0

CHAPTER
        1

"SIR, THE STATION'S shields are holding!"
 "Impossible. Federation shields have always proven
useless against our weapons ...."
 Ah, battle and its surprises.
    Damar's claim about the shields was unexpected,
yes, but somehow the Vorta's response was a charm-
ing satisfaction. How good it felt to see the elegant
"ally" confused.
    In the cramped command area of this smelly Jem
Hadar ship, Gul Dukat deliberately didn't look at the
Vorta representative. So many complications--hav-
ing to fly this breed of ship instead of a Cardassian
fighter, crewed by the rocky, dim-witted Jem Hadar
soldiers. The only familiar face, the only Cardassian
face, was that of Damar, now manning the helm.
 And having this �orta individual on his flagship,




guiding the touchy alliance between the Cardassians
and the race calling themselves the Dominion from
halfway across the galaxy... little of this arrange-
ment settled well in a man's stomach. This was a
bittersweet situation, to have a Vorta on each Jem
Hadar ship. At least they didn't insist upon also
having a Vorta on each Cardassian ship. That
would've been almost impossible to shove down the
throats of Cardassian Guls.
    He watched as asteroid-sized cauliflowers of flame
and energy bounced from the shields of station Terok
Nor as ships fired over and over. There was something
satisfying about that, about the invading Jem Hadar
vanguard finally feeling the sting of repellent force,
giving Gul Dukat a surge of pleasure even as his own
weapon fire sheeted ineffectually out into open space.
    And seeing the Vorta's chiseled face and pale-jewel
eyes crimped in confusion, seeing the self-greatened
political officer of the Dominion set back a pace, was
worth the momentary loss.
    Dukat raised his chin--a childish but effective
maneuver and gloated in the wake of the setback.
    "I've found it wise," he began,"never to underes-
timate the Federation's technical skills or Captain
Sisko's resourcefulness." Having blithely thus dis-
missed the Vorta, he turned to Damar. "Bring us
around for another pass."
    What a majestic sight--the chunky Cardassian
architecture of Terok Nor, a clawed, leggy metal knot
hanging in space, called Deep Space Nine by those
who had occupied it for the past few years... the
United Federation of Planets.

           ~,~ALL I U /'~KM~, � � .

    Soon the station would be Terok Nor once again,
and there would be Cardassians running the powerful
weapons, turning those arrays on Federation ships.
That would be a good moment. Dukat had spent
many years claiming that such a moment would
come, and now it was imminent.
    Yet, for just an instant, the order to open fire had
come hard from his lips. Over these years he had
formed a strange kind of relationship with many of
these people, these enemies, upon whom now he
would unleash the power of a spaceborne armada.
  Hesitation? Regret?
    Destructive energy burbled across the station's
shields, and the shields held. The Federation had
made some kind of adjustment. He had always appre-
ciated the Federation for its ability to come awake
and be aggressive, and now he had been given the
little quirky gift of pointing out to the Vorta that the
Federation could be tricky enough for good defense
too.
    At Dukat's order, an entire flank of the attacking
armada had swung around for a second pass against
the carefully directed returning fire from the station's
upper phaser arrays. In his mind, Dukat could see
Captain Benjamin Sisko and his crew working in the
Operations center, doing nothing arbitrary, targeting
every shot, for they knew they were alone out here.
Other than their single battleship, the Defiant, now
clearly visible beyond the station, there was no other
support here.
    Although that was a good signal that the Federation
was spreading its defenses too thinly, Dukat knew it




also let Ben Sisko concentrate on only two frontsin
the ship and the station. That made the maneuvers
here simpler, and Sisko was good at punches in tight
quarters. The Defiant was right over there, setting up
the mine field that, when complete, would protect the
mouth of the wormhole which was the only portal for
Dominion reinforcements. The wormhole had to be
kept open, for the Dominion's sake, yet for Dukat
there was something nauseating about needing the
Dominion in order to take back Terok Nor. He longed
for ways to set himself and all Cardassians apart from
the Dominion, their musclebound Jem Hadar pawns,
and their silky Vorta mouthpieces.
    All around them Jem Hadar ships wheeled in a
majestic dance and were obliterated into shimmering
blooms against the crisp blackness of space and the
encrusted metal body of the station itself. Still more
got through and continued attacking the station, and
another flank went after the Defiant. The station took
a hammering on those enhanced shields, but instead
of defending itself, the station's weapon arrays fired
upon the Dominion ships going after the Defiant. The
station was giving the Defiant's crew cover, time to
finish that mine field.
    A dangerous portent--Sisko apparently thought
that, between the station and the mine field, the
station was the more expendable. Arguable, but still
strange ....
    Who was on the Defiant? Sisko himsell'?. No, he
would stay with the station. Several of his officers--
Dax or Worfor Major Kira--could take command of

the ship, but Sisko would think himself more effective
in running the station's defense grid and keeping
track of all incoming attackers.
    "Are you disappointed, Gul Dukat?" the Vorta
asked him with that musically sickening voice.
    Dukat's neck almost snapped off as he cut short a
glance. He used the Vorta's name like a slapping
hand. "Why should I be, Weyoun?"
    "Perhaps this will be too easy. We will take the
station today. Now that you've accepted the superior-
ity of the Dominion, Cardassia will have what it could
not possess on its own. Others too are seeing the great
light of the Founders' wisdom... the Romulans, the
Tholians, the Miradoru, and now even the Bajorans
have accepted the inevitable and made treaties with
US."
    With a bitter smile, Dukat shook his head. "Do you
actually believe the Bajorans wish to be our allies?
No, no... and they're not afraid of us, either. Not
those brats who fought me unremittingly during the
Cardassian occupation of the planet. No, you misun-
derstand."
      "Your instincts tell you differently?" Weyoun
asked. "The Bajoran treaty is some kind of trick?"
  "Not a trick... a message."
  "From whom?"
    "From Benjamin Sisko. He is their emissary with
the beings who live in the wormhole. The Bajorans
would listen to him. I'm sure he was the one who
convinced them to make a treaty with the Dominion,
just as I'm sure the treaty is a shield, not a bond. That

4                                                                   S




DIANE ~AREY

agreement is a message from him to me. It means to
tell me that he is already beginning to maneuver
events."
    Weyoun's intelligent eyes flickered with concern,
then changed. "You read too much into things."
    "Do I?" Dukat handed back. "Then I must be
foolish to notice that Starfleet has not defended the
station with a flank of ships. All we have here is the
Defiant, which is doing a job over there, and the sta-
tion taking the blows and defending itself. I must be
overly cautious to appreciate the station's enhanced
firepower and shields. No, there is some reason for
this... perhaps they're sacrificing the station for
some reason. Something else is at work here ....We
would be imprudent to think else."
    Around them, on every screen, Dominion ships
speared toward the station. Several, at least eight,
were instantly obliterated, lighting space with fireballs
of primary detonation, then a second plume as the
ships weapons or fuel ignited. Battle in space was a
glossy thing. In a line with Dukat's flagship were the
Cardassian flanks, which he had deliberately held
back, allowing the Jem Hadar to take the brunt of the
initial wave of defensive fire. Briefly, Dukat relished
the foolishness of the ironheaded Jem Hadar and the
arrogance of the Vorta, who had thought the vanguard
was an honor and that Dukat was doing them a nice
gesture by letting them go first.
    The station's effort to defend itself and the Defiant
was costing many Dominion ships, but anyone look-
ing could see that the Dominion and Cardassian

           (~ALL TO ARMS . . .

wings simply outnumbered the defenders and would
overrun them eventually. Dukat also didn't care how
many Dominion ships were sacrificed. They were
hardly his comrades. Jem Hadar soldiers were manu-
factured minions who served somebody else. Their
loss was no loss. Station weapons were now cutting
into the Cardassian flanks too, but that was the cost of
any enterprise, and the brunt had already been swal-
lowed by Jem Hadar.
    "Once again, your old control zone of Bajor will be
yours, Dukat," the Vorta representative began. "You
should be proud. You're returning in triumph."
    "That may be or may not be," Dukat interrupted,
tired of Weyoun's prancing. "Sisko is effectively
blocking the wormhole, or he will have done so if the
Defiant completes that mine field. Dominion rein-
forcements will be blocked from entering the Alpha
Quadrant."
    "His mine field will not be effective," Weyoun
insisted. "We will simply detonate them."
    Dukat looked at him--not just a glance. "We may
detonate them until the planets fade around us. Do
you see that monitor?"  "This?"
    "No, the next one. That is a hardware configuration
sensor. It's analyzing the mechanical construction of
those mines. Do you see this small mechanism on
each mine? This demarkation? That is a replicator
housing. If we detonate a mine, those around it will
replicate the mine until the field is complete again. We
will waste time, waste energy, waste weapons--so at

6                                                                   7




least for a time there will be no reinforcements. You
see, we are not fighting peasants. We'll be dealt many
more surprises before this is finished."
    As cryptic as his words may have been, Dukat
enjoyed lathering Weyoun with the sheer experience
of a fighting past. Weyoun moved away--another
benefit to a slight upper hand. Dukat deliberately
moved in the other direction, to the other side of the
helm where Damar was working. He lowered his
voice and looked at the helm, hoping Weyoun would
think he and the other Cardassian were discussing
angle of approach.
    "It's very important, Damar, that we take the
station, not destroy it."
    "The Dominion may have other preferences,"
Damar grumbled as his fingers nervously pecked at
the helm.
    "Weyoun and a handful of Jem Hadar stooges
won't be enough to countermand my wishes about
Terok Nor. We Cardassians are the ones who under-
stand this sector and how best to control it. I want the
station, Damar. It's important to me."
    Damar looked at him. "You mean, it's important
for you to take back the station you lost."
    "It's important for me to be seen taking it back.
Seen by the Bajorans, seen by the Federation and
their new allies, the accursed Klingons... yes, that's
what I mean. What do you think--is the Defiant
finished laying the mines yet? Are they trying to decoy
US?"
  "They're not finished yet. If they finish the mine-

field and trigger the replication process, the wormhole
will be useless."
    "By all means, then," Dukat said halfheartedly,
"we should stop them. Break off from the main flank
and bear down upon the Defiant. Fire at will. And
watch out for surprises."
    A little vulturish light flickered in Damar's eyes.
Steering the ship was gratifying enough under these
crowded and challenging conditions, swinging and
surging in and out of the station's claws, under hostile
fire the whole time, while also avoiding an outright
crash with any of the other dozens of ships, but to
have a specific target was charming. Then the maneu-
ver became a great game in which life itself and power
were the prizes.
    "Get them--" Weyoun appeared again at his side,
watching the Defiant on one of the screens. "Get them
quickly, Dukat! They're finishing the minefield--"
    "Fire!" Dukat shouted, as much to break off Wey-
oun's chatter as to strike at the Federation ship.
    Damar steered the ship, leading two other Jem
Hadar vessels, in an attack strafe toward Defiant. The
Federation ship had no choice but to veer away from
its job of laying mines, driven by unremitting shots.
    "Drive them away from the station, Damar!"
Dukat called, then ordered the two other ships to
break formation and bend around the Defiant to cut
off any escape. To their left, the two other ships vied
for the forward position, both edging ahead of the
flagship.
 "I want the lead!" Damar said as he leaned slightly.

9




 "Then take it," Dukat blithely suggested.
    But before Damar could gain speed and pass the
other two vessels, space began to change in front of
them. At the same level as the Defiant, just now
passing that ship, space wobbled and shed like skin,
revealing a Klingon bird-of-prey, acid green against
the night, streaking directly toward them.
    Weyoun's sylphlike manner dropped like a stone
and he gasped.
 "Klingons!"

0

CHAPTER
       2

"EvAsIVE!" Dukat called.
    In the flanking position, unable yet to take over the
forward strike, the flagship was able to angle aside, as
was the ship on the far side. The ship in the middle,
which Damar had so much wanted to best, took the
brunt of full phasers from the Klingons and almost
instantly folded upon itself and exploded. In a breath
there were only two ships.
  "Veer offi" Dukat shouted. "Veer offi"
    "Fight him!" Weyoun insisted. "You are two! He is
one!"
    Dukat swung around, furious, yet somehow man-
aged to keep his tone from flaring. "He is one fully
armed bird-of-prey and we are two fighters with our
shields down and our weapons half spent." Now he
could shout again--"Damar, veer offi"

lO                                           11




"The Klingon is pursuing!" one of the Jem Hadar
crewmen called over his shoulder.
    "He won't pursue," Dukat countered. "He'll pro-
tect the Defiant. Continue evasive. Rejoin the flank
and continue attacking the station. I truly hate
Klingons .... "
    "Station's shields are at thirty-five percent," one of
the Jem Hadar soldiers reported.
    "Targeting weapons arrays and main reactor," the
Jem Hadar gunner responded at almost the same
time.
    "Countermand that!" Dukat roared. "I want the
station intact! Target shield generators! Keep hitting
the same section until there's a breakmnever mind
how many ships are destroyed! Don't bother filling
those gaps! Attack wings and batteries, concentrate
your fire on Section Seventeen of the outer docking
ring. We have to penetrate their shields."
    He continued barking orders. As long as he kept
snapping this and that, the Jem Hadar soldiers stayed
busy and there was no opening into which Weyoun
could press a protest about leaving the Defiant to
finish the mine field.
    Everything was temporary, everything would change,
and for now the station was the thing. And Dukat had a
plan for that mine field.
    As the flagship nursed its own wounds and bore
down upon the station, a huge explosion erupted from
the crusty gray surface of the docking ring.
    "The station's main shield power is down!" the Jem
Hadar engineer called.
"They'll switch to auxiliary," Weyoun anticipated.

    "It won't hold for long." Dukat couldn't mask his
feelings enough to ignore the sight of the Defiant
setting the last few mines and turn on its rail, then
swing away. As the ship left the screen, Dukat could
clearly see the sprawling net of a thousand perfectly
spaced replicating mines. All together, like a musical
ensemble taking a single cue, the mine field flickered
to a thousand tiny lights, then cloaked.
 "Sir," Damar began, "the minefieldm"
    "I have eyes, Damar." Dukat cut him off, but
Weyoun already noticed.
    "This isn't turning out quite the way I had
planned," the Vorta tightly said, his threat not very
well veiled.
    Dukat gritted his teeth. "A minor setback,
Weyoun .... Once we take the station, we'll be able to
dismantle the minefield without interference."
 And take as long as I feel like taking.
    Weyoun's voice became silky again, but the threat
remained. "Let's both hope your confidence is justi-
fied."
    Dukat started to turn, a permanent insult readying
on his tongue, but once again he cuffed it aside and
moved away from the Vorta, going instead to Damar's
other side. "Damar, signal the reserves to prepare for
final assault. Regroup the fleet."
    "Another wave of our ships is entering Bajoran
space," one of the Jem Hadar reported from over
Dukat's shoulder.
    "Look!" Damar pointed at the large screen which
was focused upon the superstructure of the station.
"They're evacuating!"

12                                                                  13




    On the screen, taking advantage of the lull as the
Dominion and Cardassian fleets stopped firing and
regrouped, several ships of various configuration
detached from the docking ring and streamed away
from the station. Even the Defiant was now docked
up, probably loading whatever it could carry and
whomever was to serve aboard the Federation fight-
ing ship.
 "Evacuation .... "
    Dukat watched for several moments. His station,
his Cardassian jewel, would soon be his again. His.
And this Vorta's. And the Dominion's.

    "When I first took command of this post, all I
wanted was to be somewhere else. Anywhere but here.
But now, five years later, this station has become my
home. And you've become my family. Leaving this
place, leaving you, is one of the hardest things I've
ever had to do."
    Captain Ben Sisko stood rather stiffly before a
random collection of personnel and citizens, at least
those who were left, on the deep space station num-
bered "9" by the United Federation of Planets. The
Starfleet people in the crowd were few and disturbed.
They shifted and clasped their hands. Their eyes were
downcast, at the deck. They were soon leaving the
platform and the people they had protected for five
years. The Bajoran citizens and other visitors and
residents in the crowd stood still as clay, gazing
upward at Sisko, remembering things much earlier
than five years ago. They were being left behind,
unprotected. Major Kira, Constable Odo, the barkeep

 Quark, his brother Rom, their not so silent but
 constant customer Morn, various shopkeepers, Dabo
 girls, other Ferengi...
     And still others, Starfleet and not, were watching
 him on screens all over the station. Probably his
 image, his words, were being broadcast all over Bajor
 as well. A planet in disappointment.
    The last mine was set. The field was activated.
Dominion reserves were moving in. The ugly an-
nouncement of evacuation had been made. All Star-
fleet personnel off the station. His command crew
was dispersed to a variety of assignments--Dax
would be on the Defiant, with him. Worf, now Dax's
fianc6 and the only Klingon in Sisko's command, had
been assigned to General Martok and the Klingon
bird-of-prey that had so boldly saved the Defiant and
bought the extra time needed to set the mine field
across the wormhole's mouth. Major Kira and Con-
stable Odo would stay here, consigned once again to
the oppression of the Cardassians, as they had been
long before. Quark would stay to mind his business,
and his brother Rom would stay with him, to run the
business and be a spy for Starfleet, whatever good
that would do here now. Nog, Rom's son, now a
cadet in Starfleet, would go with Sisko and the
Defiant as a member of the crew. There would be no
cushion of training for him. He would be, like
everyone else, plunged into real action.
    All over the station, tender or desperate good-byes
were being made, bargains of survivals, promises to
live, to keep up hope, to struggle on .... Sisko's
stomach suddenly knotted and he almost choked on

14                                                                 15




a lump of rage. He squared his big shoulders, dealt
with the sudden tension in this thick arms, and
hoped the crowd would not notice the blush of fury
rising in his cheeks, for that would give too much
away.
    "But this war isn't over yet. I want you to know
while we were keeping the Dominion occupied, a
combined Starfleet/Klingon task force crossed the
border into Cardassia and destroyed the Dominion
shipyards on Torros Three."
    A few sparks of hope lit in the eyes of the crowd.
Dax and Nog even seemed surprised and let it show.
Sisko was gratified--by saving the news, he could give
them one little gift before vacating the place he had
sworn never to abandon.
    Should he give them the details? Names, ships,
images to which they might cling in the coming hard
times? Should he describe how the Starfleet patrollers
Centaur and Majestic had skirted all the sentry ships
at Torros Three and stormed the shipyards without
backup, trying to cover each other like two seed pods
spinning in a light breeze?
     No--these people needed their own victory stories.
 He had to give them time to make some before
 praising the actions of others when all these before
 him felt so helpless.
     "Our sacrifice made that victory possible," he went
 on. "But no victory could make this moment any
 easier for me. And I promise... I will not rest until I
 stand with you again, here, in this place... where I
 belong."
  Enough, enough--if he said more, something in-

side would snap. He buried raw frustration in a
gesture, by tapping his cornbadge.
"Sisko to Defiant. One to beam aboard."
Blessedly, they were ready on the ship to beam him
off the station right away. No ugly buffer of silent
seconds. Controlling his expression, he watched the
faces of the crowd distill into the lights and sparkles
of the transporter beam. For a silly instant he wished
it were they and not he being beamed away, but
despite the illusion, his wish was only a wish.
    He materialized in the transporter bay of the battle-
ship Defiant, now his only home. Chief Engineer
O'Brien and their personal Cardassian, Garak, were
there to meet him, but neither said anything or dared
to break his moment of misery. He did that himself.
 "Are we ready?" he asked.
    "As soon as you give the word," O'Brien told him
passively.
    All an illusion--there was nothing passive about
this moment and things would have to happen
damned fast, but O'Brien was giving him time even
though they didn't have any. In fact, O'Brien didn't
even wait around for an answer. He rushed past Sisko
and Garak, pausing only briefly at one of the engine
stabilization controls before moving on to something
else. Having not been on board in the past few hours,
Sisko had little idea of what O'Brien was doing and
this was no time to interrupt him.
    "Mr. Garak," Sisko began, turning, and the rest of
the question went unasked.
  "I'd like to come along," Garak said instantly, "if

16                                                                 17




you don't mind. You never know when you might
need a good tailor... and the simple fact is, I have
nowhere else to go."
    A good tailor. Tinker, tailor, soldier--spy. Garak's
past was as simple as any crazy quilt. Sisko was
somehow warmed. "Welcome aboard," he said.
    "Dax to Sisko," the comm interrupted. "The Do-
minion fleet is coming around for another attack."
    Well, here it was. O'Brien had given him a buffer,
and Dax was giving him the rude awakening. All
right.
    "Release docking clamps," he ordered. "Prepare
for departure."
    Accepting a nod of encouragement from Garak,
Sisko shook off depression's web and started acting
like a soldier. He rushed to the ship's bridge and, to
the apparent relief of his bridge crew, took the com-
mand deck. Did they think he wasn't going to show
up? Maybe he'd need counseling for a couple of hours
to get over this?
    Not likely. But now wasn't the time to fight, ei-
ther. The Defiant and Martok's bird-of-prey alone
couldn't take on a hundred Dominion ships. Instead,
Defiant and the Klingons dodged through the sta-
tion's pylons, racking off enough shots at the attack-
ing fleet to keep from being obliterated right away
themselves. All they had to do was clear the sta-
tion-
    "Go to full impulse as soon as you can," he
ordered. "We'll be back, but we have to get away first.
Prepare to cloak!"

    Major Kira Nerys and Security Chief Odo entered
the Operations area of Deep Space Nine. The station,
the whole massive structure, shook violently under
enemy fire, wrecking the facade of elegance that Kira
knew she wanted and suspected Odo wanted, too.
    Odo left her side briefly and checked a readout.
"The Defiant's away," he said tersely.
    "Signal the Dominion fleet," Kira responded. Oh,
this tasted bad, bad, bad. "Tell them the Bajoran
government welcomes them to Deep Space Nine."
    Oh, sick! How many times over the past day had
she rehearsed those words? Somehow she had forced
herself to pretend they were just random sounds, like
a combination to a door--except that this combina-
tion locked the door instead of unlocking it.
Odo stiffly said, "Message acknowledged."
"Good. That's the last message this station will be
putting out for a while. Computer, initiate program
Sisko one-nine-seven."
The computer dutifully said, "Program initiated."
A high-pitched electronic howl built up and
screamed through the panels and trunks. Blue crack-
les of overload and discharge racked each station,
frying the computer, monitors, and blowing out
every system. A moment later, the plasma conduits
stopped their usual pulsing and all the monitors
snapped and went black. She and Odo stood togeth-
er, watching everything they'd fought to protect blow
up around them. Funny how your priorities could
change.
    Kira glanced around. "Dukat wanted the station
back... he can have it."

18                                                                 19




    Odo said nothing. He knew as well as she what this
might mean--a slide backward to the days of labor
camps and martial law under the Cardassians. But
there were differences.
    In those days long ago, Kira had been a scruffy,
scrawny freedom fighter with a dirty face and a one-
track mind. Odo had been a displaced alien using his
shapeshifting abilities to change into silly things for
the entertainment of others as a crippled effort to fit
in. He hadn't even known in those days why he could
do these tricks.
    Now things were different. Kira was a major in the
Bajoran military and had been adjutant to Starfleet's
occupation of Deep Space Nine, a constant represen-
tative of the planet who had been privileged to
command a Starfleet station and a Starfleet ship. It
said something about Starfleet that they had so
readily accepted her as an authority and treated her
as if she had come through their own academy. The
singleminded little girl who spent her life in the
ditches of Bajor, defending only Bajorans, devoted
only to Bajor, had over the past few years found
herself accepted into and defending a much larger
family.
    Now the impossible was being asked of her. For the
sake of long-sought quality of life on Bajor, she must
shelve her revulsion at the return of the Cardassians
and widen still more her envelope of toleration. No
longer just a street urchin fighting behind smashed
walls, she must help run the station even under
Cardassian control. She must be the one to officially

welcome them back. If only her intestines would
cooperate.
    As she and Odo walked the long Promenade to-
gether, not looking at each other, not speaking, Kira
built herself up to doing what she must do. She
hoped the station had wrecked itself enough that the
Cardassians would have weeks of work ahead of
them. As she and Odo approached the row of air-
locks, Kira's eyes tightened, watching several Jem
Hadar soldiers physically force open one of the
hatches. Many more Jem Hadar, with their ugly pale
faces like broken rocks, surged through and formed
up ranks. A moment later she saw Dukat, his attend-
ant Damar, and that nauseating �orta step out onto
the Promenade.
    "This is a great victory for Cardassia," Damar's
voice filtered down the long platform.
    "And the Dominion," Dukat mentioned. His mag-
nanimity was entirely fake, Kira knew, as was con-
firmed instantly by his glance toward Weyoun.
    "Over fifty ships lost," the Vorta complained. "Our
spacedocks on Torros Three destroyed--a victory
perhaps, but a costly one."
    "We'll discuss the repercussions later," Dukat said.
"Right now, I intend to enjoy this moment."
    Would you enjoy a pointy little fist in your nostril?
Kira pressed her hands to her thighs as she and
Odomand Quark had joined them as they passed the
bar--stopped before the Cardassians and that Vorta
floater. This was it.
 Uch.

20                                          21




"Gentlemen," she began, obviously forcing herself,
"on behalf of the Bajoran government--"
    Quark stuck his head between her and Odo, saying,
"And the Promenade Merchants' Association--"
    "I officially welcome you to Deep Space Nine, "Kira
finished, annoyed that Quark had interrupted her
slide down that slope.
    Dukat tipped his head. "You mean Terok Nor.
Don't you?"
    Kira pressed her lips tight and pushed her tongue
against her teeth. Did he want an honest answer? Did
he want to hear what she really meant?
    But Weyoun saved her from having to speak as he
drifted forward to Odo, spread his hands, and gazed
in obsequious adoration at the shapeshifter. "Found-
er... we are honored by your decision to remain
with us."
    Odo blistered and stiffened. "I'm not here as a
Founder," his gravelly voice returned. "I'm the sta-
tion's security chief."
    Kira bit back a grin. She knew what that meant to
Odo, and also how much of a lesser thing it must seem
to Weyoun.
    "Whatever you say," Weyoun allowed. "Neverthe-
less, having a... a god... walk among us is most
gratifying."
    "! agree," Dukat snapped, butchering the silliness.
He all but slapped Odo on the shoulder--but luckily
kept from doing that. "You, me, the major, together
again... it should be most interesting. Now, if
you'll excuse me, I'll be in the commander's office."
Dukat strode off, flanked by Damar and Weyoun,

swarmed from behind by their Jem Hadar stooges.
Quark bugged his eyes meaningfully, shook his
knobby head, and veered off toward his bar.
    A moment later, Kira and Odo were standing
alone on the Promenade, and the irritating part was
over. The hard part... that was still to come.
    Kira opened and closed her hands, then opened
them again and tried to leave them that way. Might
as well pry open clamshells.
    "I don't know how he avoided rubbing it in," she
muttered.
    Odo watched the last Jem Hadar disappear down
the curved corridor through the mist of smoke left-
over from the ruptured vent main. "Rubbing what
in?"
    "He didn't say, 'my' office. I'd have expected that
from Dukat. His sarcasm was always poorly veiled."
"Maybe he's changed," Odo huffed.
    "Oh, yes," Kira said with a bitter twitch. "He's
mellowed into a real sweetheart. Anybody can see
that."
    "Where do you think they're going now? To the
captain's office?"
    "Probably. They'll have to go through Ops. I wish I
could be there when Dukat and that smarmy Weyoun
see what they have to rebuild in order to use this
station."
    "Don't enjoy the dream too much, Major," Odo
warned. "Dukat is a soldier. He'll be expecting the
burnouts. He knows Captain Sisko would leave him
with as crippled a station as possible."
 "If not for that damned treaty Bajor signed, we

22                                                             23




could've crippled it a lot more," Kira said through her
teeth. "But I guess we have to be able to breathe if
we're going to keep living here."
    "Yes, we do. And we must bide time. Weyoun's first
priority will be to dismantle the mine field so rein-
forcements can come through from the Gamma
Quadrant. He'll have to let Dukat handle that. The
�orta are politicians, intermediaries... not sol-
diers."
    Kira looked at him. "Are you suggesting that
Dukat's priorities and the Vorta's may not be in
line?"
    "Would yours be, if you were Dukat? The Cardas-
sians were once supreme here. Now they have formed
a devil's deal with the Dominion. I'm sure no Cardas-
sian is fool enough to think the Dominion will allow
anyone to be its equal partner. I suspect Dukat views
the arrangement as temporary, until his own ends can
be met."
    "What do you think Dukat wants?" Kira asked. "In
the long run?"
    "I don't know." Once again Odo gazed down the
now-empty corridor. "But if I were you, Kira... I'd
be watching him for clues."

 "Our shipyards... destroyed!"
    The Vorta's controlled features took on a ghoulish
twist which gave Dukat definite satisfaction.
    "Torros Three," he uttered, placidly looking over
the report Damar had just handed him--even worse
than the early reports. "The entire Dominion ship-
yard, decimated."

