ARMAGEDDON SKY

To all you bonobos, wherever you are.


CHAPTER 1
KIRA ARCHED PERILOUSLY backward to dodge
her opponent's bat'leth, scraping her
heel on the edge of one carved bone step. She
stumbled and felt her way up the irregular steps with
one hand thrust out behind her. From both above and below, the
ancient Klingon courtyard echoed with the sounds of
fierce and bloody combat metallic crashes,
ground-shaking thuds, and occasional curses spat out
in the dozen languages Dax spoke fluently.
At least one of those had been Bajoran, and from its
breathless invocation of Prophetic aid, Kira
gathered the battle on the courtyard's floor
wasn't going well at all. Neither was the battle
on the shivering balcony above her--the thunder of booted
footsteps across it exploded abruptly into shattered
bone balustrade and splintered crystal floor
tiles. The cascade of debris startled Kira so
much that she almost missed the spectacle of Odo
whirling to the courtyard floor in a splash of
effluvium. In retrospect, she realized she should
have expected it. The constable had been all but forced
into joining Dax's holographic "defense of
honor"; during the preliminary arming ceremonies
he'd grumbled nonstop that the Trill's insistence
on authentic medieval Klingon armor was going
to exhaust his shape-changing abilities before his duty
shift even began that night. Odo might not have
been able to withstand Dax's wheedling any more than
Kira, but since he'd only agreed to participate
if he wasn't forced to use a bat'leth, he was
too pragmatic not to avail himself of the first
opportunity to remove himself from the combat.
Unfortunately, flinging herself into glorious, bloody
death was not exactly an option for Kira. Tearing
her eyes away from the still-rippling evidence of
Odo's demise, she refocused her attention on
the battle just in time to catch an armored elbow in the
face. The holographic Klingon warrior who had
backed her up the stairs might have been carefully
programmed by Worf to match her fighting skills,
but it hadn't been given her ability to be distracted
--or her underlying impatience with this ridiculous
ritual challenge. It wasn't a full-force blow
--Kira could have avoided it if she'd been paying
attention--but it was enough to stagger her off the stairs and
back down into the courtyard. She chased her balance
with two backward steps, then felt her heel come
down in something slick and rubbery. She realized
what-- who--it was an instant before her foot whisked
out from under her. Odo's gelatinous flinch had to have
been more from sympathy than any need on his part.
Kira pinwheeled to land without use of her
hands, worried for one absurd moment that she might
crush him. The jolt of discomfort that thumped up her
spine was enough to inspire a curse of her own, this time so
vile that even the Klingon looming over her blinked in
surprise. "That's it." She heaved her bat'leth
toward the open courtyard and called out, "Program
delete "Kira,"" just to watch the weapon
evaporate before it could hit the ground. "I quit."
Dax, chestnut hair loose and wild about her
armor-plated shoulders, threw Kira an
irritated scowl as she whirled to avoid a downward
lunge from Odo's former opponent, nimbly kicking
him in the teeth as she did so. "You can't quit!"
she complained, to both Kira and her own former
adversary, now leaning down to help Kira to her
feet. "What about the insult to my honor?" Odo
rippled with what might have been a snort if he'd
had the nose and lungs to produce it. He
extruded a rudimentary head big enough to remark,
"Either it doesn't require as much defense as you
thought, or you've picked the wrong warriors to help
defend it." The platter of gel under Kira's hand
twitched testily. "Major, if you don't
mind..." "Oh... sorry." Kira shifted her
weight as best she could, ignoring the clench of
indignant muscles across the small of her back.
Odo oozed out from under one hand, then the other. The
bulge at the top of the gelatin pool glided
smoothly into a humanoid outline, then sketched in
its own details of color, texture, and form.
"Come on, you guys." Dax's bat'leth struck
holographic sparks off holographic armor as
she swung around to confront Kira's former
attacker. Deprived by the holo-suite computer of
their programmed targets, both of Worf's
seconds were now closing in on the Trill. She
seemed more exasperated than intimidated by this
development. "You can't just walk away from our
Suv'batlh" Worf fastened a huge hand around
Kira's elbow. "It is not our Suv'batlh,"
he rumbled. His expression, always somewhat grim
by Bajoran standards, all but smoldered beneath the
shadows of his lacquered face-mask. Kira fitted
her hand between a seam in his armor's vainbrace, and
tried to take at least some of her own weight as the
big Klingon heaved her to her feet. "This is not
any Suv'batlh at all." If Dax
appreciated the thunder on Worf's dark face,
Kira saw no sign of it. "Speak for yourself," she
countered, knocking the second holographic
Klingon onto his back with a fierce swing of her
bat'leth, then thumping Worf in the small of his
back with the rounded edge of her weapon. "I'm not going
to stand by while you tell me where I can and can't go, like
I was one of your courtesans." Worf spun on
her, growling with all the fury of a ghar-wolf as he
seized her bat'leth in both hands. In that instant,
Kira appreciated how much of his Kling-on
nature he hid from them every moment of every day.
"Computer End program!" A polite,
nonintrusive chime wafted through the burning air of the
Dulloil desert, rippling the edges of meo
trees and Klingon-hewn stone until it seemed the
whole world was melting in the heat. By the time the computer
informed them, "Program ended," their slice of
ancient Klingon history had dissolved
down to four black walls and a gridwork of
intersecting lines. Kira felt the same startling
press of claustrophobia that always swarmed over her
when the holo-suite's illusion of openness was over.
"You make a mockery of an honorable tradition."
His words were accusatory, but Worf's tone sounded more
disappointed than angry. He released Dax's
weapon with a snarl. "I should not have accepted your
challenge." Dax shook her hair back from
her face, exposing the very unklingonlike spattering
of freckles at each temple. "I'm not trying
to mock anything." She looked tall and lanky in
her exoskeleton of Klingon armor; the intricate
structure of both rantou lacquer and bat'leth
stood out in even greater relief now that the
holo-suite's walls were all that surrounded them.
"You knew that going with the Victoria Adams was
important to me." Kira had heard this argument in
every permutation ever since the Terran science vessel
left the station two days ago, but the indignation in
Dax's voice still sounded freshly minted. "Do you have
any idea how many thousands of years it's going to be
until I get another chance to witness a cometary
deluge like this one?" "The rarity of an
astronomical event does not make it imperative
that every science officer in Starfleet view it,"
Worf informed her bluntly. "As station tactical
officer, I determined that your primary duty is
here. On DS9." Sighing, Kira wearily
popped the straps at the knee joints of her armor
and settled to the floor to wait out the debate. Dax
grounded her bat'leth with a thump that rang painful
echoes off the bare holo-suite walls. "On
DS9,
Commander Worf, my duty is to document all
scientific phenomena in and around this region of
space." "Not when a Starfleet research vessel
has already been dispatched expressly for the purpose
of observing that phenomenon," Worf snarled back.
"In that case, your duty consists "I know, I
know." The Trill's voice sizzled with a level of
annoyance that didn't quite match the wry glint in her
grey eyes. "Making sure the station is prepared for
all the possible scientific emergencies that might
arise. Emergencies that you felt the need
to enumerate in a four-page report that convinced
Benjamin he couldn't afford to let me go!" "It is
important for a commanding officer to know all the
strategic considerations that might influence his
decision. And the current situation with the Klingons--"
"No matter how many Klingons may or may not be
violating the Neutral Zone, the Victoria
Adams is no less likely to be attacked just
because I'm not on board." A hint of youthful
petulance crept into Dax's voice. "And I
wanted to watch the comets fall." Worf scowled, not
yielding. "The danger to the Victoria Adams is
beside the point. As a senior science officer, you are
too valuable to this station to risk yourself on
frivolous scientific tourist excursions." "How
about frivolous Honor Combats?" Dax
retorted, giving her bat'leth a twirl. The
tactical officer grunted, and Kira almost thought
she saw him flush. "Precisely why I should not have
accepted your challenge." That gruff admission was
apparently retreat enough for Dax. Her resilient,
puckish humor returned with a fierce smile.
"Admit it," she cajoled, dancing forward a step
to chuck his arm with the side of her bat'leth. "With the
Day of Honor coming up, you thought a little
Suv'batlh might be a fun way to celebrate the
holiday." Worf stiffened, but didn't pull
away. "Honor is not meant to be fun. And the
Batlh Jaj is not a holiday. It is the occasion
on which true Klingons re-affirm their own sense of
honor and commemorate the honor of their most
esteemed enemies." "Like Captain James T.
Kirk of the first Enterprise," Dax said, with a
mischievous smile. "My old friend Kor used
to demonstrate the esteem he felt for Kirk
by drinking an extra keg of blood wine on every
Batlh Jaj." "That," said Worf
repressively, "is not the correct way
to celebrate the Day of Honor." "Neither
is increasing the number of provocative intrusions
into the Klingon-Cardassian Neutral Zone, if
you ask me." Odo folded his hands atop updrawn
knees in unconscious mimicry of Kira. "It
makes me wonder if your people still believe in
celebrating the honor of their enemies, Commander."
"Not all enemies have honor," Worf growled.
"To those that do not, the Klingons owe no commemoration of
Batlh Jaj." Odo snorted. "From the
response we've been getting to this holiday of
yours, I'd say the Humans feel exactly the
same way about the Klingons." Kira found herself
forced to agree with that. While she thought the observance of
any Klingon holiday within the Federation a dubious
practice, considering
the recent tensions that had flared between the two former
enemies, she certainly hadn't expected the
violent antipathy that had ignited throughout the
Alpha Quadrant as preparations for the Day of
Honor drew near. On DS9--WHICH had
acknowledged the holiday for as long as the Federation had
kept a presence theretothere'd been a distinct
increase in racist grumbling. As the grumbling
increased, they'd gradually phased out plans for a
display of locally owned Klingon art, then the
Klingon food festival, and finally even the
re-enactment of the Klingons' traditional Honor
Combat--Suv'batlh--for fear of how station
personnel would respond to the Klingon costumes and
weapons. Worf shoved off his lacquered
battle-mask to reveal a grim face streaked with
rivulets of sweat. Dax might not have been winning
their face-to-face combat, but she'd certainly
managed to press the Klingon warrior to his
limits. "I advised Captain Sisko that
to commemorate the Day of Honor so soon after the
invasion of Cardassia might be unwise."
"I don't think it's the
Cardassians who are the problem," Kira said
soberly. "No," Dax agreed. "The problem is
that the Day of Honor is supposed to celebrate a
time when Humans and Klingons united against a common
enemy, even while they were fighting each other. And
now, when we're facing a common enemy greater than
any we've encountered before--"
"My people," Odo
interjected, with the bitter resignation that always soured
his voice when he spoke those words.
"--the Klingons have endangered the entire Alpha
Quadrant by dividing it rather than uniting it.
It makes the Day of Honor--" She broke off
again, this time slanting Worf a wary look. However,
the Klingon tactical oficer finished the thought for her
with the ruthless lack of self-pity Kira found so
characteristic of his race. "--a mockery of what it is
supposed to represent." His dark eyes slitted
down to angry lines of frustration. "Which is why I
cannot even challenge those who spit upon my honor with
their signs and their curses!" Kira winced at the
snarling tone of repressed fury, and wondered if,
all along, this holographic combat hadn't just been
Dax's Trill-clever way to give Worf's
bottled rage a safe place to erupt. The fact
that this possibility had just occurred to her now, she
thought wryly, was a testimony to her own naivete
about the conflict brewing between the Klingons and the
Federation. Kira hadn't known any Humans
until after the Cardassian Occupation ended,
didn't even really know what a Klingon was except
for having heard their name and practices invoked in
Cardassian threats. When she'd first been forced
to work with Humans in the rebuilding years after the
Occupation, she'd found them incomprehensibly
diplomatic, in-furiatingly even-tempered, and
maddeningly dense. The first Klingons she
encountered--staunch allies of the Federation for what had
seemed, at the time, an eternity--had struck her as
being even less understandable, despite their refreshingly
straightforward
lack of Human manners. They'd comprised
different facets of her indoctrination into galactic
culture. And, after four years' immersion on board
Deep Space Nine, she'd learned
to appreciate--even like-- Humans, if still not
completely understand them. The Klingons, however, still
completely eluded her. They were a hard people, in many
ways more complicated than the simplicity of their
behavior suggested. Their separation from the Federation and
all its friendship meant had seemed irrational
to Kira She saw their sudden, aggressive
expansion into every border star system that couldn't drive
them off as being no more forgivable than anything the
Cardassians had ever done. In the months that
followed, she heard the Humans around her speak in
ways she'd never expected. Of populations
battered to extinction, starbases brutalized,
grandparents or uncles or even older siblings
tortured to death by an enemy too different, too
barbaric to ever trust or understand. They'd sounded like they
were talking about demonic creatures of such
supernatural evil that they threatened the very existence
of the universe. Instead, they were talking about the
Klingons. That was how Kira found out about the world before
the Khitomer Accords. Venerable Human
politeness had prevented the Federation from lingering over
the fact that they'd been mortal enemies with the
Klingons for generations longer than they'd ever been
friends. They'd graciously granted the Klingons their
cultural differences, learned not to take offense at
the aggressiveness Klingons tended to fling around them like
spittle, 10 prided themselves on their respect for
Klingon history and tradition. In return, the
Klingons endeavored to be less obvious in their
disdain for Federation bureaucracy, and stopped bullying
Starfleet officers. Apparently, everyone had thought
this great progress at the time. But from Kira's
point of view it had seemed to be progress
built more on tolerance than respect, and doomed
to fail because of that. For a comparatively short period
of time, it had looked like the Klingons and the Federation
needed each other--two vast giants coming to grips
with the fact that even the greatest behemoth needed someone
to guard its farthest edges. Maybe if their peace had
lasted longer they would have eased into a more lasting
symbiosis. As it was, their fledgling
romance hadn't lasted past the first cultural spat.
Borders slammed, families remembered all the
atrocities and fears passed down from beloved
grandfolk and historical texts, and the comfortable
shackles of hatred slipped back into place, as
though no one had ever loosened them. "It's not you."
She hadn't really meant to say anything. if there was
one thing she'd come to understand about Worf since he
joined the crew, it was that he was proud, and intensely
private. But the words popped out as though tumbling
directly off her thoughts. She knew when he
turned his frown on her that she'd trapped herself
in!completing her observation, whether Worf would
appreciate it or not. "The people here--they're not even
seeing you. They're seeing political battles that
are keeping them from getting letters to their loved ones, or
spare parts for
the atmospheric propagators." She lifted
one shoulder in a somewhat apologetic shrug, even
though she wasn't sure what she herself had
to apologize for. "Don't take it personally."
Worf differences, learned not to take offense at the
aggressiveness Klingons tended to fling around them like
spittle, 10 prided themselves on their respect for
Klingon history and tradition. In
return, the Klingons endeavored to be less
obvious in their disdain for Federation bureaucracy, and
stopped bullying Starfleet officers. Apparently,
everyone had thought this great progress at the time. But
from Kira's point of view it had seemed to be
progress built more on tolerance than respect,
and doomed to fail because of that. For a comparatively
short period of time, it had looked like the Klingons
and the Federation needed each other--two vast giants
coming to grips with the fact that even the greatest behemoth
needed someone to guard its farthest edges. Maybe if
their peace had lasted longer they would have eased into a more
lasting symbiosis. As it was, their fledgling
romance hadn't lasted past the first cultural spat.
Borders slammed, families remembered all the
atrocities and fears passed down from beloved
grandfolk and historical texts, and the comfortable
shackles of hatred slipped back into place, as
though no one had ever loosened them. "It's not you."
