"FLUX LEVELS: NORMAL."
"Field oscillation level: optimal."
"Antimatter injection rate: normal."
"Power output: ninety-eight point eight percent of capacity."
Miles O'Brien looked up from the console, grinning. "Well, I never thought I'd hear that as long as I was on DS-Nine."
Together, he and Berat had replaced the antimatter-containment pod on reactor B and refilled it with slush antideuterium, and the entire system was now back on-line.
Berat had a pensive expression. "I wonder …"
"What?"
"If I'll ever be able to work on one of these again."
"Look, I meant it when I offered you that job here. The commander agreed. We need someone like you on this station, someone familiar with these systems, trained to operate them. Hell, you've done this all before, you'd be better for the job than I am."
"I couldn't have handled that computer override."
"Sure you could. You just have to get out of the habit of letting them think they know best."
Berat allowed a grin to appear briefly on his face. But then: "No. I'm Cardassian."
"Does that matter? You're a damn good engineer, Berat, that's all I care about."
"Here, on this station, it would always matter."
O'Brien had nothing he could say to that. In silence, they packed away their tools, went to the turbolift. "How are the hands?" he asked finally, on their way up to the habitat ring.
"Still getting better. Your doctor says I can expect ninety-eight percent recovery now." He paused to flex his fingers. "You have good equipment, a good doctor."
"Bashir? I suppose so. When he remembers that he's a doctor and not the latest gift from God to humanity."
The lift doors opened onto level eleven. "Want to go have a drink, or something?" O'Brien asked.
"I—" Then Berat noticed someone coming across the floor of the Promenade. He stepped back into the lift. "No, thank you. I want to check the news reports back at my quarters."
Major Kira came up to O'Brien, glanced at the now-closed door of the lift. "So how's your Cardassian?"
"He does good work." O'Brien shook his head. "He wants to go home."
"Can he? Go home? After what he did here?"
This issue had come up between them before. "We should all be bloody glad he did what he did."
"I am glad. But I just can't help thinking—Cardassians died in that ship."
O'Brien looked away. He knew he was at least as responsible for those deaths as anyone. But then he turned back to Kira. "You think Berat's a traitor for helping us? Like that monk?"
"No. Not like Leiris. There just wasn't any excuse for what he did. There couldn't be."
O'Brien said slowly, "This happened to me. Not too long ago, in fact. My first commander was Captain Ben Maxwell, on the Rutledge. I would have followed that man into hell, no questions asked. But something happened to him, later. His family was killed in the war by the Cardassians, and it started to eat at him.
"We were at peace with Cardassia by then, and he was commanding the Phoenix. I was transporter chief on the Enterprise. Captain Maxwell started attacking Cardassian ships—unarmed ships, some of them—without orders, without provocation. There were hundreds of deaths. Cardassians were charging the Federation with breaking the peace.
"Captain Picard had to go after him. To save the peace, to save Cardassian lives, he had to be prepared to fire on another Federation ship, with all the crew on board.
"Now, tell me—where's loyalty in a situation like that?"
Kira was silent a moment. "Did he? Your captain? Did he open fire?"
O'Brien looked distant. "Someone managed to talk Maxwell into surrendering." Then he seemed to shake off his mood. "A synthale or something, Major?"
"No. No, thanks, Chief."
Kira crossed the floor of the Promenade. In the doorway of his closed, darkened shop, Garak watched her with a resentful expression. But Kira was too preoccupied to think of Garak at the moment.
She stood in front of the doorway to the Bajoran temple. It was round, rayed like the sun, like life, like eternity. It had a center.
From within came the voices of monks chanting. The familiar sound filled her with an irrational anger and grief. How could they? How could they just go on as if everything were normal, as if nothing had happened?
She held her head. She could almost feel the touch of his hands on her, the sense of calm that touch had brought, the inner peace. Had it all been a lie? A delusion?
Angry tears stung her eyes. You weren't just a traitor to Bajor, Leiris. You betrayed me. You betrayed my faith.
"Major? Can I help you?" It was a monk in his saffron robe.
"No, thank you. I just came in to meditate for a moment."
"Of course." The monk bowed and withdrew.
Kira took a breath, let it slowly out. She closed her eyes and sought her center.
Crossing the Promenade on his way up to Ops, Ben Sisko noticed bright colored lights flashing from the open doorway of Quark's casino. From inside, Quark's sharp little eyes caught sight of him pausing there. The Ferengi scurried to the door.
"Well! Commander! Care to come in for a quick flutter? A short drink?"
"Don't tell me you're back in business already?"
"Have to set a good example for the local business community," Quark said smugly. "Get the flow of commerce started again around this place. In case you didn't know it, Commander, trade is the lifeblood of any civilized community. When people have their lives back in order, we'll be ready for them."
"Ready to take their money. Very commendable, I'm sure," said Sisko dryly. "And I suppose that if the Cardassians had taken over the station again, you'd still be setting up shop for business as usual?"