24

     They stood now on the shattered remains of the
 Operations center, strangely resembling the condition
 of the station when Dukat had left it behind years ago.
 He too had destroyed everything he could before
 leaving.
     He handed the padd back to Damar. "Acknowledge
 the information, Damar, but make no reports yet
 about the condition of the station. I'll handle that
 myselfi Later."  "Yes, sir."
     As Damar left, Weyoun watched Dukat. "Is this
 what you consider normal? To gain a station and lose
 a shipyard? Is this what Cardassians consider effective
 warfare?"
    "We gained the station because we lost the ship-
yard," Dukat told him. "Or the other way around,
depending upon your perspective."
    "Do you mean to suggest that this was all some
kind of Starfleet plan?"
    "Oh, not exactly. I'm sure they have no pleasure in
losing the station, but when that became inevitable
I'm also sure they determined not to suffer a loss
without a gain. The distraction allowed Starfleet ships
to broach the lines and destroy Torros Three, yet they
also managed to put up and activate that mine field.
Though they lost the station and control of this sector,
they did make us pay for the exchange. That is the
nature of war, Weyoun... at least, it is on this side of
the wormhole."
    Weyoun leered at him, but regained control over his
expression. "About that mine field... if they're self-

25




replicating mines, what can we do to bring the net-
work down?"
    "They're not actually self-replicating," Dukat en-
joyed pointing out. "When one is destroyed, its neigh-
bors fill the gap. That's not 'self' replication--"
    "I don't care what it is as long as you bring down
the network."
    "In time, Weyoun. I'm already working on it.
Now... let me introduce you to the commander's
office, Weyoun. This way."
    Dukat nearly paused for a breath of success as the
hatch doors parted and let him into the station
commander's office. Once his, then Sisko's, and now
his again.
    He was fairly proud of himself and couldn't help
but prance a bit. Though... not for taking back the
station. The Dominion had helped too much for
that. The Cardassians, after war with the Klingons,
had been too weak to take back the station or any
part of the quadrant from the Federation. Admit-
tedly, they had to have help for that. The war had
reduced Cardassia to an insignificant power, no
matter what they wanted anyone else to believe.
    When the Dominion came, the Cardassians had
little power to resist and would've made thralls of
Cardassia along with everyone else or been wiped
out altogether. Instead, Dukat had maneuvered an
alliance and made Cardassia useful to the Domin-
ion. Many others had not been so clever and had
been destroyed. That fate might still await others--
the Federation, the Klingons--who could tell? But

until then and probably after, Cardassia would sur-
vive.
    And, of course, there was always a long-range plan.
Everyone knew they were using each other. The
Dominion, the Cardassians, the Bajorans, Tholians,
so on. All knew there was no love between them, it
was simply inconvenient for all to go to war right
now when shorter goals could be realized. Dukat's
long-range plan was that the Cardassians would
eventually become so valuable to the Dominion that
they would slowly become stronger. The day would
come when the two forces would turn upon each
other. Dukat intended that, on that day, the Cardas-
sians would be strong enough to push the Dominion
back through the wormhole and lock it there for
good.
    For now, Cardassia had to be useful and survive. In
the short run, that mine field would stay there for a
while. The longer the mine field was up, the longer the
Dominion needed Dukat. He would make attempts to
figure out the clever technology. That would take
time. Dismantling them would take even longer. The
tricky mines would baffle his engineers for as long as
he needed them to be baffled. A few weeks to shore up
the Cardassians presence here and Cardassian con-
trol. A few weeks to be seen in charge of things, to
entrench himself and the Cardassian presence in the
sector, to make Cardassia more useful, more neces-
sary in the eyes of the Dominion. For now, that was
Cardassia's only hope. For the future--hopes would
broaden.

26                                                                27




    He needed time to patch up Cardassia's many
factions. Dukat would have to iron away the wrinkles
that had contributed to losing the war with the
Klingons. Such a defeat must never happen again.
Cardassia would not only have to be strong in ord-
nance and ability, but its power structure must be in
line. Otherwise, there would be internal struggles and
the foundation would crumble.
    The Ops center was a smashed mess. The station
had put up a monumental fight, and then the evacuat-
ing Starfleet contingent had taken an electrical sledge-
hammer to the main controls and every ancillary
system aboard. The damage had veined through the
body of the station, causing burnouts and overloads
almost everywhere. Dukat had expected some dam-
age, but not quite so much. Less disturbed than
amused, he found himself admiring the work and
wondered how to do it if that time ever came.
    Not the most constructive of thoughts, but one had
to be realistic.
    Weyoun followed him into the office. "I assume
Captain Sisko removed or destroyed everything of
value?"
    Dukat parted his lips to virtually confirm that
assumption, but stopped suddenly as his eyes fell
upon the nearly bare desk. Nearly... "Not everything," he said.
    He came around the desk and eased into the chair,
but his settling there was blunted by a simple round
element resting on the desk. A little white ball with
red stitching, its white skin worn to a gloss. A baze-

ball, hadn't Sisko called it? He picked up the bazeball
and turned it in his fingers.
    Weyoun bent forward and looked at the worn palm-
sized orb. "What is that?"
     "A message." Dukat leaned back in the chair,
bringing the dirty white ball with him. "From Sisko."
  "I don't understand," the Vorta admitted.
    "He's letting me know," Dukat said, "that he'll be
back."

28                                                                 29




CHAPTER
       3

"AH--THERE YOU ARE. I'd just about given up hope,
Doctor. I would think that all those lunches we've
shared would've entitled me to preferential treat-
ment."
 "Garak--"
    Julian Bashir looked up from the analyses his
workhorsing medical computer was choking out, and
bridled his tone. All he could manage to do, though,
was speak more quietly. The tension, unfortunately
for a medical professional, remained in his voice.
    "I've got twelve wounded officers and crewmen out
there," he told their local Cardassian expatriate, who
now stood in the clutter of medical supplies with a
bruise glaring on his head like a billboard. "Each one
is in a lot worse shape than you."

Garak's eyes flashed. "If you're trying to cheer me
up, it's working. I feel better already."
    The physician inside Bashir overcame the irritated
human being outside. He reached up to probe Garak's
forehead. After all, his job was to make people feel
better.
    Deep bruise... blunt blow. "What happened?" he
asked.
    "I was studying some star charts for Captain Sisko
during the last assault when I had a sudden and
somewhat violent encounter with a bulkhead."
    Not entirely devoid of sympathy, since he'd been
encountering a few bulkheads himself in the waves of
battle, Bashir mentioned, "You'll live ...."
 "I wish I shared your confidence."
    At first Bashir ignored Garak's quipmGarak was
always quipping, in fact Garak would go out of his
way to pop off with lines when silence would do just
fineMbut something about this last declaration had a
glint of not being a joke.
    Seeing the doctor's expression, Garak explained,
"Oh, I'm sure my head will heal, but the way this war
is going... I wouldn't bet on any of us living to a ripe
old age."
    Bashir drew a breath of reliefi He'd imagined some
kind of Cardassian hit team coming after Garak to
finally silence him, his strange and complex back-
ground in the secret Obsidian order, and his obvious
collaboration with Starfleet. Any illusions that Garak
was only a simple tailor had fermented into just an in-
joke. Maybe not so "in." The fact that he had evacu-

30                                                                31




ated along with everyone else at Deep Space Nine
proved that he wasn't living on the border and hoping
to go back to Cardassia someday. Now he was deep
inside Federation space without a particularly good
reason, from the Cardassian point of view. So much
for going home.
    "I admit the odds aren't good," Bashir told him,
"but they could be worse."
    "Let me guess," Garak said around a wince as
Bashir treated his abraded forehead, "you've used
that genetically enhanced brain of yours to calculate
our chances of survival."
    Bristling again, Bashir's stomach knotted. He
wished Garak would stop pointing out the tampered
genetics that had boosted Bashir to higher intellect
and even physical advantages of genetic engineering.
Every reminder also echoed the haunting trouble of
one Khan Noonian Singh for every Julian Bashir.
    There just weren't that many nice things to say
about it. Facts. Lots of facts.
    "Calculating chances isn't that difficult," he mut-
tered. "I simply began with a binomial risk distribu-
tion-"
    "I'm really not interested, Doctor," Garak inter-
rupted. "Ever since it became public knowledge that
you were genetically engineered, you've used every
opportunity to show off."
    "I have nothing to hide anymore. I might as well
use what I have."
    Apparently even Garak--a man who had a past to
hide himself--understood that. "Well? What are our
chances? Over fifty percent?"

 "Thirty-two point seven."
 'Tm sorry I asked ....You're sure about that
figure?"
     "Do you want me to take you through the entire set
of calculations?" "Not really."
    Then Garak muttered something, to which Bashir
snapped, "Excuse me?"
    "Look at you!" the Cardassian said. "You act like
you haven't a care in the world. It's that kind of smug,
superior attitude that makes people like you so un-
popular."
    Bashir withdrew his treatment of the wound. "Are
you insulting me?"
    "A thirty-two point seven percent chance of survi-
val? I call that insulting!"
    "Don't take it so personally. It's strictly a matter of
mathematics."
    "It's strictly a matter of our lives! You're not
genetically engineered--you're a Vulcan!"
    A grin tugged at Bashir's cracked lips. "If I'm a
Vulcan, how do you explain my boyish smile?"
 Garak's eyes caught that glitter again. "Not so
boyish anymore ....Do you need help?"
 "Help with what?"
 "All your casualties out there?"
    Somewhat warmed by the sudden change, Bashir
looked at him. "Are you offering?"
    "Well, I'm a tailor, aren't I? Garments, wounds...
what's the difference, as long as you're sewing edges
together?"
 "There's a ghastly thought .... If you're serious,

32                                                               33




I'd love some help. I have to get back to the bridge as
soon as I can."
    Garak picked up a sterilizer and began running it
over his hands, to prepare for handling casualties.
"Julian, how long do you think you can maintain this
double duty? Being a doctor is enough in a war. Your
skills are critical, not just to save lives, but to return
crewmen to ships who desperately need them. Why
do you feel you must also double as science officer for
this one ship?"
    "This isn't just one ship," Bashir corrected. "This is
the Defiant. We're the only crew with extended experi-
ence fighting both the Cardassians and the Jem
Hadar. The Defiant is the only ship that's taken
damage from both enemies and has been shored up to
stand against both types of assault. We're spread thin
for technical service personnel. If I can be acting
science officer as much as possible, someone else
won't have to be pulled off a critical assignment and
Dax is free to navigate and handle tactical. After all,
Garak... you're doing double duty yourself."
  "How's that?"
 "You're a tailor. Now you're also a nurse."
    "Oh... yes. Just call me Florence Nightingale.
Where do you keep the needles?"

    Three months of relentless fighting. Encounter
upon encounter, skirmish upon battle, raid upon
assault upon maneuver. A thousand cuts.
    The Defiant slogged through space, between Mar-
tok's bird-of-prey Rotarran and a destroyer that was

34

leaking plasma. On a lower plane, just visible on the
main screen and the flickering diagnostic monitor to
Ben Sisko's left, two other ships, including a Galaxy-
class cruiser, were being towed, unable to muster their
own motive power. All around them, like a giant rag
doll torn into hundreds of pieces, floated what was
left of the Second Fleet. Ship after ship, limping
along, almost none without significant damage, shar-
ing supplies, sacrificing equipment to keep each other
going. The sight was sad and discouraging. There was
no backup force to call upon, no extra support crew
to replace those who had been lost. This was an all-
out war, and everybody who could fight was already
fighting.
    There was no corner of the Defiant upon which he
could rest his eyes without catching a thread of
destruction. Around him, his crewmen were ex-
hausted and gaunt. They'd given up trying to be clean
weeks ago. Their faces and hands were smudged and
sweat-smeared. The ship's life support systems had
sacrificed comfortable temperatures for just keeping
the air on board breathable--a real trick, considering
all the leaks and contamination that nobody had time
to repair because everybody was busy repairing more
critical systems. Everything had to wait, so everything
kept on breaking until it became critical. The squeak-
iest wheels were the only ones that got precious
attention and rare parts.
    The armada around them, once a beautiful spar-
kling spray of heavy cruisers, battleships, flank ves-
sels, tenders, carriers, destroyers, border cutters,

35




muscular support ships, fighters and Klingon birds-
of-prey and heavy cranes, was now reduced to a third
its original size. The ships that remained were bruised
and stressed, suffering not only from the wear of
battle but from simple starvation. Supply lines were
growing thinner and weaker. Several starbases had
been evacuated and no longer provided safe port or
repair facilities. Almost every ship had gone to basic
rationing. Personnel had been reduced in number and
efficiency. There had been many casualties, most in
the engineering and forward attack jobs--critical
losses in posts that were not easily filled.
    The situation was as grim as Valley Forge. Despite a
few early punches, things hadn't gone well. For Sisko,
it was getting to be a trial just to pretend that none of
this bothered him. He'd made a game--or an exer-
cise, perhaps--of seeming above it all, putting forth a
tepid immunity to defeat after defeat, to insisting that
just holding a line for a few days was a victory.
    He sat in his command chair with no maneuver to
command right now, except to watch as his crew
monitored the position of several pendulum-shaped
Jem Hadar heavy fighters, while those enemy ships
decided whether or not to pursue the maimed Star-
fleet/Klingon armada.
    To one side, Cadet Nog watched the monitors and
tried to coax the ragged systems into reading accu-
rately whatever they could pick up in space. On the
other side of the bridge, Chief Miles O'Brien picked
and patched at engineering systems that hadn't given
a complete reading in two days. Jadzia Dax was at the
helm, somehow appearing as unflappable as Sisko was

trying to appear, but she pulled it off better. Despite a
faded smudge on one cheekbone, she didn't even have
a hair out of place. How did she do that?
    Half the lights were out ... the smudge might be
just a shadow. Sisko couldn't tell and didn't really
want to know. The cloying air of defeat was enough of
a nemesis right now.
    In his periphery, two significant lights came on,
then winked off at the upper right of Nog's sensor
controls.
    "Cadet?" Sisko encouraged, forcing the young Fer-
engi crewman to have to tell him whatever he knew at
the moment.
    "Long range scanners show no sign of Jem Hadar
ships," Nog answered nervously, as if he didn't be-
lieve what he was seeing. "Looks like they've broken
off their pursuit."
    Sisko had to admire the kid. Nog had managed to
keep a sigh of relief out of his words.
    O'Brien, on the other hand, made no pretense. His
true feelings bubbled up like froth on Irish stew. "I
guess they got tired of looking at our backs," the
engineer grumbled. "Three months of bloody slaugh-
ter and what do we have to show for it? Not a damned
thing... engage and retreat, engage and retreat ....
Just one time I'd would've liked to see their backs--"
  "That's enough, Chief," Sisko drawled.
  But O'Brien wasn't done stewing, and they both
  knew Sisko couldn't really stop him if O'Brien wanted
  to keep talking. Luckily, all he said was, "Sorry, sir.
  Nothing a little sleep won't cure."

36                                                                37





    "We could all use some sleep," Dax said. "What's it
been... seventy-eight hours?"
    Nog turned in his seat. "Shouldn't we have heard
something from the Seventh Fleet by now?"
    Dax looked at him. Her voice mellowed them all.
"I wouldn't worry just yet. The Tyra System is far
enough away that it's going to take a day or two for
any message to reach us."
    "You think they can stop the Dominion?" Nog
asked.
    "You're damned right they can," O'Brien snapped.
"Somebody has to."
    Sisko sat back in his chair. Not exactly the Gettys-
burg Address going on in here. The good guys didn't
always win, no matter what the legends said. Every
force, even Starfleet, even the Klingons, eventually
meets a more powerful force. That was the nature of
life. Nobody was really at the top of the food chain.
There was always somebody bigger, and even the
biggest guys would eventually be brought down by a
virus or a dog bite or just by time. Sisko was feeling
very beatable right now, and singing songs of the
valiant couldn't change a thing.  "Captain."
      On the other hand, a three-month war wasn't that
long, and it wasn't over yet.  "Captain?"
    Sisko flinched, then managed to bury the flinch in a
quick motion to scratch his leg. He looked at Dax.
"Yes?"
  "General Martok just beamed aboard."

    "Martok? Why would he come aboard the Defiant?
Has he got some news?"
    "No." She smiled and stood up. "I think he wants
lunch and he likes our mess hall better than his own."
    "If he's trying to get me in a good mood," Sisko
said, "I haven't been in one since I found out Jake
decided to stay on Deep Space Nine instead of evacu-
ating. No word from the station in over two months,
no way to know if my son's still alive--"
    "Relax, Benjamin. The Dominion wants their ar-
rangement with the Bajorans to go smoothly for now.
They won't kill the son of the Bajoran emissary."
    "Or they might kill him on purpose, because he's
the son of the emissary just to make a point of their
superiority."
    She took his arm and moved him toward the
turbolift. "True, but I don't think Dukat would be
casual enough to let that happen."
    "Are you telling me you think Dukat would protect
my son? Dax, you're hallucinating."
    "I don't think he'd protect Jake for your sake or for
Jake's. I certainly do think he would leave all his
options open, and he knows you haven't abandoned
Deep Space Nine willingly or permanently. I wouldn't
make that assumption about you, and Dukat knows
you well enough that he won't either. He'll want all
the cards in his hand as long as possible. Jake is a
pretty powerful card. I'm so mad at that kid for
growing up--"
 Dax laughed, lightening the whole ship somehow.
 Together they strode the stuffy corridors to the

38                                                             39





miserably dim mess hall. Martok wasn't there yet. In
some ways, that was a relief. Time to sit down and
pretend to have been there for a while. Time to put on
an air of casual patience.
    Dax took a table and Sisko veered off to the
replicator for hot drinks. When he finally joined her,
she was ready with a question as they clinked their
mugs.
    "So where do you think Starfleet's going to send us
next?"
    "I don't know," he responded with flat honesty.
"But if I have any say in the matter, we'll be going
right back to the front lines."
"Well said, Captain," a rough voice interrupted.
Sisko and Dax turned. At the entrance to the mess
hall, General Martok's stocky but massive form took
up almost the entire doorway. His craggy Klingon
appearance was as welcome as springtime. Even cra-
dling a freshly wounded arm whose bulky sleeve was
bloodstained, ragged and filthy, Martok looked like a
ray of sunshine to Sisko.
    "And my ship will be at your side," Martok thun-
dered on, flaring his one good eye.
    Then he stepped aside to let a second Klingon, even
more welcome, into the mess hall.
    "Worfl" Dax rushed to the former Strategic Opera-
tions Officer of Deep Space Nine, enwrapping him
with her willowy bear hug and jumped right up into
his arms. He caught her as if she were a fluttering
branch.
 They made the oddest pair ....
 Martok looked at Worf. "Tell her."

    Dax twisted to look at the general, then back at
Worf. "Tell me what?"
 "It can wait," Worf protested.
    "No, it cannot," Martok instantly said as he
crossed to the replicator. "Raktajino," he ordered. "It
has been weighing heavily on his mind."
 "What it is, Worf?." Dax insisted. "What's wrong?"
    Worf glared briefly at Martok. "It's about our
wedding."
 "You're getting cold feet?"
    "You have scheduled the ritual sacrifice of the tar'g
to occur after the wedding feast has been served."
    Sisko drifted back in the chair and muffled a grin.
Ah, somebody else's problems. It was as relaxing as
the game of the week.
    Dax stood back from her fianc~ and accused, "We
haven't seen each other in five weeks and that's the
first thing you say to me?"
    Standing his ground, Worf's normally severe ex-
pression became even more severe. After all, a man
had certain principles to stand by, and the slaughter
of the ritual beast at a Klingon wedding was right up
there with honor, dignity, and the saving of the
Federation from evil empires. Wasn't it?
    "We agreed," he said, "it would be a traditional
ceremony."
    This from a Klingon who had lived about as untra-
ditional a life as any ever had. And Dax wasn't
torturing him on purpose or anything like that.
    Dax shrugged. "Have it your way. First we'll shed
blood, then we'll feast."
 "As it should be," Worf nailed.

40                                                                            41





    Martok swaggered to the table and rolled into a seat
next to Sisko. "He has been unable to talk about
anything else for days."
    Smiling, Dax winked at Sisko. "He's such a wor-
rier."
    Sisko tried, but this time failed, to bury his smile at
Worfs expense. Oh, well. Dax had probably set all
this up anyway. She was hundreds of years old under
that young-girl facade, had lived a dozen lifetimes
and learned how to maneuver people.
    How many times had she--or he, depending upon
the case--been married?
 One of these days, he'd have to ask.
    "Take my advice, old man," Sisko said to her, "a
small wedding is the way to go."
    She grinned. "You get married the way you want,
I'll get married the way I want." She took Worf's
meaty arm and pulled. "I'11 see you later, Benjamin."
  He nodded. "Try not to break any bones .... "
    As she and her embristled intended fled the mess,
Martok slugged his raktajino and patted his injured
arm. "Now that that's settled, I'd better go take care
of this. Klingons make great warriors, but terrible
doctors."
    He started to get up, but the door parted and, as if
summoned, their chief surgeon, Julian Bashir, en-
tered. The moment might've borne a joke, except that
Bashir was shaken and overwrought, thin and drawn.
  "Captain--" he began.
    General Martok presented his injured arm to the
doctor. "Just the man I wanted to see."
  Bashir ignored him, strode right past him, and

42

faced Sisko. His voice was strained, quiet. "We've
been ordered to report to Starbase 375 for reassign-
ment .... "
    He paused. Sisko waited, but the doctor neither
finished nor turned.
 "Something else, Doctor?"
    Drawing a breath, Bashir tried again. "There's news
of the Seventh Fleet .... "
    Sisko let a moment pass, then braced himself. "Go
on."
    Visibly battling between terror and rage, Bashir
gathered his strength to make the report.
    "Only fourteen ships made it back to our lines," he
said.
    The room seemed to shrink around them. Together,
unshielded, they took the gut-punch information,
then tried to struggle back. Sisko pressed a hand to his
eyes.
    "Fourteen?' Martok intoned. "Out of a hundred
and twelve!"
    The blow was irremediable. No Seventh Fleet.
None. The concept... huge. Fourteen ships--survi-
vors, not victors--couldn't possibly be called any
kind of fighting force on this scale. Sisko could
imagine the condition of those fourteen ships, and in
that there was even less hope.
    An entire fighting wing... a hundred and twelve
ships... all those crewmen... all those irreplace-
able captains and officers... gone?
    Bashir's anger finally burst. His voice was husky,
fierce, and he was bitterly frustrated. "Sir, we can't
keep taking those losses! Not if we expect to win this!"

43




    No fault in the venting. He was only giving voice to
all the thoughts Sisko had been trying to keep in a box
for all these weeks. Frustration with losses, frustration
with Starfleet's inability to engage on this enormous
scale ....
    "Thank you, Doctor," he forced out. "That'll be
all."
    Perhaps embarrassed, or just exhausted, Bashir was
unable to make any response or bow to protocol. He
started to leave, then looked at Martok. "I'd better
take a look at that arm."
    With a final and rather cryptic glance at Sisko,
Martok followed the doctor out.
    Left with his ugly thoughts, Sisko stared over the
top of his mug until his eyes ached and the skin
around them began to twitch. He slammed the mug
down, shattering the tabletop. Brutal defiance roared
across his mind.
  Something had to change. Something!
    There had to be something more to do, some way to
be more clever, some way to be smarter... there had
to be something!
    The door opened again and he almost lashed out,
ready to punish some poor soul for interrupting his
rage, but as he turned he realized he'd probably have
lost his hand in the bargain. Martok was back.
    "The doctor can look at my arm later," the Klingon
general said. "It is a time for us brilliant masters of
strategy to talk to each other. Don't you think?"
 Without waiting for an answer, he turned and

tapped a locking code into the mess hall entry panel.
No one would interrupt them.
    What did Martok have in mind that he didn't want
anyone to interrupt?
    The Klingon general was completely unintimidated
by Sisko's undisguised rage. He picked up the toppled
mug, said, "You didn't finish your raktajino. I'll get
you more," and went to the replicator. "Sit down,
Captain, and we'll discuss the weather."

44                                                                  45




0

CHAPTER
       4

FEELING HIS KNEES CRACK, Sisko grasped the edge of a
table and lowered himself into a seat. When Martok
arrived with a fresh steaming mug, there was almost a
human being sitting there.
    "They knew," Sisko rumbled. "Somehow, they
knew the fleet was coming and ambushed it."
    "Of course they knew," Martok said. "The Domin-
ion is run by the Founders. The Founders are shape-
shifters. This table or my boot could be a disguised
Founder. Your mug. That door. They could have spies
everywhere. How can we keep a secret? How can the
Federation and the Klingon Empire keep to ourselves
information about the movements of entire battle
wings? What can we do about it? Our enemies can
disguise themselves as my hair if they want to."
 "We have to stop it." Sisko's fingernails dug into his

palms. "What's going on at the admiralty? How can
they possibly lose a hundred ships without retreating
before it reaches that point?"
 "They were ambushed, Captain."
    "Even a retreat is smarter than that! What kind of
orders are the captains being given by their flag
admirals? Who lets things get to a point where a
hundred captains and a hundred officer staffs and a
hundred ships and all that hardware are utterly lost?"
    He sat and fumed and steamed and stared. In the
middle of the fume, a thread snapped.
    "They know something!" he blurted, almost with-
out thinking.
The Klingon tilted his head in question. "What?"
Shifting a couple of times, Sisko rolled his thoughts
from side to side, then pressed a hand to the broken
tabletop without even paying attention to the cut it
gave him.
    "Their victory was too overwhelming, Martok," he
said. "Nobody can have a victory like that without
knowing ahead of time what's about to happen. No
one can take on a combined fleet and leave only
fourteen ships! It's just too lucky! It's too lucky ....
To me, that's a giveaway. In fact, it's downright
foolish to use whatever information they had so
brazenly. They've given away that they knew more
than they should know."
    Clutching any possibility, he stared through his fog
of anger to the one little light.
    Leaning forward, one elbow pressed to the table, he
leered at the closed and locked door panel. "And I
don't believe the Federation is littered with Founders.

46                                                                                 47




There might be a few here and there disguised as side
tables, but we've been careful too... we've had all
sorts of countermeasures. Cooperative cells, isolation
of factions, false information .... We've taken every
precaution any sensible military body could be ex-
pected to take. And with false information, you'd
think we'd have been able to track down at least a
couple of spies, but we haven't flushed out so much as
one. That doesn't--"
    "Make sense," Martok agreed. "You're right. As
soon as false information is acted upon, we know
where the mole is. But not a boot or plate has come to
life."
    Sisko shook his head, fuming under every skin cell.
"Because the Founders know what they can do, they
think we expect them to do it, so they're either not
doing it or doing much less of it than we imagine. We
waste our time hunting boogeymen, and they exact
win after win on a bigger scale. If I were the Founders,
I'd be delighted with the Federation and the Klingons'
being preoccupied with their ability to turn into a
damned table lamp or chairs or carpeting. They know
their talent would drive us crazy. They know half the
population here is running around poking at inani-
mate objects and putting hot elements on tables and
against walls and picture frames before they dare
speak to each other."
    A moment of tense silence settled between them,
uneasy and filled with the clacking of desperate
thoughts, but Sisko couldn't help feeling as if a vault
inside his head had cracked and was leaking.