She hadn't really meant to say anything. if there was
one thing she'd come to understand about Worf since he
joined the crew, it was that he was proud, and intensely
private. But the words popped out as though tumbling
directly off her thoughts. She knew when he
turned his frown on her that she'd trapped
herself in!completing her observation, whether Worf would
appreciate it or not. "The people here--they're not even
seeing you. They're seeing political battles that
are keeping them from getting letters to their loved ones, or
spare parts for
the atmospheric propagators." She lifted
one shoulder in a somewhat apologetic shrug, even
though she wasn't sure what she herself had
to apologize for. "Don't take it personally."
Worf gave her a sharp frown, as if her words had
translated into a threat rather than the friendly advice
she'd intended. More proof that Kira still didn't
understand Klingons. "Hatred is always personal,"
he told her bleakly. "It is only the face of
your enemy that changes." There didn't seem to be
anything she could say in response to that; Kira was
glad when her comm badge chirped and gave her an
excuse to look away. "Sisko to Kira." She
fumbled with latches on her armor with one hand as she
answered, anticipating. "Kira here."
"Major--" Sisko's deep voice was hard
to
read, colored over by the busy sounds of Ops in
his background. "I believe you're with Commander Dax
and the Constable." Kira glanced reflexively
at the officers surrounding her. "And Commander
Wo rf," she said, rolling carefully to her knees.
Then, in response to the tension in his tone, "Is there
a problem?"
"Why don't we discuss that here in
Ops?" The captain had an unnerving way of
sounding his most calm when things were approaching their most
perilous. "Right now, we're facing either a
delicate rescue operation or a full-scale
Klingon war. I thought I'd collect a few
second opinions before I decide."
Benjamin Sisko could still remember precisely
what he'd felt three months ago, in the moment
he'd heard about the breaking of the Khitomer
Accords. A single icy spike of disbelief, then
an explosion of frustrated anger at the success
of the Dominion's divide-and-conquer tactics.
Despite all the later emotions that had knitted
themselves into the tangled tapestry of his feelings toward
the Klingons--betrayal, annoyance, even
unexpected sympathy for Worf's impossible
position in Starfleet--the sharp memory of that
initial reaction had never faded. Great moments in
history did that to the people who lived through them--
crystallized a single day's events inside
the shifting smoke of memory the way a supernova
hammered a permanent singularity through the fabric of
space and time. Sisko sometimes wondered if those
shock-carved memories weren't the truest imprint
of history, more real and indelible than any
datachip's video record. Unfortunately, not
enough time had passed since that day for his deep-seated
rage to be relegated entirely to memory. The
embers of it still smoldered, banked beneath the
accumulated worries and stress of the hundred
intervening days. And the disrupted emergency
transmission he had just watched flicker across the
main screen of Ops hadn't done a thing to quench it.
The turbolift platform hissed into sight, rising
far too slowly, as it always seemed to do in tense
situations like these. When it finally arrived, what
looked like a medieval Klingon melee poured out
into Ops, making one of the junior officers gasp and
another stifle a laugh. Sisko lifted an
eyebrow as he recognized
the senior officers who made up the core of his
tactical analysis team beneath the sweat and jangle
of lacquered armor. Kira shot him a rueful
glance of apology, while Worfjust looked
stoic. Dax went to her science console as
if reporting for duty in ancient Klingon fighting
garb were something she'd done a dozen times before. Knowing
Curzon, that might even be true. "We got a
report in from the Victoria Adams already?" she
asked, reading the signature frequency of the
transmission on her display before Sisko could even
open his mouth to brief them. "But they can't have had time
to gather much data on the cometary event. They were
only scheduled to arrive in the KDZ-E25From
system a few hours ago."
"It's
not a scientific report." Sisko crossed
Ops to join her in front of the panel, frowning at
the digital gibberish that scrolled across her screen.
"Unfortunately, right now that's all I'm sure
of. The message was so badly disrupted that all we
could make out was that Captain Marsters encountered
Klingons and an emergency situation had developed.
Can you sift through the interference and clean the signal
up, old man?" "I can try." Dax handed him her
bat'leth and pulled back her unruly mane of
hair, then focused on her data display with the kind
of instant intensity that only a joined Trill
symbiont and host could summon. Sisko took a
step back and reined his simmering impatience
in with an effort. Badgering Dax for results right
now would only slow her down. Instead, he wrapped
his fingers tight around the 14
traditional Klingon weapon he'd been given,
feeling the deep warmth of the metal blade radiating
through its sweaty leather grip. Whatever archaic
Klingon ritual his senior officers had been
re-creating down in Quark's holo-suite, their
battle gear hadn't just been donned for
authenticity. Only a long and hard-fought battle
could have soaked so much of Dax's body heat into her
weapon. Sisko raised an eyebrow at Kira,
and saw his first officer drop her hand almost guiltily
from the sore shoulder she'd been massaging. "Could you
reconstruct the Victoria Adams's
coordinates at the time of transmission?" the
major asked, clearly determined to ward off any
questions about her fitness for duty. "If they veered off
course toward one of the areas the Klingons have claimed
as theirs--" Sisko shook his head. "The signal
tracked right back to the E25From system. That's
nowhere near any of the disputed territory." Worf
frowned over his armored shoulder. "Still, there has been
a significant increase in Klingon incursions
throughout the entire demilitarized zone in the
last few months," he reminded Sisko. "If you
recall my warnings on the possible dangers of this
scientific observation mission--" Sisko winced.
It had been easy at the time the Victoria
Adams had departed to dismiss Worfs warnings as
Klingon paranoia. No incidents, other than a
few distant sightings of warships and smugglers, had
disturbed the uneasy peace of that part of the
Klingon-Cardassian demilitarized zone. And there
had been nothing special about the KDZ-E25From
system--aside from its unfortunate ownership of a
disintegrating giant comet--to attract the attention of
either the Cardassian or Klingon empires.
"Limited landmass, no significant
resources, and utterly impassable vegetation" was
how the ancient Starfleet survey charts had
summarized the system's single Class-M
planet. It had seemed a safe enough place for a
small shipload of planetary scientists and
retired Starfleet officers to go to view a cosmic
fireworks show. "This isn't deliberate
signal-jamming," Dax said abruptly, saving
Sisko from having to answer his tactical officer.
"The interference cuts randomly across the entire
subspace spectrum."
"Couldn't the noise be coming from all
those comet impacts the Victoria Adams went
to observe?" O'Brien inquired. Dax shook her
head. "Not unless the comet fragments in that shower are
made of dilithium instead of ice. The
electromagnetic noise generated by bolide
impacts on a Class-M planet might very
well contaminate the radio and visible bands, but it
shouldn't touch subspace frequencies. Not even
to mask--" Her voice broke off without warning, and
her fingers began to fly across the computer panel.
Sisko shot a frowning glance at her data output
screen, but saw nothing he could recognize as a
significant change in the random display of
noise. "What is it, old man?" Dax looked
up, her eyes crackling with sudden realization. "This
interference we're seeing--it's not a generated
signal at all, natural or artificial. It
never
adds to any wavelength of the Victoria
Adams's sub-space signal, it only
decreases it to a greater or lesser extent. In the
places where the transmission's nearly wiped out,
there's no static in its place. Just nothing."
"What does that mean?" Kira asked.
"It means the Victoria Adams's subspace
signal has been filtered through a massive
depolarizing field." A rumble too fierce for a
groan and too wordless for a curse emerged from somewhere
deep in Worf's chest. Sisko shot a questioning
look at him, and saw the bared-teeth grimace that
said his chief tactical officer didn't like what he
was going to have to say. "There is only one way
to create that kind of field in open space."
Worf's voice deepened in a bleak mixture of
vindication and regret. "Massive Klingon
disruptor fire."
"Yes," Dax agreed. "The Victoria
Adams must have been under Klingon attack when she
sent this message." For a moment, the only sound in
Ops was the beep and hum of computers handling the
routine business of the space station. The machines were the
only ones oblivious to the military and political
crisis crashing down upon them. Then Sisko
grunted and allowed three months of stifled anger
to escape in a cascade of orders. "Dax, get
me the best resolution you can on that transmission.
I want to know as much as we can about what happened out
there." He swung to face the rest of his crew.
"Major Kira, put in a high-priority
call to Starfleet and brief Admiral Nechayev
about the attack on the Victoria Adams. Commander
Worf, I want an updated report from
Intelligence on all known and suspected Klingon
forces in the demilitarized zone. O'Brien, get
the Defiant ready for immediate departure and notify
Dr. Bashir to assemble an emergency medical
team."
"Yes, sir. "The cadet-sharp response from the
whole crew told Sisko he was probably
letting a little too much of his temper spill into his
voice. He took a deep breath, but it didn't
do much to ease his tension. Bad enough that the Klingons had
decided to spit in the face of the Federation by attacking
a civilian ship. But to have that ship be the defenseless
research vessel Victoria Adams with its load
of vacationing Starfleet retirees--it made
Sisko's gut burn with a rage fierce enough to scorch
any remnant of hesitation from his mind. The
familiar, gravelly sound of a throat being cleared
brought his narrowed gaze around to the one senior officer
to whom he had issued no orders. Odo gazed
back with a quizzical expression in his not-quite-human
eyes, his eyebrows arched in wordless inquiry. "Is
there a problem, Constable?"
"I don't know. You certainly seem to think so."
Kira snorted without looking up from her communications
panel. "The Klingons just declared war on the
Federation, Odo. You don't call that a problem?"
"Did they?" the Changeling asked dryly. "It's
not as if the Victoria Adams was in Federation
space when she was attacked. Maquis and
Cardassian ships have been getting fired on and
chased out of the Klingon demilitarized zone for the past
three months. We knew there was a risk the same
thing would happen to the Victoria Adams. Wasn't
that why Commander Wor f recommended our science
officer not join the expedition?"
"True," Sisko agreed. "But that doesn't
mean the Federation can turn a blind eye to the destruction
of an unarmed research vessel on a scientific
mission."
"Or that we can ignore a Federation vessel's
distress call, and leave its survivors to die, just
because we are afraid of Klingon retaliation,"
Worf added grimly. "Ah." Odo tilted his
head, an ironic glitter in his pale eyes.
"No doubt you all learned that lesson at the
Academy, from that Starfleet training exercise--the
Kobayashi Maru." Sisko exchanged
frowning looks with his chief tactical officer. "This
is not a no-win situation, Constable," he said at
last. "If we can get to the E25From system in
time to rescue the crew of the Victoria Adams,
we might be able to avert a diplomatic crisis"
"---over
a misunderstanding that could be resolved just as easily
by negotiation between the Federation and the Klingon
Empire," Odo pointed out, with the same unerring
logic that made him such an impartial arbiter of
merchant disputes on the Promenade. "The loss
of a small research vessel--"
"--might be smoothed over," Sisko agreed.
"But the loss of the last two surviving officers from the
long-range explorer Glimmerglass, the only
captain to take her ship successfully through the
Chienozen passage, the science officer who
established contact
with the first inhabited neutron star, the diplomatic
liaison who--" Odo held up a hand, giving
Sisko the stiff nod he used to acknowledge his
mistakes. "You're saying we have to interfere because the
Starfleet veterans who went along for the comet show were
unusually important--" "No, they weren't,"
Sisko said bluntly. "Except for one
or two, they were just the normal run of Starfleet
retirees. What I'm saying, Constable, is that the
loss of anyone who served in uniform as long and as
honorably as those people did is going to poison
Starfleet's relations with the Klingons for years to come.
No matter what the Federation diplomats may say
or do."
"Enhanced transmission coming up on
the main screen." Dax broke into the argument without
ceremony. "I managed to extrapolate an
additional seventy percent of the signal from the
fragments that got through. Be prepared--we're still going
to lose the end." The main screen of Ops blanked,
then exploded' into a signal so brilliantly
over-enhanced that Sisko had to squint to make out the
burned-in shadows of the Victoria Adams's
bridge. Dax frowned and adjusted some control on
her screen, muting the stilled image down to more
bearable levels of brightness. The colors of deck and
uniforms and bridge stations remained artificially
monotone, however, a computer's extrapolation rather
than the varied tints and shadings of real life. A
single rawboned figure occupied the captain's
chair. Dax's enhancements hadn't changed the tense
set of his lantern jaw or erased his
scowl, but they had brought into finer focus the sweat that
beaded his face. He looked out across time and space
with intent eyes, making Sisko once again feel that
the man was making eye contact directly with him.
"This is Captain Charles Marsters of the Federation
research vessel Victoria Adams," said a
clipped, precise voice. Sisko barely
recognized it as the same static-fuzzed drawl
he'd managed to decipher only a few words from
fifteen minutes ago. "Request urgent
assistance from Deep Space Nine. We've
encountered an armed Klingon blockade around the
planet KDZ-E25F." A blast rocked the
science vessel, staggering the captain and momentarily
knocking the image back to glittering white
nothingness. "Blockade?" Kira demanded
incredulously. Sisko grunted. "I thought that was
what he said before, but I couldn't be sure. This was where
we lost the audio feed." Dax adjusted something on
her panel, and the Victoria Adams's bridge
did a slow fade back into existence on the screen.
"--attacked us for not leaving fast enough," Marsters
said, still sounding calm despite the crackle of
on-board fire beneath his words. "Hull and warp core
integrity are holding, but we lost all
life support systems in the initial attack.
We're running on limited emergency backup
now. All passengers and nonessential crew
have--" The transmission shattered into nothingness again,
presumably due to another close-range
disruptor blast. This time, when the visual feed
coalesced back into existence, it looked more ghostly
and snowed over than before.
And although Marsters's lips were still moving, no sound
emerged. Sisko cursed in fierce disappointment.
"That's the best you can do, old man? We still don't
know exactly what happened."
"The subtractive effects of
the disruptor fire were worst in the audio portion
of the signal. I can't extrapolate something from
nothing, Benjamin."
"They evacuated the
rest of the crew and passengers in a large
planetary sampling shuttle," Odo said
unexpectedly. "The Victoria Adams is going
to cover their departure by leading the Klingons as far out
of the system as possible." Sisko swung around,
startled. His chief security officer stared so
intently at the screen that he didn't even blink
at the final, blinding explosion of white
nothingness. It was at times like this that Sisko
remembered Odo's humanoid shape was merely
assumed, and not hampered by any biological
limitations. "Constable, how do you know that?"
"I can
read lips." Odo's pale eyes swung over
to him, irony washing through them like a chill of frost
across a windowpane. "It's a valuable skill to have
when you're watching Ferengi make illegal bargains
across a noisy bar." Sisko lifted an eyebrow,
but it was with respect, not skepticism. His years of
experience had taught him that the Constable never claimed
to have skills he didn't possess. "Did
Captain Marsters say where the shuttle went after it
left the ship?"
"Down to the
planet," Odo said promptly. "I believe
he said something about deliberately taking a
depowered entry path, to make it look to Klingon
sensors as though they were a falling comet fragment."
Dax frowned. "But in a thick Class-M
atmosphere like that, a steep entry path could
destabilize the shuttle and force them into a crash
landin It seems like such a risk--"
"Not as
much of a risk as staying on the Victoria
Adams, with the Klingons in pursuit and life
support failing." Sisko felt his jaw tighten
around the next question he had to ask. "Was that final
explosion the ship blowing up, Dax?" She
surprised him with a shake of her head. "I don't
think so. The signal strength was actually fading
compared to the disruptor depolarization toward the end.
I'd say the Victoria Adam, was actually
pulling away from her pursuers."
"I just hope they pulled all the
Klingons away with them," O'Brien said. "That
would leave the system clear for us to go in."
"Yes." Sisko turned to pin Kira with a
frowning glance. "Any reply yet from Starfleet
Command?" Kira grimaced. "Regional
headquarters acknowledged our hail, but says
Admiral Nechayev is in a crucial meeting with
representatives from the Vorta. She left
orders that all emergency situations be handled under the
protocol of sector commander recognizance."
