"NOG! HEY, NOG!Did you hear?"
Jake pushed past the gamblers going into Quark's Place. Nog was at the door, handing out complimentary tokens to new customers. He looked up when he heard Jake calling, and he bared his teeth.
Jake faced him, breathing hard with excitement. "Did you hear? About Berat? My dad gave him asylum! Isn't that great? Now he doesn't have to worry about the Cardassians anymore! They can't hang him!" Jake looked puzzled when Nog failed to react. "Isn't that great?"
"Great! Oh, yes, just great!" Nog snarled.
"Huh? What's the matter with you?"
"My repair business is ruined, that's all! They took the Cardassian away!"
"I know, but it's all right now. He's got asylum! He doesn't have to hide anymore!"
"And whose fault is that?" Nog's stare was accusation.
"What do you mean?"
"Who else knew where he was? Who else could lead security right to the room where he was hiding?"
"You mean … Hey, I didn't say anything about it! I gave my word!"
Nog sneered in contempt, and flipped a gambling token in Jake's direction—one of the lowest denomination. "Your word! Now I know how much a human's word is worth!"
Jake felt angry heat rising to his face. "Hey! I never told anyone! Not Odo or even my dad! You want to know how they found out where Berat was? Well, it was you! Going around telling everyone you could get their stuff fixed! Chief O'Brien knew he was an engineer! All he had to do was follow you!"
Nog shook his head vehemently. "They never followed me! Not till I showed you where he was!"
But Jake took a step back, looking at Nog with a new insight. "You know what I think? You don't care about Berat at all, do you? Just how much money you could make from him. I'm surprised you didn't turn him in to get a reward!"
"At least I wasn't stupid enough to turn him in for nothing! Like a stupid human!"
"I didn't—"
Jake's protest was suddenly interrupted by the red flash of emergency lights and the screaming of the alert sirens. Instant, reflexive fear flashed through him, taking him back again to the burning deck of the Saratoga, the smoke, the clanging alarms, and his mother lying dead beneath the wreckage on the deck.
What was it now? Another terrorist bombing? A Cardassian attack on the station? Maybe this was Gul Marak's answer to Dad giving Berat asylum.
The public comm shrilled: "Medical to docking pylon four. All civilians to shelter."
When would it ever stop?
The dockworker was making wild gestures with his arms as he told Sisko, "I saw the thing blow up! I tell you, it was … the flames just blew that whole airlock out! There was this huge whoooosh, and the fire just came roaring out! The airlock was all flames! I could feel the heat, all the way across at the cargo platform! I figure a pressurized fuel line must have ruptured or something. Never saw anything like it, not even in the war."
Sisko was about to question him further when a Rigellian woman flung herself at him, screaming, "Why don't you stop this! What's wrong with you? How can you let them do this?"
Appalled at the sight of her burned arms, he tried to hold her off, to keep her from hurting herself as she struck madly at him with her red and blistered hands. Behind him, Kira stood watching helplessly, but then one of the medical technicians was there, gently trying to pull the injured Rigellian away.
The victim saw the Bajoran medic and jerked out of his grasp, screaming, "Don't touch me!" Lunging at Sisko again: "They're all fanatics! They're going to kill everyone! You told us it was safe! You said they weren't terrorists!"
As the Rigelian finally noticed Kira in her Bajoran uniform, her eyes went wide and crazed, but by then the medic had taken out a hypospray, and an instant later, she slumped back into his grasp. Sisko helped ease her onto a stretcher.
The station's officers continued to watch grimly as the last of the bodies was carried out through the airlock. Bashir followed, his hands stained with blood.
"Sisko stopped him. "Doctor?"
"I think I can save the ambassador's aide. But three of the crew are dead. Six injured."
The commander let him go. To the rest of them, he said only, "I want the ones who are doing this."
The Rigellians had been one of the first to conclude a trade agreement with Bajor. They had been considered almost certain to vote to accept them as members of the Federation. Until this.
Kira felt an angry, overwhelming shame. Shame at being Bajoran. In resisting the Cardassian occupation, her people had learned their lessons in terrorism too well. They knew how to strike at their enemy for maximum destructive effect, then disappear, leaving no trace behind.
The words from the poster mocked her: You have been warned.
How many times had she delivered such warnings herself, to the Cardassian oppressors? But these weren't Cardassians! They weren't oppressors, they had been potential allies—until now. Until the terrorists had struck again.
How could they do this? To the future of their own people? Couldn't they see the Federation was their only defense against renewed Cardassian aggression?
"Is that the last of the bodies?" Sisko asked.
A medical technician nodded as she passed by with a covered stretcher.
Then Odo and Kira stepped forward to begin yet another painstaking search for any possible evidence that could lead them to whoever was committing these acts. Before it was too late.