"We've been at peace too long," he uttered. "We
keep on trying to defend ourselves into victory!"
    "Defend?" Martok's one eye narrowed. "The fleet
was on the attack when they were ambushed and
slaughtered. How can you say they--"
    "It was still a defensive mentality," Sisko insisted.
"The Dominion attacked, then the combined fleet
attacked back. I don't care how much of a front we
put up, that's still defensive. It's not tricky enough.
We have to come up with a plan to just outsmart the
bullies time after time until we can become strong
enough to push them out of our quadrant with a
decisive win. That's going to take a long-range set
of... ideas. And the guts to implement those ideas.
And some way to contain the information so any spies
are confounded. We can't be just a big committee and
win this war. We have to get tricky, Martok. We have
to start pressing our advantages."
    "I see few advantages," Martok bluntly said. "The
Dominion has been doing this for a long while. They
have the Jem Hadar, soldiers whom they manufac-
ture, with short life spans and nothing to live for but
battle, so they might as well die battling. They are as
expendable to the Dominion as the ends of our
fingernails are to us. They're all programmed with the
same information and the same personality. The
Dominion can always make more--"
    Sisko held up a finger. "Those might be advantages,
General, if we use them properly. The Jem Hadar are
manufactured, and have the same mentality, the same
knowledge, virtually no experience, and no individu-

48                                                                                  49




ality. They're not clever. We should use cleverness
against them. They're not experienced--we use expe-
rience against them. They're programmed--we use
the advantage of individuality, spontaneity, and un-
predictability against them. We haven't really been
doing that. We've been fighting them based on them.
We should fight them based on us."
    Martok sat back and contemplated Sisko. The
scouring look was clear--Sisko was being surveyed as
either a desperate maniac or a distraught mid-rank
officer who had snapped onto a whole new level of
ruthless creativity.
    Probably he wasn't very wrong on that. At first
Sisko resented the glare, but after a minute realized he
probably had snapped and that was probably good.
He rolled the hot mug between his flattened palms
and stared into the raktajino. For a few minutes there
was silence as Martok let him simmer.
    Then Sisko found his voice again and started
talking.
    "I have to get more control at Starfleet somehow,"
he said. "I have to get into the admirals' offices...
get involved somehow with the strategic decisions."
    "You're going to maneuver a promotion?" Martok
pushed. "I would never take a promotion that would
put me in an office with no ship under me. I thought
you would never take such a thing either."
    Sisko drilled him sharply. "No! No--General, I
don't want any promotion! Not a permanent one,
anyway .... Just something, some connection, some-
thing to wheedle me closer to decisions, give me some

50

influence .... The strategies coming out of the ad-
miralty have to be more creative, or we're just looking
at more disasters. The admirals who we have now,
they haven't fought this kind of a war. I've been out in
deep space, defending the station, defending a planet,
protecting a sectormyou can't just go by the book on
tactics! They don't understand. You have to be more
creative. You have to change your thinking every
single day, because that's what your enemy does. I've
got to get close and start changing things." "How will you do that?"
    "I don't know yet. I don't know yet .... I'll do
something though .... "
    "No doubt you will. Take a sip while I stretch this
arm before it seizes up more than it already has--
ah!"
  "How did you hurt your arm?"
    "We were attacked by five Jem Hadar ships. I had
three ships, but we vanquished them completely. All
five destroyed, and I lost no ships and only forty-two
men."
  "Forty-two .... Where were you?"
  "In the Argolis Cluster."
    "Argolis? Why would... why were the Jem Hadar
in a place like that?"
  "To defend a moon and the old outpost upon it."
  "Old?"
    "A former Orion processing station. The Jem
Hadar have turned it into a parts and repair bunker."
    "Wait a minute," Sisko said, then hesitated. "A
force that just had its source of reinforcements cut off

51


sacrifices five fighters to defend a parts bunker? Are
the Jem Hadar that much stupider than I've been
giving them credit for?"
    "They defended it ferociously," Martok confirmed.
"We were able to take out five ships and lose none of
our three. I was very proud. We picked up a faint
emission and tracked it to this parts bunker. A minor
repair facility. There are several set up in a grid across
the Argolis area."
  "Parts bunker .... "
    "Yes. Forget about it, Captain. Not worth consider-
ing. I would never have fought had I not been sur-
prised. Not for a prize of stone. It was completely
automated."
    "Automated!" Sisko planted his feet squarely and
leaned forward again. "Are you telling me--Martok,
are you trying to tell me that the Dominion sent five
Jem Hadar fighters to guard one little facility that
didn't even have any personnel on it?"
  "Well... apparently. Here is my arm, after all--"
    "These automated repair facilities... they were
sending out some kind of emission that you tracked?"
    "That was how we found them. A signaling or
homing beacon for Jem Hadar ships who have been
damaged and can't find the facility themse--"
    Sisko slammed both fists on the table and almost
stood up, then caught himself at the last moment and
managed to stay in his seat. "Or... or... a grid of
sensors!"
    Squinting the eye, Martok didn't follow Sisko's
line. "A grid? You mean that old string of out-
posts--"

    Sisko drilled the Klingon with a penetrating glare.
"Could it have been a sensor array? A grid set up to
find the movements of ten, twenty, thirty... or a
hundred ships? That would explain an emission?'
    Martok sat still for a second, then another second,
and a third. His voice rumbled in his throat without
making words, then his single eye flared and he sat
bolt upright. "Might that be it? Might they have
dragged a string of sensors with them through the
wormhole and set it up, disguising it and using it to
look at us? They have never shown that kind of
technology before--"
    "We've never been in a war with them before! And
all this time we missed the most obvious answer.
They know what our ships are doing because they're
watching us on a great big screen someplace!"
    "If you're right, it must be more heavily guarded
than even we saw. If they would sacrifice five whole
fighters..." Already thinking of how to knock the
thing out, Martok continued, "Such an array would
pick up the movements of an attack squadron. We
could never get close enough with any number of
ships."
    "A whole squadron, no, of course not," Sisko
quickly agreed, "but could one or two ships get in?
The warp signature might not be big enough to be
picked up by a system-wide array.
    "And we can't move in many ships without their
seeing us coming through their own sensors," Sisko
went on. "That means we'll have to distract them. Get
them to pull ships off that sensor array, if that's what
it is, and weaken their perimeter."

52                                                                   53




  "How will you do that?"
    "I don't know. There's got to be something they
need... something they don't want destroyed that
we can get to, or at least something we can threaten.
I'll think of something, General. I will, or you will. We
have to, because that mine field won't hold forever.
Once it falls, we become a resistance movement and
we could be doing that for the rest of our lives. I'll
make a bargain with you, General. Somebody's got to
save the Federation... and you're right, we don't
dare share certain plans. We never know if we're
talking to a disguised Founder, or if the desk is a
Founder--"
    "Are you saying we should keep this between our-
selves?"
  "Somebody has to do this."
  "I agree, but..."
    "If one of us is killed, then the other will bring in
one more person of some power. Someone you can
trust."
  "Or you."
    "Or me... but we've got to keep this in the
smallest possible cells. If it gets out, it'll destroy
everything. If we can make plans, keep it quiet...
work with the authority we have, maybe get a little
more..."
    "We could, Captain, be working against the plans of
others if we fail to consult with our higher com-
mands."
    "We'll have to take that risk. Why not? We're taking
a million other risks. So we take one more. I'll get

permission for the things that matter, but the long-
range plan... if only I could act more freely, without
reporting to so many people up the ladder .... "
    "Captain Sisko, my friend, you are talking about
maneuvers and actions which could lead to a court-
martial for you."
    A bitter smile broke across Sisko's face, so hard that
he thought his cheeks would break. "What difference
does it make, General? What career? This is bigger
than careers. It falls to us. We have to be more
ruthless. We have to go around and through and
sideways and across our principles until we manage to
do something the Dominion isn't expecting from us.
We have to develop a plan to get back to DS9 before
the mine field falls. That means the Federation and
Klingon forces must be free to maneuver."
    "Without being watched," Martok agreed. He took
a long sip of his drink, thinking. "And I saw only the
one outpost. We picked up at least four more signals."
    Sisko nodded. "There must be at least eight, to do
what I think it's doing. If it's a sensor array, it's
certainly not going to be a bunch of big dishes that say
'You're being watched.' We'll have to determine
what's part of the array and what's not. You take your
ship--only one shipmand go check our theory. See if
that's actually a sensor array and not an automated
repair zone."
    Martok raised his glass and clicked it on Sisko's. "I
shall be gone in one hour. I will speak to no one but
you about this. And while I fly back into the dragon's
teeth, you, my friend, will be doing... what?"

54                                                                  55




  "Captain? Captain Sisko, over here."
  "Yes?"
    "Vice-Admiral Warner will see you now. Come
right this way. He's in the amphitheater with sev-
eral other admirals and their staffs. They're review-
ing the latest recordings and reports of maneuvers on
the frontmat least, what's left of the recordings. The
admiral has agreed to meet you in the back of the
theater. If you don't mind, please try to keep your
voice down. Everybody's a little edgy lately."
"Oh, don't worry. I'll be quiet as a mouse."
"This way. Through this door. All right... shhh.
This way... sitting right there, by himself. Vice-
Admiral Warner."
  "Thank you, Adjutant."
    "You're welcome, sir. Just exit this way when you're
ready."
  "I will .... Admiral?"
    "Oh--Ben. Um, sit down. Sit right down. I didn't
know you were in the area. Not until a couple minutes
ago, anyway .... Nice to see you."
  "Thank you, but it may not be for long."
     "Where's Dax? He's usually tied right to your
lapel--or she is .... 'She,' right?"
  "Yes, he's a she now."
  "Weird, weird .... "
 "You get used to it, Admiral."
 "Better you than me."
    "Zach, I'm going to come right to the point. I'll be
very quiet, but I'm about to speak of something that'll
make us both very uneasy."

    "Mmm... well, I didn't expect this when I got up
this morning, exactly .... "
    "For nineteen years, we've never spoken openly of
the incident at Theta Four-Z."
"I know .... And I always... appreciated that."
"It was a good silence to appreciate. You know, I
didn't want command of DS9 when I was first as-
signed there."
    "Out in the hind dusthole of space? Can't blame
you there."
    "I could've gotten out of it. One call to you
would've done it. But I didn't contact you. I could've
called in a few other markers, too, but I figured I'd
just take promotion when it naturally came my way
and not push. But I've changed my mind, Zach. You,
me, right now... accept something. You've had a
good career since Theta Four-Z. The event that al-
most happened would've ended your career. We both
know you botched the mission. Accept it. If it hadn't
been for me--"
    "I know, Ben, I was there, remember? What are you
doing this to me for? Why now, of all times? It's been
laid to rest for nineteen years--"
    "You owe me, Zach. Now you're in the admiralty.
And I want something."
  "God... I... Ben, didn't think you were this
type. I thought I'd been right for once in my life ...."

  "Too bad, Zach, you're wrong again."
  "Okay, okay ....I just wish you'd done it at a
better time."
  "There's no better time."

56                                                                   57




  "Shhh... shhh, please .... "
    "Not only do you owe me, but we're losing. The
admiralty is failing at what it wants to do. We're all
going to die. They're going to destroy Earth. They're
going to destroy Vulcan. If those two planets fall,
everything falls. With Earth and Vulcan shattered, the
Dominion can cut into every Federation anchor plan-
et that tries to fight back. So you tell me, sir--what's
your next idea? What're we going to do differently
now that we've tried every established tactic in the
book? We've tried brute strength, and got our back-
sides kicked, so that won't work. We don't even have
the strength left to try that kind of thing again. It's
time to change our ways. What's your staff's next
idea? What's your adjutant's new brainstorm? What
are we going to change?"
    "Fine, Ben, let's say you're right. What makes you
think you'd do any better?"
    "How could I do any worse? We're defending
ourselves to death, Admiral."
  "Well... what d'you... what can wew"
    "One thing I've learned out at DS9, if something
doesn't work, stop doing it and do something else.
Your people aren't doing it. Give me a chance. I'm
calling in the marker, Zach. Put me somewhere. Give
me an inside position."
  "That's what you want? That's all?"
 "That's all."
    "You want a desk job? My God, you've got a ship!
Do you know how many hotshot captains and first
officers who've watched their captains die are badger-
ing us for ship commands?"

    "Don't give away command of the ship. I'll retain
command for special missions. I just want the power
to concentrate my own efforts and make use of a few
contacts that nobody else has."
"What do you mean 'nobody else has'?"
"Nobody else has been running a Cardassian-built
station on the border, guarding the only portal be-
tween two quadrants. If there's another person like
that in Starfleet, I'd like to meet him and see if he
knows the secret handshake." "Well..."
    "If this doesn't work, you can court-martial me or
shoot me. Then at least I wouldn't have to watch us
lose."
  "What do you want?"
  "Anything. As long as it's near the admiralty."
  "Who's flag are you under?"
  "Admiral Ross."
    "Well... uh... I can't reflag you. But... look,
this is hardly a time for anyone to be seen using
personal markers to advance themselves, so you've
got to promise one thing. You absolutely have to keep
this to yourself and keep my name out of it. It's got to
be absolutely secret and just seem to go through the
normal channels."
    "I agree. And I fully expect that when this is over
you'll demote me."
    "Well, I can't promise that, fireball. I guess you'll
just have to take your chances. Now, get out of here
before somebody sees us together. Thank God it's
dark in here."

58                                                                   59




Was there a man dismay'd?

0

CHAPTER
        5

Permanent documentation file, Dukat, S.G.
    The war continues to go well. Each day brings
reports of new victories. It's only a matter of
time before the Federation collapses and Earth
becomes another conquered planet under Do-
minion rule. All in all, it's a good time for
Cardassia. And... the Dominion.

Gu[ DURST strode out of his office and gazed over the
Ops center, manned now by Cardassians and Jem
Hadar troops. The place looked much more normal to
Dukat, with the grayish faces of Cardassians and the
chalky exoskeletal Jem Hadar rather than the soft,
plain multihued faces of Terrans and Bajorans. This
was much better. More secure. Tidier. Quieter.
 And it was making him very nervous. Things, yes,

61




had been going well, rather too well. The Federation
had put up a massive resistence since the taking of
Deep Space Nine, but since then things had tapered off
to a series of bluntly controlled actions which neither
gained nor lost much for either side, and that was, in
Dukat's mind, suspicious. Even now, after two
months, he felt the constant presence of Ben Sisko, as
if the air were painted with the captain's face. The
bazembaseball... Dukat had actually tried several
times to muster the will to throw the thing away, but
there was something cloying about it, something that
kept him from becoming too complacent, and he
knew in his soldier's mind that that little ball was
doing him a great service. These people from Earth,
in particular, were bewildering. Unlike the Klingons,
the Vulcans, the Cardassians, and the Dominion, the
people from Earth seemed to have no particular
strengths, no special talents, little unity of purpose or
thought or opinion, yet they seemed continually to be
the axis of history.
  Strange and disturbing, those people.
    Dukat ambled down the steps, nodding silent laud
to his officers and crew, shining in the adoration of
the Cardassians who saw this post as so vindicating,
pretending that the stone-faced Jem Hadar, who had
no expressions at all, were adoring him too.
    Oh, here was Damar, his adjutant now. Damar still
seemed uneasy, but that was Damar's general condi-
tion and Dukat was growing used to it. Damar was
only happy in the midst of actual assault when he was
distracted from worry by action.
 "I have new reports on Federation ship movements

and one new supply line," Damar reported. "The
station's sub-processors are almost repaired, but the
conduit trunks in Ops and several of them in ancillary
stations are still suffering feedback and burnout. We
have insufficient parts to repair everything at once, so
we are--"
 "Prioritizing. I'll leave it to you, Damar."
    They strode out of Ops and through the station to
the Promenade, where stiff-lipped merchants were
keeping up the best appearances even though the
Cardassians didn't want to buy anything and the Jem
Hadar never needed anything. Several people nodded
to Dukat, who forced a winning grin and returned
their gesture. Wonderful day, wonderful station, won~
derful everything.
    "How is the mine field today, DamarT' Dukat
asked, then enjoyed Damar's teeth-gnashing at the
mention of this sore subject.
    "Slow," Damar said. "The replicators are proving
more stubborn than we expected."
    "Don't worry, Damar. In time the mine field will
fall. Until then, we are supreme here and becoming
more and more supreme by the day."
    "You seem complacent, sir," Damar rather boldly
told him, the culmination of several days of frustra-
tion. "If the mine field doesn't come down soon,
Dominion forces will be too depleted to maintain
control. The Federation and the Klingons will be able
to make more effective strikes and we will hesitate to
strike back for fear of losing too many ships to keep
control--"
  "Patience. Patience, Damar, patience .... "

62                                                                 63




 "Sir, I don't understand the way you're running this
 outpost!"
     "Keep your voice down. Pleasantry and coopera-
 tion, after all, and contentment and order."
     "Sir... contentment... this kind of approach...
 confuses me."
    "You only understand force, Damar, but there are
other ways to our ends."
    Damar twisted as they walked, to glower at him.
"What are our ends? To hold the sector for the
Dominion? To be pawns no better than the Jem
Hadar? Is this our end?"
    Slowing his pace to keep from arriving at the
wardroom too soon, Dukat lowered his voice. "We
have an end, Damar, we Cardassians, but things must
happen at a certain pace and I must control the pace."
Damar's eye twitched. "You must?"
    "Yes. I must eventually be the undisputed com-
mander of Cardassia and all our forces."
    Halting in mid-step, Damar puzzled and stared.
"You want... more than the sector?"
    "Oh, yes, much more," Dukat admitted. Speaking
of his plans was a risk, but he needed Damar on his
side if his orders were to go unquestioned.
    "Damar, compose yourself and listen to me. We
both know that this cooperation between Cardassia
and the Dominion is uneasy. The Dominion is strong
right now and we are weakened. Our arrangement
with them bolsters us for now and puts us back in
some authority, but the Dominion retains the senior
position, as our everpresent Weyoun is prone to daily

remind us. Once the quadrant is under Dominion
control, what do you think will happen to Cardassia?"
    A moment of silence slid between them. Clearly
Damar had not thought of this.
     "In its present condition," Dukat went on, "Car-
dassia would collapse, would it not?" "Why would it?"
    "Because the moment we tried to resist the Domin-
ion on our own power, a dozen factions would rise in
Cardassia and struggle for control. We'll never get the
chance to organize and fight the Dominion. We'll
bring ourselves down with our own confusion."
    He paused, turned, and gazed out over the minia-
ture civilization of Deep Space Nine and its current
denizens.
    "I never wanted to be a despot, Damar, yet that's
what I was forced to become when I ran Bajor and the
station all those years ago .... It was the Bajorans
themselves who forced me to behave in despicable
ways. They kept resisting, you see, even after I tried to
give them ways to cooperate. I would tell them a
hundred Bajorans would be killed if they killed ten
Cardassians. They'd kill anyway, and force me to
keep my promises. What else could I do? They kept
upping the ante, no matter how much I tried to get
them to sit back, relax, and accept Cardassian pres-
ence. I did what I told them would be done, and they
got angry. Isn't that odd? If they had just accepted
Cardassian control and a certain amount of tribute
and strictness, they could have gone about their lives
in relative peace. They're the ones who forced the

64                                                                65




terrible conditions. Discipline had to be maintained.
I kept trying to explain, kept giving them options, and
they continued to take the most diflScult paths ....
They resisted, I had to get tough, they resisted more, I
had to get tougher .... Just when I was getting close
to control, the ruling council of Cardassia decided
Bajor wasn't 'worth' keeping."
 Damar didn't join him or come to his side, but
spoke from behind. "I remember ....It was humili-
ating to leave."
    Waving a casual hand, though he didn't turn, Dukat
tossed off, "Oh, I never let it show... but, yes, I was
haunted by an entire race of people laughing at
Cardassians... laughing at me... like children who
play a prank on an adult and spend hours laughing at
the dullwitted adult. Sooner or later the adult has to
teach them the correct order of things."
    "Yes, sir... returning is a great vindication for
you," Damar allowed, but the enthusiasm of his
words was not communicated in his tone. Dukat
suspected Damar thought he should say that, whether
he believed it or not.
    "It is," Dukat responded. "However, there must be
much more. A carefully crafted series of events and
changes for Cardassia... specific and subtle rebuild-
ing of our abilities, cautious but definite reorganization
of our command structure... a thousand little things
and dozens of big ones .... The Dominion, you see,
Damar, needs us now. We're expedient for them, but
any Cardassian who tells himself they will need us
ultimately is living a dream. They don't know the

Alpha Quadrant well, and there's no point fighting a
multi-front war. To them, we Cardassians are little
more than a convenience. They don't have to construct
us as they do the Jem Hadar and the Vorta--you
notice they didn't put brains and bulk in the same
packages .... No, Cardassia will never be friends with
the Dominion. Right now we have a common enemy,
and that... that is Cardassia's only chance. If we try
to take on the Dominion now, we'll crumble. In time,
and with the proper focus, we can rebuild, get more
technology, more strength, worm our way in..."
    Perhaps the silence from behind him now implied
that Damar thought he had gone insane with his new
position. Dukat didn't care. He was no longer think-
ing about Damar or even about the station whose
populated core he now gazed down upon. Never
before had he known instinctively and intellectually
that his reach could be so wide, his ideas so critical,
his plans so reverberating. He balanced in his hands
the future of Cardassia as would be dictated by
cleverness, patience, caution, and the taking of oppor-
tunities that would bubble to the surface.
    "The Dominion isn't as strong as they pretend to
be," he murmured on, "or they wouldn't need us at
all. Bringing everything through the wormhole to fight
a war is an enormous undertaking. Millions of people,
thousands of ships, facilities to maintain the ships
and people, ketracel white to keep the Jem Hadar
alive--this is not easy, this undertaking, and despite
Weyoun's kneebending, the Founders are not gods.
Cardassia may have been militarily defeated by the

66                                                                67




Klingons, but we have something the Dominion does
not. We are here. We have things here which the
Dominion doesn't. We have a planet. We have out-
posts and colonies, establishments, factories, and
billions of people. No matter how brilliant and strong
the Founders may be, if they're going to run a war,
they need hardware and a place to park their fleet.
They need a friendly port on this side of the worm-
hole. As long as the mine field stays up, they will need
Cardassia."
    "Are you saying," Damar tenuously began, "that
we must colIude to keep the mine field up?"
    "Oh, no, we'll be pressured to bring it down eventu-
ally, but we will stall and in that time do other things
toward our ultimate ends. We will let the Dominion
have control, but not too much control. They will
have victories, but not victories too overwhelming. In
the meantime, they will help rebuild Cardassia. In
parallel, I will maneuver controlling interest of the
great Cardassian machine. All factions must be
aligned by then. When the time comes that we need
once again to be strong, we will already be strong. If
the Dominion utterly conquers the quadrant, a
mighty and consolidated Cardassia will be a power to
reckon with. If the quadrant rises and throws off the
Dominion, likewise we will be the strongest power
here, not the weakest. I must be relentless in my
pursuit of the smallest chances that bubble to the
surface in the coming weeks. I must balance Weyoun
on one hand and our own council and citizens on the
other, always putting forth an image of singleness
with the Dominion, while also maintaining our own

identity and value. Cardassia must not collapse again,
Damar, and for that... I must exact finesse."

    Ben Sisko had twitched himself to threads waiting
for Martok's coded contact, and after a while had
instructed his private computer to relay a message to
his combadge, despite the innate danger of being
overheard, and had taken to walking the halls of the
Defiant and the starbase. Since the ship was docked
up, one in a long line of ships waiting for repairs, he
could stride freely from the comfortable confinement
of the ship to the broader, brighter corridors of the
starbase. His hand flinched every few seconds, resist-
ing the urge to tap the combadge and demand to
know whether the computer were on the ball and
listening for Martok.
    He completely ignored all the other people hurry-
ing past him, having gotten used to the idea that he'd
been gone for years and hardly anybody here knew
him, ignoring them so completely that he'd stopped
even meeting people's eyes and nodding a hello. He
just padded along from area to area, pretending to be
going somewhere, keeping his eyes pretty much on the
carpet.
     So when someone passed him, then paused and
turned, he didn't even notice.
  "Sisko? Ben?"
  Combadge!
No--it was this person who had just gone by.
Sisko retrieved his hand from almost hitting the
button on his chest, and turned. There stood a
vaguely familiar face--human, pale complexion,

68                                              69




regulation-trimmed full beard, blond as dandelions,
Nordic nose and...
  "Charlie? Charlie!"
    Forgetting his troubles for a blessed moment, Sisko
met the other man in the middle of the corridor
between a stinky lab and a noisy power chamber.
    "Charlie Reynolds, I haven't seen you--don't tell
me! Ten... fifteen years?"
    "Twelve," Reynolds told him. "My third daughter
had just been born."
    "Lucy!" Sisko leveled a finger at his old lab part-
ner's face.
    "Lindsey," Reynolds laughed. "Not bad... not a
bad memory at all."
  "How many kids do you have now?"
    "Eight! Five boys, three girls! Had four more boys
after Lindsey."
"And you, the Bachelor Hound of Barrack Four!"
"Yeah, well, every hound settles down for the right
milkbone. My wife's fifty pounds heavier and ten
times prettier than when I married her. She's the
greatest mother you ever saw, Ben, just takes to it like
wind through a tree. She still wants more kids. You
remember Magdalena, right?"
    "Short hair, round face, eyes disappeared when she
smiled."
"They sure do! Man, I forgot how tall you are."
"I forgot how blond you are," Sisko retaliated. In a
surge of reverie he pinched Reynolds' combed beard.
"What is this? You look like a faded picture of my
grandfather!"
 Reynolds laughed. "Yeah, well, you still look like

my uncle's shadow. Look, I heard about DS9. Must've
been awful to leave. I know we're not supposed to feel
like these places and ships are 'ours,' y'know, but...
can't help it."
    "Right, we can't help it," Sisko murmured senti-
mentally. "How's that horse's behind you call a
ship?"
    "Oh, look, don't forget that a centaur is human
where it counts. Brains!"
    They laughed together and turned to stride arm in
arm away from the noise and stink of the workaday
corridor.
"What're you doing here?" Sisko asked him.
"We evacuated Blue Rocket. Didn't you hear?"
"Oh... Charlie... no, I hadn't heard about that.
I remember reading the reports when that installation
was set up. Must be..."
    "Ten and a half years. I shuttled the settlers out
there myself. Brought in all the supplies, helped put
the buildings together, took my family out there ....
We were going to start over. My wife's mother's
buried there and two of our kids were born right in
the first hotel. We were really proud and, damn, were
we happy. Last week I finished pulling the last civilian
out. Nothing left now but a lot of half-harvested mills
and the prosthetic plant. I wouldn't even have left the
bastards the buildings if it'd been up to me, but the
settlement council, y'know, they've got these hopes of
going home again."
    Sisko nodded in empathy, and more than a little
guilt. For the first time he realized he wasn't the only
one that had left behind the place he called home, that

70                                                                71




he and his friends and their station weren't the only
evacuation, the only sad defeat, the only reassign-
ment.
    Reassignment--it sounded so cold, and in fact it
was meant to be. Far better that soldiers not get too
attached to a place they were assigned, a place they
were essentially guarding, a place that was temporary,
but somehow it never turned out that way. When a
man invested his skin and blood and toil and risk into
a place, into neighbors and hopes, responsibilities,
change and growth... it wasn't simple anymore.
Like him, Charlie Reynolds wasn't just a captain
doing a job, following orders. He was one of a pattern
of people who had staked everything on their own
resolve and Starfleet's ability to protect the quadrant.
    Feeling like an idiot for his self-pity, Sisko asked,
"Where are you assigned?"
    "Cardassian border," Reynolds said. "We're doing
infiltration for... can I tell you this off the record?
Keep that toothy mouth shut?" "Absolutely."
    "We're scanning for Starfleet Intelligence. The Cen-
taur's crammed with special agents. We drop 'em off
and evacuate 'em, doing recon all the way. We're
cloaked most of the time, but lately we're having to
sacrifice that as too energy-intensive. We're cloaking
only very close to actual drop-off and reaquisition
sites."
 "Sounds like a grind," Sisko offered.
    Reynolds' crisp blue eyes crinkled. "It wears you
down. My crew's spread pretty thin, but we're getting

used to that. I don't know, you kind of pace yourself
and take one day at a time." "I'm learning."
    "Yeah, I bet you are. Listen, Ben, can we get
together later? I'm on my way to something. The
Cardassian border, to be sort of specific."
    "The border .... Sure .... I'd like that. We can
remind each other of all the goofs and gaffs back in
aerial strategy simulation." "You crashed a lot."
    "Because you kept knocking my elbow trying to get
your ship out of the way!"
    The laughter lifted a hundred burdens. Purging,
somehow, and Sisko felt as if this one small encounter
were infusing him with a will to go on and a sudden
patience. All things would come around in time, just
as this chance encounter after fifteen years. Here they
were, former lab partners from the Academy, as-
signed to the same starbase and flagged under the
same admiral. Although he had left the place he
thought of as home, he was somehow coming home
here, too, and they all had a common purpose.
    For the first time since evacuating the station, he
felt as if he were not so alone. Unless Charlie Reyn-
olds was a disguised shapeshifter, Sisko decided to
feel better. Suddenly he wanted to be back with his
crew, spreading the virus.
    "Captain Sisko," his cornbadge suddenly bleeped.
The computer! It was calling only his name, as
programmed, with no additional information. No
orders, no information.

72                                                                 73




    As Reynolds furrowed his brow at the unusual call,
Sisko tapped his cornbadge. "Sisko responding. I've
got to go, too, Charlie. Let's not make this the last
time we meet for another fifteen years."
  "Twelve," Reynolds said with an impish grin.
    As they separated toward opposite ends of the
corridor, Sisko shook his head and laughed. "You just
don't have that 'Captain' arrogance about you!"
    "Oh, yeah, something you've mastered! I'll see you,
Ben, all right?"
    "You bet, you bet ... the sooner the better. And
keep that ship Derby-trim!"
 "And the tail braided!"

CHAPTER
        6

DUKAT LED THE WAY into the station's wardroom, with
a rather stunned and blessedly silent Damar following
him. Oh, well, so Damar was silent. So what? One
thing Dukat definitely needed for now and for the
future was Damar's silence. So much the better if he
remained a little stunned and frightened by the wider
picture.
    AhwMajor Kira was here. Slim, quick, dark-eyed,
teasingly boyish, always the dancing light of any
party. And Weyoun... at least a cloying curtain in a
corner of the party.
    The first voice Dukat heard was Weyoun's milky
delivery as the Vorta finished a sentence to Kira.
"--no idea how it pleases me to hear you say that."
Their entrance given away by the hissing of the door
panel, Dukat lost his chance to overhear. Weyoun

74                                                                 75




turned instantly and said, "Dukat! The major has just
given me the most wonderful news. Bajorans are
returning to the station."
    "I'm well aware of that," Dukat said, depriving
Weyoun of momentary superiority.
    "Then I'm sure you share my delight in knowing
that life here is returning to normal. The shops are
reopening, the Promenade is abuzz with activity once
again, and the Habitat Ring echoes with the laughter
of happy children."
    Too sickened by the sweet juice to look at Weyoun,
Dukat looked instead at Damar, who offered a mini-
mal shrug and told him, "I've doubled security pa-
trols throughout the station." Then he crossed to the
other side of the wardroom and looked out one of the
ports.
    Kira inhaled and held the breath. Apparently she
didn't like that idea.
    Weyoun noticed her reaction too and looked at
Dukat. "Are such precautions really necessary?"
    Dukat didn't want to respond, but there was no way
out of it. "I've found that one can't be too careful
when dealing with Bajorans."
    "What's wrong, Dukat?" Kira spoke up. "Afraid
we'll take the station away from you again?"
    Damar pressed forward an inch. "You're welcome
to try."
    Weyoun stepped between them before they got any
closer. "Come now. There's no need for this petty
bickering. We're all friends here."
 "Are we?" the major pressed.