Sisko's breath hissed through his teeth, but it was in
satisfaction, not annoyance. "That means that, for now,
the decision is up to us. Recommendations?"
"Go," said O'Brien curtly. "Go,"
Dax agreed.
"Go now!" growled Worf. That was the Starfleet
side of his mixed command crew, reacting exactly as
Sisko had expected. Their majority vote
essentially settled the question, but Sisko forced himself
to look over at his Bajoran second-in-command,
trying to make sure he wasn't allowing service
loyalties to overrule his better judgment. He
got back a look of crackling impatience. "Of
course, we have to go," Kira said. "Give the
Klingons a research ship in the demilitarized
zone, and they'll take a starship in the Alpha
Quadrant. If we don't stop them now, we'll
just have to deal with them later."
"Constable, do you agree?" Odo snorted.
"I think we're going to start exactly the war
we're trying to prevent. But since I appear to be
the only one who feels that way, I'll save my
energy for saying
"I told you so" a few days from now."
"I appreciate
that," Sisko said dryly. "In the meantime, could
you assemble a skeleton security squad for the
Defiant? I want to take minimal crew, so
we'll have enough room to evacuate all
survivors." He glanced over at Dax. "Do you
remember how many passengers and crew the
Victoria Adams carried?" "Fifteen
scientists, ten ship's crew, and twelve
passengers," Worf said before the science officer could
reply. "If they were on emergency life
support, the captain couldn't have takene system
clear for us to go in." "Yes." Sisko turned
to pin Kira with a frowning glance. "Any reply yet
from Starfleet Command?" Kira grimaced.
"Regional headquarters acknowledged our hail, but
says Admiral Nechayev is in a crucial
meeting with representatives from the Vorta. She
left orders that all emergency situations be handled
under the protocol of sector commander
recognizance." Sisko's breath hissed through his
teeth, but it was in satisfaction, not annoyance. "That
means that, for now, the decision is up to us.
Recommendations?"
"Go," said O'Brien curtly. "Go," Dax
agreed.
"Go now!" growled Worf. That was the Starfleet
side of his mixed command crew, reacting exactly as
Sisko had expected. Their majority vote
essentially settled the question, but Sisko forced
himself to look over at his Bajoran
second-in-command, trying to make sure he
wasn't allowing service loyalties to overrule his
better judgment. He got back a look of
crackling impatience. "Of course, we have to go,"
Kira said. "Give the Klingons a research ship
in the demi litarized zone, and they'll take a
starship in the Alpha Quadrant. If we don't
stop them now, we'll just have to deal with them later."
"Constable, do you agree?" Odo snorted.
"I think we're going to start exactly the war
we're trying to prevent. But since I appear to be
the only one who feels that way, I'll save my
energy for saying
"I told you so" a few days from now."
"I appreciate
that," Sisko said dryly. "In the meantime, could
you assemble a skeleton security squad for the
Defiant? I want to take minimal crew, so
we'll have enough room to evacuate all survivors."
He glanced over at Dax. "Do you remember how
many passengers and crew the Victoria Adams
carried?" "Fifteen scientists, ten ship's
crew, and twelve passengers," Worf said before the
science officer could reply. "If they were on
emergency life support, the captain couldn't have
taken more than four of the crew with him when he tried
leading the Klingons away," O'Brien added. "Then
we'll need to have room to evacuate at least
thirty-two." Sisko scrubbed a hand across his
face, mentally counting out the crew he could spare.
"Dr. Bashir will still have to take a full medical
team, which means we cut down ship's crew
to fifteen. Agreed?" Dax gave him a somber
look. "I don't think we need to be that
conservative. You're assuming all the survivors
we rescue are going to be healthy. If the medical
bay is filled, we'll end up with five empty
bunks that could have held ship's crew."
"All right, twenty. Staff all sectors
accordingly and assemble in docking bay five in fifteen
minutes." Sisko vaulted out of the central hub of
Ops and headed for the turbolift that would take him
to his ship, reining in his impatience just long enough to let
his five senior officers board the lift with him.
"Promenade," he told the computer, confident he
would find Bashir and his team already waiting to join them.
"O'Brien, will you brief the doctor on what
injuries he can expect to find in the crash
survivors?" His chief engineer shot him a
startled look across the crowded turbolift platform.
"Why me?" Sisko lifted an eyebrow at him.
"I assumed you'd know what kind of space-drive
the planetary sampling shuttle had, so Dr.
Bashir could know whether he needs to deal with radiation
damage or plasma burns." O'Brien
grunted. "Crash damage is probably the least
of the survivors' worries, Captain." "What do
you mean?"
"Well, nobody told that giant comet out there
to stop disintegrating just because the Klingons fired on our
research vessel. The survivors from the
Victoria Adams are taking shelter on a
planet where fire is
raining out of the sky and the days are as dark as the
nights--"
"And
tsunami shock waves are coming in from any
impacts that happen to hit the ocean." Dax sounded
more wi/l than worried. "It must be like--"
"Hell," Worf suggested. "Not hell,
sylshessc" Kira saw their questioning looks and shook
her head until her earring tinkled, obviously at
a loss to translate the Bajoran word
into English. "It's an old legend from
Tal Province, about a future time when the sky
burns and the earth explodes and the waters of the sea
crash together--"
"Armageddon," Sisko said
softly. "That's the Human version of the
prophesy." Odo grunted. "And in your version,
is Armageddon the utter end of everything?"
"No," Sisko
said grimly. "It's the beginning of war."
CHAPTER 2
AT FIRST GLANCE, it didn't look much
different from any other planetary system. A
saffron yellow star spit out a normal amount of
heat, light, and solar wind; three gas giants
circled in far-flung orbits. But where the inner
rocky planets should have spun in the star's golden
glow, an ominous parabola of dust and ice enshrouded
half the system. Dax's long-range scanners
detected two small, airless planets orbiting
outside that haze, one swung out beyond its perigee
and the other caught between the curving arms of debris.
Magnification of their sun-baked surfaces
revealed a crazy quilt of craters and impact
scars from past orbital swings through the comet track.
Dax stored the surface images for later
analysis, then ran a quick check on the
extrapolated orbital parameters for both inner and
outer planets. As she'd
suspected, all of them showed perturbations from a
third, rocky inner planet, whose orbital
diameter should have put it midway between the other two.
It must be somewhere inside the remnants of the
disintegrated giant comet. She turned her attention
to the difficult task of filtering interference out of the
sensor beams as they refracted through the debris.
"Major Kira, any sign of Klingon ship
activity?" Sisko watched the main screen with a
frown. Devoid of sensor enhancements, all that could
be seen of their destination was the central twinkle of its
star and a frosty trail of debris. That crescent of
scattered gauze didn't look anywhere near as
threatening in real life as it did on her sensor
scans. Unfortunately, Dax knew her
computer-enhanced version was closer to the truth. The
Bajoran shook her head without looking away from her
output screens. "I've jacked up the
sensitivity of our ion detectors as high as they
can go, but they're showing no trace of any cloaked
vessels in the vicinity." She pursed her lips as
though considering, then added, "No sign of
uncloaked activity, either." Meaning the Victoria
Adams. "That's a good sign. It means Captain
Marsters got away and took the Klingons with him."
Sisko frowned at the Defiant's main
viewscreen. "I'd like to know what's on the
surface of those planets. There's a chance the
planetary shuttle might have landed there. Dax, can you
enhance the display?"
"I can, but sensor scans show no sign of a
recent landing on either planet." She transferred
her two stored images up to the main screen,
assigning them to their proper locations around
Armageddon's golden sun. "Computer analysis
of their orbital parameters, however, indicates
there's a third inner system planet inside the
cometary debris cloud. I haven't been able
to image it yet." She glanced across at Sisko,
reading his impatience in his drumming fingers. "But it's
the most likely location for the shuttle to land, since
it's the planet the Victoria Adams went
to study. Unfortunately, it's also the one that's being
most heavily bombarded by cometary impacts--at
least once every two or three days." O'Brien
frowned over his shoulder at her. "Just what is going
on in this system, Commander? Why did the
Victoria Adams come here to begin with?"
"Because it's one of the few planetary systems in this
quadrant whose Oort cloud agglomerated into a
single body, too fluffy to be a planet but much
too big to be a comet. It got kicked into an
inner-system orbit fifteen thousand years or so
ago when another star grazed past this one. The
stresses of that new orbit kept tearing it apart,
scattering debris along its path, until it finally
disintegrated completely on its last solar swing, just
last year. What you're seeing are its final
remains." She shot a vexed look across the
bridge at Worf. "It's a perfect re-creation
of the kind of event that we think caused a mass
extinction on the Trill home-world. Observing it
would have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,
even for a Trill."
"Had you gone with
the Victoria Adams, you might have found it the
last-in-a-lifetime opportunity," the Klingon
tactical officer reminded her. He looked up from
the pilot's console he'd taken over while Dax
concentrated on her sensor scans. "Can you
obtain a rough fix on the planet's position using
the curvature of its gravity well? I
need to plot a course."
"And I'd like a visual image," Sisko
added. "I can fix the third planet's position, but
I can't image it through all the interference. This is the
best I can do." Dax sent the blotched gray
image she had captured to the main viewscreen. It
looked even worse when it was magnified, so
vaguely outlined that it could have been the veiled halo
of a comet as easily as a planet. "Chief, can you
give me any more resolution on my sensor beam?"
O'Brien tapped a scan into his control panel
and grunted. "I can give you a sixty-five
percent increase in beam confinement, Commander, but only
for a few minutes. On your mark." Dax carefully
delimited her scanning range to the exact
coordinates of the planet to avoid wasting sensor
power. "Mark." The image on the screen slowly
swam into focus as the tightened beam scanned across
it. Its blurred outer edge became the hazy
smudge of an atmospheric layer, as
oxide-browned as a heavily industrialized
planet's. But its nightside showed no signs of
urban lights, and the isolated sprawl of island
archipelagos dotting its blue-green oceans
seemed too small to support any kind of
machine-based civilization. There was only one larger
landmass in view, haft-hidden by the planet's
terminus. Dax thought she saw the hint of a massive
impact crater in that shadowed twilight edge, but the
resolution faded back to fuzzy gray before she could
confirm it. She hoped it had been a comet that made
that scar.
"Sorry, Commander," O'Brien sighed. "That was
all the power I could jack in without burning out the
sensor array."
"That's all right. I can't
confirm impact structures, but that brown color
means there's been a lot of dust and ash kicked into the
stratosphere recently. We'll have to get a lot
closer before I can tell you if there's a crash
site." Worf glanced back across his shoulder at
Sisko. "Shall I lay in an orbit, Captain?"
Sisko rubbed his chin. "Can we navigate safely
through all that cometary debris?"
"Our shields should take care of the smaller
debris," Kira pointed out. "And we can program
short-range sensors to alert us to any imminent
collisions with larger fragments." Worf frowned at
her. "Gi ven the political situation, I strongly
recommend that we remain under cloak at
all times on this mission. If we were to fire at an
oncoming comet fragment, we would give away our
presence to the Klingons."
"Assuming there are any Klingons here to give it
away to," Kira retorted. "I'm still getting
no trace of ion trails anywhere in the system."
"But that doesn't mean we can assume they aren't
here. The Klingons might have already come back from chasing
the Victoria Adams, and dropped into a
Lagrangian orbit around the planet to conserve
power." Sisko drummed his fingers on the arm of his
command chair, looking intensely thoughtful.
"O'Brien, can we recalibrate our shields
to an angle that will deflect any oncoming debris
fragments without disturbing our cloaking effect?"
"We can try." The chief engineer hunched over his
panel as he ran the calculations. "But we're not
going to have full power as long as we're under cloak.
It looks like we should be able to deflect about ninety
percent of the debris we encounter without any
significant change in vector. The rest will hit
at such a direct angle that we'll feel the
impact, even through shields. It shouldn't cause
any real damage, but if someone was watching us
closely, they might notice the fragment
bouncing off." He glanced up unhappily. "It
also means I can't promise we'll maintain
shield integrity under a disruptor hit."
"That's a chance we'll
have to take." Sisko turned back to the pilot's
console. "Mr. Worf, as soon as the shields are
recalibrated, take us into a circumpolar orbit
at minimum impulse power. That should give us an
opportunity to scan the whole planet without having
our signals or our ion trail picked up
by anyone who might be watching."
"Aye-aye, sir." Sisko swung his command
chair back in the other direction. "Major
Kira, as we come in, I want you to concentrate
your ion detection scans on the planet's
Lagrange points. If there are Klingon
vessels present, we may be able to pick up some
minor leakage from their warp cores. Dax, I
want full scans of the planet's surface,
calibrated for humanoid life signs, as soon
as we hit orbit."
"It may take longer than usual with all that
atmospheric pollution," she warned. It didn't
seem worth adding that the racial diversity of
Victoria adams's crew would also add
unique convolutions to the readings. "Understood."
Sisko stood and paced down to the front of the
Defiant's bridge, as if physical
proximity to the fuzzy planet displayed there would show
him something he hadn't already seen. "I wonder why the
Klingons would risk attacking a civilian ship
all the way out here? What's in this system that they
don't want us interfering with?"
"Besides generic Klingon aggression?" Kira
asked. "You don't think that's reason enough for them
to sweep their borders clean?" Sisko made an
impatient gesture with his hands. "Maybe. But I
can't see any tactical advantage to this. Something
about it just doesn't feel right." "That is because it is
not honorable to wage war on a weakened enemy,"
Worf said stiffly. "And all Klingons know that
scientists are the weakest warriors of all."
"Oh, are they?" O'Brien raised his eyebrows
toward Dax, and she rewarded him with an amused
smile. "That's a prejudice that's cost them a
lot of battles in the past," she assured him. The
bridge doors hissed apart before Worf could do more
than glower at her joke. Bashir and Odo came
through them together, the doctor glancing curiously up
at the viewscreen while the security
officer went to join Kira at the weapons station.
"Any sign of Klingons yet?" Odo asked.
"Not an ion's worth." Kira yielded the panel
to him, stretching as she turned to look up at the main
screen. "What about survivors?" Bashir
followed Kira's gaze, drifting almost
unconsciously toward Dax. The
gauzy veil of debris had resolved into hazy
streaks and glowing gas streamers while they approached
it, a tangled braid of cometary fragments trapped
and melting in the heat of Armageddon's saffron
sun. "We're still working on that," Dax assured the
doctor. "Worf's taking us in for a closer
look." A worried frown settled over his lean
face, but Sisko silenced any protest he might
have voiced with a single raised finger and a calmly
spoken, "Patience, doctor." He nodded down
at Dax in a clear gesture of redirection.
"Dax, how can this much ice exist in such close
proximity to the star?"
"It can't," Dax admitted. "That's why
the whole debris belt looks so fuzzy with
vapor. But there's enough debris from the ice giant
to last for quite a while."
"So comet
fragments will continue to bombard the inner planets
for years." Kira shook her head, looking somber.
"I wouldn't wish that fate on any inhabited world."
"At least they don't have to suffer it all year
round," O'Brien pointed out. "They have an
"impact season" while they're inside the
debris field, but then they can recover during the time
they spend outside it."
"That doesn't seem to have helped the two
smallest planets in the system," Dax said.
"They've suffered such intense bombardment in the past
that they don't have an atmosphere or hydrosphere
left. It's all been blasted into space."
"Let's hope the
escape shuttle actually made it to the
Class-M, then." Bashir folded his arms as
though to hide the nervous clenching and unclenching of his
hands. "What was it called again?
KPZ-E20-SOMETHING?"
"KDZ-E25From," Odo
said precisely. "Not exactly a memorable
designation."
"No," Dax agreed.
"In my science notes, I've started calling
it Armageddon."