Quark grinned, totally unabashed. Profit was profit, and gold-pressed latinum didn't know whether it was Cardassian or Bajoran. "Why, of course, Commander! An experienced entrepreneur knows how to survive these minor setbacks."
"Hmm," Sisko muttered, leaving Quark to set up his tables and his games of chance. It was annoying, but he had to acknowledge that Quark, actually, was right.
Most of DS-Nine, in fact, was pulling itself back into working order. The station was used to a state of constantly recurring crisis. And the core of the staff, both Starfleet and Bajoran, had never abandoned their posts. Sisko was proud to have commanded them.
He was deep into work in his office when a sense of commotion down on the main floor of Ops made him lift his head. Then he uttered an intemperate word. There was his chief of security coming off the lift with two criminals in custody: his son, Jake, and the boy's companion in wrongdoing, Nog.
He slapped his comm badge. "Odo, bring them up to my office!"
Jake, as usual when he felt guilty, had his eyes aimed down at the floor, while Nog, well-known for his quick escapes, was squirming in Odo's grip on his ear ridge.
"Well, what it is this time?" Sisko demanded, looking like a storm cloud.
"I caught them out on the docking ring, in the parking bay for the crawlabouts."
"What!?" The crawlabouts were small craft used in the maintenance of the station's exterior. While they did not, in fact, crawl on the surface, the power of their tiny thrusters was negligible. Still, those boys had no business taking them out.
The storm cloud grew darker and more threatening. "Jake!"
The boy looked up with an expression of misery on his face. "Honest, Dad, we weren't going to do anything wrong!"
"Not wrong? Unauthorized entry into the equipment area, taking it out with no permission, not even telling anyone what you were doing? Like station traffic control? Don't you think there's a reason we have regulations around this place? A million things could have gone wrong, and no one would even know you were out there!"
"I'm sorry. I guess I didn't think—"
"Didn't think! Just what on Earth did you think you were going to do out there with those things, anyway?"
"Well, see …" Jake paused, swallowed. "There's all this stuff floating around out there. People tossed it out of airlocks when they were leaving the station and couldn't take it with them, and everything. And it's just, out there, you know. Just floating around. And getting in the way. And, well, so Nog and I figured we could go out in the crawlabout and scoop some of it up. You know, they've got grapplers and nets, and all that. I mean, kind of like cleaning up the place! Getting rid of the junk."
Sisko was still scowling. "And what were you planning to do with all this junk after you'd picked it up?"
"Well …"
It was Nog who spoke up eagerly, as Jake hesitated, "Salvage! It's a salvage operation! One of the oldest principles of interplanetary law states that if cargo is jettisoned or abandoned, the first person to find it can claim salvage rights."
Sisko held up a hand. "I'm acquainted with the principles of salvage law, thank you. Just what were you two planning to do with these salvaged items, then? I do hope you're aware that in common law, the act of salvage, contrary to what many persons erroneously believe, does not confer title on the persons who acquire the goods."
"Well, I—"
"The original owners have the right to claim their belongings, after payment of an appropriate salvage fee."
Nog, who had started to look unhappy, brightened at the mention of a fee. Sisko sighed inwardly. It was clear whose idea this scheme had been. The Ferengi boy was a true disciple of his uncle Quark, constantly thinking of material gain. Less than a day after they were back on the station, he'd already conceived of some scheme to profit from the misfortunes of others. Nog represented the antithesis of everything Starfleet stood for—and this was his son's constant companion on DS-Nine.
But it was his duty to pronounce impartial judgment on both of them. "You're right, in a way, Jake and Nog. We do need to clear away the flotsam and jetsam cluttering up the traffic lanes around the station. But those goods belong to the people who live here on DS-Nine. They will be returned to their proper owners. Freely returned.
"As for you two, you'll both be assigned to assist an authorized operator to do the job. Consider this your assignment until the job is finished."
Both boys looked dismayed. "But … what about school?" Jake asked in a disbelieving voice.
"School has been suspended until normal station operations resume."
Nog glanced quickly in the direction of the door, but Odo had placed himself in front of it. "I, uh, think my uncle needs me to help him in the business," he said nervously.
"I'll speak to your uncle myself," Sisko said mercilessly. "Once I've explained about the fines and penalties for attempting unauthorized appropriation of station equipment, I'm sure he'll agree that this is the best alternative."
"But—"
"That will be all. Jake, we'll discuss this matter later, in private, when I get back to our quarters. Where you will be waiting for me. Clear?"
"Yes, sir," his son said unhappily.
"Constable, you'll make sure these two report to Chief O'Brien at the start of the next work shift?"
"I'll make a point of it," Odo said firmly, approving the punishment. He escorted the miscreants from the office.
Sisko leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. From the hallway he could still faintly hear the retreating voices:
"It's your fault! If you hadn't …"