    "Of course we are. And if you have a suggestion,
Major, feel free to bring it to me at any time."
    "Fine," she snapped. "We'd like the station's
Bajoran security force reinstated."
     Damar snarled, "I suppose you want us to give
them back their weapons as well!" "That's right."
    "The station," Dukat interrupted, "no longer re-
quires a Bajoran security force. Our troops can handle
any trouble that arises."
    Her eyes hot with resentment, Kira was especially
enticing in her resistance as she swung back to
Weyoun and claimed, "The Federation and Bajor
always shared equal responsibility for station securi-
ty. I thought you said we'd have the same arrangement
with the Dominion. After all, we're all 'friends' here.
Aren't we?"
    Anxious, apparently, to preserve the treaty that
kept Bajor in line with the Dominion--at least for
now--Weyoun turned to Dukat and firmly said,
"Perhaps you should reconsider your decision."
    Too much. Dukat's inner alarms, even the ones of
his insult meter, started ringing.
    "The order stands," he said. "You may trust the
Bajorans, but I don't. And until they earn my trust, I
prefer to keep them unarmed." Turning to Kira, he
added, "And if you were in my position, Major, you'd
do the same thing."
    She didn't like it, but she did understand. Dukat
could see that in her eyes, and hear it in her silence.
The Bajoran bangle on her right ear swung back and
forth as she raised her chin. Dukat's message had

76                                                                77




been clearly understood--this was no longer "al-
ways." Things were changed now and they would
continue to change. He would walk the tenuously
balanced beam between dealing with the Bajorans
and letting them know they were inferior to the
authority of Cardassians. He would only "share" so
much.
    Kira said nothing else to him, but started to leave.
On her way out, Weyoun stepped to her side and
said, "Perhaps it would be best to let the matter rest
for a while. I'm sure, in time, all these minor
problems will be resolved to our mutual satisfac-
tion."
    Stopping, Kira turned and told him, "I'll remember
you said that."
  "I'm sure you will. One last thing... Odo."
  "What about him?"
    "Is he aware that I'm doing all I can to strengthen
the bond between the Dominion and the Bajoran
people?"
    Dukat listened carefully. Here was a strange twist
to this arrangementmOdo, who was in Weyoun's
perception a Founder, a god, was tightly aligned to the
Bajorans and even to the Federation. Weyoun must
indeed have his insides in a knot about that. He
wanted the resident shapeshifter's approval, yet Odo
would give it only grudgingly. Was that why Weyoun
was so anxious to accommodate the Bajorans? Did he
fear Odo?
    "Why don't you ask him yourself?." Kira said, and
Dukat almost answered, before realizing his thoughts

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 ap-
proached 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 Cardas-
sians it was customary for the adjutant to voice his
concerns. Weyoun's strange authority as the Domin-
ion'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

78                                                                79




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 inso-
lence. 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 crum-
ple. 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-

80                                                                  81




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 hammer-
headed 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 grip-
ing. 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 intimi-
dated, 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 grate-
ful 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 wan-
dered 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."

82                                                                   83




    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

84                                                                  85




Center? Do you hear the cries of starving children? I
don't. Now don't get me wrong--I miss the Federa-
tion 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 mutter-
ing 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 effec-
tively."
    "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... hope-
fully 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 dis-
guised as repair depots. General, do something for
me--pass this information along to Starfleet Intelli-
gence and recommend it go to Admiral Ross. If it
comes through me, it'll be too obvious."
  "You want Ross to get this?"

86                                                                 87




    "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?"

0

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 stark-
staring 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 moni-
tors, a small padd, and that was all. There was a left-
over 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

88                                                                  89




officer all his life, a good but uneventful administra-
tor, 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 sup-
plied, staffed, and effectively deployed. As an admin-
istrator 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 Cardas-
sian space than most of us, and that's where they've

90                                          91




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

92                                                                 93




to be a journalist, some kind of investigative report-
er, 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, mold-
pressed 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 fa-
ther'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 appear-
ance 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 any-
more. 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 evacua-
tion? 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

94                                                               95




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 some-
thing 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

96                                                                  97




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 ever-
mellow 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.

98

    "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 Intelli-
gence has discovered what we believe to be their main
storage facility for ketracel white in the Alpha Quad-
rant, right here, deep within Cardassian space. We
need to destroy it."
    "Without the white to sustain them," Bashir of-
fered, 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 with-
out 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

99




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 tight-
ening 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 opera-
ting 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 any-
thing, but individuals would understand a panel or
two. The element of teamwork would be less avail-
able, 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 diag-
nostic 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, grin-
ning 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

1oo                                             Iol


watched the crew whom he would soon be taking into
the jaws of desperate danger. He watched, and lis-
tened.
    "Guidance matrix, check," Dax was saying, stand-
ing rod-straight at the tactical controls. "Aft para-
bolic 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. "Sub-
space 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

102                                                                   103




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 regene-
rator."
    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 easy-
going 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, "pre-
pare for departure."
    Bashir, who would be manning the long-range sen-
sor 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 terri-
tory, 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 ob-
vious 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 ma-
neuver.
  "Bring us about," he ordered.

104                                                                                  105




    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 wob-
bling 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 Federa-
tion 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 Cardas-
sian border, which in this area was not cleanly deline-
ated. 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," Cardas-
sians who might be more savvy and demand to board,
Starfleet who would probably open fire on an "escap-
ing" 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 ex-
ploding.
    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 Car-
dassian 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."

106                                                                 107




    "I agree with Garak, Captain," Bashir nearly whis-
pered. "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.

0

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-

109




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, shudder-
ing 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 them-
selves 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 knowl-
edge, but his knowledge never faded like most peo-
ple'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 Intelli-
gence 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 pes-
tered.
    Working furiously at the helm on evasive maneu-
vers, 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.

110                                                                             111




    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 nar-
rated, 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.

112                                                                   113




    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 an-
swer, 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 out-
post to toast. Sisko braced for whatever might hap-
pen. 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 bother-
ing 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 .... "

115




    "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 well-
kept secret for most Starfleet people out there. Occa-
sionally 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 concen-
trated on his helm. "Throttle's up."

116                                                                                    117




    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. "Ger-
rie, 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? Radi-
ant-"
    "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!"

118                                                                   119




  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

120

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 not-
very-intelligent.
    "You want to really mess things up?" Gerrie sug-
gested. "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

121




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 ham-
mered at his controls, then glanced fiercely at Fitzger-
ald. "Fitz, do something!"
    Fitzgerald plunged for the part of the engineer-
ing 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 de-
manding 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!"

122                                                                   123




0

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," Reyn-
olds 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 deter-
mination 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!"

124                                                                   125




    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 misman-
agement 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 every-
thing 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

126                                                                   127




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 min-
utes."
  "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 respond-
ing .... 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."

128                                                                   129




  From Dax--"One minute."
    "Maybe it will," Sisko murmured. "When the gen-
erator 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 con-
trols. "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 in-
cinerating 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

130                                                                131




  "We're pulling away!" O'Brien encouraged.
    The ship righted itself suddenly, regained its crab-
like 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 satis-
factory .... "
    "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 stom-
ach. 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."

132                                                                   133




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 unflinch-
ing 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

135




evaded like crazy and only fired back when we fired
on them. Even then they took potshots at our weap-
ons 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 Hallow-
een 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 re-
spected.
    "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

136                                                                   137




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.

138                                                                                  139




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 some-
thing that cussed few captains have for their chil-
dren-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 hard-
ened. 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 unflinch-
ingly 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 condi-
tioning 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

140                                                                  141




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 incendi-
ary-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 Do-
minion!"
    "A high price, to be sure," he agreed readily. "But
look what we're getting in return. The Alpha Quad-
rant 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

142                                                                  143




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 crewmem-
bers assisted on the painstaking business of diagnos-
ing 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 some-
thing."

    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

144                                                                   145




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 dam-
aged, Sisko could feel the sudden acceleration drag-
ging 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 mid-
section 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?
"Sensors are gone!" O'Brien called. "Impulse en-
gines off linerain fact, everything's off line ....
Emergency power is holding for nowre"
 "Garak," Sisko called, "take a look outside!"
    The Cardassian struggled to get his own headset up
and working, muttering, "Just a moment .... "
 Sisko twisted to O'Brien. "What happened?"
    The engineer's pale face screwed into a mask. "Not
surerowe might've been hit by some kind of gravita-
tional spike in them"
 But Garak cut him off.
 "Hang on!"

146                                                                    147




0

CHAPTER
      11

"You $HOULD'VE SEEN the arrogant, smug look on his
face. He was in control and there was nothing I could
do about it! The war isn't over yet, but as far as
Dukat's concerned, he's already won. I'd love to show
him he's wrong."
    Kira Nerys stalked the floor of Odo's office, still
broiling and twitching, and wishing she could be
honest about Dukat's underlying motives regarding
her personallyrebut how could she tell Odo some-
thing like that? Knowing how he also felt about her?
What was all this? Was she wearing the wrong per-
fume?
 I don't wear perfume...
    "I'm afraid," Odo responded with his gravelly
voice, "for the time being at least, he has won. Look
at me. I don't know why I bother to sit here every day.

I don't even have a security force to patrol the
Promenade."
    Stopping in her tracks, Kira looked at him. "Then
ask for one! Demand that they reinstate your Bajoran
deputies."
  "Dukat will never agree to that."
    "Forget Dukat," she told him. If only that were
possible. "Go directly to Weyoun. He'll listen to you.
In his eyes, you're a god. That gives you power!"
    Odo was watching her intently. The fact that he
didn't respond right away proved that she might be on
the right track. Yes, of course! He had a natural
advantage! Why weren't they using it?
    "What good is having power unless you're willing
to use it?" she pressed. "He worships Founders,
you're one of themre"
    His unsculpted chin rose an inch. "I am certainly
not one of them."
    "No, no, I didn't mean that," she backpedaled.
"But you know what I do mean."
    "Yes .... I suppose there's no avoiding reality. I
am what I am... physically, anyway .... "
    "And to Weyoun, you are what you look like. Go in
there, Odo. Be a Founder. Get your authority back.
We need it. Get up. I'll walk you there."

    The whole process of requesting an audience with
the great Weyoun, �orta and representative of the
Dominion, made Odo wish to melt into a puddle and
slip into a crack somewhere. Even more disgusting,
Odo caught the end of a conversation between
Weyoun and Dukat as he was led in by Damar.

148                                                                    149




    "... the Founders are the masters. I am merely
their servant. As are the Jem Hadar. And you."
    "That may be, but even amongst the servants,
someone has to be in charge."
    "That's exactly the kind of observation I've come
to expect from you, Dukat. Interesting, yet somewhat
petty."
    Odo almost turned around and left, but Damar was
already announcing their presence. "Forgive the inter-
ruption. But he insisted on seeing you immediately."
    Odo glanced at Damar. He had made no demands
about immediacy. Perhaps the urgency was Damar's.
Did the assistant Cardassian not enjoy seeing his Gul
shunted to inferiority by the Vorta?
    Making a note to remember that, Odo stopped
moving forward as Weyoun floated toward him, arms
outstretched, as if he meant to commit the gravity of
an embrace.
    "Founder," the Vorta mewled. "I'm honored by
your visit. Is there some way I can be of service?"
    "I want my Bajoran security officers reinstated,"
Odo flatly said.
    Weyoun bowed his head in reverence. "Consider it
done."
 Oh... much too easy.
     But might as well enjoy. "From now on they'll be
responsible for security on the Promenade." "I don't see any problem with that."
    Unable to use all the arguments he had been storing
up, Odo found himself simply staring at the subservi-
ent Vorta's milky violet eyes, and found himself being
nauseatingly appreciated in return.

150

  "I do."
  Ah--a hint of reality. Odo turned to Dukat.
    And so did Weyoun, with a hard look and a
silencing hand. "This is between me and Odo, Dukat.
I'll thank you to keep out of it." Then he smiled.
    The smile was really too much to continue gazing
upon. Odo t~urned to Damar. 'Tll have my officers
report to the armory within the hour."
    Damar stiflened, obviously blistered at the idea of
actually arming Bajorans on the station that Cardas-
sians had just wrested from them, and he shot a
glower at Dukat, but the Gul bit his tongue and
nodded. Damar was being given no quarter to refuse.
  With nothing more to say, Odo turned to leave.
  Now the Vorta stepped to him before he had
  completely turned. "Now that I've done something
  for you..."
 Odo turned back.
    "Perhaps," Weyoun continued, "there's something
you'd consent to do for me."
    Feeling his entire body temperature drop a degree
or two, Odo remained silent.
    The Vorta turned a shoulder to Dukat and Damar,
dismissing the two Cardassians with a subtle gesture.
"We would be honored to have you join us as the
rulers of this station."
 "Rulers?" Odo repeated.
    "Yes," Weyoun said. "The station's ruling council.
You, me, and Dukat."
    "Absolutely not!" Dukat came to life suddenly, and
swung on Weyoun. "Are you out of your--do you

151


realize what it took to get control of this station away
from Bajoran and Federation sympathies?"
    "Odo is neither Barjoran nor one of those Federa-
tion races, Dukat. He is a Founder. We cannot put
ourselves above him in any way, here or elsewhere."
  "Ridiculous!"
  "Even so."
    There was no getting out of it. Odo sourly realized
he'd been maneuvered, or counter-maneuvered at
least. The question became whether he wanted his
armed security force more than he wanted to kick
Weyoun's face into the wormhole.
    Still... even such a maneuver offered other
chances.
 "Will you do it?" Weyoun asked. "Will you please?"

    Kira narrowed her eyes, which was difficult because
somehow she was gawking at the same time.
"A member of the station's ruling council? You?"
The noise of Quark's bar provided adequate cover
as she sat there with Odo, but Kira still felt as if
anyone looking at her could easily have read her mind
from a distance.
    "Along with Weyoun and Dukat," Odo said. "Now
I'll have a voice in station policy."
    That sounded almost plausible, which made it
harder to believe. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
she asked him.
    "Dukat thought it was a terrible idea," Odo coun-
tered, as if that were a good point. "You should've
seen his face when Weyoun offered me the position."

152

Actually, it wasn't a bad point. But it also wasn't
enough.
    She leaned closer across the table, only remember-
ing at the last moment to restrain her body language.
"Don't you see Weyoun's using you? Your presence
on the council validates the Dominion's control of the
station!"
    Odo crossed his legs and tilted his shoulders in a
way that told her he had just been insulted. "I thought
we were using him." He paused long enough to
communicate to her that he needn't any lessons on
play and counterplay--he understood the game-
board's options. "I know the dangers, Major. I've had
to walk this line before, during the Cardassian occu-
pation. I can do it again .... But this time I won't be
alone. I'll have you to help me."
    Withdrawing the scolding nature of her questions,
Kira reached out and lay her hand across his. "That's
right... you will."
    His artificial mask softened. "Then this is a victory
after all."
    "I suppose it is," she murmured, "but for some
reason, it doesn't feel like one. I wish we weren't
obligated to be here .... It's got to be awful for you.
At least I can tell myself I'm sticking up for my planet
and my people."
    "They're my people too," Odo quietly reminded,
and Kira was suddenly embarrassed. "Bajor is anoth-
er of the many unfortunate localities who happened
to be near a point of contention. All through history,
yours, mine, everyone's, there have been those caught
with something valuable in their front yard. They

153




didn't make it, they don't want it... yet they must
defend it or be overrun. That is us, Major... and
something will happen to change all this somehow.
Because now we are in the Federation's front yard.
Soon the knocking of Cardassia and the Dominion
will waken the sleeping giants inside... and help will
come. Help will come .... "

CHAPTER
      12

"READy... heave! Ready... heave!"
    Shoreline. Skies, rocks, sand, blue ocean lapping up
against a cliffside. After years of life in space, this was
like a dream inside their nightmare. In the middle of
the bay, the captured Jem Hadar ship lay nosed into
the water, half submerged in sandy muck.
    Ben Sisko urged his surviving crewmen to haul their
makeshift raft up the sandy shoal to the water's edge.
All hands who were alive when the ship crashed were
now accounted for .... Himself, O'Brien, Bashir, and
Lieutenant NeeIcy hauling this makeshift raft cobbled
together with barrels, conduit, cables, and loaded
with what little salvage they could toss out--phasers,
tricorders, jackets, and the blanketed form of Jadzia
Dax, tied to the raft and blessedly unconscious.
 "Ready... heave?'

155




    Nog, already on the shore. Garak standing over
him. Ensign Gordon on his hands and knees on the
beach, coughing up seawater and fighting for con-
sciousness.
    Sisko envied them. He wanted to be on the warm
sand. He wanted to lie down and relax his knotted
neck, let his legs go limp, unclench his hands.
  "One more! Ready--heave.r'
      Sand scratched under the raft, rattling Sisko from
his spine to his shoulders. They'd made it. Grounded.
  "How... how is she?" Sisko gasped.
    Not nearly as exhausted as everyone else, Bashir
scanned Dax's quiet body with his medical tricorder.
"Stable for now. Garak! I need a hand!"  "Bloody hell!"
  Who was that? Oh, who else? O'Brien.
  "What?" Sisko demanded.
  "I can't believe it!"
  "What?"
  "I tore my pants!"
  "You tore your pants... ?"
    The sheer tragic irony in his own voice made Sisko
grin. Then the grin caught a spark and he was chuck-
ling.
    "That's right .... "O'Brien tugged at the lips of his
trouser leg, torn halfway up the outside hem.
    That was funny. It was hilarious. The two of them
fell back against the damned raft and let the joke roll
through them. Torn trousers. A rip in the fabric of the
universe!
 Shipwrecked. Beached. Down.
 "You all right otherwise, Chief?." Sisko gasped

when he'd caught more of his breath. "Whatever
ripped your pants didn't rip you, did it.'?"
    "Let's see... shipwrecked on a quirky little planet
inside a dark nebula with a little white sun and a
possibility of starvation ....No, I'm just dandy oth-
erwise."
    With a lingering chuckle, Sisko shoved himself
around and stood up on his shuddering legs. On the
beach, Garak and Bashir were settling Dax into a
rock's shadow. It was bright here... where there was
sun and water, there would have to be food. And
they'd salvaged a few days' worth of survival rations.
    He glanced into the sky. "A little chilly despite the
brightness. Might be downright cold when that sun
goes down. We'd better find some shelter."
    Squinting, and holding his pants closed with one
hand, O'Brien scanned the rocky seawall north of
them. "I see caverns in those cliffs. Maybe there are
caves on the dry side."
    "Good bet. We've got to keep Dax warm. I wish
that diagnostic bed could float." He turned and
looked back at the sinking Jem Hadar ship that had so
recently been their hope and home. The ship rotated
slowly in the water, one wing low, while the sea crept
quickly up the exposed hull. "How deep did you say it
was out there?"
    "Three to five hundred meters, depending on the
topography of the seafloor."
 "Guess we won't be making any free dives."
    "Let Julian do it. He can probably hold his geneti-
cally enhanced breath to fifty fathoms."
 "You're all heart, Chief. Help me beach this raft."

156                                                                  157




  "Aren't we beached? It's completely--"
    "There might be a tide. I want to get this up on the
sand and get off this open beach before anybody sees
US."
    O'Brien's face screwed up into a snarl. "Who in
God's green meadow is going to see us?"
    "We got in some good shots on those Jem Hadar. At
the last minute Nog thought he saw one of them spiral
in after us, on almost the same trajectory. I think they
crashed. If they hit the water too, they might be
alive."
 "Well, with a little luck they hit a rock instead."
    "We can't count on luck, Chief. Now, get a grip on
the raft and let's go. Heave/"

O

CHAPTER
      13

158

ALIEN SHORELINE. Workable planet--breathable at-
mosphere, enough light, too much light, a surface
which could be moved upon. Moving on foot is
troublesome. Jem Hadar are not constructed for in-
fantry, but for space battle. Walking about is a tire-
some business. Moving on foot must be kept to
matters of practicality. The ship is irretrievable, bot-
tomed in one of this planet's deep pools.
    Third Remata'Klan. Engaging unfamiliar emo-
tions. Concern. The future--unsure. The Vorta in-
jured. That is critical .... Jem Hadar without a Vorta
are directionless. Who will distribute the white if the
Vorta dies? How can Jem Hadar soldiers make an
injured Vorta heal?
    Response: revert to procedure. Patrol. Study. Con-
elude. Act.

159




  Fourth Limara'Son approaching.
    "We have established a defense perimeter around
the entrance to the cavern," came the report from the
other soldier. "I have sent out two patrols to recon-
noiter the shoreline in both directions."
    Take that in, digest it, say nothing. Facts require no
response. Look at the crashing surf... so unnatural.
    Limara'Son. "The Vorta's condition has worsened.
He will die soon."
    Remata'Klan. "What about the First and the
Second?"
    Opaque sensations. Worry. Uncertainty was not
familiar at all. This must be uncertainty. Was it also
weakness? Inability to change occurrences?
    Limara'Son. "I vaporized their bodies myself and
redistributed their equipment to the rest of the men."
      Good. Actions had been taken, positive movements
forward. Some of the uncertainty faded.
  Limara'Son. "You are now the First."
    "No. I questioned the Vorta's orders. He will not
forget that. As long as he lives, I will remain Third."
    "You were right to question him. If he hadn't
ordered us into the nebula two days ago, we would not
have crashed--"
    "It was not my place! Remember... 'Obedience
brings victory.'"
    Limara'Son accepting the axiom. "'And victory is
life.'"
    Suitably humbled. Good. The situation began to
gain ballast.
    Crashing seas. Wind and air... an uneasy eternal-
ness without purpose...

160

    Remata'Klan. "Until we re-establish communica-
tion, we will hold this world for the Dominion."
  "And if we cannot re-establish communication?"
    "Then we will hold this world for the Dominion
until we die."
    Back to the base camp. A wet, cloying environment,
but cover from the natural elements outside. A hiding
place, defensible, functional. Comfort was no legiti-
mate factor.
    All soldiers occupied, working on communication
sytem, stripping and cleaning weapons which had
been submersed in that pool. Clumsy movement...
nervous twitching. Tools being dropped, fingers trem-
bling. Glances of distraction.
    They are all suffering from lack of white. Neck
tubes were all gurgled nearly dry now.
    A small fire for light, and to keep the Vorta warm.
The fire struggles in the big cave, only a tiny source
against the bigger moist darkness. The Vorta upon his
mat, raised on rock slabs. He seems pained, if pain
can be seen. Misery creasing his pale features. Dark
hair grayed with dust and crusted salt from the pool of
surf.
    The �orta. Looking at Remata'Klan. "This must
be... quite gratifying for you... but I've decided
not to give you the pleasure of... watching me die in
this foul-smelling cavern. I intend to... live." "I understand."
    "How long is it until we re-establish communica-
tion?"
    "Seventh Yak'Talon estimates it will take at least
ten days before we can attempt a low-power test."

               161
                 "?/Libr ,rV




A crease in the Vorta's forehead. "Ten days .... "
He seems exhausted. Now his eyes are closed. What
is he thinking? If he dies, will Remata'Klan become
First? Distribute the white?
  Remata'Klan. "It is time for the white."
    An acquiescing gesture from the Vorta, and a wave
of his hand toward the black container. A nod from
Remata'Klan, and a soldier brings the precious case
to the Vorta, who works the security lock, finally,
wrenching the scorched and battered top upward.
    Remata'Klan cannot see inside the case. Looking
around would suggest distrust for the Vorta.
    Other soldiers gather around, waiting for their dose
of white. Soon the weakness will be gone, the twitch-
ing, the trembling, the hunger and dizziness. The
fears and cramps.
    The Vorta. "Third Remata'Klan... can you vouch
for the loyalty of your men?"
 Part of the white ritual. Only one answer.
    "We pledge our loyalty to the Founders from now
until death."
    "Then receive this reward from the Founders. May
it keep you strong."
 The first vial goes to Remata'Klan. The second--
    But the Vorta is closing the case. He's locking the
case.
 Limara'Son. "Only one?"
 Remata'Klan. "Keep your place!"
    Anxiety from the soldiers--so little white between
them? One vial?
    "This case of white must last until we're rescued."
The �orta. "At least ten days. Possibly more. I will

ration the supply. Don't worry. I am the Vorta... I
will take care of you all."
    A nod from Remata'Klan, and turn, then gesture to
all the soldiers that they should go back to their work.
Work was everything. Work, patrol, survive, defend.
    Behind, the Vorta lies injured. Perhaps dying.
Alone.

    Caverns, cold and forbidding. Moisture leaked
down the shale walls. Flat-faced bits of mica glistened
and made tiny rainbows on black surfaces. Sisko
thought of the black lacquer desk in his office on Deep
Space Nine, and the lamps glowing them. There was
no source of warmth at all, not even from the single
leg of sunshine leaning in the narrow opening. The
light bent upward a meter, then quickly failed.
    Sisko made the decision, with some internal strug-
gle, to use one of the phasers to heat the standing
rocks on the ground, where they were partly insulated
and would hold the energy for a while. He had to be
sparing--they might need the phaser as weapons
later. If they were to be here any extended amount of
time, they'd have to build shelter, find something to
burn, find something to eat. Survival came down to
those three things. Home, heat, food.
    The waterlogged crew busied themselves and didn't
complain, even turning to a gallows humor to bolster
the soggy moment. Everyone stripped out of the wet
uniforms, after Sisko's second order, and laid them on
the hot rocks. He didn't want anyone getting pneumo-
nia and taking Bashir's attention away from Dax.
Soon the cavern was moist with steam from the

162                                                                    163




process. The clothing dried quickly enough, as Star-
fleet ordnance was constructed to do, but the boots
stayed wet a long time, forcing them to pick around
barefoot on the gravelly sand. Nog inventoried the
stuff they'd managed to salvage. Neeley and Gordon
checked the integrity of their cavern for hidden exits
that might have to be guarded, or structural instabili-
ty that might fall in on them. Garak mended
O'Brien's trousers. Bashir tended Dax as well as
possible with very limited medical equipment.
Sisko--his job was to worry.
    He realized he was in trouble when he made a
foolish promise to the drowsy Dax. He promised to
get her out of here.
    How? An uncharted rock inside an uncharted nebu-
la, in Cardassian space after having come in here
without logging the voyage, flying a captured enemy
ship. Get out?
    When would he learn to stop making promises?
Promise Dad to get Jake off the station... he
couldn't make good on that one either. Now he was
stuck here, as trapped as any pre-spaceflight Neander-
thal, on a protoplanet in the middle of, quite literally,
nothing. And nobody knew where they were. Nobody
but possibly the enemy. Great. Make more promises.
    Dax .... Her face was so pale, threaded with pain,
reduced to the universal prescription of rest and
relying upon her own natural healing powers, if any.
Julian Bashir had certainly done all he could do and
probably a few things he conjured from sheer clever-
ness, but there simply wasn't much more than a
rescue kit and a medical tricorder. Dax was down and

she was going to stay down for a while. The only favor
Sisko could do for her was pretend he didn't need her
advice, that she could relax and he would muddle
through.
    As his clothing dried he fretted about the situations
here and on DS9. How were Kira and Odo doing,
back under the control of Gul Dukat, and with the
added irritant of the slimy, soft-spoken Vorta? Every
Jem Hadar crew of any size had a Vorta on board to
manage them. The cool-blooded genetically engi-
neered master running the hot-blooded genetically
engineered vassals. A soup not meant to be stirred.
    And Cardassians for spice. Would Kira and Odo
dare tinker with the status quo on the station? Mixed
feelings rushed through Sisko. What would he do? Sit
there under the treaty and bide time? Make nice with
the Cardassians and the Vorta in order to keep Bajor
and the station from becoming targets?
    Maybe. But Kira was a former freedom fighter and
Odo had lived long and hard under the oppression of
the Cardassians. Could he expect them to be passive
now? Complicitors in their own minds?
    No "maybe" about it--he'd take some kind of
action. Some underlying subversion. He knew what
he would do, and yet he also hoped Kira and Odo
wouldn't do that. Odd, to have these tumbling feel-
ings, to field a dozen plots and tricks in his mind yet
not be able to act upon them or even know if acting
upon them would be the right thing to do. He'd left
Bajor and DS9 in a certain condition because he
wanted them to survive. He expected his friends to
understand what he wanted and hold back their quite

164                                                                    165




justified reactions. Was he asking too much of them?
With communication cut off completely, how could
he know what was happening?
    And Jake was there, barely out of his teens, inexpe-
rienced, feisty, trying to prove himself in the
trenches .... What would happen to the son of the
emissary of Bajor if Kira, a Bajoran, and Odo, a
shapeshifter thought to be a deity by the Vorta, took
action against the Dominion? Sisko knew he had
created a problem for Kira and Odo just by arranging
a treaty between Bajor and the Dominion. Yes, the
move saved Bajor from attack, but it also put Bajor
and the station at the mercy of the Dominion. There
would be no more trade with outside sources, no
inflow of repair parts, medical supplies, food, techni-
cal help. The planet and the station would be forced
to turn to the Dominion for support, and that would
strengthen the Dominion's position. The leaders of
the planetary population would deeply resent that.
The Vedeks particularly would bristle at any hint of
Dominion occupation over what they saw as their
spiritual territory.
    Gul Dukat would know all that and be ready to
respond with a hard slap to any protests. Not a good
situation, and it would never become good. Bajor or
the station would break, or Kira would break or Odo
would melt. Something would go wrong. The balance
would be broken and everything would spin out of
control.
    Somehow, eventually, that station had to be recap-
tured.