"You would,"
Bashir said, more in resignation than disgust. "Why
not sylshessa?" Kira demanded. "Because there already is
a planet called Sylshessa. It's a
Tellarite colony near Vulcan." Dax threw
a cautious look at the captain, knowing her odd
Trill sense of humor didn't always sit well
with him at times of tension. The glint in his dark eyes
encouraged her to add, "At least Armageddon is a
better name than Splat. That's what the crew of the
Victoria Adams was calling the Class-M
planet."
"Let's hope neither
of those names becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy, old man," Sisko retorted. "For
us or for the survivors."
"We are entering the cometary
debris field now, Captain." The deep tone
of Worf's voice never varied under pressure, but
Dax knew him well enough now to read the strain in his
carefully clipped syllables. She felt the
Defiant lurch a little as a large ice fragment
impacted its newly angled shields. "Our
shields appear to be deflecting most of the debris,
but we are losing some directional control
to friction."
"Lower speed to warp one and
compensate for course deviations." Sisko
resumed his command seat, staring up at the viewscreen
with the fierce attention he usually reserved for
opponents in battle. The
image of the Class-M planet slowly
resolved as they drew closer, condensing back into the
dust-stained, blue-green sphere they'd caught a
glimpse of before. The terminator had crept
slightly westward, exposing more of the long, oblong
gouge scarring the one large landmass. "Is that the
crash site?" Bashir asked. "No." The
increased magnification of her science panel showed
Dax the scatter of smaller craters trailing
away from the main one, each surrounded by a starburst of
exploded rock and soil. "It's a cometary strike
--looks like a large bolide shattered just before
impact. There's almost no erosion on the debris
fans. I'm guessing it happened within the last few
weeks."
"We are entering
circumpolar orbit now, Captain."
"Very good. Dax, begin scanning for
life-signs."
"Yes, sir." She punched in extra
sensitivity filters for humanoid vital signs,
then paused to read the flickering output from her
sensors. "I'm showing a standard oxygen-nitrogen
atmosphere, with traces of methane, carbon
dioxide, and argon."
"Also methyl iodide at a level
indicative of marine-dominant
photosynthesis." Bashir leaned over her shoulder
to point at the telltale spike on her
spectro-graphic display. "The ocean's still full
of life, despite getting blasted by rocks from outer
space. Are you picking up any life-signs on
land?"
"Yes. A
surprising amount, actually." Dax read through her
scanner output again, to make sure she hadn't
misinterpreted the unusual readings it gave her.
"According to this, the main continent is pretty much
desolate in the interior, but swarming with native
life around its edges. Thick vegetative cover
of
some kind is showing up on IR, both on the
coast and on the islands. I suspect there are
several types of higher vertebrates still
inhabiting the surface, many of them exhibiting herding
or pack behavior." Sisko waved a hand,
impatient as always with the dry basics of biology and
planetology. "What about the escape shuttle?
Any sign of it?"
"Not so
far." The Defiant cruised slowly over the
planet's unglaciated polar region, then down
across its other hemisphere. Here, night was falling
across a second enormous blue-green sea, this one
even more thickly laced with surf-fringed tropical
islands. "Life-sign scans are still showing only
native vertebrates and marine life--no,
wait... We've got a hit!"
"The crew?" Kira demanded. "I don't
know..." Dax flicked her eyes back and forth across
her panel, trying to absorb every reading at once.
"I'm showing about twenty life-signs on one of the
small islands in that central archipelago. They're
masked by some kind of phased energy field--I think
it might be the shield generator from the shuttle."
"What
about the shuttle itself?." Sisko asked. Dax
shook her head at her display. "I'm not picking
up any kind of equipment or power-source
reading at all. Just the field interference and the--" A
flutter in the readings distract ed her. "Julian,
come take a look at this." She leaned to one side
to let the doctor bend over her shoulder. "Is this a
problem with my scanning filters, or are almost all
of these life-forms injured?" Bashir tapped a
query on her computer, cursing softly at the
response he saw. "There's nothing wrong
with your filters. These are humanoid readings, and
at least thirteen of them are injured, seven
critically. Three of them are nearly dead." A
grim silence fell over the Defiant while
everyone stared at Armageddon's unrevealing
freckled oceans as if they could somehow answer all
their qedges. Thick vegetative cover of
some kind is showing up on IR, both on the
coast and on the islands. I suspect there are
several types of higher vertebrates still inhabiting
the surface, many of them exhibiting herding or pack
behavior." Sisko waved a hand, impatient as
always with the dry basics of biology and
planetology. "What about the escape shuttle?
Any sign of it?"
"Not so
far." The Defiant cruised slowly
over the planet's unglaciated polar region,
then down across its other hemisphere. Here, night was
falling across a second enormous blue-green
sea, this one even more thickly laced with surf-fringed
tropical islands. "Life-sign scans are still
showing only native vertebrates and marine life--
no, wait... We've got a hit!"
"The crew?" Kira demanded. "I don't
know..." Dax flicked her eyes back and forth across
her panel, trying to absorb every reading at once.
"I'm showing about twenty life-signs on one of the
small islands in that central archipelago. They're
masked by some kind of phased energy field--I think
it might be the shield generator from the shuttle."
"What
about the shuttle itself?." Sisko asked. Dax
shook her head at her display. "I'm not picking
up any kind of equipment or power-source reading
at all. Just the field interference and the--" A
flutter in the readings distracted her. "Julian,
come take a look at this." She leaned to one side
to let the doctor bend over her shoulder. "Is this a
problem with my scanning filters, or are almost all
of these life-forms injured?" Bashir tapped a
query on her computer, cursing softly at the
response he saw. "There's nothing wrong
with your filters. These are humanoid readings, and
at least thirteen of them are injured, seven
critically. Three of them are nearly dead." A
grim silence fell over the Defiant while
everyone stared at Armageddon's unrevealing
freckled oceans as if they could somehow answer all
their questions. "That must be the Victoria Adams's
crew," O'Brien said at last, voicing the
conclusion that none of them wanted to reach. "But there were
thirty-two passengers and crew on the Victoria
Adams," Kira protested. "You're saying half
of them are dead or dying?"
"I'm saying
they're in urgent need of medical help, whoever
they are." Bashir glanced across at O'Brien.
"Chief, can we transport them straight to the
medical bay?"
"Not as long as that shield generator is going. And
I doubt they're going to drop it--they're
probably using it to try and ward off comet
impacts."
"Very well." Bashir straightened and turned
toward Sisko, suddenly wearing the innate dignity
that his strong sense of medical ethics could
bestow on him despite his youth and joie de vivre.
"Captain, request permission to take an
emergency medical team to the planet's surface."
"Granted," Sisko said without hesitation.
"Major Kira, go with him. And Dax"--he fixed
her with a not-entirely humorous glower--"this had
better be the end of your complaining about not going on the
Victoria Adams, old man." Dax winced, but
the acidic comment couldn't entirely quench the
scientific enthusiasm bubbling through her. Worf
glanced over his shoulder, furrowed brow drawn
into tighter lines than usual. "Captain, I am
the obvious choice to accompany Dr. Bashir as
protection. As chief tactical officer--"
"I'm going to need you here in
case the Klingons show up and challenge us,"
Sisko returned. "Don't worry, Mr.
Worf. I'm sure Dax and the major can take
care of themselves." The Klingon grunted and threw
Dax the severely reproving look she was never quite
sure how to interpret. "Under normal
circumstances, I would agree," he said grimly.
"How reassuring." Dax set her sensors on
autoscan until her replacement could arrive on
the bridge. Kira was already accompanying
Bashir to the turbolift, leaving Odo in sole
command of her console. As she turned to follow them,
Dax paused only long enough to blow Worf a
facetious kiss. It made him wince and look
away, just as she'd expected. "You be careful,
too. You're going to be getting bombarded by as many
comet fragments as I am." The chief tactical
officer growled up at the view-screen, although Dax
didn't think it was the view that had enraged him.
"Somehow," he said between his teeth, "I think the comets
are going to be the least of our problems."
Bashir's first impression of Armageddon was that it
stank like a butchery. The stench slapped over them with a
force completely overriding any images of
dust-shrouded sun, crystal blue ocean, or
pearlescent sand. Bashir brought his arm up to shield
his nose and mouth. He
knew it was pointless, a blind make-work instinct,
even as his left hand scrambled to open his medical
kit and dig out the tube of olfacan by feel.
He'd carried olfacan in every medkit, and stored some
in half a dozen sick bay drawers, ever since his
first medical school autopsy. Logic understood that
illness could be ugly. Sight could be trained to see the
person beyond radiation burns, to understand the
pathology of trauma and disease. But smell spoke
directly to those most primitive places of one's
brain; it simply refused to be reasoned with. Still,
after half a lifetime of downplaying his own assets
for the sake of peer acceptance, it had taken him
by surprise to discover a weakness he hadn't
suspected. Later, he would try to convince himself that
it was his supernaturally acute sense of smell that
had betrayed him. At the time, his stomach gave in
to a fight-or-flight reflex that no amount of
intellectual resistance could override, and he'd
fled the autopsy theatre in an effort to minimize his
humiliation. It was afterward that an older resident
introduced him to the joys of an anesthetized
olfactory nerve--a fingerful of colorless ointment
across the upper lip, and even Bashir's keen sense
of smell faded into blissful nonexistence for a good
two to three hours. Years later, he still greeted
the cessation of smell with a kind of guilty relief;
the animal mind at work again, convincing him that no one
with a half-million credits worth of biological
enhancements should need something so trivial as protection
from unpleasant odors. But the guilt didn't stop
him from using it. Warded against his baser instincts, he
extended the tube to his physician's
assistant, Heiser. The young
lieutenant took a grateful smear with one
index finger and passed half along to nurse
Ledonne. Bashir twisted to include Dax and
Kira in his offer, explaining, "It's a nasal
anesthetic. It'll help block out the smell."
Kira gave a wry little snort. It was one of many
sounds Bashir had learned to associate with the
major's private conviction that he had the intestinal
fortitude of a sand flea. "No, thanks. I
learned to ignore worse than this a long time ago."
Of course. There was little Starfleet could expose her
to that was as bad as Cardassian prison camps.
Bashir wondered if she'd ever considered that the
ability to tolerate something unpleasant didn't
obligate you to do so. Or maybe that was more of what
she labeled sand flea thinking, and not even worth
mentioning. He slipped the olfacan back into its
protective sleeve and worked loose his tricorder
instead. "My God..." He may not have been able
to smell, but his eyes still stung; he felt like he was
going to sneeze. "How many crew members did
Victoria Adams carry?"
"Smells like
thousands." Heiser scrubbed at his sparse
blond mustache as though trying to help the olfacan
work. "Should we do a reconnoiter?"
"No." Dax
glanced up from her own singing tricorder in
response to Bashir's startled glance. "Those aren't
dead bodies," she clarified, dipping a nod
toward her scan results. "Not humanoid dead
bodies, at least. If the Victoria adams
crashed here, she did it too recently to allow for this
level of putrefaction. Besides, we aren't close
enough to the source of that
shield generator to be smelling any corpses from
that site." She snapped shut her tricorder and
repositioned it on her belt, pinching at her nose
again despite the olfacan. "Let's get going before
this smell makes me vomit." But the stench got
worse instead of better as they made their way down
the long curve of beach. Smooth, white sand--so
fine that it packed almost as solidly as soil where the
waves shushed up to dampen it--made a level
shelf more than thirty meters wide for as far as
Bashir could see. To his right, tropical blue
water undulated like a platter of softened glass,
bending itself into mountains, valleys, and gently stroking
tongues of wave. On his left, what
looked to be a wall of woven sticks and vines
rose to more than twice his height, its seaward side
decorated by draperies of mummified kelp and
tangles of long-dead detritus. Some sort of
weather wall to protect against ocean storms?
Erected by--who? The crash survivors? The
natives? No, there was too much greenery beyond it, just
as high and twisted as the wall fronting the shore, and
stretching as far to that direction as the ocean stretched in
the other. And Armageddon's volatile local
environment made the possibility of sentient
natives more than just highly unlikely. It was some
sort of natural vegetative feature, then--the
planet's attemp t to defend itself against itself. At
first, Bashir thought perhaps the rotten odor originated
with this littered hedge. He and his assistants were
sufficiently shielded by the olfacan to no longer
notice what smells surrounded them. But Trills
apparently didn't respond as well to the
anesthetic, and Kira had refused it from the outset.
Bashir rather easily tracked the strength of the stench through
the simple expedient of watching the women's faces.
Dax squinted to protect her eyes from the fumes,
and Kira's already wrinkled nose wrinkled even
further in disgust. It wasn't until they
stepped in front of a gaping rent in the wall of
brush that whatever they'd been smelling must have rolled
out in force Dax grunted a little sound of disgust, and
Kira jerked away from the opening as though she'd been
slapped. Even Bashir imagined he detected a
pungent belch of stench too strong for the olfacan
to fully counter. Still, it was the tacky blaze of
clotted blood darkening broken foliage that jolted
his heart up into his throat. It was already too old
and rotten to tell if it had come from any familiar
species. Touching a hand to his tricorder as though
it were a talisman, he stepped gingerly into the
crushed-down path and forced himself to keep a measured
pace until he reached the end. "Julian!" The
passage widened abruptly into a lidless natural
amphitheater, its sides as smashed and shattered as the
corridor. He meant to call back a
reassurance to Dax. Instead, he looked up at the
mountain of gore in front of him and coughed
abruptly into one hand. There was a horrible moment in
which he thought he'd be sick even with his immunity to the
fetor, but he managed to swallow his stomach under
control just as Kira trotted up from behind. He heard
something that might have been a stunted sneeze, then the
major croaked softly, "Maybe I'll
take a noseful of that stuff after all." In all his
life, Bashir could not remember imagining something so
wretchedly horrific. Carcasses--each
easily three tons even with skins and half their
internal organs removed--lay piled within a veil
of buzzing flies and decomposition gases. They'd
been stacked higher than Bashir's own head, but the
combined weight of the upper layers had crushed the
bodies on the bottom until only shattered bone
ends and the occasional rotting hock jutted up from the
bloody mud into which they'd been pressed. Some
clinically detached segment of his brain noted the
internal structures that said they were probably
mammalian, and the flat, cylindrical teeth which
suggested they were herbivorous. Some more emotional part
of him struggled to pin a number on how many bodies
one needed to build a pile of carnage five
meters high and perhaps another twenty meters long.
He felt the warmth of someone close on his left
elbow several moments before noticing a science
tricorder's distinctive warble. "In case it
matters," Dax said quietly, "I was right--these
carcasses are definitely too old to have anything
to do with the Victoria Adams." It was no consolation
at all, and. Bashir bitterly envied
Dax the lifetimes of experience that let her face
something like this without losing composure. "If not the
survivors, then what?" Relief throbbed in his
stomach when he finally dragged his eyes from the
slaughter. "The comet impacts?" Dax shook her
head. "Even the nearest comet damage is too
recent."
"What else could have killed so many animals at
one time?" "Spears."
He didn't want to look at Kira--he'd have
to glimpse the mutilated pile as he turned, and
everything inside him wanted to avoid that more than he was
comfortable admitting. Dax rescued him by tossing a
silent question at the major over Bashir's shoulder,
then looking where Kira apparently gestured. "And
somebody field-dressed them, too," the major
went on. "I don't think they normally come with
exposed organs and no hair." Dax nodded
slowly, thoughtfully. "You're right..."
