck, Colonel,” O’Brien said, his hands moving across the controls—

—and an instant later, she was in a cool darkness, heavy with the scent of old stone—

—and hands came down across her back, two, three, a half dozen. Kira was spun around, the phaser knocked from her hand, all of it happening too quickly. She tried to drop into a fighting stance, but before she could even find her balance, a leg was hooked behind hers, knocking her to the hard ground. The silence of it was as terrifying as the speed, the parasites apparently not needing to speak as they crowded around her, five, six of them, Bajoran faces that sneered at her with a gleaming contempt.

No! She could see the entrance to the Orb chamber, less than ten meters away, but the guards were crouched over her, her limbs instantly pinned beneath hands and feet, one of the carriers reaching down to her face, to her mouth, Kas I’m so sorry—

—and as suddenly as she’d been attacked, she was free, her attackers thrown or pulled backward, seemingly all of them at once. Kira was knocked onto her side, receiving a kick in the ribs, another to her throat. Behind and around her she heard scuffling feet and grunts of exertion, heard the heavy fall of bodies hitting the floor. It was all so quiet, so fast and unexpected; she’d beamed in seconds before, and the battle—if it could be called that—had been lost and reclaimed in the space of a few heartbeats.

What—?

She rolled to her feet, confused, searching the near dark, snatching her phaser up. She had time to see the last Bajoran host fall to the ground, to take in that they were still alive, unconscious, but how—

—a shimmer of movement, and a small figure stepped forward, gray, female

“Wex?”

The alien stepped forward, reaching out as if to touch Kira, then letting her hand fall to her side. Kira backed up a step, holding the phaser higher. Wex had saved her, but until she knew why the alien had done so—not to mention how—she wasn’t going to take any chances.

“I’m

sorry,” Wex said, and started to change, her body seeming to ripple, to glow with a soft golden light that Kira remembered so well, that she couldn’t believe, couldn’t let herself believe—

—and she had no choice, because an instant later, there was Odo.

Her backache was getting worse, not better, and the dull, achy pain of it was working its way all the way through her belly. She checked her timepiece for what seemed like the thousandth time, but didn’t know if she was timing the ache early or late. There was too much going on, her stress level wasn’t exactly tapering down, and she was exhausted, which made it hard to tell much of anything. She just felt crummy, regardless of how many cushions the Sisko family kept trying to ease behind her back, regardless of Jake’s mildly distracting shoulder rubs or Judith’s soft, gentle tones. She hurt and she felt almost as annoyed as she was afraid, ready to snap at anyone who got too

well, too something. Annoying.

She felt that low, rotten-tooth backache get worse again and checked her timepiece, remembering the childbirth holos she’d practiced, time from the beginning of each contraction

She had to go to the bathroom again, but the effort of having to get up, take the bucket off into the corner, and be shielded by Judith from their weapon-wielding captors seemed like way too much effort.

Hell, getting up is too much effort, she thought, counting minutes. If she was having contractions—and she wasn’t entirely convinced that she was—they were somewhere between four and six minutes apart. Was that right?

The fear overrode the physical again and she took a long, deep breath, trying to relax, tensing in spite of it. This was a bad place to be, to have a baby. Julian said that labor could take a full day before her amniotic sac broke, even longer if the contractions weren’t regular, and though she dreaded the thought of feeling even half this bad for anywhere near that long, she mentally crossed her fingers—also for the thousandth time—that her real labor hadn’t started.

Which was, of course, when she realized that her bottom and lower back were getting wet. She reached back with numb fingers, doing her best to work her hand behind her

and felt the warm, wet spot growing on the pillow behind her, even as she felt a tiny gush of liquid trickle down her left thigh.

“Oh,” she said, startled by the wetness, by what it meant—and at the sound of her own surprise, she started to cry.

“Kas?” Seated next to her, Judith turned her wide, worried eyes to Kas’s face, searching to help.

I’m going to need it, Kas thought, fresh tears welling up as she groped for Judith’s hand. Her water had broken. The baby was on its way.

Ro stood in Kira’s office looking out at ops, feeling reasonably calm, considering. Things were slowly but surely getting under control. Kira was right, she could do this, or at least as long as nothing too unexpected popped up. She didn’t have to second-guess anyone, everyone was competent enough in their respective fields to offer intelligent suggestions; it was just a matter of taking reports and letting the officers tell her what should be done.

Engineering had reported that the motion sensors were working, and security had backed that up. There were only two parasites still unaccounted for, plus a handful of civilians left to track down, but her people were working their way through, one step at a time. Dr. Bashir had reported that there were no new cases of infection, and no fatalities as a result of the female parasite’s death. It seemed that the parasite soldiers had simply let go of their victims and crawled out, causing surprisingly minor injury in their wake. He was just about to start on the stasis cases, backed up by the Cardassian medical teams. Bashir and Tarses had both noted that the captured parasites were weakening, their systems shutting down. They’d all be dead in a matter of hours. And Vlu had just called in to tell her that for the most part, everyone was now cooperating with the Cardassians. People were finally starting to see that they were here to help, and the response was positive.

This isn’t so bad, Ro thought, still vaguely amazed that she was running things, more so that people were actually listening to her. Nguyen had passed word along that Kira had left her in charge, and no one had questioned it. She was still nervous, no question, but felt like she had a pretty good chance of getting out of it unscathed—

A call came in on the desk com. Ro cleared her throat. “Yes?”

“Lieutenant, Admiral Akaar has just requested permission to beam aboard from the Trager,” Merimark said.

Ro nodded to herself. So much for the unscathed theory. She was ready

but before she could open her mouth to say as much, she had a sudden inspiration, one that would ruffle every last one of Akaar’s feathers.

Kira did say to stall him.

“Tell him to come up to the office,” Ro said. “Tell him that she’ll meet him there.” It wasn’t a lie, technically. When she got back, she probably would meet him in her office.

Ro stepped out into ops, moved to stand near the new situation table—recently set up to replace the one destroyed when Ro had sent Gard crashing into it. She smiled inwardly at Merimark’s expression. How long would he wait? Five minutes? Ten? When he was about to fray a cable, Ro would step forward, explain that she was temporarily managing ops, that Kira had pressing duties elsewhere but should be back soon. He’d stew, but he wouldn’t be able to accuse her of anything, and she was under no obligation to tell him anything in regard to Kira’s whereabouts. Of course, once he figured out what had happened

If I were in Starfleet, he’d see me court-martialed. Again. If she were in Starfleet. Realistically, the worst he’d be able to do was lodge a complaint with the Bajoran Militia, and by the time it reached anyone’s desk, she’d be long gone. What was it that Nog was always quoting, one of Vic Fontaine’s colloquialisms

in for the penny, in for the pound?

Ro crossed her arms and leaned against the situation table, watching the turbolift with bright eyes.