    Thoughts of loss and insurgence bucked and sizzled
in Sisko's mind. Frustration boiled in him as he had
never known it before. He was stuck here, unable to
do anything or know what anyone else was doing. For
so many years he had juggled many baseballs, and
now he only had this one little stitch to mend. His
universe had contracted from a whole sector, a big
populated planet, a crowded station, and the doorway
between two quadrants to this handful of survivors,
this tiny rock they were on, a desolate strip of surf and
sand, a sunken Jem Hadar wreck, and a few days'
worth of rations. And both challenges were daunt-
ingly equalmthat was the strange part.
    "Mr. Gordon," he said, breaking his miserable
thoughts, "Take Lieutenant Neeley and scout the
terrain north of here. Mr. Garak, Cadet Nog, you two
go south-east along the ridge. Look for fresh water,
edible vegetation, edible animals, possibly dangerous
animals, toxins... what else?"
 "Jem Hadar," O'Brien piped.
 "Oh... yes, do keep an eye out for Jem Hadar."
 "Why should we?" Nog irapulsed.
 "Because I told you to, Cadet."
    The boy blinked as if he'd been slapped. "Oh...
yes, sir."
    Sending Nog with Garak might be a mistake. They
had an uneasy history. All right, they had a downright
hostile history. Come to think of it, that was as good a
reason to send them together as it was not to send
them together.
 Off they went, leaving Sisko, O'Brien, Bashir and

166                                                                    167




the drowsy Dax in the dampness together. Light from
outside was changing--how long was the day on this
tiny excuse for a planet? The air was a little thinner
than Sisko was used to, but air was air. Between sea
and space, anything breathable would do.
    After two hours, Sisko was ready to start giving
himself a manicure if he didn't get a report pretty
damned soon from his field operatives. He had been
watching O'Brien fiddle with a piece of Dominion
equipment, just one of a dozen bits of circuitry they'd
tossed onto the raft at the last moment. To keep
himself from running out there and doing the crew's
jobs for them, Sisko fixated on O'Brien's work.
  "What's that?" he asked.
    "With a little luck," the engineer said by way of an
answer, "I might be able to hardwire one of our
combadges into this sensor relay. That would give us a
crude transmitter, but no power source."
    Without bothering to point out that they had no-
body friendly in this sector to transmit to, Sisko
asked, "What about draining one of our phasers?"
    "I thought about that. But I'd need a converter to
bridge the two power cells, and I can't build a
converter without an ion exchange matrix."
    Sisko didn't respond. It didn't matter--right now
they needed all the phasers, at least until they eased
the area and made sure there were no hostile forces
lurking here. Contacting rescue parties was a far-flung
and slim chance, therefore not their first priority.
Their first priority was to stay alive right now, down
here, for as long as possible.
  Ensign Gordon saved him from having to voice any

of that by striding in with sand on his uniform and a
worried look on his face.
    "Captain, I think we may have a problem. Garak
and Nog haven't reported in yet and they're not
answering my hails."
 "How long since they reported in?"
    "We contacted each other at fourteen hundred, sir.
It's been over an hour, and we agreed to contact
hourly."
 "Where's Neeley?"
    "She's on guard outside, sir. We haven't seen any-
thing .... Living, I mean."
    "All right, form up. Doctor, we're going out on a
search party. Let's hope it doesn't turn out to be a
rescue party."

    The shoreline was wide and open--too wide, too
bright, too easy to be seen. It was also the way Garak
and Nog had gone and the only passable ground in
this direction.
    The search party was widely spread out across the
beach to avoid providing a tempting cluster for a
single shot. All personnel had their phasers drawn,
except Neeley, who was handling a tricorder, tracking
the infrared remnants of Garak and Nog's footprints.
Unfortunately, for long stretches of beach, the foot-
prints had been washed away by cooling licks of tide.
    "Captain." Neeley slowed her pace to let Sisko catch
up to her, keeping her eyes on her tricorder. "There's a
group of life-forms up on the cliff... range seventy-
five meters... elevation thirty meters."
 Casually Sisko glanced around the whole beach,

168                                                                   169




deliberately not focusing on the location Neeley had
specified. Keeping his voice too low to be picked up
by sensors, he muttered, "That's where I'd be ....
Are they Jem Hadar?"  "I think so."
    "Well, let's not make it easy for them. Tell the chief
to head for that large outcropping of rocks at ten
o'clock. But we need to walk... not run."
    Without any overt moves, Neeley picked up her
pace and caught up with O'Brien. After a moment,
O'Brien paused, pretended to get his bearings, then
led the party toward the surge of rocks encrusting part
of the beach, just under the ridge. No one looked up,
nor indicated in any way that they knew they were
being watched. Sisko kept his eyes focused ahead.
Neeley continued pretending to scan. O'Brien moved
slowly toward the protection of the bigger rocks, but
Sisko noticed the engineer's finger was already on his
phaser trigger.
    Just a few more seconds... just a few more steps
to protection, to a defensible position--
    Part of the rock in front of O'Brien opened with a
sharp explosion. Energy blast!
  "Move!" Sisko shouted. "Go! Go! Go!"
    He grabbed Neeley, who was still trying to pretend
they hadn't been seen, hadn't been fired upon, and
with her he dashed to the rock face, firing as he ran.
Above them, he caught a glimpse of a stony Jem
Hadar face, and then another blast.
 "We're pinned down," he choked. "Fire at will!"
 He thought of tossing in a sentence about firing

accurately and not wasting shots because the phasers
were all they had, but this wasn't the time. The rock
face was being chewed away by free fire from the Jem
Hadar and his people had their hands full just keeping
their heads from being shot off. They were in the
defensive position, lower than the Jem Hadar and
able only to lay down restraining fire. The Jem Hadar
soldiers, pumped up and brain-clouded with the taste
of victory in their single-minded way, were firing their
disruptors murderously, cutting into the fissures and
shearing away huge portions of the cliff that were
protecting Sisko and his crew. If that was their plan,
not to just hit the crew but also knock away the
protective rocks, it was working.
    Sheets of rock slid away, making a percussive rattle,
then crashing to the sands below.
    A Jem Hadar voice roared from above. "Terminate
fire!"
     But the disruptor fire didn't terminate--it kept up
at the same vicious pace. "Terminate!"
     Some of the shooting did stop, Sisko noticed then,
but somebody up there was still trigger-happy.
  "You've been ordered to stop!"
    Probably the "First" Jem Hadar, or whoever was
leading that team. Apparently he was having trouble
getting control over his men. Good, that might help.
And it might be a clue--if they were castaway here,
were they running out of ketracel white? Losing
mental control? Going through withdrawal?
 O'Brien and... who was that--Gordon--were

170                                                                  171




still firing on the Jem Hadar position. Sisko didn't yet
order them to stop. If the Jem Hadar were indeed in
the first stages of withdrawal, the harassment, or even
the stubbornness, of the Starfleet team could irritate
them into dissention.
      Yesmthey were arguing. He heard them, but the
specific words were guttural, muffled.
  "--reduced to Sixth!"
  "--shroud... base camp."
  "--suppression fire... rodraw."
    Draw? Withdraw, maybe? Were they pulling back?
Why?
    They had a superior position. Why would they pull
back?
    The answer might be as simple as some set of orders
they had received and weren't supposed to mangle.
They weren't engineered to be too independently
thinking. Obedience was everything, spontaneity was
not encouraged, and such minds could be confused.
    He let O'Brien and the others keep firing until he
was sure the Jem Hadar were no longer returning the
shots.
  "They're pulling out," O'Brien called.
     Sisko almost told him to keep quiet, but changed
his mind. "Looks that way to me." "Why aren't they camouflaged?"
     "Good question. Let's hope the answer is some-
thing in our favor. Cease fire! Lieutenant Neeley?"
  "Sir!"
 "Are they there, or are they gone?"
 "Not reading them in the immediate vicinity any-

more, sir, although some of my readings are garbled. I
think this tricorder got bumped or something."
  "They're not up there anymore?"
 "No, sir, no life-form readings withinre"
    "Take a position where you can read the top of the
ridge."
 "Yes, sir."
 "All hands, disperse and meet back at the cavern."

  Two hostages. A good event.
  Remata'Klan. "Kneel before the Vorta."
    How strange it seemed that the Vorta had no
satisfaction in his face at seeing these two captives
from the Federation ship they had been chasing. Now
it was confirmed, for these two were here, that that
ship had crashed also. The Vorta's conditionmwas it
worse? How could a Jem Hadar judge a being like a
Vorta?
    The two Federation captives on their knees. No
speaking yet.
    The Vorta. "How many... others... are there in
your unit?"
    "Nog!" The Ferengi. "Cadet third class! Serial
number CX dash nine-three-seven-three dash--"
    "Shut up!" The other captive. The Cardassian one.
"As I tried to explain to your men, my name is Kamar
and I'm a member of the Cardassian Intelligence
Bureau, what used to be known as the Obsidian order.
A week ago, while performing my duties in the
glorious service of the Founders, I was captured by
the U.S.S. Centaur. I was being held aboard one of

172                                                                 173




their shuttles when we were forced to hide in his dark
matter nebula by the unexpected appearance of a
Dominion battleship. The shuttle was then hit by--"
    "Excuse me, Mr. Kamar." The Vorta. "If that's
really your name .... But if you're one of our allies,
why were you wearing this?"
    A Starfleet cornbadge. A change in the Cardassian's
behavior. A stare at the combadge ....
    "I was hoping you weren't going to ask me about
that."
    "I have only one further question for you. Is there a
doctor in your unit?"
 The Cardassian. "Yes."
 "Garak!" The Ferengi.
    Now the Cardassian's real name was known. The
rest, assumably, also lies.
    "Don't be too hard on him, young man." The
Vorta. "He just saved your life. Take them to a secure
area. Third..." Soldiers taking away the two cap-
tives. "I have a mission for you. All our lives may
depend on it. Can I trust you to carry out my orders
without question?"
    Remata'Klan. A purpose. A mission. No more void
moments. "My life is pledged to the service of the
Dominion."
    "Good. I want you to find the Starfleet unit. But do
not engage them. Locate them, assess their strength,
then report back to me." "I understand."
    "No, you don't. But that's all right. It's not impor-
tant that you understand. Only that you carry out my
instructions precisely."

"'Obedience brings victory.'"
"Yes. Yes, it does .... Go."

    A good approach. Without detection even in the
brightness of this nebular sun glaring down upon
this planet. Starfleet officers on the low ground,
Remata'Klan and soldiers up here, on the rocks, a
tactical advantage ....
    A burst of weapons fire! Against orders! The Vorta
had ordered not to engage! Who is firing?
Two... three Jem Hadar, firing on the Starfleeters!
Return fire vomiting back up the rocks. The Star-
fleeters are fighting back. The Vorta's orders must
stand until he dies!
    Neck tube sucking again... the dizziness getting
worse. Cramps and shaking in the fingers and
knees ....
"Terminate fire!" Remata'Klan. "Terminate fire!"
The men drunk with murderous fury, still firing
downward, confused, drilling the rocks without even
hitting a targeted enemy. Waste of weapon energy!
    Remata'Klan--strike down the nearest Jem Hadar.
Nearby, Limara'Son now looks up, stops firing, seems
to waken from the rushing confusion. Beyond him,
another Jem Hadar hears nothing, ignores orders,
keeps firing down again and again. Only the roar of
the weapons and the sucking horror of their empty
neck tubes--deafening.
    Limara'Son, turning his own weapon on that other
soldier. "You've been ordered to stop!"
 A great effort, and the soldier stops firing.
 Starfleet still firing upward, looking for cover, blast-

175




ing the cliffs to rock fragments. The soldiers are
unhappy about restraint. This curtails forward move-
ment of actions, a chance at getting more white. The
universe was closing in. At first, there had been war.
Purpose. Orders. Then only a ship. Then only a
planet. Now only the white. The tunnel closed and
closed. Soon there would be only the insanity of
withdrawal, and the �orta would die and they would
go insane trying to get the box open.
     Remata'Klan. "Your orders were clear! You were
not to engage the enemy! Who fired first?" All silent.
  Limara'Son, finally. "I did."
    Disappointment. Remata'Klan. "You are reduced
to Sixth. We will shroud and return to base camp--"
    Explosion on the rocks. Blistering pain ....
Remata'Klan's arm bleeding.
 Limara'Son. "I can no longer shroud myself."
    All the others too. No more shroud energy left
anywhere. No more protection.
    Remata'Klan. "You and you will provide suppres-
sion fire as we withdraw."
  Limara'Son. "Understood."
    Pull back carefully, while Limara'Son and the
Ninth open fire again on the Starfleet position. A
pause .... Crouch for a moment of watching the
movements below.
    Limara'Son. "Remata'Klan... I regret my disobe-
dience."
    Regrets. There were so many. Surely they stood
beneath this sun and glare because of errors.
Remata'Klan's hand on Limara'Son's shoulder for

balance. Stand and move out to follow the others back
to base camp.
    Remata'Klan. "Follow us in ninety seconds. We
will face the Vorta's fury together."

 "Why were my orders disobeyed?"
    The cave has an echo. Even injured and dying, the
Vorta has a piercing voice.
    Remata'Klan. "Lack of white produces anxiety
among us. One man could not restrain himself when
he saw the enemy." "Which man?"
 "I have dealt with the matter."
 "I asked for his name."
 "He is my responsibility."
 "His name!"
    At the side, Limara'Son waits to be betrayed. But if
obedience is victory, is not loyalty success?
    "I may not be First." Remata'Klan. "But I am the
unit leader. You can discipline me, but only I disci-
pline the men. That is the order of things."
    The Vorta is angry, but also fatigued. He cannot
struggle or resist. Things had to be in order.
 The Vorta. "Very well. I leave him to you."
     Success? A tactical win for Remata'Klan? Would
the Vorta give them more white now? A glance at the unit. "Dismissed."
    It's well that they leave quickly, before the Vorta's
pain makes him change his mind.
    "You've done well, Third." The Vorta. "You may
yet become First. Now... I have a new task for you."

176                                                                    177




    "All right, it's pretty clear now that we've got a
problem. Until we know if they have any weaknesses,
we have to assume they don't. Come down here,
Chief."
    Drawing in the sandy flats of the cave floor, Sisko
crouched with O'Brien and made a sketch of the
surrounding area.
    "We'll set up three defensive positions," he said,
glancing at O'Brien. "You and Ensign Gordon on the
south ridge, Lieutenant Neeley near the lava tube,
Bashir and I in the dunes."
    From the slab behind him, Dax murmured, "I'll
stay here and guard my clothes."
    He smiled, and was immediately interrupted by a
comm call.
  "Neeley to Captain Sisko."
  "Go ahead."
    "A Jem Hadar soldier has just approached my
position, sir. He says he wants to talk to you alone."
    "Understood. Stand by. And don't turn your back
on that soldier."
  "Standing by."
    He eyed O'Brien. "What do you suppose that
means?"
    "A Jem Hadar with a superior position and a
tactical advantage wanting to parlay?" O'Brien tipped
his head thoughtfully. "I'd say they want to make a
deal, they must need something pretty badly. We
ought to let 'era suffer."
  "I'd like to, but you're forgetting something."
  "What am I forgetting?"

    "Nog and Garak. They haven't reported in. That
Jem Hadar might be here to negotiate a hostage deal."
    "If they've got Nog and Garak, you'll have to be
careful."
 "Cunning is what I have to be. More than they are."
 "Not very hard, sir."
    "No, but if they've got a Vorta with them, that
changes everything."
 "Are you really going to meet him by yourself, sir?"
     "I'd better. But... there's one thing I can do to
seem to have an upper hand. Sisko to Neeley."
  "Neeley. "
    "Tell the Jem Hadar representative that I will meet
with him, but in our cavern, which will be his prison if
his words fail to advance our situation to mutual
advantage."
    He knew the Jem Hadar was standing right there,
listening. NeeIcy acknowledged, and Sisko turned to
O'Brien. "Take Bashir and Gordon and stand guard
in a half-circle perimeter, but stay out of sight."
  "Out of sight, aye, sir."
    It took Neeley ten minutes to bring the Jem Hadar
representative into the cavern, even though it was
only a two minute walk--and that was good thinking.
Sisko hadn't been able to say anything to her over the
comm, but hoped she knew procedure. Never lead an
enemy directly to your camp. Make the route as
complicated and unrememberable as possible.
  Here they were ....
    On the slab over there, Dax remained still and
pretended to sleep, but she wasn't sleeping. Sisko

178                                                                      179




silently motioned for Lieutenant Neeley to make
herself scarce. Then he faced the jagged features of the
Jem Hadar.
"I'm Captain Benjamin Sisko," he said simply.
"Third Remata'Klan. Two members of your unit
are being held at our base camp. We will exchange
them for you and your doctor."
    Suddenly several pieces of the puzzle clicked into
place. Sisko controlled his expression, pretending he
realized nothing.
 "Why do you need a doctor?"
 "The Vorta has been severely wounded."
 "And why me?"
 "The Vorta wishes to speak to you."
    "It sounds like he wants to trade two low-ranking
prisoners for two more valuable ones. Would you
accept a deal like that?" "No."
 "Then why should I?"
 "You shouldn't."
 "You're not a very good negotiator, are you?"
    "I was not sent to negotiate," the Jem Hadar said.
"I was instructed only to deliver terms."
    Terms--a strange reference from the Vorta. Terms
for surrender or terms for a treaty?
    "I see .... Well, then I want to talk to someone
who can negotiate. I want to speak with your First."
    The Jem Hadar soldier paused, shifted his feet
uneasily, eyed Sisko as if he didn't know exactly how
to respond to that.
 After a moment he said, "There is no First."

    Sisko measured the soldier's reaction. "I take it
there's no Second either."
  "I command the unit," the soldier admitted.
    In those few words a flood of active possibilities
rushed into Sisko's mind. There was a problem in the
Jem Hadar camp. They had crashed. Their Vorta was
injured, and this soldier, the Third, was in command,
but he hadn't been promoted to first or even second,
and that meant he must've done something wrong. He
didn't deserve the posting, even though he had the
job. That meant tension between him and the other
Jem Hadar who also could not move up until he did,
and it meant some kind of tug and pull was going on
between him and the Vorta.  Hmm ....
    "It must be hard," Sisko prodded, "for a soldier to
take orders from a Vorta."
    The soldier stiffened. "The Vorta command the
Jem Hadar. It is the order of things."
    "'Obedience brings victory,'" Sisko recited, and
got a strong surprised look from the soldier. "I was on
a mission with the Jem Hadar once, before the war, of
course. They were good... tough. Professional. It
was an honor to serve with them. But their Vorta...
he was something different. Manipulative. Treacher-
ous. Trusted by neither side. In the end, he was
killed... by the Jem Hadar First."
    The Third blinked and gaped, unable to hide his
shock.
 "Surprised?" Sisko asked quietly.
 Nervous but fighting to recover, the Third fidgeted.

180                                                                     181




"Such things have been known to happen, but they
are rare and only occur in units that have lost disci-
pline." He paused then, twitching under Sisko's ana-
lytical glare, then forced back the subject he'd come
here about. "The Vorta has instructed me to give you
his assurance that neither you nor the doctor will be
harmed and you'll both be free to leave at the end of
your meeting. What is your response?"
    "The Vorta's word doesn't carry much weight with
me," Sisko snapped. "Can I have your assurance that
we'll be free to go, Remata'Klan?"
    Moved by the unexpected faith from an enemy who
pointedly did not take the Vorta as superior, the Third
hesitated and searched around for an answer that
wouldn't compromise the loyalty he was supposed to
hold for the Vorta.
    "I have been ordered," he said slowly, "to let you
leave after the meeting. You can be sure that I will
obey that order."
    Sisko paused a couple of seconds, just to imply that
none of this meant quite as much to him as it did to
the Jem Hadar, but then said, "We'll make the trade
in one hour."  "Agreed."
    Remata'Klan turned and boiled out of the cavern
with new things to think about.
    When the footsteps faded and he and Dax were
alone, she opened her eyes.
    "Sounded like you were actually getting through to
him for a minute there."
    Sisko shook his head. "You can't break through all
that Dominion conditioning in one conversation."

    "Do you really think you can turn him against his
Vorta?"
    "I don't know. But there were at least seven Jem
Hadar soldiers up on that ridge this morning. Say at
least two more at their base camp, guarding the Vorta
and their prisoners. Without Nog and Garak on our
side, that gives them almost a two to one advantage."
    Grimly, Dax blinked and sighed. "I think I'd like to
check out now."
 "So would I, old man, so would I."
    "Don't trust them, Benjamin," she said, letting the
concern rise in her weakened voice.
    "I don't," he told her, "but if they've got Garak and
Nog, I have to do something. I have the moral and
legal authority to sacrifice myself for them as their
commanding officert"
 "But that doesn't include Julian."
 "Better him that Nog, at least."
 "True .... "
 "Sisko to Bashir."
 "Bashir, sir."
    "Doctor, come back to the cavern. I have something
to tell you."

182                                                                   183




The rain it raineth on the just,
  And also on the unjust fella:
But chiefly on the just, because
  The unjust steals the just's umbrella.

Lord Bowen

O

CHAPTER
      14

KIRA NERYS stood at the rail overlooking the Prome-
nade of Deep Space Nine. Below, a flow of people
moved like a sleepy beast. Jem Hadar soldiers, a
couple of Vorta, Cardassians, assorted other aliens,
and now Bajorans who had returned to the station or
were visiting. All was quietmrather too quiet. There
was function here, but no joy. There was life, but it
possessed no bubble. The taste of her morning's
raktajino lingered on her lips, growing stale. Lingering
in her mind, unerasable, the image of Jem Hadar and
Cardassians manning the posts in Ops, posts which
only weeks ago had been home to the friendly faces of
Dax, O'Brien, and her other friends. Friends ....
    Day by day she had taken raktajino from Mavek
every morning. She had gone about her daily routine.

185




She had resisted any efforts to fight back against the
Cardassian occupation, clinging to the glimmer of
hope that Captain Sisko was out there somewhere,
with a plan to take the station back, or at least a plan
in which Kira's patience played a part. Even pressure
from Vedek Kassim, one of Bajor's most prominent
religious leaders, had not moved Kira to accept her
one-time role as a rebel troublemaker. This business
of a command position had been hard to understand
at first, but she had acclimated, learned to compre-
hend the balancing act every officer must employ, and
now it was her job not only to avoid making trouble
herself, but to see that trouble was not made by
others.
    Thus her shame when, just hours ago, Vedek Kas-
sim threw herself from this very rail to her death at
the flat walkway of the Promenade. Her heart half
eaten away, Kira looked down and knew the �edek's
desperation had been caused by Kira's own resistance
to... resistance. The Vedek's sacrifice, and her final
cry--"Evil must be opposed!"---was a message as
much for Kira as for the Dominion and the Cardas-
sians.
    Despite appearances, there had been some unsa-
vory changes that even Captain Sisko didn't know
about since Bajor had been completely cut off from
outside trade. Because of the Vedek's suicide, Gul
Dukat had initiated a crackdown on security.
    On top of all that, four hundred Dominion facilita-
tors had been sent to Bajor to "help" because of all
the shortages they had themselves caused with the

isolation policy. Technical assistance for a few
months. Sure.
    Kira herself and Odo had welcomed a group of
Vorta to the station. That was part of their duty under
the damned treaty with Bajor. That made it seem that
Odo, supposedly a "Founder," was validating the
Dominion's presence, especially now that he had
accepted a position, in a deal with Weyoun, on the
"ruling council" of the station. Odo had made a
request, and Weyoun had cleverly turned it around on
him. Now Odo appeared, in the eyes of all here, to be
approving of the Dominion and Cardassian rule. Kira
downright knew she was validating it just by not
fighting it. Sickening.
    And all this was further irritated by Jake Sisko's
new habit of lurking about, playing the part of an
investigative reporter .... That's all they needed.
Freedom of the press didn't exist in a totalitarian
state, kid, and it can work against freedom when the
press doesn't know better than to keep its mouth shut.
    Over and over Kira heard the words of Vedek
Kassim trying to convince her to rise against the
Dominion. "The Prophets tell us that evil must be
opposed. The Dominion is evil.... As Bajor~ liaison
officer, what will you do to oppose them?... Freedoms
are being curtailed one by one .... Can't you see
what~ happening to you? You're becoming an apolo-
gist for them .... "
    Kira vaguely recalled her response--not to apolo-
gize for the Dominion, but a warning to Vedek
Kassim that any public protest would have to be

186                                                                     187




stopped and it was Kira's job to stop it. What would it
have taken to-- "Nerys?"
    She almost turned, guarding a flinch at the inter-
ruption, but then recognized Odo's voice and didn't
need to turn. Her eyes were still fixed upon the scuffed
floor down below where Vedek Kassim had lay dead
before her, before everyone. Pedestrians below were
deliberately avoiding even walking over the spot.
    "Damar has been trying to contact you for the past
five hours," he said, coming to her side at the rail.
    Silently Kira opened her hand and showed her
unactivated combadge, then closed her fist again. No
explanation for that.
    "I keep thinking about it," she murmured. "Over
and over... and I just can't believe that I stood
down there, ready to use force to stop a protest
against the Dominion. Met When I was in the
Resistance... I despised people like me. I'm a col-
laborator, Odo .... "
    "That's not true." His gravelly voice was calm,
without pressure. "You're doing exactly what Captain
Sisko wanted you and the rest of Bajor to do--remain
neutral and stay out of the fighting."
    "We used to have a saying in the Resistance," she
told him with a touch of reverie. "'If you're not
fighting them, you're helping them.' Half the Alpha
Quadrant is out there right now, fighting for freedom.
But not me .... How do I spend my time? I get a full
meal every day, I sleep in a soft bed every night, I even
write reports for the murderers who run this sta-
tion-"

    Odo cut her off. "This is a difficult time for every-
one. Do you think it's easy for me to sit down with
Dukat and Weyoun every day while they plot the
destruction of the Federation?"
    Now she looked at him. "I'm not pointing a finger
at you, Odo. I'm the one who told you to get more
involved in the first place. No, this is about me ...
this is about being able to look in the mirror every
morning and not feel nauseated by what I see. Kassim
was right .... I've got to do something. I've got to
start fighting back."
    "That's a mistake," he said. "Active resistance will
trigger a crackdown and--"
    "Odo, I don't want to end up fighting you, too, but
I'll do it if I have to."
    There was a quiet pause between them now. She
hadn't had to put much inflection into her words--
the conviction behind them carded perfectly well to
the perceptions of her longtime friend.
    And to Odo's credit, he wasn't foolish enough to
argue. But even more, Kira sensed that he too had
been wallowing in his own personal disgusts.
    He glanced about, then lowered his voice. "All
fight. But let's find a more discreet place to plan the
New Resistance."

    "The next thing we need is a secure way to commu-
nicate with our contacts on Bajor."
    "The Cardassians are extremely adept at locating
the source of any illicit subspace transmission."
 "Then we'll have to be smarter than they are."
 Kira made her cryptic declaration almost flip-

188                                                                      189




pantly. She and Odo sat alone in Quark's bar, in the
middle of a jumble of activity and the rattle of the
Dabo wheel that masked their conversation. Nobody
would expect a resistance cell to be meeting in the
most crowded place on the station. Everybody knew
she and Odo were friends. No one expected them to
avoid each other. So it was perfect to talk here, plot
and plan here, consider here, worry here.  "Hi. Mind if I join in?"
    Kira straightened a little as the lanky Jake Sisko
made a predictable appearance. Here to ask lots of
questions, write them down, try to get them spread
around, make a name for himself doing it. Just what
every resistance cell needed.
  "You already have," Odo droned.
    The boy--all right, he wasn't a boy anymore,
except for that silly glitter in his eyes--leaned on both
elbows and flatly said, "I want in."
    Kira glanced at Odo, and he returned that same
troubled look.
  "In on what?" Odo asked.
  "Your resistance cell."
    They hadn't even done anything yet! How could he
possibly know? Were they that rusty?
    Managing to bury a groan of frustration, Kira
tossed off, "What cell?"
  "Come on, Major, I have my sources."
    Odo shifted in his chair and leered at Kira. "How
reassuring."
    She knew exactly what he meant. She also knew
that neither she nor Odo had said anything to any-

body. How had Jake found out about their embryonic
resistance?
  "I can help," Jake attempted.
  "How?"
"As a reporter, I hear things. People talk to me."
Ridiculous--nobody who wanted anything kept
private would talk to him, so who cared to hear about
anything from anybody who wouM talk to Jake Sisko?
  Kira evasively asked, "About what?"
    "Major," he said with a twinge of protest, "all I'm
asking for is a chance."
    Irritation burned under Kira's skin, but she was
saved from any response when Quark showed up and
with typical rudeness interrupted them. "It's time,
Major."
    Well, after all, she'd asked him to do this. "Al-
ready?" she sighed.
    "Fourteen hundred fifty-seven hours. The shuttle
will be docking in three minutes."
    Resigned, and yet also glad to be leaving Jake
behind, Kira got up. "I better go," she said with
unshielded sarcasm. "I wouldn't want to keep him
waiting."
    Leaving Jake to stew in his own choice of careers,
she left the bar, and was gratified when Odo followed
her out. It was a clear message to Jake that, if they
were indeed doing something subversive, he couldn't
be part of it. Not yet, anyway. Son of the emissary or
not.
    Kira held back on the Promenade until Odo caught
up with her.