"Do you think
it was natives?" Bashir asked. Partly because the
question of intelligent life brought to mind his original
thoughts about the weather wall, and partly because he didn't
want to seem so completely weak-kneed that he
wasn't even following their conversation. Dax
glanced at him with a scholarly frown, as though
prepared to debate all aspects of that question in the
interests of science. Then something in his face softened
her expression. Bashir suspected it was his waxen
pallor, or perhaps the first hint of nauseated tears in
his eyes. Whatever the cause, she slipped her arm
across his shoulders and turned him back toward the beach
with its virginal stretch of bright white sand. "I
don't know enough about the planet yet to even take a
guess," she said, voice smooth with equal parts
consideration and sympathy. "We'll ask the
survivors about it when we find them."
By the time they reached the survivors' settlement,
natives were the last thing on Bashir's mind.
"Cholegh'a' chlm ghobdu'wit' Dax's voice
--raised and rough strained to bark the words with what
Bashir assumed was either authority or challenge--
fell flat amongst wreckage no longer tall enough
to encourage echoes. From inside the shimmer of force
field, swarthy, chiseled faces lifted, turned
to them with no particular malice or interest. They'd
apparently finished salvaging hours ago; by now,
adult and sub-adult males clustered with adult
females in the meager shade of the weather wall, well
away from the shield's humming margins yet
well protected by its umbrella. Their bodies were
lowered into deep squats, their hands balanced on their
knees as though prepared to spring into action despite
the weariness etched into all their faces. Klingon
faces. Bruised and weary and creased with despair,
but still undeniably Klingon Mingon sapiens.
Bashir counted less than ten scattered about the
tumbles of debris, standing or sitting. Judging from the
bright blossoms of Klingon blood splashed across every
survivor's clothing, there were at least that many again
wounded or already dead. He saw no sign of
Humans. "Nglis Hol Sajatlh'a'?" It
hadn't been a big village even before its
devastation. A row of strongly woven huts,
opposing ends open to the air, seemed to have been
extruded directly from the weather wall. They were little
more than a scatter of twisted sticks now. The
shield's irridescent bubble covered only the
centermost sections of the camp, leaving exposed
blankets and racks that had no doubt filled the
tiny hovels only a few days before. The blurry
touch of Armageddon's sun warmed
hoops of braided vine and their circles of
stretched hide, while hammocks of dessicating
organ meat slowly dried beside what looked
like racks of some frothy yellow gland. It was an
impressive collection of foodstuffs, obviously
the bounty from the hunting "scraps" the landing party had
already found. This was certainly no temporary
castaways' camp, and couldn't have been erected in the
short time since Victoria a dams had reported
Klingons in the area. Dax halted with her toes just
brushing the terminal margin of the shield. "Devwi'ra
"Iv?" Tiny sparks
skittered in the sand between her boots. Bashir
wasn't sure if it was the Trill's words that
ignited the flutter of interest among the silent
Klingons, or the distinctly Klingon bravura of
her approach. Whichever it was, something passed from
Klingon to Klingon on a chain of turning heads
until one of them rose to his feet from amidst a
ring of other adult males. Bashir thought he
recognized the arrogance of a Klingon commander
despite the warrior's limping stride. He
didn't even stand as tall as Dax, but the broadness
of his chest and limbs betrayed a strength easily a
match for the entire landing party. Shoulder-length hair,
still curling and black with Klingon vigor, went well
with an equally vigorous beard but not so well with the
bruise-deep shadows of exhaustion beneath his
eyes. Despite that, and despite the swollen
foot that he favored when he walked, Bashir saw
none of the gauntness of long-term starvation in the
warrior. The absence of traditional Klingon armor
only accentuated the ripple and bunch of his
muscles, the
smoothly filled planes of his broad face.
It was clear why his crew felt secure enough to waste
so much of the animals they'd hunted and killed, rather
than utilizing the whole. Bashir made an effort
to push that last bitter thought away. For all he
knew, the meat was inedible and the skin and glands were the
only parts the Klingons could use. Besides, the entire
planet would probably be blasted clear of life in
just another few days. It hardly seemed reasonable
to hold ecological grudges. The bandy-legged
commander looked as though he might split the seams of
his dusty civilian tunic when he halted just
opposite the shield from Dax and flexed his
shoulders. "I never believed I would someday be
happy to stand unarmed among Starfleet officers."
His Standard was clear, though heavily accented. If
he'd meant his greeting as a joke, it didn't
sound like a happy one. Thumping one fist against his
chest, he rumbled, "I am Gordek, of the
House of Gordek." Dax lifted one eyebrow in
what Bashir took to be surprise, but said nothing
to expound on her gesture. "Lieutenant Commander
Dax, from space station Deep Space Nine."
She apparently felt no need to reciprocate
Gordek's theatrical physicality. Bashir was
just as glad. "This is Major Kira. And Dr.
Bashir, Lieutenant Heiser, and Ensign
Le-Donne." The Klingon's onyx-chip gaze
leapt instantly to Bashir, but skidded away again before
allowing interpretation. "You are here because of the Federation
shuttle that crashed yesterday, out in the tuq'rnor."
His deep voice made it a statement rather than a
question. "Yes." Dax never broke her own gaze
away from Gordek's. "Did you fi nd any
survivors at the wreckage site?" "None,"
said the Klingon curtly. Bashir's rush of bitter
disappointment was sliced off unexpectedly
by Gordek's next words. "We found no bodies,
either. We had to hike several miles of tuq'mor
to reach that ship. Whoever rode in it left long before
we got there." Kira frowned at him. "Are you the
ones who made it crash?" A throaty rumble of
what might have been Klingon threat or Klingon
laughter. Bashir always found it hard to tell
the difference. "Yes, of course. We attacked a
Federation ship and destroyed it, then immediately beamed
ourselves down and built this village, threw away
all our technology, armed ourselves with spears, and then
waited for a comet to destroy us." The points of his
teeth gnashed when he grinned, but Bashir still
wasn't sure if he was amused or angered. "Is
that what you wanted to hear?"
"What she wants to
hear," Dax said clearly, "is whether you are the
reason that the ship was attacked, not whether you are the
ones who attacked it."
"Ah."
Gordek's gaze swung back to the Trill, his
oddly angry amusement fading to a more recognizable
emotion. Surprise. "You know what we are, then?"
"I think so," she said calmly. "Will you tell me,
or are you going to make me guess?"
"Guess." The Klingon spat over one shoulder
as casually as a Human might gesture with one hand.
Dax said something long and intricate in Klingon,
something that made a muscle jerk in Gordek's
cheek, as though something had stung him. "Vra" he
said reluctantly, and the Trill nodded as though that
single word had brought enlightenment. She took
a step back from the glittering shield, looking for
all the world as if she expected it to drop now.
Bashir and Kira followed her back to where Heiser
and Ledonne had waited for them, wearing matching
looks of concern and bafflement. "What did you just
say?" Bashir demanded. "Are they going to let us in
to treat the wounded, or are they sending us away?"
"They'll
let us in." Dax sounded more somber than
usual. "They may not be happy about it, but they
don't have anywhere else to turn for help. They're
ada'ven--political exiles from the Klingon E
ship. Whoever rode in it left long before we got
there." Kira frowned at him. "Are you the ones who
made it crash?" A throaty rumble of what might
have been Klingon threat or Klingon laughter.
Bashir always found it hard to tell the difference.
"Yes, of course. We attacked a Federation ship
and destroyed it, then immediately beamed ourselves down and
built this village, threw away all our
technology, armed ourselves with spears, and then waited
for a comet to destroy us." The points of his teeth
gnashed when he grinned, but Bashir still wasn't
sure if he was amused or angered. "Is that what
you wanted to hear?"
"What she wants to hear," Dax said
clearly, "is whether you are the reason that the ship
was attacked, not whether you are the ones who attacked
it."
"Ah." Gordek's gaze swung
back to the Trill, his oddly angry amusement
fading to a more recognizable emotion. Surprise.
"You know what we are, then?"
"I think
so," she said calmly. "Will you tell me, or are
you going to make me guess?"
"Guess." The Klingon spat over one shoulder
as casually as a Human might gesture with one hand.
Dax said something long and intricate in Klingon,
something that made a muscle jerk in Gordek's
cheek, as though something had stung him. "Vra" he
said reluctantly, and the Trill nodded as though that
single word had brought enlightenment. She took a step
back from the glittering shield, looking for all the world
as if she expected it to drop now. Bashir and
Kira followed her back to where Heiser and
Ledonne had waited for them, wearing matching looks
of concern and bafflement. "What did you just say?"
Bashir demanded. "Are they going to let us in to treat
the wounded, or are they sending us away?"
"They'll
let us in." Dax sounded more somber than
usual. "They may not be happy about it, but they
don't have anywhere else to turn for help. They're
ada'ven--political exiles from the Klingon
Empire, sent here to live out the rest of their lives
in isolation from their society." There was a long
silence, filled only with the muffled groans and
stirrings from the wounded. Gordek was limping over to the
central firepit, beyond which Bashir could just see the
actual shield generator. Its glittering
duranium husk was roughly cobbled to an equally
out-of-place portable power supply. Both looked
like standard Federation issue to Bashir. "How did you
know?" Kira asked at last, while Gordek
fiddled with the field controls. The wall of force that
separated them from the Klingons began to waver and
ripple, as if an unfelt wind was blowing through it.
Dax sighed again. "I didn't recognize the
House of Gordek as any traditional Klingon
clan. Starfleet intelligence has noticed that for the
past year any small Klingon house that comes
inffconflict with Chancellor Gowron quickly disappears
from view. I think Gowron's decided to put his
past experience with the House of Mogh to use
by duplicating it on other politically inconvenient
families. All I did was name those houses,
until I came to one that made him blink."
"Vrag," Kira repeated. "Yes.
Unfortunately, of all the exiled houses, that's
the one I know the least about. They could have been thrown out
for being pacifists or for wanting to start an outright
attack on the Federation. We should The shield
rippled one last time, then vanished. Bashir
promptly crossed into the center of the Kling-on
encampment, drawn by the universal sounds of suffering
that he could now hear clearly. "careful," Dax
finished behind him, ruefully. He could hear her and
Kira following along, but his attention now was locked
to his medical tricorder and the flickering vital
signs it guided him toward. The little alcove
trampled into the brush wall was more just a place
to dump the wounded than any real attempt at an
infirmary. Bashir covered the last meter with a few
quick strides and knelt beside the first in what seemed an
impossibly long line of patients.
Heiser had already headed for the other end of the line,
tricorder and medkit in hand, while Ledonne
positioned herself near the middle. Bashir would
suddenly have given an arm for another dozen
medics, all of them only half as good as these two.
The female now laid out before him was still young by Klingon
standards. Her brow ridges were fully carved, but
twelfth-year incisors only showed perhaps five or
six years' worth of wear. A depressed skull
fracture had been bandaged with only a single strip
of fine-weave cloth, and not even so much as a
half-cured hide had been spread over her to keep
out the chill. Of course not--Klingons should be strong
enough not to require coddling. Even when they were more than
half dead. Grey matter in the tangle of her
hair, and no reflexive response from either
pupil. Bashir closed her eyes with a gentleness
he suspected she wouldn't appreciate, and moved
on to the next body in line. Gordek circled behind
the doctor, limping to a stop just outside Bashir's
range of vision. Bashir could feel the Klingon's
stare on him as he compiled tricorder readings on the
patient, a burning itch on the back of his skull.
"What happened here?" he asked, more to tell the
Klingon he knew he was being watched than because he
really needed to know. That gained him only another
streak of spittle, this one landing distressingly close
to his tricorder. "What do you think? You must have
seen the sky as you came here."
"Comet impact," Kira
translated. It sounded as if she spoke through
clenched teeth, and Bashir was oddly glad to know he
wasn't the only one reacting badly to Gordek's
blend of anger, aggression, and reserve. "When did
it happen?" "Three days ago, just at sunset.
We saw a streak across the sky, but we have seen many
such streaks in the last few months. This one was
different. This light came down further into the sky,
then exploded around us, like a photon torpedo."
"Lower atmosphere burst," Dax said.
"The most damaging kind of impact." Gordek
grunted. "Several of my house were killed outright.
Others have died since. But there are still enough of us left
to survive." The statement was almost defiant, as if
he thought they might have some reason to question. "After we
found the wrecked Federation ship, I knew we would be
fine. The shield will keep us safe from any more
explosions in the sky." Straightening carefully,
Bashir took a moment to sterilize his hands before he
moved on to the next critical patient. Dax
watched in silence while he knitted ribs and
sutured the punctures they had made in the skin.
Klingon physiology was remarkable in many
respects, not the least of which was their ability
to stoically endure damage that would have killed a
human or a Trill within hours. It was Kira who
resumed the interrogation. "When you were stripping the
wreckage, did you see any evidence of where the
crash survivors might have gone?" Gordek spat
again, this time in her direction. It was apparently an
all-purpose expression of scorn rather than a
personal comment. "Following tracks in the tuq'mor
is a fool's errand. There was a trail close to
where your ship crashed, one that I followed
northwest from here. It continues another half-day's
walk to the main settlement."
"Main
settlement?" Dax inquired, while Bashir
reached the last patient in his third of the row. He had
added an open pelvic fracture and lateral
pneumotho-rax to his list of casualties, and
reached to tip first Heiser's, then Ledonne's
tricorder screen to a readable angle so he could
add their lists to his before Gordek answered the
Trill's question. "It is where the epetai keeps those
loyal to her, a warren of burrows in the middle of the
tuq'mor." He spat again, more fiercely this time and
in a direction away from them. "All underground, the
better to rot and die where they stand!" Bashir
exchanged enlightened glances with Dax. "No wonder
you got so few humanoid readings on this planet,"
he said softly. She dipped a single thoughtful nod
in agreement. Kira pushed in front of Gordek,
either oblivious to or determined to ignore his growing
belligerence. "Could the survivors from the crashed
Federation vessel be at this main settlement?"
"They might." Gordek
stepped back, his broad face emotionless but his
onyx-cold eyes skipping from one to another of them
with a look of unexpected calculation. "If I
tell you how to find it," he said, "will you send down
phasers and a permanent power generator for our new
shield?"
"You want to stay here?"
Bashir tried not to sound too appalled by this
loyalty to any planet that had doled out such ruthless
punishment for crimes that were none of its affair. He
couldn't help noticing Dax's matching frown of
surprise. "You've got at least six critical
injuries so far, plus another four who might not
die but who need bones regrown or limbs
regenerated." He glanced behind him, and was only
half-startled to find both Dax and Gordek so
close that he bumped them with his shoulder when
he turned. "I'd like to beam them up to the ship right
away."
"You have doctors on
your ship who can tend to Klingon warriors?"
Bashir made himself scowl back into Gordek's
accusing glower. "No. But we have stasis
facilities that can keep them alive until we
get to a better equipped sick bay." Although he
found it hard to believe this Klingon cared overmuch how
many of his people did or didn't survive the journey.
Thinking of the first young woman with her brain in her
hair, he offered more gently, "We also have a
morgue, if you'dr" Gordek waved off the
suggestion with a whutf of disgust. "The dead are dead."
He looked as though the sight of his dead people annoyed
him. "Leave them."
"There will be more dead,"
Dax warned him. "Even with the shield, you can't
survive a direct comet strike." The Klingon
leader's glossy black head lifted in a faint
echo of Worf's towering pride in his heritage.
"I prefer to die under a killing sky than to accept
mercy from my enemy. You may transport my people
to your ship for treatment," he added to Bashir
arroganfly. "But you will beam them down again
along with the power generator I have asked for. Is it a
bargain?"
"Yes." Kira overrode Dax's more
tentative response with the crisp confidence of someone
who'd been a field commander for longer than she'd
been an adult. "You have my word of honor as a
Bajoran." The thick muscle of Gordek's
cheek spasmed again, but whatever had startled him
apparently wasn't worth commenting on. "I accept
that," he said promptly. "And you have the word of honor
of one who will be epetai someday."