The poster lay on the center of Sisko's desk like another bomb. Everyone assembled for the briefing stared at it, their hands at their sides, as if it might go off. Crudely printed letters read:
NO MORE WARNINGS!
FOREIGNERS OUT OF BAJORAN SPACE!
YOU HAVE SEVENTY-TWO HOURS!
Sisko turned away from it with an expression of deep loathing. He looked haggard and sleepless. "Did you find anything?" he asked Kira and Odo.
Kira shook her head wearily. As usual, the bomber had left no evidence at the site. He was good, whoever he was.
"The trouble is, there are too many suspects. Most of the population of this station qualify. Every Bajoran over the age of ten has some connection with a group the Federation might consider terrorists. I'm a suspect, if it comes to that. If …" She looked hard at the others. "If we assume the bomber has to be a Bajoran."
"You have another theory, Major?" Sisko asked.
She nodded. "We've discussed this before. Bajor can't benefit from this violence. But who does? Who do we see openly trying to subvert the delegates to the negotiations? Who keeps insisting that these attacks prove Bajor isn't fit to join the Federation or even associate with other worlds?"
Sisko gestured at the poster on his desk. "What about all these? Signed by the Kohn Ma terrorist group, claiming responsibility."
"I checked that. Except for Gelia, I haven't been able to trace a single one of these signs back to any known member of Kohn Ma. Their leaders emphatically deny any involvement. And Gelia is in a prison cell on Bajor. She can't be involved. I think these … things are just a false trail. It's the Cardassians who have the most to lose if Bajor enters into trade agreements with these other worlds."
"Not all Bajorans would agree with you, Major," Sisko insisted. "You can't deny that the Kohn Ma still opposes Federation membership, and they haven't renounced violence. How can you rule them out?"
"Because they're the obvious suspects. Too obvious."
"So was Gelia working for the Cardassians?" Odo demanded. "Can you believe that?"
Kira was silent. Gelia Torly might well have planted a bomb, yes. But never for the Cardassians.
Odo went on, "As I see it, the problem still is: Who set off the first bomb? There were no Cardassians on the station when it happened."
"Wrong. There was one."
"Garak? The tailor? How can you say that? His shop was almost destroyed in the second explosion!"
"Right! But Garak was barely injured! He just had a few scratches! Just enough to divert our suspicion by making himself look like a victim. Maybe he thought our investigation was getting too close. And we know that he's worked for Cardassian intelligence before this."
"Major," asked Sisko, "do you have any evidence directly implicating Garak?"
"No. I don't, not yet. But I do consider him a suspect. At least as much as any Bajoran."
"I suppose that's fair." Sisko sighed. "With as much as we've been able to find out so far, he's as likely to be guilty as anyone else."
He shook his head, unable to fully express the extent of his frustration. "I've posted additional security to guard the remaining delegates. But this—" He looked directly at the poster in the middle of the table, then away again. "This suggests that we may be running out of time. Our last warning. In other words, an ultimatum. Seventy-two hours. Three days. Until what?"
"You think they may be planning to blow the station?" O'Brien asked.
"I think we have to assume the possibility. As Major Kira says, these attacks have been political in nature, not military. Warnings. Terrorism, pure and simple. But each time, the level of violence has escalated."
"But to destroy the station! That would amount to suicide!"
"Suicide attacks were hardly unknown during the Bajoran resistance, isn't that true, Major?" Sisko asked.
She agreed reluctantly.
"But I wouldn't put those tactics past the Cardassians, either," Dax added, not simplifying matters in the least. "Their ruthlessness is a matter of record."
"The point is," Sisko said, "can we afford to jeopardize the lives of innocent people on this station? The civilians? The trade delegations?" He took a breath. "I've been talking with the Bajoran ministers about the possibility of relocating the negotiations to the planet. There's been concern that DS-Nine is no longer a secure location for these talks. Unfortunately, the location may become a moot issue. The Rigellians are leaving, abrogating all their agreements. Since this morning, I've been contacted by three more delegations, all of them pulling out of the negotiations. None of them were receptive to the idea of continuing the discussions on-planet."
"What you're saying is: It's already too late. We've lost," Kira said, shaking her head, denying it.
"In light of these developments," Sisko went on, "I've been considering whether we ought to terminate these talks and advise all the delegations to leave DS-Nine as soon as possible. Perhaps we should even order a general evacuation of civilians."
"Isn't that exactly what they're trying to force us to do?" Kira asked.
"It could be a bluff," O'Brien added.
"It could be," Sisko agreed. "But can we take that risk? With so many lives at stake? At any rate, the Bajoran government agrees. They don't think they can afford the diplomatic risk of having a dozen important delegations blown up during the talks."
He stood up. "Whoever wrote this has given us a time limit. Seventy-two hours. That's how long we have to stop them."