190                                                                  191




    "How did he know?" she huffed. "Do you think
Quark talked?"
    Odo glanced back, to make sure Jake was not
following. "No, I don't think he would. It's quite
possible that Jake is making a logical conclusion
based upon his familiarity with us. After the �edek's
suicide, it's not a far-fetched idea that you might have
been pushed too far. It's possible Jake was only acting
upon supposition."
    "Pretty good supposition .... That's all we need--
to be that predictable. I wonder if Dukat or Weyoun
are having the same suspicions."
"Dukat hasn't been on the station for days."
"Don't remind me. He and Damar practically
danced for joy when they left to organize the Domin-
ion facilitators on Bajor. They actually asked me to go
with them! Can you imagine?"
    "Doesn't matter for now whether or not they sus-
pect us of activity. We haven't done anything yet. All
we have to do is nothing for a few more days--or at
least, nothing that looks as if it could be the work of a
resistance coalition."
    "I hate having to go meet them in the airlock, as if
they were somebody .... "
    Odo paused before going off in another direction--
his presence wasn't required and might be misread at
the airlock. "Keep in mind, Nerys, that anything you
do to placate them can from now on work in our
favor. Relax, and they will relax also."
    With a dirty little smile, Kira shook her head and
leered at him. "Quit being so wise. It makes me feel
inferior."

    He returned a very small ironic smile, and veered
off. Wise again--they wanted to be seen together, but
no more than usual.
    The walk to the airlock was mind clearing, though
without comfort and left her physically chilled. This
was her job, yes, but Odo was right--somehow this
ceremonial crap would ultimately help her to be
effective as a revolutionary. The authority would
come into play... eventually. It had to, or it would
drive her crazy.
    The airlock rolled open less than a full second after
she arrived. Gul Dukat strolled out already bearing a
beam to beam smile, and behind him, with an equally
poignant and venomous glare, was Glinn Damar.
    "Major Kira," Dukat greeted, "so good to see you
again."
    But Damar was less formal. "You're out of uniform,
Major. Bajorans could use a lesson in respect."
    "Damar, please," Dukat said. "This is a happy
occasion. Let's not spoil it. Major, I have a surprise
for you."
 "Nerys!"
    Kira turned at the sound of her name being called
from the airlock.
 "Nerys, I'm so glad to see you!"
    A buoyant young woman shot from the airlock and
clasped Kira in a bear hug.
 "Ziyal--what are you doing here?"
    Kira drew back to get a good look at the girl's face,
chalky and gray as a Cardassian's, obviously the
dominant race in her heritage, but she also had that
touch of Bajoran construction that showed at the

192                                                                   193




bridge of her nose. Dukat's daughter--Dukat and a
Bajoran slave ....
  "You're supposed to be on Bajor," Kira told her.
    Dukat beamed at them. "I talked her into taking a
little sabbatical from the university."
  Kira leered at him. "You talked her into it?
    "It didn't take much convincing," Ziyal admitted
joyously. "Why don't you and I have dinner tonight?
I'll tell you all about it."  "All right .... "
    "Splendid!" Dukat clasped his hands. "We'll dine
in my quarters at twenty-two hundred."
  "What a minute! That's not what I--"
    But Ziyal cut her off and grasped her by both hands.
"I can't tell you how much I've missed you!"
    Before Kira had a chance to protest again, Dukat
strode away down the corridor and tossed back,
"Come along, Ziyal."
    Ziyal rushed off after her father, but called back to
Kira, "See you tonight!"

    "I'm not having dinner with you tonight. I'm not
having dinner with you tonight .... I'm sorry, but
I'm just not going to be able to have dinner with you
tonight. I'm not really sorry, it's just a matter of
principle, I hope you understand, but I won't be
having dinner with you tonight or any night, or any
year, or at least not until I shoot my head off. Oh, shut
up and ring the stupid door chime."
    "Come in," Ziyal called from the other side of the
door.

Kira walked in, unable to hide her tension.
"Nerys!" Ziyal was finishing setting the table with
Dukat's finest crystal and flatware. "You're early! I
just started the ramufta."
    Kira crossed the room to the table. "Ziyal, I'm not
having dinner with you tonight."
 Ziyal paused, but her expression showed that this
wasn't entirely unexpected. "Oh ....It's because of
my father, isn't it?"
"That's right."
"I thought you might back out ....I was hoping I
was wrong." Ziyal bothered to straighten a salad fork,
but made no effort to hide her disappointment.
    "Ziyal," Kira began, "what are you doing back on
the station?"
    "Please don't be upset with me," the girl said. "I
know how hard you worked to arrange things for me
on Bajor. I tried--I really tried."
    "I'm not upset with you. Just a little confused. Now
tell me what happened."
    "It wasn't any one thing .... The students at the
university, everybody was... polite. But I'd see
them whispering in the hallways and staring at me.
I'm the daughter of Gul Dukat. My father is leading a
war against the emissary of the Prophets. I don't
know what made me think I could fit in."
    She sank heavily to the couch, engulfed in the
minute painful hits a young person could get from a
situation that others might see as frivolous.
    Not quite unfeeling about this, Kira sat next to her,
but had no words of comfort to offer. This wasn't

194                                                                               195




much of a time for comfort, not as much as for reality.
Ziyal's return to the station made Kira's job that
much harder. If she were to involve herself with a
resistance movement, make life on the station more
hazardous, more risky, then she would have to accept
that Ziyal, a person about whom she deeply cared,
might be caught in the cross fire.
  "This station," Ziyal murmured, "is the closest
thing to a home that I have. You're here ....My
father's here--"
    "And the last time you defied him," Kira harshly
reminded, "he left you here to die."
    "We talked about that." Ziyal turned a plaintive
gaze to her. "He admits he overreacted, but family
loyalty is important to my father and he felt I betrayed
him."
    "You betrayed him? I think it's the other way
around."
"He misses me, Nerys... and I've missed him."
Scratched by the sudden warmth between father
and daughter, Kira pushed to her feet and walked to
the viewport to regain control over her expression.
    "I have to give him a chance," Ziyal said behind
her. "He's all I have, except for you. I was hoping
you'd have dinner with us tonight, because there's
something special I wanted to share with both of
you... but I guess that's impossible."
    Her insides churning, Kira wanted very much to
declare an assault on Ziyal for siding with her father
and detach herself from this odd family relationship
the three of them seemed to have. Looking at Ziyal, at
the girl's downcast eyes, the smear of her hopes, Kira

couldn't spit the venom at Ziyal that was meant for
Dukat.
    "All right," she conceded. "I'11 be here. But I can't
guarantee it's going to be much fun."
    Ziyal hesitated, looked at her, then jumped to her
feet as joy spread across her face. "I promise my
father will behave!"

    A flower. Actually, a pretty well executed minimal-
ist monochrome ink brush evocation of a single
Bajoran lily pushing up out of the barren rocks of
Nocroma Bayside. This and several others of Ziyal's
artwork were laid out on the coffee table. Kira now
wore her dress uniform, and so Dukat also was
wearing his.
    Dinner had been cordial but stiff. The conduit had
been Ziyal, who loved them both, and Kira and Dukat
had both been making a true effort to make her
happy, suspending their mutual tension. Kira had
more to suspend than Dukat. Kira knew he'd always
been interested in her, first as an enemy, later as a...
let's call it a gaming opponent, and more recently as a
woman--what a joke. All this made Kira uneasy, but
somehow she had been on this station, among Cardas-
sians on a working plane, for a long time now and had
found variety in herself that she never expected. She'd
spent the evening, for Ziyal's sake, looking for distrac-
tions. First, the spacescape out the viewport. Then the
dinner itself. The decapus salad. A little tough, but
spiced right. The main course. A little bland, but
wonderfully tender. After dinner, drinks. Now, Ziyal's
artwork provided some conversation, a further rea-

196                                                                 197




son to avoid any touchy subjects--and to Kira's plea-
sure, the art really was very moving and Ziyal had
good news to go with it.
    "The Institute is having an exhibition of new artists
next month and the director might want to include
my work," Ziyal bubbled. "It's a chance to show that
both Bajorans and Cardassians look at the universe
the same way. That's what I want to do with my
work... bring people together."
    Breathless, Ziyal stopped herself, suddenly aware of
how she sounded, and Kira hoped it was not her own
patronizing expression that Ziyal had noticed.
    "I guess that sounds a little silly," the girl dimin-
ished.
    Dukat puffed up and proclaimed, "On the contrary,
my dear, you're quite eloquent."
    Kira was glad Dukat spoke up. She didn't want to
laud Ziyal for a simplistic hope, but that's what it was.
Artwork, or any manner of passive inoculation, sim-
ply couldn't bring people together who had funda-
mental moral differences. Struggle, disagreement, and
conflict were, at their core, healthy elements of socie-
ty-at least, a free society. If everybody just got along
and bottled up their disagreements... well, you
could find yourself sitting on a couch with a despot
and smiling the whole time. And the despot would
win.
    "Are you ready for dessert?" Ziyat stood up, not
waiting for an answer.
    "I'm not going anywhere," Kira offered as the girl
scampered off toward the galley, seeming very young.

    Alone on the couch with Dukat, Kira kept looking
at the artwork. "I don't believe the change. I've never
seen her so--"
    "Happy?" the Cardassian imperial leader filled in.
"Neither have I, Major."
    "She's finally found something. A talent, a direc-
tion."
     "I'm reluctant to admit it, but you were right to
send her to Bajor," Dukat offered. "I'm glad it worked out."
    He leaned back, crossed his legs, sipped his drink,
and looked at her. "We seldom see eye-to-eye, Major,
but I know you care about my daughter... and for
that I'm grateful."
    His gratitude ran like chills up Kira's arms, yet she
wasn't inclined to deny its veracity. That was odd--
but instinctive. Something told her he wasn't playing
any games right now. The gaze he had given Ziyal as
she dashed away--real pride.
    "Ziyal's excited by all this," Kira told him, with a
tone that offered a hand of cooperation for now. "A
chance to have her work on exhibit? What an accom-
plishment."
     "I'm hosting a celebration for her in my quarters. I
hope you'll join me." "When?"
    "Twenty-one-thirty tomorrow. Unless I'm unavoid-
ably delayed."
    Kira leaned back. "The busy life of an interstellar
despot."
 "I prefer the term 'tyrant.'"

198                                                                  199




    Kira smiled, and a good mood started creeping over
her hesitations. Dukat was throwing her a bone,
seeming to understand for once what it was like to be
on the receiving side of oppression.
    "I was thinking," he went on, "of assigning Damar
to escort Ziyal to the affair."
 "Damar? You can't be serious!"
 "He's a fine officer from a good family."
    Kira huffed. "He's a self-righteous sycophant who
despises everything Bajoran."
    "I assure you, Major," Dukat attempted, "Damar
doesn't despise your people."
    "Then why does his upper lip curl every time he
says the word 'Bajor'?" She curled her own lip, bared
her teeth, and mimicked, "'Bajorans could use a
lesson in respect.'"
    Dukat narrowed his eyes. "He does no such
thing--"
    The door chimed and without waiting for a call, the
panel opened. Damar strode in, and Kira quickly put
her lip back in place, wondering if he were not part
Betazoid and could read minds.
    "Gul Dukat?" Damar approached his leader with a
padd.
    "Ah, Damar... impeccable timing, as always."
Dukat glanced at Kira with a light in his eye.
Kira pressed her lips flat, trying not to laugh.
"Sir," Damar said, "the Bajoran delegation re-
quests that the replicators be shipped by Bajoran
transports."
    Oh, damn--the laugh broke out. She tried not to
look at Damar, although it indeed seemed ridiculous

that she was laughing at the pictures of flowers. Oh,
who really cared what Damar thought?
    "Thank you, Damar," she spoke up, taking the role
of the Bajoran authority in the middle of this joke.
"That will be all."
     Damar glowered at her and parted his lips to snarl
back, but Dukat interrupted. "You heard the major."
  "Sir?"
    Holding a breath, Dukat insisted. "We'll continue
this discussion another time."
 Drawing himself up, Damar acceded. "Very well."
    He executed an about-face and strode out of the
quarters.
    Kira held her own breath. Dukat looked at the door
for several seconds, but finally had to meet Kira's
eyes. "I believe I owe you an apology," he said. "You
and... the Bajoran people."
 His teeth showed and his lips peeled back.
     Together, the two of them dissolved into laughter.
Something in common. Something at last. In common ....
    "I have something for you." Dukat stood up and
drew a box from behind the chair near the viewport.
"A gift. For the party."
 "Oh ...."Carrying the box to the table, she
opened it.
    A long silky gown tumbled over her arms, shimmer-
ing with fine crushed gems embedded right into the
stretchy fabric.
    "Oh," she murmured again, and held the gown up
against her body. It was the perfect length, a little
revealing, soft and luscious, flowing and tempting.

200                                                                  201


Moving to a mirror next to the door panel, Kira gazed
at the vision of herself with the beautiful gown
drifting across her form.
    A soldier in a dancing dress... out of place,
somehow... out of...
    Disgust creased her brow. "What the hell am I
doing?"
From near the couch, Dukat said, "Pardon?"
Suddenly boiling, Kira swung around and dumped
the dress back into the box. The shimmering fabric
spilled into its container, virtually folding itself, and
still looked beautiful just lying there.
  "You don't like the dress?" Dukat asked.
    "The dress is fine." She turned to face him. "I don't
like you."
    "Major, that's just not true," he said, disturbingly
genuine. "There's a bond between usw"
    "Only in your mind. You're an opportunistic,
power-hungry dictator and I want nothing to do with
you."
    Pausing a moment, Dukat seemed sincerely disap-
pointed, which only made Kira feel worse.
    "Ziyal will be disappointed to hear you say that,"
he told her.
 "She'll get over it."
    "Nerys," Dukat attempted, "why don't we sit down
and talk about this."
    Get out. Get out quickly. Let him make any excuse
to Ziyal that he could come up with. Let him explain
to his daughter that her mother was a slave of Cardas-
sian masters and that was why she felt so ill at ease
with Bajorans or Cardassians alike. Let him tell her

that her dear friend and mentor Nerys was not a de-
facto mother, but in reality was a trapped enemy
whose life of hunger and deprivation had once been
devoted to repelling the occupation of despots. Sit down and talk about it?
 "No," she snapped. "No, we won't."

202                                                                   203




Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do or die.

CHAPTER
      15

"ARE YOU TWO all right?"
  "Perfect. How are you?"
  "I've felt better."
    Good enough for now. Sisko and Bashir kept walk-
ing after exchanging only those little words with Nog
and Garak. They didn't even break stride as they
passed each other on the stretch of sand, Garak and
Nog heading for the Starfleet cluster at one end of the
beach, Sisko and Bashir heading for the stand of Jem
Hadar at the other end. Bashir carried only his
medikit. Sisko carried nothing. That was the deal.
    Remata'Klan was here. Another Jem Hadar, proba-
bly the fourth, introduced himself as Limara'Son.
They walked straight--absolutely straight--to a caw
ern on another part of the beach, chilling Sisko with
awareness of how close the two camps really were.

205




    Inside the cave were other Jem Hadar soldiers,
watching warily and fingering their weapons and
twitching uneasily as Sisko and Bashit were led to the
makeshift resting place of a very ill �orta. Bashir
immediately knelt at the Vorta's side, but the Vorta
had no attention for the doctor. Instead he eyed Sisko
with his penetrating gaze.
    "Captain Sisko," he said weakly, "my name is
Keevan. We have a lot to talk about."
    "Not for a while, you don't," Bashir contradicted,
and looked up at Sisko. "He needs immediate sur-
gery."
 "Now?" Sisko asked.
 "I don't have any choice."
    Well, that was an honest answer. Sisko could tell
from Bashir's tone that the doctor wasn't bluffing and
had a genuine patient on his hands and that his
Hippocratic oath had just kicked in, enemy or not.
    Apparently the Jem Hadar also picked up the snap
of urgency in Bashir's voice, for they suddenly clus-
tered closer.
    Bashir looked up, intimidated. "I'm a doctor--I
won't hurt him."
    The Vorta smiled. "They're not here to protect me.
They've just never seen what the inside of a Vorta
looks like."
    CuriousmJem Hadar soldiers crowding around to
see the guts of a being they thought was somehow
closer to the gods.
    On the other hand, Sisko wasn't interested in a
good look, and stepped aside to let the Jem Hadar

provide a convenient screen. Bashir went to work in
studious silence. The Vorta must have been only
minutes from death.
    Sisko beat down feelings of just letting the postur-
ing alien die, but that would leave the Jem Hadar
without guidance and he thought he could more easily
deal with a Vorta who owed him one than an uncon-
trolled pawn who didn't and who was going through
withdrawal.
    Yes, he decided, they must be short on ketracel
white. These Jem Hadar were twitching and nervous,
eyeing each other suspiciously, perhaps experiencing
the first signs of mental instability which would soon
lead to collapse if they weren't "fed."
    The surgery took a while. Sisko was from time to
time tempted to take a peek. The Vorta must be very
complex inside for Bashir to take so long, either that
or the injuries were multiple and scattered. Halfway
through, Bashir's jacket came off and an IV went in.
    After--must have been at least two hours, for Sisko
had no way to tell the time--Bashir let out a relieved
sigh and stood up. When the Jem Hadar parted and
moved off, Sisko could see the �orta with his chest
bandaged, still hooked up to the IV.
    "How was the show?" Sisko asked as Remata'Klan
approached him.
 "Informative."
    The noncommittal answer was flat and pointless,
but the Jem Hadar officer's face looked like a spooked
cow's. Sisko was about to comment when the Vorta
stirred.

206                                                                   207




  "I... am... alive ...."
    Bashir gazed down at his patient as he cleaned his
hands, then picked up his tricorder. "No self-
diagnoses, please. I'm the doctor here. Internal hem-
orrhaging has stopped .... Your free collagen levels
are dropping .... Tissue growth factors have sta-
bilized .... And there's a fifty percent rise in cell
oxygenation. You're alive. Be careful--most of your
insides are being held together with cellular micro-
sutures and a lot of hope."
    With the warning that motion could unpin him like
a fabric pattern, the Vorta stopped trying to shift his
position. "Leave us," he told Remata'Klan, and mo-
tioned to the Jem Hadar. "And take them with you."
    Once they were gone, Keevan pointed at a black
case. "May I have that, please?" he asked Bashir.
    With a glance for permission toward Sisko, Bashir
obliged him.
    Keevan worked the security lock on the case.
"There are ten Jem Hadar soldiers on this planet,
Captain."
    He opened the case and displayed the interior. A
ketracel white storage and distribution case--except
that the case was smeared with crushed glass and
spilled white. Some had been distributed. The rest--
all the remaining tubes of ketracel white had been
smashed except for one last vial.
    "That," the �orta went on, "is the only vial of
ketracel white we have left. When it's gone, my hold
over them will be broken. They'll become nothing
more than senseless, violent animals. And they'll kill

anyone they can--you, me, and the rest of your men.
And finally they will turn on each other."
    "Why are you telling us this?" Sisko demanded,
cutting to the bottom line.
    Keevan let his head fall back and seemed to realize
Sisko was growing impatient. "I'm going to order the
Jem Hadar to attack your base camp in the morning.
But I will provide you with their precise plan of
attack. You should be able to kill them all."
      Expediency was one thing, but this... Sisko stared
at him. "They're your own men?'  "Yes."
    "You still haven't answered my question. Why are
you doing this?"
    Keeven gestured to communication gear on the
other side of the cavern. "That's a communication
system. It needs repair, but I'm willing to bet you've
brought one of those famed Starfleet engineers who
can turn rocks into replicators. He should have a lot
more success repairing it that a Jem Hadar suffering
from withdrawal."
    Sisko and Bashir both looked at the communication
system, trying not to gaze too hungrily, but Sisko
realized they were poorly hiding their temptation.
    "After you take care of the Jem Hadar," Keevan
went on, "I'll give you the corem system and surren-
der to you as a prisoner of war."
    Bashir cast him an unfriendly glance. "And you
spend the rest of the war resting comfortably as a
Starfleet POW while your men lie rotting on this
planet."
 Turning his head to look at the man who had just

208                                                                   2O9




saved his life, Keevan made no apologies. The Jem
Hadar were doomed, if this was all the white left, that
was true enough. It was down to him or them, and
they were dead already.
    "I see we understand each other," Keevan rasped.
"I'm ordering the Jem Hadar to attack your position
tomorrow whether you agree to my terms or not. So
you can either kill them or they'll kill you. Either way,
they're coming."
    Distasteful, but certainly effective. Keevan had
assessed the situation about as razor-sharply as could
be asked. He was acting upon his best interest, as
anyone else would do, but somehow there was a cold
ball of heartlessness at the bottom of this. Perhaps it
was the lack of regret that plucked so sour a string.
    He had the Jem Hadar figured out, and unfortu-
nately he had Sisko figured out too. Sisko was backed
into a corner. Use the information or don't use it.
Cooperate or don't. The Jem Hadar were coming.
    Standing here in the wake of the ultimatum, Sisko
felt like a perfect fool. Out there in the bay was a
shipload of ketracel white, at the bottom of the sea.
When he'd seen the Jem Hadar spiraling in, why
hadn't he thought to salvage a case of the stuff?. What
a bargaining chip it would've given him!
    Instead, he stood there with his hands empty and
little to do but play into the Vorta's struggle to
survive.
    As he and Bashit stood there not liking any of this,
the Vorta quietly began to draw a diagram in the sand.
"This is your base camp .... Two kilometers to the

south is a canyon. I will order the Jem Hadar to follow
the canyon floor..."

    "What are they talking about with the Star-
fleetersT'
  "I don't know. It's not for me to know. Or you."
    Limara'Son. "The Vorta will betray us now that his
life is saved."
    Troubling thoughts. Betrayed, distrust. Ugly to a
mind conditioned to believe.
  Remata'Klan. "He will live."
    "We should have let him die. Then we could open
the case and get the white and live ourselves. Now,
our lives are in his hands."
  "Our lives were always in his hands."
    "But now the Starfleeters are of more value to him
than we are. There are ten of us and we are starving.
When the Vorta needed us to keep him alive, we had
an advantage. We have no advantages now. We have
nothing to offer him. The Starfleeters have a doctor
and food for him."
    Remata'Klan, disturbed. "What would you have
me do? Or what should I have done before?"
    Limara'Son. A pause. "You saved me from the
Vorta's rage. He could've ordered me destroyed for
what I did."
    "You did not disobey orders. You were overcome
by the hunger. I have trouble understanding what a
Jem Hadar is supposed to do when two forces pull
upon the inner will. What is expected of us? How do
others resolve the struggle?"

210                                                                   211




      "Humans handle such trouble." Limara'Son.
"They seem to thrive on the struggle inside."  He also didn't understand, apparently.
    "Why won't the �orta give us white?" Limara'Son.
"Now that he will live, he should make sure we will
live also. He has the same obligation to us that we
have to him."
    Remata'Klan. "We all serve the Dominion as a
working unit. Together, we move forward."
    "Except that we have one leg now, and the Vorta is
in charge of that. I have never known such...
such..."
    "Nor have I. What would you do, if you were
First?"
  "Or Third?"
 "Yes... or Third."
     "Attack the Starfleet encampment. Kill them all.
The Vorta will be forced to deal with us." "That is against obedience."
    "Shall we have obedience or shall we have survival,
Remata'Klan? We can have no obedience to anything
if we fail to survive. Is it not our duty to survive in
order to continue serving the Dominion?"
    Remata'Klan... inner quake. "And if the Vorta
fails to help us survive, then he has stopped serving
the Dominion. I do not know anymore what to do...
how to choose. There must be a manner of obedience
that does not involve treason."
    "But if the Vorta is treasonous, if he is dealing with
the Federation for his own survival, then it becomes
our obligation to--"
 "Enough, Limara'Son. This is destructive talk."

 "Is it? Then here is more ....I believe the Vorta
has no more white."
    A piercing terror. No white? Shuddering hands,
frozen legs. Remata'Klan. "Why would he say he
did?"
    "To keep us in his control, to keep us doing his
bidding until he can deal with Starfleet and get them
to save him from this place."
    Arguments pressing on the mind .... Weakness
spawns a cloying trouble of thoughts that are all
naughty.
 This guilt... ugly and purposeless.
    Limara'Son. "Now they have saved his life. He has
no need of us."
    "These thoughts..." Remata'Klan. "... are bad
for Jem Hadar. These kinds of thoughts make us too
much like them. We can't be like them,
Limara'Son .... We have to remain Jem Hadar, or all
begins to dissolve. No one will fear us anymore. The
Dominion will lose the war."
    Limara'Son's gaze. "All this lies upon you and me?
Our unit?"
    "Yes. All this is on us now. What we do, everyone
will hear. The Dominion, the Jem Hadar, the Cardas-
sians, the Federation .... There will be no one who
respects Jem Hadar anymore if you and I fail to obey
in the face of betrayal. Ours is not to set precedents.
We must not carve new ways. If the Vorta betrays us,
the indignity is his, not ours. The reports will say that
the Vorta lied, the Vorta cheated, the Vorta betrayed,
but the Jem Hadar obeyed to the end and stood strong
in our vow. Our lives are worth that, Limara'Son...

212                                                                 213




so the Jem Hadar can be higher than the Vorta in the
eyes of everyone... just one time."

    "... and once they've reached this point, we'll have
them in a cross fire."
    Ben Sisko's officers glowered over the sand diagram
he had just re-created on their own cave floor. He felt
like some kind of stooge.
    "They won't have a chance," Ensign Gordon ob-
served.
    "That's the idea," Garak told him. "In case you've
forgotten, we're in a war and they're the enemy."
    "There are rules, Garak," O'Brien sourly com-
mented, "even in war."
    "Correction," the Cardassian smart-mouthed. "Hu-
mans have rules in war. Rules that tend to make
victory a little harder to achieve, in my opinion."
  "So we just shoot them down?"
    Sisko let them wrangle. He didn't want to get in on
it. They could make any excuses or complaints they
wanted, but he knew the truth. They were being used
by the �orta for his own survival. Keevan was giving
them an advantage they dared not turn down, and
that was more distasteful than a supposed officer
setting up his own men, even if they were going to die
anyway.
    When Nog issued a protest, though, that was too
much. Sisko snapped, "This isn't a vote. The deci-
sion's mine. And Garak's right--we're at war. Given
a choice between us or them, there is no choice. Let's
move out."
 They scooped up their weapons and hurried out

rather faster than they had to, anxious to put this
bitter episode behind them, leaving Sisko to linger a
moment with Dax. If things went badly and the
Starfleet team was all killed, she would be here alone,
injured, on a planet with a recovering Vorta and
whichever of the withdrawing Jem Hadar were left
over.
    "I'd say good luck," Dax uttered, "but I don't think
you'll need it."
    Sisko bottled a temptation to growl something
about having a desperate �orta on their side instead
of luck, but he didn't need that any more than she did.
"Say it anyway. Because I'm still hoping there's
another way out of this."
"In that case," she offered, "good luck, Benjamin."
With a short nod and a wish to stay, he simply
turned his back on her and hurried out after his crew.
She knew the realities as well as he did. No sense
prolonging the painful.
    The blood-red sun was now rising over the horizon.
The small planet's single ocean made an uneasy
mirror, with one distant island lying upon it like a
pumpkin seed.
    The two muscles of rock which held the two caverns
and the two base camps came together on the other
side of the ridge into a box canyon, a narrow passage
with high walls on either side--textbook recipe for
ambush. From a precipice, Sisko and his crew
watched as Remata'Klan and Limara'Son traveled
down through the passage with the rest of their men.
Even from here, even in this early light, the twitching
of their limbs, the shaking of their heads, the trem-

214                                                                  215




bling of their hands was obvious. Withdrawal was
taking its toll on them already. Soon they would lose
what was left of their self-control and go mad with
need. Already they were having trouble concentrating,
focusing on the path, keeping in line.
    Remata'Klan kept glancing at his men. He knew
what would come if they failed.
    Sisko had no idea what the Vorta had told them--
probably that the Starfleet crew had some stores of
white in that ship. Strange how close to right he was, if
that was his story. It had to be his storymwhat else
could he have told ten hungry Jem Hadar in order to
make them do something this profoundly untactical?
    All the Starfieeters had to do was open fire .... All
they had to do was mow down the enemy who were
clustered now into a perfect target. Fire.
 Ready .... Fire.
 Aim. Fire. Phasers fire. All hands...
    Sisko shook his head. The order froze on his
tongue.
 He stood up abruptly, surprising even himself.
 "Remata'Klan!"
    The Jem Hadar all whirled, and spotted him as he
stood tall above them from an obviously stronger
position.
 "I want to talk!" he shouted.
    Remata'Klan paused, measured the situation, then
called back, "Agreed!"
    The soldier then said something to his men, and left
them behind to walk toward Sisko.
 Sisko left his astonished crew behind and picked his

way down the ridge to meet the Third halfway. They
stopped several paces apart.
    "There's no way out of this canyon," Sisko said,
"and we have phaser locks on every one of you."
    Remata'Klan glanced around the canyon. He didn't
need convincing. "You appear to have a decisive
advantage."
    "A battle under these circumstances would serve no
purpose. I'm prepared to offer you terms--hear me
out! I know that you need more ketracel white. My
doctor can sedate your men and keep them alive until
we're rescued. After that, we can put you into medical
stasis until we secure a new supply."
    Remata'Klan shook his big rocky head. "The Vorta
did not give me the option to surrender."
    "Keevan's betrayed you." With that, Sisko laid
every card he had on the table, short of telling the Jem
Hadar that a shipload ofketracel white lay a deep dive
away. That far... he would not go. Instead, he
finished, "He gave us your entire plan of attack last
night."
    Remata'Klan wasn't as moved by the news as Sisko
expected. "It was obvious that approaching your
position through this canyon was a deliberate tactical
error on his part."
 Now it was Sisko's turn to pause. "You knew?"
      "I suspected. Despite what Keevan may think, the
Jem Hadar are often one step ahead of the Vorta."
  "You can stay one step ahead. Surrender."
  "I have my orders."
    "He hasn't earned the unwavering loyalty you're
giving him," Sisko said honestly. "He's a manipula-

216                                                                    217




tive little creature trying to save his own neck by
sacrificing you and your men."
    "He does not have to earn my loyalty, Captain,"
Remata'Klan said. "He has had it from the moment I
was conceived. I am a Jem Hadar. He is a Vorta. It is
the order of things."
    "Do you really want to give up your life for 'the
order of things'?"
    Remata'Klan gazed at him with two emotions
plying at his eyes, suddenly very human eyes despite
the lizardish mask in which they were set. Sisko saw
both envy and dignity in those eyes at that moment,
and for the first time he found himself involved in
respect for a being that had until now been nothing
more than a fabricated tool.
    As Remata'Klan spoke his final words, he was
certainly much more than a simple tool.
    "It's not my life to give up," he said with a tincture
of pride. "And it never was."