CHAPTER 3
kira FELT THE difference in this new Klingon
encampment even before the transporter had fully
released her. Sunlight--harder and hotter, with no
ocean breeze to mitigate its strength--cut
patchwork patterns through shadow too woven and deep
to come from trees; peaty-smelling mud leveled the
ground with flaccid puddles; and the volume and snarl
of the voices crowding about her reminded her abruptly
that, even on the best of days, Federation personnel
had no reason to expect a warm reception from
Klingons. Unfortunately, it was a little late
to voice that kind of pithy observation. Solidity
raced through her limbs with an almost electric
shock. With it came the full return of sight and
sound and movement. She had barely jerked away from the
first Klingon who lunged to grab her arm when Dax's
shout took over where the transporter had left off.
"Kira, don't! Julian, don't fight them?
Not that they had much choice--one thick, stone-hard arm
snaked around Kira's middle while someone else
seized her wrist and pinioned it between two hands. She
couldn't even see Bashir, only hear his thin hiss
of pain somewhere behind her. Her teeth gnashed so hard
they hurt, but she didn't use her free hand
to gouge anybody's eyeballs. She thought Dax
should at least appreciate the heroic proportions of
that restraint, considering how incomprehensible Kira
found the whole concept of passivity. She estimated
more than four dozen Klingons just within the sweep of her
eyes, most of them drifting in menacing orbit around
her, Dax, and Bashir. Another unseen handful
held them all immobile. Bandages, rough
splints, even a pair of crutches lashed together from
twists of local wood. Nothing in sight like the
massive injuries they'd left Ledonne and
Heiser to tend at Gordek's camp, but also
hardly representative of this encampment's entire
populace. Although surrounded by the same
tangled brush growth that had bordered the shoreline,
this campsite was many times larger and obviously more
permanent. What might have been trees, except that
they'd been planted upside down, punctuated the
huge clearing, dotting the edges and even marching a
way into the brush. Klingons sat comfortably atop
archirig roots-that-should-have-been branches, emerged
curiously from the cavernous hollows dug under the
enormous barrel trunks, looked up from where they
etched intricate symbols into the still-growing wood
to expand on patterns already months--if not years--
old. A tall, white-haired female climbed with
unhurried dignity from the depths of the largest
tree-cavern. Her head plates braided into an
elegant arch from the bridge of her nose to the peak of
her skull, and hair that must have been longer than she
stood tall had been coiled and woven into a regal
coronet. Kira didn't think she'd ever seen a
Klingon so obviously old, or so impressive.
Striding through the corridor that suddenly appeared before
her in the press of bodies, the matriarch halted
less than an arm's length from the prisoners to fold
her hands in front of her polished bronze belt.
She regarded them with aristocratic reproach.
"Tlhlngan Hol Dajatlh'a'?"
"Yes." Dax spoke up without waiting for either of the
others to ask for a translation. "But my friends speak
only Standard." The Klingon measured Kira and
Bashir together with a single flick of her eyes, the
way a hunter casts off unnecessary tissue with a single
sweep of his knife. "There is no honor in
exploiting your enemy's confusion." She managed
to convey a wealth of disdain, even in her graciousness.
"I am Rekan, epetai of the House of Vrag."
Not the House of Gordek, Kira noticed, and was
not too surprised by that. Rekan epetai Vrag
listened to Dax's introductions with an almost
Vulcan stoicism, only tipping her head once
with interest when the lieutenant commander said her own name.
"You are a Trill."
Even Kira could tell that wasn't a question. Dax
nodded. "Were you once called by the host-name
Curzon?" The Trill seemed to weigh her answer
carefully, studying Rekan's face as though looking
for her words in that queenly sculpting of planes and
angles. "I'm sorry," she said at last.
"I'm sure Curzon would have remembered such a
striking female." If Rekan found the remark as
condescendingly masculine as Kira did, she
didn't show it. "I never had the honor of
meeting Curzon Dax while he was among us. But
he was said to be an extraordinary man." She
delivered a short, glancing blow to whoever stood behind
Kira, the way a ghar-wolf cuffs at its
offspring. Just that quickly, the grip on Kira's
throat and arm was released. Rekan epetai Vrag
stepped back, but only far enough to prevent physical
contact between herself and the outsiders, not far enough to suggest a
retreat. "You have come to retrieve your soldier."
Kira glanced sideways at Dax, and was
relieved to see the Trill more concerned with the health of
her tricorder than her own rough handling. Bashir
rubbed gingerly at one biceps, but seemed none the
worse for wear. Neither of them seemed to have noticed the
odd nature of that statement. Kira frowned and
turned back toward the older Klingon female.
"Soldier?"
"From your crashed ship," Rekan said calmly.
"We have been waiting for you to come retrieve him."
"There's only one?" Bashir's
dismay roughened his normally smooth voice. "There
should have been over thirty, most of them scientists and
older people." The Klingon leader shook her
majestically silvered head. "We have seen none of
those. We have only one young male Human,
wounded." Her mouth compressed in a smile that showed
none of Gordek's aggressive baring of teeth.
"And all he will tell us is his name, rank, and
identification number. He says he is a
communications officer. We assumed he was from a
downed warship." Kira frowned back at her.
"He's from a Federation research vessel, sent here
to observe the comet fall," she informed the exiled
Klingon leader. "Your people shot it down."
"My people?" The Klingon matriarch lifted
her chin in either interest or amusement, Kira
wasn't sure which. "Look around you. We have no
ability to shoot anyone down."
"But if it wasn't
for you're" Bashir interrupted with the sidelong
scowl that Kira knew meant he'd had enough of
unproductive truculence. "Can we have this discussion
later, please? I'd like to see my patient."
"Ah." Rekan
nodded as if something had been vaguely puzzling
her but was now resolved. "You are a doctor. I
understand now. Follow me." Bashir did so without
pause, leaving Kira hesitating in the center of the
main exile colony. Dax gave her a wordless
nod, but that didn't do much to reassure her.
After all, this was the same Trill who thought coming down
to this comet-battered planet was a
once-in-a-lifetime treat. Still, when Dax swung
past her to catch
up to Rekan's long, purposeful strides, the
barrage of hostile glances Ki ra could feel pouring
out of the myriad hollows and caves was enough to speed her
steps as she followed. Rekan Vrag had threaded
her hands into her sleeves, a gesture that must have
dated from a time when she wore the more elegantly
draped robes of the Klingon military aristocracy.
Somehow, even dressed in drab utilitarian
brown, the gesture did not demean or humble her.
"Enter," she said simply, pausing at the threshold
of one small overhang. Kira's warning instincts
rose to full clamor when she saw the featureless,
dim interior. But when Dax snapped on a
belt-lamp and used it to pick out the single slim
figure huddled against the far wall, Kira was the
next one in after Bashir. At least these Klingons
had spared him the luxury of a blanket. The
survivor stirred when Bashir started his examination,
his hands rising in a move Kira recognized as a
standard defense technique taught at Starfleet
Academy. She caught his hands back
easily from Bashir's oblivious throat, feeling
them shake with frustrated weakness between her own. "It's
all right," she said, hearing her voice drop to the
crooning hush she'd used to soothe younger children in the
camps during attacks. "You're safe."
"Safe., The young man licked dry lips,
barely able to say the words past them. He peered up
at her puzzledly, then his gaze moved to Bashir's
familiar uniform and eased. "Starfleet...?"
"That's right." It didn't seem worth pointing out that
Kira was with the Bajoran military, not Starfleet.
She suspected that just not being Klingon would have been enough
to reassure him. "I'm Major Kira. This is
Lieutenant Commander Dax and Dr. Bashir."
"I'm... my
name's Alex, Alex Boughamer. How did you
know I was here?" Kira tossed a warning glance at
Dax, inclining her head toward the tall and rail-thin
shadow that still slanted across the mouth of this deep
overhang. Dax nodded back at her soundlessly,
then answered. "We picked up the Victoria
Adams's distress call at Deep Space
Nine yesterday." She paused, carefully eying the
pale face below them. "Alex, did anyone else
survive?" Boughamer startled Kira with a
breathless chuckle. "Hell, all of us survived,
Lieutenant. In fact, I'm the worst off.
Captain Marsters packed us three deep in the
sampling shuttlewyou should have heard the geologists
bitch about that--and one of the..." His drifting words
sliced off abruptly, as if he'd just
recollected that he was still among Klingons. "...
um, an older guy among the passengers who used
to be a pilot or something--he piloted us down.
He was amazing. We took some bumps in the comet
field--that's when the spectrometer fell on me--
but otherwise we made it down pretty much in one
piece. I couldn't believe it." His blue eyes
sharpened to a more crystalline alertness as Bashir's
bone regenera-tor skated across his ribs. "What
about the Vicky. Major? You said you got a
distress call. Did she make it out okay?"
"We don't
know," Dax said, in the gentle voice she
usually reserved for hopeless causes and untimely
deaths. "So far, there's no word." Boughamer's
face seemed to crumple in on itself for a moment, then
firmed up again. "That's okay. We knew--
Captain Marsters knew she might not make it.
He just wanted to make sure we got
away, and we did. He'd be glad about that." They
were silent for a moment, listening to the hum of the
deep-tissue regenerator that Bashir scanned
across Boughamer's abdomen. The daylight slanting
in from outside seemed too bright, now that Kira's
eyes had adjusted to the darkness. She restrained an
urge to ask Rekan to step closer to the mouth of the
overhang to provide more shade. Dax touched
Boughamer's shoulder to get back his drifting
attention. "You said all n shadow that still slanted
across the mouth of this deep overhang. Dax nodded
back at her soundlessly, then answered. "We
picked up the Victoria Adams's distress
call at Deep Space Nine yesterday." She
paused, carefully eying the pale face below them.
"Alex, did anyone else survive?"
Boughamer startled Kira with a breathless chuckle.
"Hell, all of us survived, Lieutenant. In
fact, I'm the worst off. Captain Marsters
packed us three deep in the sampling shuttlewyou
should have heard the geologists bitch about that--and one
of the..." His drifting words sliced off abruptly,
as if he'd just recollected that he was still among
Klingons. "... um, an older guy among the
passengers who used to be a pilot or
something--he piloted us down. He was amazing. We
took some bumps in the comet field--that's when the
spectrometer fell on me--but otherwise we
made it down pretty much in one piece. I
couldn't believe it." His blue eyes sharpened to a more
crystalline alertness as Bashir's bone
regenera-tor skated across his ribs. "What about the
Vicky. Major? You said you got a distress
call. Did she make it out okay?"
"We don't know," Dax said,
in the gentle voice she
usually reserved for hopeless causes and untimely
deaths. "So far, there's no word." Boughamer's
face seemed to crumple in on itself for a moment, then
firmed up again. "That's okay. We knew--
Captain Marsters knew she might not make it.
He just wanted to make sure we got away, and we
did. He'd be glad about that." They were silent for a
moment, listening to the hum of the deep-tissue
regenerator that Bashir scanned across Boughamer's
abdomen. The daylight slanting in from outside
seemed too bright, now that Kira's eyes had
adjusted to the darkness. She restrained an urge
to ask Rekan to step closer to the mouth of the overhang
to provide more shade. Dax touched
Boughamer's shoulder to get back his drifting
attention. "You said all the other survivors were
alive. Where are they?"
"With the Klingons," he said simply. Kira
glanced out at Rekan's silhouetted figure and
frowned. "Which Klingons? There's no one here but you."
Boughamer shook his head, then groaned and dropped
his head back to the ground. "Not here. They caught us
at the crash site and took us someplace far away.
It was dark... we were in a cave, I think.
Deeper and colder than this--more wind blowing through. But
I don't know WHERE." He started to shake his head
again, but desisted when Bashir laid a gently
restraining hand across his forehead. "They had me
blindfolded part of the time, and I was passed out the other
half. All I remember is waking up and being in
some kind of vehicle--something that lurched a lot,
like a big landhopper or all-terrain crawler.
I was there for what seemed like forever, then I was here.
That's all I know." Kira fell silent again, this
time in sizzling frustration over the lack of clues
she could follow to the missing survivors. She
lifted an eyebrow at Dax to see if the Trill
had any other questions. "Alex," Dax said, "the
Klingons who found you after you crashed--what
did they look like?"
"Was
one of them a heavy guy, long black beard and
hair?" Kira put in. "No." Boughamer's
eyes closed, but his voice sounded so much clearer now
that Kira guessed he was doing it to better
remember. "They were too young to be a ship's crew,
no armor, nobody in charge. And they've lived
there, wherever we were, for a while. I could smell that
rather smoky smell and the food smells and the Klingon
smells."
"Why did they take the rest of
the crew and passengers back to the caves with them?
Why didn't they bring them all here?" Bashir
asked. Boughamer's eyes flashed open, looking
startled and oddly angry. "Didn't I tell you
already?" He cursed when he saw their heads shake.
"I'm sorry, I thought I had--I've been
repeating it over and over in my head until I
wasn't sure what I'd said and what I'd just
thought. It's what they sent me here to tell you, it's
why they sent me. They knew someone would come to look
for us, and this is what they want you to do." He took
a deep breath, then launched himself into a message so
singsong and practiced that its original
Klingon cadences could scarcely be heard anymore.
"You are from Starfleet who listen to this, and you have come
to rescue your people from the comets. But there are people on this
planet that you haven't come to rescue, and to us their
lives are more valuable than these are to you. So we
say to you, we who live on this planet and for this
planet and with this planet, that we will not release these people
of yours from the threat of the comets until you have released
our people from it, too, forever. If you do not, then the comets
will release us all." Boughamer's breath whistled out
of him in near-exhaustion, but his eyes were already
anxiously turning from Kira to Dax to Bashir.
"I really said it that time, didn't I? I didn't
just imagine that I did?"
"You
really said it." It was a good thing at least one of the
Trill's brains could still form words, because judging from the
arrested expression on his face, Bashir had been
thumped as speechless as Kira. "The rest of the
survivors from the Victoria Adams are being
held hostage by a group of Klingons. They'll be
released only when we've managed to protect the
entire planet from the comets. Otherwise--"
"--otherwise they hang on to
the hostages until sylshessa,"
Kira said grimly. "Until Armageddon, when
everybody dies."
It was the mark of a mission going bad, Sisko
thought ruefully, when your first instinct upon being hailed
by your sector commander was to have your communications officer
tell her you'd beamed down with your away team. Had
it only been a few hours
ago that he'd felt utterly confident that he could
swoop into the Armageddon system, elude the
Kling-on blockade, beam up the survivors from the
Victoria Adams, and be back at the station before
Admiral Nechayev had finished conferring with her
Vorta equivalents? Now that he was orbiting high
above this comet-scorched planet, his sensors blinded
by im pact debris, his ship in imminent danger of
detection by a returning Klingon blockade, and his
away team stymied by Klingon ecological
activists--of all the unlikely antagonists!--
he wasn't sure Nechayev was even going
to believe his progress report, much less
endorse his continuing mission. And he could tell from the
surreptitiously sympathetic glances he was
getting from O'Brien and Worf that they shared all of
his doubts. With a resigned sigh, Sisko nodded at
the young ensign who'd taken Dax's place
on the bridge. "Put the admiral through."
"Captain Sisko." Interference from the comet
field fuzzed the high-security channel, making
Nechayev's image waver. As usual, though, the
admiral's polished steel voice cut through the
background hum with ease. "Do you know what's going
on right now?" "We're still trying to locate the
survivors from the Victoria Adams," he said.
"We've gotten proof that most of them are alive,
but--" Nechayev waved his explanation to an
unexpected stop, her carved face tightening with an
emotion too cold to be anger and too tense to be
irritation. "Let me update you on the larger
situation. Twenty minutes ago, the Victoria
Adams--and the Klingon ship she appeared to be
traveling with--were destroyed by a Cardassian
military outpost at KDZ-A17J. The
Cardassians claim it was an act of
self-defense."