    Along with his resolve to do the ugly thing, Sisko
also found himself strangely supplanted by noble
respect for Remata'Klan's selfless decision. Engi-
neered life-form or not, Remata'Klan had been given
as clear and honorable a choice as any soldier could
expect--a chance to save his men from certain defeat,
and to save all their lives at the same time. The
tempting offer, which Sisko would've taken, had been
summarily turned down.
    Something about that embarrassed him. He knew
he would win, but the victory now would be shriveled
and flagless.

    He made his way back up to O'Brien and the others,
fielded a pointless question about what had hap-
pened, but he knew the answer showed perfectly well
in his demeanor.
    The Jem Hadar got back to their pathetic position
and opened fire, apparently not wishing to prolong
the conflict to which they were committed. Streaks of
disruptor energy tore into the rock face, splintering
the Starfleet team with shards of mica. Dust blew into
blinding clouds. Flying sand blistered their skin.
    Sisko leveled his phaser and returned fire. His team
took his cue and did so as well, scorching the field
below where the Jem Hadar had so little cover. He
took out the first soldier himself, seeing with a bizarre
relief that it wasn't Remata'Klan.
    Like a hologame, they took out the Jem Hadar
soldiers one by one, and got a scorching fight in
response. Jem Hadar, despite everything, did not die
easilymor alone. As Sisko watched from thirty feet
away, unable to reach out, Remata'Klan's last shot cut
into a fissure and a sheer slab of the rock face slid off
the promontory. Even as he admired the Jem Hadar's
quick assessment and use of the geology, Sisko choked
at the sight of Ensign Paul Gordon's body convulsing
in the energy wash of that shot. Before Sisko could cry
out for someone to help him or grab him, Gordon
tumbled forward to the open air that now lay before
him, and followed the slab of rock all the way down to
the canyon floor.
    The fighting intensity increased. Any hesitation
melted away from Sisko, and from his crew. Their
arms went stiffer behind the phasers. Their shots were

218                                                                     219




more carefully targeted. In less than thirty seconds, all
the Jem Hadar lay dead on the canyon's bottom.
    Slowly Sisko rose from the rubble. Pebbles sheeted
off his back and crumbled to the slag deck. He led his
crew down the jagged escarpment to the canyon floor
where Bashir quickly but uselessly checked the still
form of Ensign Gordon. At Sisko's signal, Nog and
Garak stayed higher, guarding the scene.
    With guilt pricking his chest, Sisko knelt at the
body of Remata'Klan rather than the body of his own
crewman. He knelt there and for a moment wished
not to stand again. He felt the eyes of O'Brien and the
others, and was strangely irritated when O'Brien
spoke.
 "Captain..."
    At first Sisko thought he was being either comforted
or mildly scolded, but then instinct kicked in and he
glanced up. O'Brien was looking not at Sisko but off at
the canyon passage.
    Sisko turned and stood. Keevan came slowly
through the debris, stepping over the bodies of his
soldiers, carrying the communication gear. He paused
only once, over the body of Remata'Klan, but the
Vorta's expression was unreadable. In fact, he had
none.
    "You know, Captain," he began, "if I had had just
two more vials of white... you never would've had a
chance."
    Loathing chewed at Sisko for this rapacious clown.
His jaw tightened. He couldn't speak to Keevan.
    "Chief," he said instead, "take him back to base
camp and then get to work on the comm system."

 "Aye, sir."
 "Lieutenant NeeIcy!"
 "Sir!"
 "Form a burial detail."
 "Aye, sir."
    As she turned away, heading for Garak and Nog,
Julian Bashir came to Sisko's side, his face heavy with
the death of Paul Gordon and the inability of ad-
vanced medicine to do a damned thing about it.
"Will we be rescued now, sir?" the doctor asked.
Stiff and sore, Sisko couldn't meet Bashir's eyes.
"O'Brien can fine-tune the communication equip-
ment and use it with what we salvaged. I gave him
Martok's personal frequency. Might take longer than
we'd like, but at least we'll be rescued by someone on
our own side. With a little luck, the Jem Hadar in this
area won't be able to pick up a frequency that specific.
You go back and prepare Dax for transport."
    "Aye, sir .... What's the matter, Captain? It's over,
isn't it? We won, didn't we?"
  "Yes, Doctor. Yes... we won."

220                                                                      221




0

CHAPTER
      16

SERENE LIGHTS IN SPACE. In wartime, the harborlights
of safe haven were like an old-time cook fire to the
hungry mind.
    General Martok glanced with satisfaction at the
success of his fighter wing and his flagship, which he
himself chose to command. Rotarran was an old ship,
proven and strong, and he preferred it to any other. It
was a fine training ship, small enough to handle,
simple enough for raw recruits, complex enough to
make them into good spacefarers.
    Strange thoughts, to be empathizing with those
being conquered. Klingons had for centuries condi-
tioned themselves to be the conquerors, to surge
forward against all obstacles, even sensations of sym-
pathy for the targets of their overbearance, but now
things were different and Martok did nothing more

than engage in reverie of Klingon superiority for days.
In fact, this was preferable, this alliance with the
Federation. He had never resented Starfleet as had so
many of his peers. He had, instead, admired them.
Generally, the Federation was made up of physically
weak races who could not stand one to one against
stronger races such as Klingons, but banded together
in a common goal, they had been strong indeed and
relentless in their purpose. That was to be admired
more than physical training. Brains mattered. Only
fools believed otherwise, and Martok had never
allowed himself to respect the foolish, no matter how
fools posture&
    Success these days was measured in small incre-
ments. The tougher the fight, the smaller the incre-
ments. When the enemy was strong and winning,
spirits were kept high by small jumps. Today, upon his
bridge, he had a small jump for which he and his crew
could be proud for a while.
    "Are you glad to be home?" he asked, turning to his
side and speaking to Benjamin Sisko.
    "I'm not home yet, General," Sisko said as he gazed
out the main viewscreen at the shimmering lights of
Starbase 375. But there was victory in his voice
despite the circumstances.
    The rescue had come just in time, just before Sisko
and his crew starved on that nebular rock, and
Martok was pleased to have cast his net and saved
them. He and Sisko still had their pact, their purpose,
though they had not spoken of it during the voyage
back here. Too many risks.
 As helmsman, Ch'Targh steered the Rotarran into

222                                                                     223




an approach spacelane, Martok punched his comm.
"This is General Martok of the I.K.S. Rotarran re-
questing permission to dock."
    "General, you're cleared for docking at Bay Eleven,"
the station harbormaster responded almost instantly.
    Near the rear of the small Klingon bridge, Engineer
O'Brien and Dr. Bashir stood together, speaking
quietly.
    Bashir's quiet breath carried a plaintive, "Thank
God .... "
    "I never thought I'd miss Starfleet field rations,"
O'Brien murmured back. "Give me some freeze-dried
peaches, or powdered carrots, anything as long as it's
not moving."
    Martok smiled. They didn't think he could hear
them. Perhaps they'd forgotton during their time on
the wide expanse of rock that a commander on a ship
became attuned to any noise on his bridge. They were
speaking of Klingon food, of course, and Martok
forced his smile to flatten out though he continued to
enjoy their squeamishness. Must have been a trial for
these humans to come off near-starvation by being
treated to Klingon food.
    "I don't mind the food," Bashir muttered to
O'Brien. "It's the singing."
  "Till all hours of the night .... "
    "If I had to listen to one more ballad about the
honored dead, I'd've gone stark raving mad."
    "Captain Sisko, Admiral Ross requests that you and
your senior staff beam to his conference room for
debriefing immediately."
  Sisko came to life at Martok's side. "Tell the

admiral we're on our way. General... once again,
thank you for rescuing us."
    Martok turned. "Try not to get too comfortable
lounging around that starbase. We need you back in
the fight."
    He added a little flicker of his remaining eye,
indicating that the two of them would speak privately
about their own plans at some later date. There was
enough to do, there was time to connive.
    Sisko offered a smile. "Are you a betting man,
General?"
  "One of my pleasures."
      "Then a barrel of bloodwine says that I'll set foot
on Deep Space Nine before you do."  "Done!"
      Sisko negotiated a good grip of agreement, then
turned to shoo his crewmen back to their own lives.
  "General Martok, harbormaster."
  "Martok."
    "Change of plans, General. Your wingship Lach
needs immediate hull plating repair or they'll be down
for weeks. If it's clear with you, we'd like to have
Rotarran orbit the station for a day so we can use that
inner slip."
    "We expect new recruits at the starbase. Can you
arrange for transport?"
    "They're all ready to board the Vor'Nak and raft up
with you in orbit. Then Vor'Nak can tranfer Captain
Sisko's crew over to the starbase shuttle station. It's
some leapfrogging, but it'll get Lach back into space
sooner."
  "Very well for us, starbase. We shall take orbit."

224                                                                  225




  "Thanks. Stand by for Vor'Nak."
  "Standing by. Ch'Targh, you heard."
    "Taking orbital attitude, General," Ch'Targh re-
sponded gruffly.
    "Kich'ta, tell the crew they'll have to wait a day for
shoreleave."
  "Yes, General. They'll be irritated."
  Martok chuckled. "Good. Order my lunch."
    In the time it took him to move slowly through his
ship to the mess hall, checking on details, speaking
to crewmen, dipping into areas to assess damage and
encourage repairs, he knew that Vor'Nak was dock-
ing in the orbit lane. He could hear the subtle crunch
of clamps on the outer hull and the gush of the
umbilical systems rafting the two ships together
according to Starfleet safety regulations, which de-
manded more exacting care and extra attachments
than most Klingon crews bothered to employ. A cold
plate of gagh was waiting for him at his table in the
mess hall, the delectable life-forms just coming out
of their stasis stupor. Barely had he sat down and put
his utensil to the fat worms than the door opened
and Commander Worf strode in with his usual grouchy
demeanor.
    "General, I've just received word. The reinforce-
ments from the Vor'Nak are here."
    "Good. Look at this. Barely moving. I'd give my
good eye for a plate of fresh gagh. How many replace-
ments?"
 "Five."
 Martok looked up. "Five? I requested fifteen."

    Worf took the scolding as if this were his own fault.
"General Tanas could only send us five."
    Pushing his plate away, Martok stood and arched
his cramping back muscles. "We keep falling back and
the Dominion keeps pushing forward. I tell you,
Worf, war is much more fun when you're winning.
Defeats make my wounds ache. Ah--replacements."
    The door opened again and, in keeping with cus-
tom, the new recruits came to the general instead of
the other way around. They formed a line and tried to
appear appropriate, but Martok and Worf simply
gaped at them while sharing a thread of dishearten-
ment. These were warriors?
    Two whiskerless youths, two teenaged girls, and a
stooped old man. Uch.
    Martok sucked back his comments and moved
toward them. Worf, the coward, remained behind.
    "I am General Martok. Welcome to the Rotarran.
May you prove worthy of this ship and bring honor to
her name."
Dismal. Look at their faces! They're in shock!
"This is a glorious moment in the history of the
Empire, a chapter that will be written with your
blood. Fight well, and our people will sing your
praises for a thousand years. Fail, and there will be no
more songs, no more honor, no more Empire. Who
among you hears the cry of the warrior calling you to
glory?
    Clumsily they all raised their fists and shouted
"Qapla!"
 Well, at least they had been coached.

226                                                                227




    Martok followed the script. "Who offers their life
for the Empire.9"
    In turn, each recruit stepped forward and an-
nounced.
 "N'Garan! Daughter of Tse'Dek!"
 "Katogh, son of Ch'Pok!"
 "Koth! Son of Larna!"
 "Alexander Rozhenko!"
 "Doran, daughter of W'mar!"
    From behind, Worf spoke out of place, out of the
traditional script. "Alexander... ?"
    Martok looked at him, then noticed that the boy
was returning Worf's glare with frozen eyes.
    "Rozhenko?" Martok repeated. "Of what house is
Rozhenko?"
  "Of no house," the boy said. "My honor will be my
own."
Worf stiflened, but said nothing more. Ah, trouble.
"Well," Martok bridged, "there will be much honor
for the taking on this ship, enough for all of you. I
accept your lives into my hands. Glory to you, and to
the Empire!"
    With visible effort Worf recovered his composure
and barked, "Dismissed!"
  The troops filed out. Martok turned.
  "This Alexander Rozhenko... you know him?"
      Worf was staring at the door as it clacked shut, and
still he stared at it.  "He is my son."
    Martok nodded. It had been easy to suspect. "Such
trials are a strain on a small ship. Perhaps you would

like a transfer back to Captain Sisko for the time
being."
    "No, General," Worf said instantly. "My son's
coldness will never push me from my duty."
     "He will be distracted enough, Worf, and so will
you. We have orders at last." "Orders?"
"Yes. We are to escort a convoy to Donatu Five."
Ordinarily such news would be welcome for idle
Klingons, but Martok saw a crimp in WorPs expres-
sion and instantly understood. Worf was involved in
plans to be married. Also, his child was now on board.
Donatu Five--
    "The last three convoys sent there were destroyed
by the Jem Hadar," Worf uttered, as if remembering.
Martok did not believe he was complaining, but the
boy was here now, and no parent could think that
clearly.
    "Which is why this one must get through," Martok
told him.
    With that he succeeded in steering Worf's attention
to tactical concerns. "How many ships will form the
escort?"
    "The Rotarran is all the High Council can spare."
Martok smiled with anticipation. "A vital mission!
Impossible odds and a ruthless enemy! What more
could we ask for? I tell you, Worf, I feel young again!"
He scooped up the padd that had been sitting next to
his listless plate ofgagh and handed it to Worf. "Here
is the briefing. Start battle drills immediately. Train
them hard."
 Worf came to life with fresh purpose as his mind

228                                                                229




fixed on a concrete task. "By the time we join the
convoy, this crew will have the reflexes of a Norpin
Falcon."
    "I expect nothing less. One moment, Worf." Mar-
tok lowered his voice, even though they were alone.
"We have shed blood together, escaped a Jem Hadar
prison together... you have pledged yourself to my
house. Yet in all this time, you never mentioned you
had a son."
     Deeply disturbed, Worf scanned the deck. "It is a
diffcult subject to discuss." "That much is obvious."
    Worf wanted to leave, Martok knew, but a question
had been posed and it would eat at them both until
the answers came, one way or another. Rather than let
his exec off the hook, Martok stood silent and waited
until the air around them began to crackle.
    Worf shifted uneasily. "Alexander and I were never
close. His mother was only half Klingon and disdain-
ful of our ways."
 "I see. You allowed her to raise the boy."
    "No, General, she was killed... when he was very
young. He spent a short time with me aboard the
Enterprise. After that, I sent him to live with my foster
parents on Earth." "Why?"
    "He... showed no interest in becoming a warrior.
It was difficult, but I learned to accept it and, in time,
I encouraged him to follow his own path."
    "Then why has he joined the Klingon Defense
Forces.'?"
  "I do not know .... I have not spoken with him."

    So instincts were right--this had been a complete
surprise, not just a disagreement or an order dis-
obeyed. Martok raised his stiff arm and placed a hand
on Worf's shoulder. "My friend, this is not good.
When a father and son do not speak, it means there is
trouble between them."
    By this, they both knew, Martok was offering to act
between the two in some way, to quell the turbulence
or take Worf's place as the boy's trainer until things
changed. All those offers were endemic in his inter-
ference. When ice formed between members of a
house serving on the same ship, the result could be
clumsiness at best and at worst... disaster. As
commander, it was Martok's prerogative to push
between them.
 The response was not really a surprise, though.
 "I prefer to handle this in my own way," Worf said.
 "Then do so."
 And that, they both knew, was an order.

    Martok left the mess hall because he knew it would
soon be time for the crew to eat and they were uneasy
if he ate with them. The unfortunate realities of
superior rank ....
    Instead he went to his quarters, waiting part of an
hour until the crew was well entrenched in their meal,
then tapped his computer comm unit.
 "Computer, where is Alexander Rozhenko?"
  "In the mess hall."
    "Give me a picture of the mess hall, while keeping
the mess hall screens dark."
  "Visual of the mess hall on line."

230                                                                  231




    Eavesdropping. An unethical but effective tactic,
one of Martok's favorites. Privacy was for women in
childbirth.
    He sat back, ordered a mug of war nog, then
focused his working eye on the smoky room on the
screen. The crew was there, crowded to the tables,
enshrouded in smoke, drinking, eating, snarling sto-
ries to each other and laughing harshly. They had
heard the newstoa new mission was coming, a fresh
chance at glory, a chance to strike again at the claws of
the Dominion. Spirits were high.
    Then he saw what he wanted... Alexander Roz-
henko, narrow of shoulder and small of countenance,
collecting his meal at the dispersal unit. The boy
turned to find a seat, and unfortunately chose one
next to Ch'Targh.
    Ch'Targh had no children and was intolerant of the
children of others.
    Equally unfortunate was Alexander's choice of
words.
  "Is this seat taken?"
    How very Earthly a phrase. To an old warrior like
Ch'Targh, it would ring of past stresses with humans
and the shame of the Empire at having been con-
tained by the Federation for so many decades.
    "Alexander Rozhenko," Ch'Targh greeted. "We
were holding it just for you."
    Martok grunted a laugh and sipped his drink. He
wished he could be there.
 "I'm honored," the boy responded, like an idiot.
 "The honor is ours. Please."
 Ch'Targh was actually standing up! As if the boy

deserved the seat! Now the helmsman was pulling the
chair out for the boy. Wiping it with his glove. Martok
instantly saw the rippling snicker that ran around the
table, but apparently the boy saw none of it. Who
could make such a show!
    Alexander took the chair, fool, and Ch'Targh sat
next to him. "Bregit lung," Ch'Targh approved, sur-
veying Alexander's plate. "An excellent choice.
Would you care for some grapok sauce?"
    The other Klingons had stopped conversing and
were watching the sport. If only the boy were stupid
enough to refuse--
 "No, thank you."
    "Oh, you must try some. It brings out the flavor."
Ch'Targh doused half the bottle onto the boy's plate,
until finally the boy grabbed the container.
  "That's enough."
 "Some bloodwine to wash it down?"
    One of the female recruits, sitting on the other side
of Alexander, began laughing, and the joke was out.
Alexander snapped around to her. "Why are you
laughing?"
 The girl just shook her head.
    Ch'Targh harrassed, "Or perhaps the son of our
illustrious first officer would prefer an Earth beverage.
A glass of 'root beer.' A lump of 'ice cream'!"
    The raft of Klingons dissolved into roars of laughter
and table pounding.
    The boy straightened in his chair. "Are you mock-
ing me?"
    Ch'Targh's snaggled teeth showed. "Now why
would I mock you, son of Wort?"

232                                                                   233




  "I am called Rozhenko!"
    "And I will call you whatever I please!" Ch'Targh's
smile dissolved. "And you will learn to like it."
    Alexander jumped to his feet, trembling with rage.
For someone who had never really been among Kling-
on's, his self-control was unenviable.
    Ch'Targh remained amused. "Does the son of Star-
fleet's finest think he is too good to eat with us?"
    Martok, as he sat there watching, couldn't tell
through the screen whether Alexander were piqued at
the idea of being Worf's son or of having Worf
referred to as 'Starfleet' or at being associated with
Starfleet at all. Perhaps all three. Whatever the cause,
Alexander's breaking point had arrived. He said,
"No... have some lung," and dumped his entire
plate, sauce and all, into Ch'Targh's face.
    Enjoying all this, Martok reeled back with laughter
and nearly lost the balance of his chair. Half the
contents of his mug splashed down his beard. As he
brushed it away, Ch'Targh was also wiping food from
his own face and rising to his full height.
    Big even for a Klingon, Ch'Targh brushed the two
nearest chairs away as easily as he had cast the bregit
lung off his chest. "I do not like your smile," he said to
Alexander. "Perhaps I will cut you a new one."
    Alexander showed his inexperience by drawing his
ceremonial dagger. Ridiculous. Ch'Targh drew his
own.
    Martok chuckled with satisfaction. None of this
would have happened if their general had been in the
mess hall with them. Now he could watch without

impeding the normal flow of events. The secondary
blades of Ch'Targh's dagger snapped out for work.
    Alexander was quick and small, but Ch'Targh was
especially graceful for a large man, even languid in his
movements. Any posturing was simply meant to
intimidate the boy. Martok recognized the drama.
The other Klingons urged them to bloodshed, but no
one interfered. Ch'Targh made circles with his blade,
but did not attack. This was too much for the boy,
who finally flew forward with a clumsy thrust.
Ch'Targh fluidly sidestepped, forcing the momentum
to throw Alexander off balance, then drove his elbow
into the side of the boy's face.
    Alexander spun like a graviton and splattered to the
floor on his ignominious part. The Klingons erupted
with joy.
"He fights like a Ferengi," Ch'Targh commented.
In that moment, Alexander came to his feet and
nicked Ch'Targh's arm before the veteran could pivot
aside.
    "Oh, very bad judgment," Martok commented. He
should make this a training tape.
    "Shakk-Tah!" Ch'Targh swore. A big Klingon, yes,
but Ch'Targh had a low tolerance for pain.
    "And bad timing," Martok mentioned as he saw
Worf enter the mess hall. From this vantage point, he
was the only person who saw Worf come in. Even
those in the room hadn't noticed.
    Worf stood as if in shock, peering through the
shouts and waves, searching for the cause of this
chaos. Perhaps Worf had not yet seen that his son--

234                                                                    235




    Alexander attempted another swipe at his tormen-
tor, but Ch'Targh avoided it again and smashed the
heel of his free hand into the boy's face, driving him
back into the nearest wall, dazing him like a stricken
sparrow and leaving the boy's face bleeding freely.
    "Your combat training has been sadly neglected,
little one." Ch'Targh flipped the blade inhis hand. "I
will teach you a new lesson. One you will not soon
forget."
    He stepped toward the boy, and Martok imagined
the scar Alexander would soon be sporting for the rest
of his life, but a strong hand caught Ch'Targh's arm
and held him back.
    "Mmm..." Martok moaned. "Better the scar than
this, Worfm"
    "Enough?' Worf's judgment was no better than his
son's, apparently. Ch'Targh tried to wrench away, but
couldn't. Worf backhanded the helmsman with a
closed fist and sprawled him over a table. Plates and
utensils jangled insanely.
    Ch'Targh COuld do nothing now. Worf was inargu-
ably his superior officer, and strikes by superiors
could not be returned.
    Worf turned now to his son, but the boy was ven-
omous.
 "You had no right to interfere!" Alexander said.
    "That's right," Martok commented in the privacy
of his eavesdropping. "Good boy."
    "You will both report to the medical ward immedi-
ately," Worf barked. "After they have finished with
you, you will remain in quarters until your next
watch."

236

    Alexander scowled and put his blade in its dagger,
then stalked away from his father.
    Worf swung to the other Klingons. "The rest of you,
back to your stations now?
    "They'll resent that," Martok muttered. ',Worf, we
must adjust your people skills."
    Grumbling, the other warriors shuffled out of the
mess hall. Ch'Targh rolled off the table, now wearing
most of everyone else's dinners, retrieved his weapon,
and paused before Worf.
    "Are you going to fight the Jem Hadar for him as
well?"
     "Mmm," Martok grumbled around a sip. "Quite
fight. Computer off. Martok to bridge."  "Bridge."
    "Disengage from the Vor'Nak immediately. In-
form the harbormaster we will take on supplies out
here in orbit, then depart immediately for the
Donatu Sector. I am tired of waiting and I think the
crew is also."
  "Yes, general."
    "And tell Worf to begin training exercises. Our first
officer needs to concentrate."

    Four days into the transit to Donatu, Martok called
Worf to his quarters on the bluff of reviewing the
training log. That, of course, meant that he was
obliged to actually look at the log for a few minutes
and make a comment.
    As Worf stood before his desk, Martok studiously
scanned the information, name after name, response
after response, and pretended to be interested.

237




    "The response times are much better. Keep work-
ing them. Sit down."
    Uneasily, Worf took the chair as ordered. Martok
poured Worf a nog and one for himself. "Two more
days until we reach the Donatu System. We should be
hearing from the Jem Hadar soon." "Yes."
    "There's only one thing I hate about convoy duty.
The waiting. After all these years, you'd think I'd be
used to it. But nothing is better for breaking tension
than a tankard of war nog. Except... maybe a good
brawl."
    That comment set Worf into a glare. "You heard
about the fight in the mess hall .... "
    Martok looked up from a good long slug of drink.
"But not from my first officer. I lost him the moment
his son stepped aboard this ship."
    Worf set his mug down. "You think I acted improp-
erly?"
    "It is not easy to stand aside and watch someone
injure your son," Martok offered, and managed to
soothe some of the crispness from WoWs expression.
    "Alexander was no match for Ch'Targh," the first
officer said. "He would have killed the boy."
    "Ch'Targh might've cut him a little, maybe broken
a few bones, but nothing more. You say Alexander
never wanted to become a warrior... clearly he has
changed his mind. You are his first officer, Worf...
teach him to survive! The Jem Hadar will not be as
forgiving as Ch'Targh."
 Only a moment later, Martok would have offered

to train Alexander himself, for this might be more
effective. Then at least the boy would not be first
fighting to climb the mountain of his resentments for
his father. But the ship's general alarm interrupted
his thoughts. From the bridge, the comm unit bel-
lowed.
  "Battlestations! Alert status one!

  "Report."
    Martok clumped onto the bridge. Behind him,
Worf stormed along as they both landed on the
command deck.
    Ch'Targh was at his helm. At the sensor array to
Martok's left was the boy Alexander. N'Garan, the
new female recruit manned the engineering and long-
range sensors.
    Trial by fire. Good enough. Better than squabbling
in the mess hall.
    "Jem Hadar attack ship bearing one-seven-zero
mark zeroflour-five," the boy reported nervously.
"Estimate weapons range in twenty-two seconds."
    Dumping into the command chair, Martok ignored
Worf at his side. "On screen."
    The viewscreen flickered to show a wide expanse of
empty space. Empty?
 Had the boy read his sensors wrong?
 "Where is it?"
    "I have no target on my sensors," N'Garan said,
trying to cover her unease with volume.
    Worfglared at the screen. "Reroute primary sensors
to weapons controls."

238                                                                   239




    "Aye, sir," his son dutifully responded, and Mar-
tok was pleased by that. The boy was not so imma-
ture as to let his personal irritations keep him stony
while at work. "The Jem Hadar has launched two
torpedoes."
 Worf looked at him. "At us or at the convoy?"
 "At us, sir. Impact, ten seconds!"
    "Drop cloak," Martok snapped. "Raise shields.
Evasive action!"
    Frantically the crew complied. The ship lurched as
inertial dampers struggled to catch up with the sud-
den radical change in course.
    There was a tremor in Alexander Rozhenko's voice.
"Torpedoes still locked onto us. They will hit in four
seconds. Threere"
     The arms of the chair were hard and cold under
Martok's hands. "Brace for impact."
  "Two--one!"
    Tense, the crew hunched for the strike. Two
seconds... three... four...
    "Reinitialize primary sensors," Worf ordered when
nothing happened after five seconds.
    "Sensors reinitialized," Alexander quickly re-
sponded. "The--the Jem Hadar ship is gone!"
    "Of course it is gone," his father growled. "You
forgot to erase the battle simulation program from the
sensor display!"
    All heads turned toward Alexander. The boy stared
in devastation at his control board, his shoulders
hunched in horror of embarrassment.
 Exasperated, Martok heaved an audible sigh.