"What?"'
The shout resounded so loudly around the Defiant's
bridge that Sisko knew it hadn't just been his
voice raised in unconscious protest. "How could
Captain Marsters attack a Cardassian
outpost? The Victoria Adams wasn't
armed!" Nechayev frowned. "According to the
Cardassians, Marsters came into the system at
high speed and made a suicide run straight at
their outpost. When they destroyed the Victoria
Adams to prevent the impact, a cloaked Klingon
vessel that was shadowing her--or pursuing her--
returned their fire. The ensuing battle took down
two Cardassian warships and half the station's
defense system before the Klingons were destroyed."
Sisko whistled softly. He'd only met
Marsters once, and although he'd been impressed with the
research captain's intelligence and good judgement,
he would never have expected a Vulcan Science
Academy graduate to display such reckless
courage in defense of his passengers and crew.
"He deliberately incited that battle to keep the
Klingons from returning here," he told Necheyev
without hesitation. "He must have known it was the only
way he could stop them." Worflet out a rumble of
Klingon respect. "That was the act of a great
warrior."
"You
know that, and I know that," Nechayev snapped
back. "But all the Cardassians know is that
they've been attacked by what looked like a
joint Federation-Klingon force. It's taking all the
diplomatic
pressure we can muster to keep open war from
breaking out all along the border."
"Look at the bright side," O'Brien offered.
"At least we won't have to worry about the Klingon
blockade for a while. They'll be so busy shoring
up their border patrols--"
"I disagree," Worf interrupted. "If
the Klingons blockading this system were willing
to fire on an unarmed Starfleet vessel and
pursue her into the teeth of a Cardassian outpost,
there is something of immense importance to them in this
system. I do not believe they will abandon it."
Nechayev's image fractured into hissing rainbow
prisms as a chunk of cometary ice rebounded against the
Defiant's angled shields, then reformed into an
ironic frown. "For once, our diplomatic
corps agrees with you, Commander Worf. They tried
to make some subtle inquiries about this
KDZ-E25From planet of yours, but couldn't get
their usual Klingon informants to spill so much as a
word. The best guess our tactical analysts can
make is that it was the site of some heroic Klingon
military action in the Cardassian
invasion."
"Unlikely,"
said Worf. "The only battlefields sacred
to Klingons are those where a single warrior or ship
held off an overwhelmingly superior force. The
Car-dassians were never that." Nechayev's frown
deepened. "Then what's your explanation, Commander?
Do you really believe the Klingons are shooting down
Federation science vessels just to keep the cometary
fireworks show to themselves?"
"No." If he felt discomforted at having
drawn the needling attention of their sector commander,
Worf
didn't show it in either voice or expression.
"What we are seeing is most likely an internal
Klingon dispute of some kind, with the Victoria
Adams inadvertently caught in the middle. The
presence of only a single house among the Klingons
stranded on the planet--"
"What Klingons
stranded on the planet?" Nechayev blinked in
surprise. Sisko cleared his throat to draw the
transmitter's autofocus back to him. "I
started to tell you that our crash survivors are being
held hostage by one of three groups of
Klingons who say they have been stranded on this
planet." Nechayev's eyes narrowed. "And the
fact that all these stranded Klingons come from a single
house makes you think they might be political
exiles? Imprisoned in the neutral zone because of
some power struggle in the Klingon High Command?"
"Yes." The glint of Worf's dark eyes now
held surprise and discomfiture in equal
quantities. Sisko could have told him not
to underestimate Nechayev's intelligence. He
might not always like her strategic decisions, but he
had to admit that the admiral had a raptor-swift
grasp of salient facts. "However, since we do
not yet know why or how these Klingons came to be
marooned here, I cannot speculate as to the exact
nature of the dispute." Nechayev's thin, pale
brows arched. "It could be anything. With all the recent
unrest and turmoil he just quelled in the Klingon
High Council, Chancellor Gowron could be
unwilling to let any hint of internal dissension get
out."
"Agreed,"
said Worf. "It will thus be a point of 70
great honor to the Klingons to keep the blockade
manned, to prevent the dishonored ones from
escaping their sentence of exile."
"Which is now,"
Sisko pointed out, "a sentence of death."
"Because of the comet
disintegration." Nechayev followed his logic as
easily as she had followed Worf's. "Are the
Klingons demanding evacuation to safe haven in
return for releasing the crash survivors?"
"No." Sisko tried to mask the
exasperation in his voice, but suspected he
didn't do a very good job. "Most want us to just
leave them alone to die. A few want us to give
them enough technology to let them survive the
bombardment. But the ones who actually have custody of the
survivors from the Victoria Adams want us
to save the entire planetary ecosystem by sweeping
the comet debris out of the system." Sisko had
rarely seen Admiral Nechayev taken
by surprise, and never seen her speechless. Until
now. The arctic blue of her eyes glittered at
him for a long moment, but only the background sizzle
and thrum of small ice particles vaporizing off
their shields filled the stunned silence. "The
Klingons want you to protect the planet they were
stranded on against their will?" Her words were so
filled with disbelief that they sizzled almost as much as the
melting ice. "Why?" Sisko took a deep
breath. "We don't know. We haven't even made
direct contact with them yet. So far, my away
team has gotten all of its information from the
Victoria Adams's communications officer. He
was sent to the main exile camp to deliver the
ultimatum, but he was wounded too badly
to identify where he was brought from. Major Kira and
Commander Dax are interrogating the other Klingon
exiles now in an attempt to locate where this
splinter group might be hiding."
"Do they really think the other Klingons will betray
them?" "They might, if Dax can convince them it's the
honorable thing to do. Even if she can't, we can always
divert a few of the oncoming fragments, to convince them
of our good intentions for long enough to evacuate the crash
survivors. After that--"
"After that, it's not our problem,"
Nechayev said bluntly. "Are we
absolutely sure the rest of the Victoria
Adams crew and passengers are still alive?"
"Yes." He wasn't, but had a
feeling it wouldn't be wise to admit that
to Nechayev. "Then your orders,
Captain, are to negotiate their release as soon
as possible. If you don't succeed before the Klingons
reestablish their blockade, I suggest you clear the
area at that time."
"You suggest?" Sisko cocked a
startled look at his commander. "You're not making that
an order?" Nechayev grimaced. "God knows,
I'd like to. I'd rather not lose the best ship in my
sector--not to mention the entire staff of a space
station that isn't exactly the most requested post in
Starfleet--over a few damned chunks of comet."
She fell silent and her lips tightened, as if it
was difficult for her to decide how to phrase the
next part of her transmission. "There is a
retired officer among the tourist party who under no
circumstances must fall into the hands of the Klingon
High Council. Under no
circumstances. "She repeated it with enough emphasis
to make Sisko's eyebrows lift. "Can you tell
"No," said Nechayev flatly. "Even the
knowledge of his whereabouts is classified information. If the
Federation Diplomatic Service ever found out that he
risked his life just to see some comets crash
into KDZ-E26--I mean E25--"
"We've been
calling it Armageddon," Odo informed her.
"Appropriate," said Nechayev dryly.
"Considering the hell there's going to be to pay if we
lose the Defiant as well as the Victoria
Adams there. Not to mention starting a three-way war
between the Federation, the Cardassian Empire, and the
Klingons."
"But if we manage to evade the Klingon
blockade long enough to rescue our crash survivors
--" Sisko let the sentence trail off, eying his
commander closely for signs of disa pproval. The
admiral regarded him with cold eyes, but allowed
an ironic slice of smile to appear. "In that
case, Captain, I might just be willing
to overlook your blatant disregard for my opinion."
Sisko nodded. "Understood." Nechayev reached
forward to cut the contact, then paused to give him a
last icy look. "One more thing. If you get a
confirmed report from your away team that the
Victoria Adams's survivors have been
killed, either by comet impact or by your Klingon
activists, I want you out of that death trap
immediately. And that's an order." Sisko scowled up
at the viewscreen for a long moment after the
admiral's image snapped out of
existence, but it wasn't the dusty skies of
Armageddon that were aggravating him. He now had
breathing space in which to find a solution to his
unexpected hostage crisis, but it was breathing
space with an enormous price tag attached.
What he needed was a way to protect the scorched
planet below him from further cometary damage, and he
needed it soon enough to get his crash survivors freed
before the Defiant started an interplanetary war.
"Commander Worf," Sisko said abruptly. "If
we angle and disperse our shields to sweep up as
many comets as possible, how many trips across the
debris tail will we have to make to protect the
planet from impact for the next few days?" The
Klingon officer tapped a query into Dax's
piloting console and scowled at the results.
"Approximately two hundred and seventeen,"
he said unhappily. "The maneuver will take almost
two days to complete."
"Too slow," O'Brien
warned. "And too risky. There's bound to be a
couple of comets that sneak past us while we're
sweeping up the rest."
"And if a Klingon ship
arrives to resume the blockade, there's
too much chance they'll catch us only partially
shielded. That's not good enough." Sisko strode up
and down the length of the bridge, ignoring the wary
look he got from his replacement science officer.
No doubt the young man was wondering if his commanding
officer's legendary temper was about to erupt. "We
need another strategy, gentlemen, and we need it
fast. We have to convince those Klingons down there that
we're making good on our promise--" "--without
actually making good on it?" Odo lifted a
caustic eyebrow. Sisko favored his security
officer with an impatient look. "Constable, if you have
a better way to get rid of all those comets out there
--" "Why don't we just shoot them?" It could have
been a mocking question, but the steady intensity of Odo's
gaze told Sisko he Was serious. He paused
with his mouth half-open to snap a dismissive reply,
then slanted a glance at his chief tactical
officer. "Is that feasible?" This time, Worf
didn't have to consult the computer to answer. "There is
a limit to how wide a spread we can achieve without
losing the ability to vaporize, but cometary ice has
such low density that it does not present a
significant constraint. However, when any kind of
debris is clustered this closely in
space, phaser beams tend to be diffracted by the
leading edge and leave the interior of the debris cloud
untouched."
"So we can't
do broad-beam destruction," Sisko concluded.
"What about point and shoot?"
"Selecting just the largest and most threatening
fragments?" Worf nodded as if to answer his own
question. "If we keep the phaser beam narrowly
focused, it will not diffract. We can target almost
any fragment in the tail for destruction." Sisko
grunted. "Then all we need to know is which fragments
have the highest probability of impacting with the
planet's surface." He paused, glancing over
at the young ensign manning the science station. "Ensign
Farabaugh?" he prodded, when he got no
response. "Sir?" The young man glanced back
at him WORRIEDLY, alert but obviously unsure
of exactly what was needed. Sisko tried not to let
too much impatience show in his voice. It wasn't
Farabaugh's fault that Dax would have already realized
what he wanted and programmed her scan accordingly.
"Have the computer mark and track all fragments with an
eighty-five percent probability of impact over
the next five days. Concentrate on the
most dangerous fragments--the large ones within a ten
thousand kilometer range."
"Aye, sir." Looking
relieved to be assigned a specific task,
Farabaugh bent over his console, punching in the
scanning parameters. "Um--I'LL probably
need to run a probabilistic vector model
to account for fragment interactions. First results
might take about seven minutes."
"Very well." Sisko swung
back to eye the remainder of his bridge crew,
smiling for the first time in what seemed like a long while.
He always felt better when he had some immediate goal
to pursue. "I think we could all stand to brush up
on our manual track-and-fire skills, don't
you, Commander? Who wants to go first?"
"Not me," Odo assured him. "I don't find
blowing up inanimate objects as pleasurable an
activity as you HUMANOIDS appear to."
"That's
all right, Constable. I need you to keep an eye
on the entire system, watching for ion trails."
Sisko glanced over his shoulder. "Ready with
tracking coordinates, Mr. Farabaugh?"
"Almost, sir. I still need to
plot--" The young science officer broke off,
staring down at something on his screen. "Captain
Sisko, we've just been hailed by a Cardassian
battle cruiser! I'm putting it on-screen
now." The dust-stained oceans of Arma we need to know
is which fragments have the highest probability of
impacting with the planet's surface." He paused,
glancing over at the young ensign manning the science
station. "Ensign Farabaugh?" he prodded, when he
got no response. "Sir?" The young man glanced
back at him
WORRIEDLY, alert but obviously unsure of
exactly what was needed. Sisko tried not to let
too much impatience show in his voice. It wasn't
Farabaugh's fault that Dax would have already realized
what he wanted and programmed her scan accordingly.
"Have the computer mark and track all fragments with an
eighty-five percent probability of impact over
the next five days. Concentrate on the most
dangerous fragments--the large ones within a ten thousand
kilometer range."
"Aye, sir." Looking
relieved to be assigned a specific task,
Farabaugh bent over his console, punching in the
scanning parameters. "Um--I'LL
probably need to run a probabilistic vector
model to account for fragment interactions. First
results might take about seven minutes."
"Very well." Sisko swung
back to eye the remainder of his bridge crew,
smiling for the first time in what seemed like a long while.
He always felt better when he had some immediate goal
to pursue. "I think we could all stand to brush up
on our manual track-and-fire skills, don't
you, Commander? Who wants to go first?"
"Not me," Odo assured him. "I don't find
blowing up inanimate objects as pleasurable an
activity as you HUMANOIDS appear to."
"That's
all right, Constable. I need you to keep an eye
on the entire system, watching for ion trails."
Sisko glanced over his shoulder. "Ready with
tracking coordinates, Mr. Farabaugh?"
"Almost, sir. I still need to
plot--" The young science officer broke off,
staring down at something on his screen. "Captain
Sisko, we've just been hailed by a Cardassian
battle cruiser! I'm putting it on-screen
now." The dust-stained oceans of Armageddon
vanished, replaced by a deeply furrowed
Cardassian face. "Captain Sisko of the
U.s.s. Defiant, this is Gul Hidret of the
Cardassian war-cruiser Olxinder." It was
unusual to see such an elderly soldier still serving
as a gul, but the shrewd glitter in Hidret's
eyes told Sisko he wasn't dealing with some
political appointee or recalled reserve
officer. "If you wish to avoid a conflict, please
acknowledge this hail at once." Sisko flexed his
fingers on the arms of his command chair, hard enough to feel
the duranium core beneath the padding. "Whatever you do,
Mr. Farabaugh," he said through his teeth, "do not
acknowledge that hail." He swung to scowl at
Odo. "Constable, why the hell didn't you detect
the Cardassians" arrival in the system?"
"For the
very good reason that they haven't arrived yet," the
Changeling shot back, unintimidated. "There are
no uncloaked vessels present within the entire
scanning range of my sensors."
"The communicator signal's
red-shift indicates the Cardassians are
hailing us from at least eighteen light-years out,"
Farabaugh volunteered. "It's so distant, I
can't even tell for sure if they're heading
our way or not." Sisko's scowl swung back
to the image of Gul Hidret, now waiting in
confident silence for a reply. "Then how in God's
name did they detect our pres
"They didn't," O'Brien said. "They're
beaming a directed wide-cast over the entire
Armageddon system.
They just suspect we're here." The engineer
looked up from his console, baffled. "What I want
to know is how they learned our travel plans. That
information sure didn't come from Starfleet."
"No doubt Cardassian High
Command has its sources." Sisko tapped a
reflective finger across his chin, debating pros and
cons. Although it was tempting to remain silent and
shatter Gul Hidret's smug sureness about the
Defiant's presence here, this wasn't a decision
he could entrust to gut feelings. "Gentlemen, give
me your opinions," he said abruptly. "Do we
respond or not?" Odo turned to give him a
quizzical look. "Our orders from Admiral
Nechayev were to refrain from starting a war. I
assume that means she'd prefer that no one know
we're here. Am I missing something?"