"Stand down from alert status. Resume course. Re-
activate cloak."
    Only more irritating than the stupid mistake was
Ch'Targh's grin as the helmsman stood up, moved to
Alexander's side, and sat down there. "Keep a close
watch. There may be more hostile simulation pro-
grams out there."
    Ch'Targh dropped a rough hand on Alexander's
shoulder and laughed unremittingly.
    Martok watched without interference. When a
shadow passed over his good eye, he launched his
gauntletted hand and stopped Worf from crossing in
front of him. "Wait," he ordered quietly. "He will
never make that mistake again. And it's better for us
to be too ready than not ready enough."
    The rest of the crew was laughing now, covering
both Worffs move forward and Martok's halting him.
Ch'Targh gripped Alexander's shoulder and shook
him. "At least you're keeping us on our toes."
    And Martok found reason now to laugh also, and
there was something about the laughter that commu-
nicated belonging to Alexander rather than resistance,
for the boy began to sheepishly smile.
    Martok kept his voice low, between himself and
Worf. "You see? They have accepted him."
    Grimly Worf relaxed a little. "They have accepted
him as the ship's fool."
"Mmm," Martok grunted. "Come with me."
Hoping not to make their departure too obvious,
Martok circled the long way around the bridge, peek-
ing at some readouts here and there, making the new

240                                                                   241




recruits nervous, and finally led the way around to his
ready room door. He clomped inside, and Worf
slipped in silently behind him. The door slid shut.
    "Have you spoken to your son about the wedding
plans you have?"
    Staring down the barrels of the two biggest con-
cerns in his life that didn't involve the war, Worf
visibly hardened, then almost immediately let the
hardness dissolve. "A father has no need to consult a
son regarding wedding plans. The house structure of
Klingon family goes from parents to child, not the
other way around."
    Martok dropped into the chair behind his desk.
"My friend, you make your own troubles."
    Worf sank into the other chair and then somehow
continued to sink further. "I... have so little ability
to make relationships go smoothly .... I find myself
fortunate to have found a woman who fits so well into
so many cultures."
     "Yes, and who is three hundred years old but still
appears to be young." "She is young!"
 "Yes, of course, and why are you shouting?"
 "I do not know."
    "Well, I do." Martok attempted to sag a bit in his
own chair so Worf would not feel so small. "Marry
your woman and train your son. Embrace them both
as part of your private world. Let them know they are
part of each other through you. Pull down the fences
between you. A wedding is just a wedding, Worf, not a
state occasion. You fret too much about details. You

embrace tradition frantically, but you forget why we
have traditions. Not for the sake of having tradition,
certainly. Even if all tradition is thrown into the warp
core, when all is over, you will be married and Jadzia
will be one of my house. And your son, if he wishes,
will be one of my house too. He will grow up, Worfi
He will change. Time works on a young man. You
want him to change in the next ten minutes. Forget
that! You did not grow up in a day. I did not grow up
in a day. Why do you expect your son to come here
and grow up today?"
    Worf glared at him for several seconds. "Is that
what I do?"
    Martok leaned forward with his elbows on his
desk. "My friend, you are a manufactured Klingon.
You were raised by humans who tried to give you an
idea of being Klingon, but it was a human idea of
what Klingons are. They tried, I never deny that they
tried, but they were still humans looking inward
from afar. This is why you struggle and why you cling
to details of tradition too much. There is no mold for
behavior that comes in a bottle and has 'Klingon'
stamped upon the label and which will sour if not
refrigerated. Alexander was raised the same way.
Among humans, with a sense of unbidden guilt that
he is not Klingon enough. Perhaps it's not you he
resents, but being too much like you. I don't
know... I am no ship's counselor. You think he
resents you?"
 "Yes. He told me so."
 "He lies."
 "Lies?"

242                                                                  243




  "Yes. He lies to himself."
    Worf looked quite disturbed. Even hurt. "Why
would you say this to me?"
    "To destroy and diminish you and give Ch'Targh
your job." Martok fixed a responding glare on him,
then scolded him further with a thump of his fiat
hand on the table. "Worfl Wake up! Alexander tells
himself he resents you. Then he tells it to you, so he
gets an upper hand for a while. Every teenager does
such things, man. Every young hawk going from the
nest first wants to fly around the nest and defy those
who built it."
  "I do not understand that ...."
    "Do you not? Well, further be confused by this--
your son was assigned to the Tur'Nask. He requested
transfer. He was given transfer to the Gurshk. He
again requested transfer. He was finally assigned to
Rotarran. "
    Fuming over this news, even Worf seemed to be
warmed by it. He gazed at the desktop. "He should be
transferred... then he could concentrate on his
work. Any work other than being my son, or not being
my son."
    "If it comes to that," Martok agreed, "he will be
transferred. But we shall make any tranfer tempo-
rary."
 Worf looked up. "Temporary?"
    "Of course. Father and son should ship together
eventually, but after each is secure in his purpose. Oh,
we will somehow fail to tell Alexander that the
transfer is temporary. Are we clever? Or cowards? I
don't know. We'll send him to another ship to become

a real crewman, if that suggests itself as the best way.
For a while, he can stay here and we shall see. Despite
the harrassment he receives in your shadow, I have
received no request for transfer from Alexander, and
that tells me a great deal, Worf. The young hawk
circles you. For now be proud, and show him the way
to fly."

244                                                                245




Let us have faith that right makes might, and in
  that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty
  as we understand it.

Abraham Lincoln

O

CHAPTER
      17

Captain's Log, Stardate 51145.3
    The Defiant has been operating out of Starbase
375, conducting forays into Dominion controlled
space. While the missions have taken a toll on my
people, they remain determined to do whatever it
takes to win this war. As do I. One thing that's
made all this easier, if not more of a balancing
act, is that Charlie Reynolds of the Centaur has
been providing backup on some of the missions.
For security reasons we haven't filled Charlie in
on most of our plans, but he hasn't been asking
the wrong questions and that means we can let
him in on the action. At least, Ross wants me to
consider Charlie an asset, and even though I
resisted at first, it does seem to be working out.
 ! guess it's good--it gives my crew the idea

247




that they're not so alone. Charlie Reynolds is
now one of very few captains who have any idea
at all that Starfleet is working on covert actions.
He doesn't really know what I'm up to, but I can
tell from his sarcastic evil eye that he's always
thinking and adding things up that nobody in
his right mind would add up.
    I wish we could tell everyone, all the people
we really do trust--maybe then I wouldn't feel
so alone either.
    My meetings with Martok have been very rare
because we have to be tightly secure, but they've
been fruitful. He has been involved with recruit-
ing more Klingons for our cause and training
younger warriors for active duty. Not a job I envy
him, and certainly not with Mr. Worf on board
the Rotarran. Worf will expect those young Kling-
ons to accept some version of Starfleet regulation
in order to work as our allies. It must be quite a
show going on over there. Worf has been tight-
lipped about whatever they're doing, but I can
tell he isn't happy. A shipload of recruits and an
unhappy Worf... Martok's got his hands full.
    The general just finished secretly charting all
the stations in that sensor array in the Argolis
area and funneling that information through
Starfleet Intelligence to Admiral Ross. Now we
can make a plan for assault. Frederick the Great
said, "He who tries to defend everything de-
fends nothing." That's my goal--to blind the
Dominion so they can't track the movements of
Starfleet squadrons. That way, they'll have to

defend everything. Their forces will be spread
thin. That's when we move in a major assault.
    I have to play my cards carefully from now on.
Commanding a battleship on special maneuvers
and also juggling an advisory desk job for Ross
has been tricky. Even more difficult has been
keeping Ross from noticing that it's tricky. I have
to be valuable enough to him to keep my inside
position, but not so valuable that he wants me
here full-time. I admit to feeling torn--they do
need experienced advisors at Starfleet Com-
mand. I just don't want to be one of them.

THE MESS HALL aboard Defiant was crowded with
scruffy but victorious officers and crew. They'd just
docked after returning from another covert and haz-
ardous missionmanother successful one. With careful
planning on many fronts, the alliance was starting to
take nips at the Dominion. Judging from the fierceness
of the responses, the nips were starting to sting. Slowly
but surely, the effort was starting to come together.
    Over there, Nog had set up a makeshift bar, com-
plete with bottles and glassware, and was playing
Quark's role for the crew. Sisko approached the bar
with Dax and Bashir, knowing they were all showing
signs of fatigue along with the satisfaction. The Defi-
ant was under repair--there was always damage--
but had proven a tough-hulled ship with flexible
systems and had so far brought them back every time.
    They'd been conducting a series of raids on supply
and tactical installations, but the trick had been to
inflict the raids far enough apart and on a random

248                                                                 249




enough timetable to make them unpredictable, which
didn't always fit in with the repairs the ship needed or
the rest the crew needed. Several times they'd set out
on a mission with only minimal repairs, which com-
pounded the ship's needs and often compromised
them. Because the crew had learned to work together
so well, Sisko had avoided reassignment of any but
the most badly injured of casualties, and that meant
recoveries were cut short sometimes too.
    Weeks had gone by in the war with the Dominion,
and Defiant had been almost constantly out on special
missions, usually without support. Each time they
rested and repaired, but each time there was a little
less rest, a little less repair. They never had a chance
to recover completely.
    So they needed every little bit of encouragement,
and today Nog was handing Sisko just enough.
    "Saurian brandy? How did you get your hands on
this?"
    Bashir accepted his glass from the cadet. "In the
middle of a war, no less."
      "It's a busy starbase," Nog claimed evasively. "I
may be a cadet, but I'm still a Ferengi."
  Dax raised her glass. "Lucky for us."
  "Excuse me, Captainre"
    Sisko turned to see O'Brien pushing through the
crew toward him, with a large silver tank in his arms.
    "Power cell from the phaser array, sir," the engi-
neer said. "We used it up on the last mission."
    A used-up power cell--enough phaser energy for a
year of conventional service, and it had been used up
in one mission. That was how things had gone lately.
Sisko took the canister and held it up for all to see.

    "Take a good look at this, people! It says something
about this ship. It says that we're willing to fight--and
that we'll keep on fighting until we can't fight any-
more."
  Cued by Dax, the crew shouted, "Yes, sir!"
      Sisko gazed at the scorched canister. "You don't
throw something like this away."  "No, sir!"
    He made his way through the crowd as they parted
for him, to a place against the wall where a small shelf
had been mounted. There, six other canisters from
their previous missions stood like sentinels. He set the
bottom of the heavy mechanism in place, then let its
nose bump against the wall.
     As he turned, the crew broke out into cheers and
applause, until Nog's voice piped over the noise.
  "Admiral on deck!"
    "As you were," Admiral Ross allowed quickly enough
that their fanfare and good spirits weren't snuffed.
    The crew fell noticeably quieter, but were still too
pleased with themselves to quiet down completely,
admiral or not.
    "Ben," Ross greeted, moving immediately to Sisko.
He was carrying a padd, but didn't mention it or hand
it over.
 "Admiral."
 "Let's take a walk."
 "Corridor?"
 "Yes, good."
    "What was going on in there?" Ross asked as the
mess hall door closed behind them and cut off the
noise of the crew.

250                                                                    251

    "Just a little ritual we fell into," Sisko said. "It
helps the crew unwind."
 "They deserve it. They've done a hell of a job."
    "Thank you, sir. But you didn't come here to tell
me that, did you?"
    Ross smiled, but there wasn't much underlying joy.
"No, I didn't. Ever since this war began, the Domin-
ion's been able to outmaneuver us at every turn. No
matter where we send out ships, they always seem to
be there waiting for us."
    I know. It's because they're watching our every
move.
    "I've noticed that," Sisko said, without tipping his
hand.
    "It's almost enough to make you think they're
smarter than we are, but they're not. They've just had
an edge we didn't know about until yesterday. Star-
fleet Intelligence located a massive sensor array hid-
den on the periphery of the Argolis Cluster. The
damned thing can monitor ship movements across
five sectors."
    Sisko controlled his expression. "That's how
they've managed to stay one step ahead of us."
     Ross nodded. "They've had an enormous tactical
advantage. I want you to take it away from them."
  "Gladly, sir."
    "It's not going to be easy. The array's heavily
defended. Here's the Intelligence report. Look it over.
I want an attack plan on my desk by oh eight hundred
hours."
 "You'll have it."
 As the admiral walked away, Sisko wondered if he'd

spoken too quickly, given too much away by not
asking for a couple more hours. He already knew
exactly how he was going to move on the array, and it
required another movement by Martok elsewhere to
draw the guard ships away from the array, or most of
them anyway.
 He tapped his cornbadge. Would this day ever end?
 "Sisko to bridge."
 "Bridge."
    "Locate General Martok on the Rotarran and patch
me through, private codes and scramble."
  "Aye aye, sir."

"This is a kar'takin, a weapon favored by the Jem
Hadar. Defend yourself."
    The training room was a dark environment, mim-
icking as closely as possible the confines of a dim and
damaged ship. The logic was simple--Jem Hadar
ships had limited light, and any allied ship which Jem
Hadar had boarded would probably be half wrecked
and on emergency lights.
    Thus Martok had trouble focusing on the scene
being displayed by his personal monitor in his quar-
ters. Better to eavesdrop here than in his ready room
or anywhere else--the bulkheads here were sound-
proof, the door locked, and orders not to disturb him
unless an emergency were in effect. So he could
quietly interfere upon his turbulent first officer and
the turbulent offspring, who would soon be a member
of Martok's own house.
 Though holding the kar'takin pole, Alexander

252                                                                     253




snapped into a stance that might be nearly perfect had
he been holding a bat'leth instead. Intolerantly Worf
lowered his own kar'takin and glowered at his son.
Mistakes, mistakes. Worf had the finesse of a nova.
    "That is not the proper grip," the first officer spat.
"Your thumbs must be opposed so that twisting
motions will not--"
"I understand." Alexander jerked the weapon away.
"Then proceed."
As Martok watched, he found himself paying closer
attention to Worf's subtleties of temper than Alexan-
der's movements of defense and offense. Those would
come around with age, size, and experience, but
WoWs truncated mental methods bore tending. If
Worf failed to rein his personal troubles, he would
soon be ineffective as a dependable first officer. Any
officer with a child on board had divided considera-
tions. That was a fact of shipboard life.
    Alexander circled his father now and Martok
watched with mild interest at the uninventiveness of
the young mind. Worf held his position and tracked
his opponent, but Alexander seemed not to know
what to do. So Worf struck first. Alexander swept his
weapon up respectably enough and met the blow with
a resounding CLANG that made Martok wince with
annoyance as the corem system enhanced the sound it
did not recognize. That should be fixed. Who was the
duty engineer this morning?
    "No!" Worf shouted. "Do not try to shove my blade
away! Deflect it and use your momentum to counter."
    "I know!" the boy foolishly argued. If he knew,
then--

  "Then do it!"
    Worf swung the weapon again, deliberately leading
his student, but Alexander instinctively blocked the
blow exactly as he had before and this time was jarred
dangerously off balance. A death blow would've fol-
lowed that, under the dictates of real combat.
    "Don't try to fight force with force," Worf said,
engulfed in his own battle for reasonableness. "You
will lose every time."
    Again they swung, and again Alexander failed. The
weapons went flying and clattered to the floor. Martok
shook his head. No, it was not the boy who was
failing.
    "What did I tell you?" Worf shuddered with rage.
"Pick it up! If you had kept practicing what I taught
you when you were a boy--"
    Alexander picked up his weapons and whirled on
his father without warning, and without listening to
the end of the lecture. A fury of wild swipes and
thrusts flew at Worf, who easily blocked and parried
them, but a pattern of shock was rising on Worfs face.
Martok leaned forward and watched with great inter-
est. The boy's fanatic hostility was disturbing. He was
flailing at Worf not with experience or determination,
but with raw disdain. Soon Worf hooked the weapon
with his own and it went flying again.
    "What's wrong with you?" Worf demanded at the
pause.
    Alexander tossed his weapon to the deck. "I knew it
would be like this."
 Wolf lowered his own. "Like what?"
 "You must be pleased," the boy said with a belliger-

254                                                                    255




ent step forward. "Now you can tell me what a failure
I am as a Klingon." "Alexander..."
 "Or are you just going to send me away again?"
    Ah. Martok tilted his head and listened for clues.
That was one--being sent away.
    Seeming bewildered by words that gave Martok
such insight, Worf tried to revert to his mentor role
againwthe irretrievable role.
    "We are not playing in holosuites now. This is war.
The Jem Hadar will cut you to pieces."
    "Then I will be dead," Alexander defied, "and you
will be happy. Now leave me alone."
    A guttural chuckle rose in Martok's throat. Such
typical resistance. The wild imaginings and carryings
too far of a teenage mind. The spouting of statements
that were perfectly ridiculous and everyone knew it.
Even Worf knew it, for he made no reaction to the
spouting. The significance of Alexander's declaration
had nothing to do with the message of the words.
    Martok chuckled again. Worf appeared so deflated
and confused. Worf had never raised children. Mar-
tok had raised seven. Some were warriors, some were
not. Some were better at other things. If everyone was
a warrior, who would do the other things? What was to be done now?
    Wait a few hours. Then do what every good com-
mander does best. Butt in.

    Alexander Rozhenko looked exhausted as Martok
slipped into the training room. The boy was in the
middle of the mats, moving through a training exer-

cise with his bat'leth, the crescent-shaped blade flick-
ering in the simulated evening light. His movements
were clumsy, his limbs sluggish, and when he noticed
Martok standing there watching him, he began the
series of movements again but without any better
skill. In fact, tension gripped the boy and his bat'leth
slid right out of his hands, slapped to the deck, and
barely missed a surgical maneuver on Alexander's
foot.
    Martok stooped, picked up the weapon, and natu-
rally balanced it in his left hand.
    "Fine blade," he muttered. "Well balanced. But in
the end, it is only as good as the warrior who wields
it."
    Then, internally, he laughed at himself. Cliches!
Stating the obvious. The harbor of a bored and
grumbling grandfather who wished he were a father
again. Hah! That was funny too.
    "I need more practice," Alexander muttered, strug-
gling between meeting his general's eyes and not
daring to meet them.
    "Rest a moment," Martok told him reasonably.
"You look like you can use it. Tell me, Alexander
Rozhenko... why are you on my ship?"
    The boy drew himself up straight. "To serve the
Empire, General."
    Disgusting. Martok set the bat'leth back on the
weapons rack. "That is a slogan, not an answer. Say
what is in your heart."
    Perhaps the evenness of Martok's voice made the
boy uneasy. No--he was already uneasy. But cer-
tainly Alexander, raised among humans, was used to

256                                                                  257




the image of a Klingon grunting and roaring and
barking and generally bulldozing his way through life.
He felt the natural surges of adrenaline to which
Klingons were more succeptible, but his human re-
straint made him balk when he found a restrained
Klingon. Martok's quiet words seemed to both calm
and confuse the boy. But why should every sentence
be spat like venom? What a waste of energy.
    Alexander twitched and shifted. "Do you question
every new crewman this way?"
    Feigning anger, Martok approached him. "I have
no need to. I look in their faces and I know why
they're here. They are Klingon warriors. They have
answered the call of Kahless."  "So have I!"
    "Lie to yourself if you must, but not to me. You do
not hear the warrior's call. So I ask again... why are
you here?"
     Shuddering now, Alexander lowered his eyes. "I'd
rather not say." "What?"
 "It's a... private matter."
 "You are as tight-lipped as your father."
 "I am nothing like him!"
    Allowing himself to explodemperhaps behaving
stereotypically would actually relax the boy--Martok
roared, "You are both stubborn, tiresome Qu'vatlh!
The only difference is..." And he grew abruptly
calm again. "... I need him. But I don't need you."
    Anxiously Alexander tensed and stepped forward.
"All I ask is a chance to prove myself--"

     "I just gave you one. And you failed. You father has
requested that you be transferred off this ship."
 The boy flared. "He had no right!"
    "He has every right. Both as your superior officer
and as your father. At twenty-three seventeen, you
will transport to the cargo vessel Par'tok. Collect your
gear. Now."
    A good lie was as powerful as any blow. When
twenty-three seventeen arrived, Martok knew, there
would be no Par'tok in the area and some story would
be contrived about how the cargo ship was detained
or boarded, captured, something. Meanwhile, the boy
would either sulk, and thereby give away his inner
lack of resolve, or he would take action with his father
that would lead to a final eruption of the swelling
wound between the two.
 And about time.

    Worf sat in the mess hall, alone. It was ship's night.
No one would be here for hours. That was good, for
he was surly. Alexander's presence on this ship had
been a constant irritation. Even the crewmen were
treating him differently, watching him for reactions,
wondering how they should handle the first officer's
son. In some faces he even saw the ugly spectre of
ambition. If this tension drove him to distraction, he
would be unfit as first officer and someone else would
move into his place.
    He had tried to think of what should be done, but
answers evaded him. He wished he were back on Deep
Space Nine, in the command of Ben Sisko and simply

258                                                                 259




exacting orders to keep an enemy at bay. This clumsy
new aggression to try defending a whole quadrant was
undirected and troublesome. Goals were opaque,
successes tempered. The right thing to do remained
cloudy and evasive. Like being a parent. What was
best?
    He knew he was a miserable excuse for a father.
That was why he had sent Alexander away, and now
Alexander despised him for doing what Worf had
thought was best. Is it not best for a child to be away
from an inadequate parent? Not best to have the full-
time attention of two adults, not the partial attention
of one adult who has no inclination to raise a child?
    Yes--yes, that had been right! Alexander had been
better off with the Rozhenko's than tagging behind
Worf on a ship where children should never have been
living. It had been right. He would do it again. He
would happily do it now, and send Alexander to
another ship, where the boy could learn what a
spacefarer needed to know without thinking all the
time that his father was on board. A captain and
officers were what young spacefarers needed. Not
parents.
    Before him his rokeg pie was untouched. He had
ordered it with all the intention of eating, but now
that the dish sat in front of him, glowing and quickly
cooling, he had no appetite.
    This was foolish. To let a child upset him to
stultification. And that was something to consider--
was Alexander's presence indeed curtailing Worfs
own efficiency? That could never do for long.

    And he knew it was true. He was failing as a father,
an art at which he was inexperienced and untrained,
but there was pitiful little excuse to fail at being an
officer, a job for which he was qualified and long-
tempered. He would never tolerate such troublement
in anyone else--
    A Klingon dagger lanced through his ruminations
and detonated his thoughts. The blade rang upon the
table and bit a good three inches into the tabletop
beside his plate. The rokeg pie erupted from the
vibration and bled all over its crust.
    Alexander glared down at him. Worf stood up
sharply.
    "You are fortunate that I am your father," he said.
"If you had challenged anyone else in this manner
you would be dead right now."
    "If you want me off this ship," Alexander returned,
"you're going to have to kill me."
    "Do not tempt me." Irritated, Worf put a pace
between them. "I do not want to hurt you, Alexander.
I want to help you."
    "By getting rid of me? All you've ever done my
whole life is send me away!"
    "I am a Klingon warrior," Worf told him. "I lead a
warrior's life. That is not the path for you. You told
me that yourself. And I have come to accept it."
    "How! By ignoring me? You call yourself my father,
but you haven't tried to see me or talk to me in five
years!"
    The truth of that bolted through Worf's chest.
Sending the boy away for his own good--that could

260                                                                261




be excused. Not contacting him... no, there was no
excuse. He had never faced the repercussions of his
own silence.
    "I wasn't the kind of son you wanted," the boy said,
"so you pretended you had no son. You never ac-
cepted me. You abandoned me."
    Wolf digested the boy's inarguable point of view--
of course he would see things that way, and if honesty
were religion Worf would have to ask forgiveness for
his abandonment not of responsibility, but of spirit.
  Perhaps there was something to proximity.
    His son's words stung and stung, until his ears rang
and he could hear the strident jangle of his frustra-
tions and his failings and wondered if the damage
would always scream like this.
  "Battlestations. Alert status one."
    Worf shook his head to clear out the scream, but it
continued. Martok's voice--they were under attack!
The jangle was the ship's general alarm!
    "Battlestations. Commander Worf to the bridge. All
hands to battlestations."
    The glaring paste of familial tension sheared away
and suddenly Worf and Alexander were crewmates
with a common goal--get to the bridge, take posts,
defend the ship, defend the Empire and the Federa-
tion, for each was a child of either.
    Before they reached the bridge, the bird-of-prey
took several hard hits--the enemy must've sprung
upon them from some hiding place or a very good
cloaking mechanism, for the shots were direct, not at
angles, and bluntly striking the hull. Vibrations of

return fire whined through Rotarran's hull, as audible
as the alarms, savaging whoever was attacking them.

    When Worf stormed the bridge with Alexander
behind him, General Martok gave his first officer the
seconds needed to understand that there were two
ships after them, not just one. There was already
heavy damage creating halos of smoke around the
crew's heads. Martok clung to his command chair,
waving at the smoke, and glanced at Worf. Worf was
looking port, at the engineer who was slumped over
his console, his face badly burned, eyes open and
unblinking. Other bodies were strewn on the deck. A
very bad beginning.
    At a second glance from Martok and a quick point
of one finger, Alexander slid into the seat where the
engineer had been and did his best with the readouts.
"Shields at sixty percent."
    Martok selected patience--for now. "And the Jem
Hadar?"
 "Which one, sir?"
 "The one shooting at us!"
    "His... aft shields are down to... twenty-five--
no, twenty percent and he's losing antiprotons from
his starboard nacelle."
 "Weapons, lock onto that nacelle."
    At the weapons station, recruit N'Garan visibly
trembled with adrenaline. "Target locked--"
    But before she could fire, Rotarran surged upward
on another hit.
 Alexander's panel plumed into a light show, blow-

262                                                                  263




ing him out of his chair. As he turned over, stunned,
blood pulsed from a gash in his cheek. A good scar
someday.
    Worf was looking at his son, Martok noticed, but
did nothing to help him. Shaking and dazed, Alexan-
der pressed his fist to his wound and pulled himself
back to his station. The instruments were seared and
snapping, hot to the touch, and finally the boy shook
his head.
    Without making Alexander vocalize that there was
nothing he could do there, Martok turned to Ch'Targh
and N'Garan in turn. "Come to three-one-seven mark
zero-four-five. Weapons, can you hit him?"
  "Negative. He's out of range."
    Shifting to another station, Alexander pulled the
engineer's body away from the console and attempted
to read the flickering displays. "We've lost internal
communications."
    Martok ignored him. That was Worfs problem, and
Worf promptly acknowledged his son and stepped to
the science station.
    "Helm," Martok ordered, "come to course zero-
two-zero mark two-two-seven."
    "There's plasma venting from the primary impulse
injector on deck five," Alexander called past Martok
to his father.
 Ch'Targh glanced up, then said, "Course laid in."
    Martok cranked around. "Worfl Get that plasma
leak under control before we lose that entire deck!"
    The ship bolted again. That was a belowdecks hit,
and that meant casualties. Worf was looking around

to see who could go with him, but there were precious
few crewmen still standing. "I can seal the leak."
    Who said that? Martok waved at the smoke again.
Alexander?
    The boy was standing straight, looking at his father,
and now at Martok.
    "I'm of no use to you here," Alexander admitted.
There was no bravado in his voice now--a welcome
absence.
    Logically, Worf should be the one to go with him,
but Martok put out his hard-toed boot and caught
Ch'Targh in the thigh. The helmsman looked up,
caught his general's glare, and promptly swung
around.
    "I will go with him," Ch'Targh offered. "It will take
at least two of us to secure the injector before it
explodes."
    Worf glowered at them, and Martok saw the strug-
gle of refusal. But did it make sense that both the first
officer and the helmsman should leave the bridge
when there was a junior officer here? No.
 Gathering his common sense, Worf acceded, "Go!"
    Alexander led the way. Ch'Targh followed. Rather
poetic, Martok thought.
Grimly Worf crossed the bridge and took the helm.
"Worf, put us off the Jem Hadar's starboard quar-
ter," Martok ordered, eager to distract his exec.
"Weapons, continue to target his damaged nacelle."
  Pirouetting furiously through space, gravitons

264                                                                   265




shrieking in protest, Rotarran vectored away from the
attacking Jem Hadar and drilled the damaged ship's
natcUe, dismembering it neatly until the overload
surged into an explosion. And then there were only
two.
    "MajKkah.t" Martok exalted. "Helm! On my com-
mand, drop impulse power to one-third and come to
course three-five-five mark zero-nine-zero. Weapons,
be ready for him to pass in front of us."  "Course laid in," Worf informed.
    N'Garan fixed her gaze on her board, valiantly
ignoring the main screen. "Weapons standing by."
    Martok ticked off the seconds as Rotarran decder-
ated sickeningly, venting plasma that obscured the
attacking ship's view and ability to judge distance
visually.
 "Now!" Martok called.
    The deceleration jammed to almost a full stop,
pressing everyone forward and making Martok feel as
if his arms were being ripped off. On the screen, the
pursuing ship shot past them, showing its underbelly.
The Rotarran pitched on a wing, clearing for fire, and
shot full disruptors point-blank at the Jem Hadar.
    A moment later there was only the ball of flame that
happened when a contained warp core was breached.
The Rotarran surged backward on the shock wave.
  Around him, Martok's surviving crew cheered.
    "Well done!" he told them. Yes, it had indeed been
well done. Two Jem Hadar gone. A good day.
    Without even waiting for the sparkles to dissipate
or to survey the deep-fried panels of their bridge as

was his job to do, Worf turned away from the main
screen. "Permission to leave the bridge?"
    "Go," Martok told him. "Stand down from alert
status. N'Garan, take the helm." As the damage
control team flooded the bridge and Worf departed on
the same turbolift, Martok leered at the blooming
remnant energy from the ship they had just destroyed.
"Go, my friend, and hope your son has not already
killed himself."

To be continued...

266                                                                   267