"The fact
that the Cardassians already know we're here,"
O'Brien retorted. "If we don't warn them
away, they might tangle with the Klingon blockade
and start the war that way."
"True," agreed Worf. "But I do not
advise we reply. The Cardassian battle
cruiser is at least e ighteen hours away, but there
may be other Cardassian ships in the area who can
backtrack our communications signal." Sisko
let out a frustrated breath. "And I want to know
what Gul Hidret is up to. Deadlock."
Ensign Farabaugh cleared his throat, looking
tentatively back and forth between them. "Would it help
if we could respond to the Cardassians with a
ricochet signal?" Sisko swung to face his
youngest bridge officer. "A
signal that can't be traced back to the Defiant?
Can you do that?" He got a shy grin in response.
"With all the comets around here, Captain? No
problem. The signal quality will degrade a lot
when it bounces, but it should still get through."
"Do it." Sisko turned back to face the
waiting image of Gul Hidret, summoning up
all his self-control for the next few minutes.
"Notify me when we're on-line."
"Hang on, sir, I'm
working out a three-way bounce... scanning for
target... All right, we're connected. Go ahead,
Captain."
"Gul Hidret of the Olxinder, this
is Captain Benjamin Sisko of the defiant.
Can you read me?"
"Barely."
Judging from the squeal of feedback and the way
Hidret squinted at his viewscreen, the
Car-dassian wasn't lying. "Are you engaged in
battle with the Klingons?" Sisko lifted one
eyebrow, knowing the gesture probably couldn't be
detected by his counterpart. Had there been a
slightly hopeful tone in that question? "We're just
experiencing some cometary interference, Gul Hidret.
What do you want?"
"To save
Cardassia," Hidret snapped back,
brusquely enough to make Sisko's gut tighten with
apprehension. When a gul dispensed with sly innuendo
and circumspect hints, you knew you were in trouble.
"We know the system you are in is under Klingon
control. If you aren't fighting them, I'll have
to assume you're in league with them and
proceed accordingly."
Sisko grimaced. "Gul Hidret, there are
no Klingons in this system right now." Sisko
ignored Worf's frown and Odo's disapproving
look. He knew a Federation diplomat would
probably have fainted to hear him dish out that information so
generously, but there was a method to his madness. "And
our own presence here is only temporary. As
soon as we locate some Federation crash
survivors--"
"--y'll abandon the system." Gul Hidret
snorted in deep suspicion, the lines in his
face deepening. "Forgive me if I doubt you. The
Federation cannot be ignorant of the reason the Klingons
have set up a blockade around such a worthless old
scar of a planet."
"You mean the political exiles they stranded
here?" That innocent question turned the engraved lines in
the old Cardassian's face from crevasses
to ravines. "So they say! If you ask me, it's just
an convenient excuse to claim they control the
system." Sisko exchanged baffled looks with his
bridge crew. None of them, not even Odo,
looked as if the gul's comment made any more sense
to them than it did to Sisko. But the shrewd
glint of dark eyes on the screen assured him that,
no matter how preposterous his story sounded, this old
officer wasn't senile yet. "Gul Hidret, you
just finished telling us how worthless this planet is.
Why would the Klingons need an excuse to claim
it?" That got him the bared teeth of a more normally
unctuous Cardassian smile. "I expect because
it's the source of all Cardassia's geset."
Even through the bounced and fuzzy signal, he must have
seen Sisko's incomprehension. "It is the only
known cure for
ptarvo fever, a disease that decimates our young,"
he elaborated. "And it's only available in
quantity from that dead and blasted planet you now
orbit." That comment, so apparently reasonable on the
surface, sparked a snort of pure derision from
Odo. Sisko shot him a quick glance, and the
Changeling emphasized his skepticism by smacking
a palm down to cut the audio channel on his
communications board before he spoke. "Gul
Hidret is either a remarkably incompetent liar,
or doesn't have much respect for our intelligence,"
he told the captain bluntly. "What makes you
say that, Constable?"
"Ptarvo fever is a colloquial
term
for the first stirrings of paltegen hormones in young
Cardassian males. What Humans might call
"spring fever."" Odo inclined his head at the
gul, now mouthing unheard words at the viewscreen.
"He's hiding something." Sisko grunted, and
motioned him to open the audio channel again. He
didn't waste any time responding to the gul's
indignant accusations. "If ptarvo fever is such
an emergency, why aren't you bringing a scientific and
medical ship to study the geset and learn how
to synthesize it? Why send in a military
vessel?" Hidret heaved a patently exaggerated
sigh. "Precisely what we were planning to do,
Captain, before the Klingons arrived and set up their
illegal blockade. Since then, the Empire
has been biding its time, hoping the Klingons would
leave--but finding out that the Federation is now on the
side of our old enemies was too much. The High
Command decreed that it was time to intervene, before the vital
secret of geset was lost to us forever."
"We're not on the side of the Klingons,"
Sisko said impatiently. "In fact, we
couldn't be further from it."
"Then why have they allowed you
to stay in a system that they have chased all of our
scouts and warships away from?" Sisko groaned.
That was exactly the kind of flawed reasoning that could
lead to military confrontation. But how could he
correct Hidret's assumptions without opening up
awkward questions about his own foolhardy presence in this
system? Somehow, he didn't think Nechayev would
approve of telling the Cardassian High Command
about the strategically important Starfleet
veteran who had crashed with the other survivors.
Fortunately, Worf took that decision out of his
hands. "Why do you think the Klingons on the planet
are not truly exiles?"
"Because
when we first detected their presence, we offered
to evacuate them," Gul Hidret retorted. "And
they flatly refused. If they had been sent to that
comet-blasted planet against their will, why would they not
want to leave?" Worf's low rumble echoed across the
squealing feedback from the bounced signal. "It is
a matter of honor. That is why you cannot possibly
understand it."
"Ah, the excuse Klingons always use to disguise
their covert activities!" Hidret snapped
back. "I feel confident that whatever those
so-called exiles are doing on that planet, it is
far from honorable--and it is probably aimed at
destroying the Cardassian Empire!"
"And I feel confident that you are lying through your
teeth," muttered Worf, before Sisko waved him
into silence. Fortunately, the squeals of feedback
must have distorted the tactical officer's words enough
to mask them. Gul Hidret screwed his face into a
squint again. "What did you say?" Sisko took
a deep breath. A reckless plan, kindled from
equal parts desperation and cynicism, had assembled
itself in his brain while Worf and the gul had been
talking. He saw no reason to delay putting it
into action. "I said you can easily discover whether those
exiles are working against your government. Why don't
you ask them to let you harvest geset in return for
protecting them against the comets that are hitting the
planet? Your battle cruiser's big enough to sweep
the debris away just by recalibrating and diffusing your
shields. That way, even if the exiles refused
your terms, you would at least protect your source of
geset from destruction."
"What?" He couldn't tell if it was anger,
loathing, or just sheer surprise that bleached out
Hidret's face to the color of old
wax, but the reaction was even more vehement than he'd
expected. "You expect me to depower my shields
and risk the safety of my ship just to save the lives
of some Klingons?"
"No," Sisko said silkily.
"I expect you to risk your ship to save the
lives of your children." The old Cardassian's face
tightened, showing stubborn bones beneath his sagging
wrinkles, but he gave no other sign of having had
his bluff called. "A valiant try, Captain.
Unlike Klingons, you Humans do occasionally
manage to create battle strategies almost
devious enough to be interesting. But your attempt to render
me helpless is a little on the transparent side.
If I agreed to play janitor to your cometary
debris, no doubt I'd soon find myself under
attack from you and your Klingon allies." Sisko
didn't bother to deny that, since he was sure his
Klingon "allies" would have been only too happy
to fulfill Hidret's prophecy. "Then I
strongly suggest you keep away from this system, Gul
Hidret." "And tell your children with ptarvo fever
to try a cold shower instead of geset," Odo added,
in an even more sardonic voice than usual. "So
much for Federation mercy and fairness!" All
pretense of affability vaporized under a boiling
rage that turned Hidret's wrinkled face copper
brown. "We will see who ends up in control of this
system in the end, after the Klingons return and find
you in it!" Sisko smiled, buoyed up by the grim
satisfaction of having forced a Cardassian
to admit to something resembling the truth. "Ah, but
don't forget," he said pleasantly. "The
Klingons are now our allies." With one last howl
that could have been retransmitted static or pure
Cardassian rage, the connection between them went
black. Sisko took a deep breath, then glanced
across at Odo. "Well, Constable? Does Gul
Hidret really think we're allied with the
Klingons?" Odo's face might not have been very
expressive, but he made up for that by the depth of
disgust he could express in a single snort. "What
Gul Hidret thinks is that we're going to get
massacred
by the Klingon blockade. Right now, he's just
positioning himself to come in after the battle's over."
"Then let us hope he miscalculates and
arrives early," Worf said fiercely. "Because
if there is a choice between us and the Cardassians when
the Klingon blockade reforms, I know which
of us will be the first target."
CHAPTER 4
IN HIS LONG years of Starfleet service,
Benjamin Sisko had seen sulfur ice moons
torn apart and neutron stars lashed into turmoil
by passing cosmic strings. As a young ensign, he'd
once watched a red giant star go nova; as a much
older and wiser commander, he'd not only discovered the
Bajoran wormhole, but had been the first Human
to travel through it. In all his years and parsecs of
passage through the galaxy, however, he'd never seen
the effects of a comet impact on a Class-M
planet. Until now. There had not even been a
flare of comet tail across the field of the
Defiant's vision to alert them. Five minutes
after Gul Hidret's apoplectic face had cut
to black and Ensign Farabaugh had hurriedly
transferred Armageddon's rusty image back up
on the viewscreen, a brilliant white explosion
spasmed over the planet's sea-covered northern
pole. Sisko jerked back from the glare, even though
he knew they were orbiting far above the planet's
stratosphere. He swung instinctively toward the
weapons console. "Report!"
"Sensors have detected a seventeen
gigajoule explosion at planetary
coordinates seventy-three point five
by one-twenty-four point nine," his security officer
said. "The radiation signal shows only natural
thermal decay, no evidence of ionized plasma
or radioactivity."
"That's a comet impact." O'Brien sent
Sisko a grim look from engineering. "And it's
only a few hundred kilometers from our away
team at the main Klingon outpost."
"Four-hundred-and-ninety-seven
kilometers, to be precise," Worf clarified
in a stiffly proper voice. "However, vital
signs on all away team members appear stable."
Sisko didn't bother asking why the Klingon had
programmed that information--ordinarily the
responsibility of the Defiant's science officer
--to route through his piloting console. Instead, he
turned his frown on Dax's young replacement.
"Ensign Fara-baugh, I asked you to locate the
most threatening fragments in the cometary field. What
happened?"
"Nothing, sir." Worf slewed around at his
pilot's station to bestow an even fiercer scowl on the
young man. "Seventeen gigajoules is
equivalent to the force of nine photon torpedoes!
Would you call that nothing if you were down on that
planet?" Farabaugh's eyes widened slightly,
but his sincere
look never wavered. "The explosion was
thirty-seven kilometers up in the atmosphere,
Commander Worf. I doubt our away team even
heard a rumble of thunder from it."
"Lucky for them," O'Brien commented. "And for us.
What are the odds the one comet we miss intercepting
is the one that explodes prematurely?"
"We didn't miss that comet, sir," Farabaugh
said in mild surprise. "The computer noted its
trajectory ten minutes ago, while the captain
was talking to Gul Hidret. It just didn't trigger
an alarm." Sisko lifted an eyebrow at his young
science officer. "You knew that fragment was going
to disintegrate too high to cause any damage?
How?" "Relative velocity, sir." Farabaugh
punched a series of commands into his science console,
and the fading afterglow of the comet impact on Armageddon
disappeared. The staffess black screen that replaced
it told Sisko this was a computer simulation, rather than
a real sensor view. Multicolored streaks
swam and spiraled across the black
background like minnows in a chaotic school, leaving
faint, glowing trails behind them. "After I scanned
the comet field to find the ones most likely
to collide with Armageddon, I ran impact
simulations for each of them. You can see from the white and
blue streaks that most of the ice fragments are moving
at extremely or moderately high velocity
relative to the orbital motion of Armageddon."
"And those are the most threatening ones?" O'Brien
guessed. "Actually, no, sir. Any comets that
hit the planets atmosphere fast are subjected
to enormous crushing
forces. Given the low density of cometary ice,
almost all the fast-moving fragments detonate high
in the stratosphere. Only the ones over seventy
kilometers in diameter will survive long enough
to affect the surface." Farabaugh tapped another
command into his panel, and a few dozen comet fragments
lit up in reds and yellows. "These are the dangerous
fragments--the ones that are either big enough or slow enough
to survive their passage through the atmosphere.
They're the ones we have to worry about."
"Will they also crash into the planet with no warning?"
Worf demanded. Odo sent him a sardonic glance.
"Comets are not Klingon warriors,
Commander. You can hardly expect them to issue a
proper challenge before they attack."
"No." Despite his agreement,
however, Sisko noticed the Klingon sat scowling
up at the screen, as if he could somehow intimidate
the comets into more honorable behavior. "How much
leeway do we have before an impact event, Mr.
Farabaugh?" Sisko asked. "I've programmed
the computer to issue a priority-one alarm half an
hour before each projected impact." The young science
officer glanced back at him uncertainly. "Will that
be long enough?"
"That
depends on what preventive action we're going
to take." Odo glanced across at Sisko. "Which was
what I believe we were discussing before we were so
rudely interrupted by the Cardassians."
"I don't think there's
much left to discuss." Sisko
sat back in his command chair and steepled his fingers.
"Phasers are ready and the coast is clear. Which of
these comets do you want us to shoot first, Mr.
Farabaugh?"
"Um--actually, Captain, there's something I
wanted to tell you about that." The young officer
cleared his throat diffidently. "I'd rather we
didn't shoot any of them, if you don't mind."
Sisko saw Worf turn to scowl again at the
beleaguered ensign, and waved the Klingon into fuming
silence. "All right, Mr. Farabaugh.
Explain."
"Actually, sir, I think I know what he
means," O'Brien said before Farabaugh could gather
himself together. "We learned about this in planetary
engineering. If you explode a comet that's threatening
to strike a planet, all you do is increase the area
of devastation by turning it from one big impactor into a
whole bunch of medium-sized ones."
"Exactly," Farabaugh said, looking
relieved. "The destruction quotient goes up
anywhere from four to ten times, depending on the number of
fragments and their trajectories. And since a
phaser blast would tend to selectively refract
through cracks and fissures in the comet, it would be almost
impossible not to break it into fragments." Worf's
scowl faded into a more thoughtful frown. "What if we
increased dispersion and decreased intensity on the
phasers? That should vaporize the whole comet even if
it breaks apart."
"Except it will also create a
radiating impulse wave that will disturb other
comets in the cloud into new orbits," O'Brien
said. "Which means we might add one or two more
major threats for every one we remove."
"And there's no way to know that
without running the trackill that be long enough?"
"That depends on what
preventive action we're going to take." Odo
glanced across at Sisko. "Which was what I believe
we were discussing before we were so rudely interrupted by the
Cardassians."
"I don't think there's much left to
discuss." Sisko
sat back in his command chair and steepled his fingers.
"Phasers are ready and the coast is clear. Which of
these comets do you want us to shoot first, Mr.
Farabaugh?"
"Um--actually, Captain, there's something I
wanted to tell you about that." The young officer cleared his
throat diffidently. "I'd rather we didn't shoot
any of them, if you don't mind." Sisko saw
Worf turn to scowl again at the beleaguered ensign,
and waved the Klingon into fuming silence. "All right,
Mr. Farabaugh. Explain."
"Actually, sir, I think I know what
he means," O'Brien said before Farabaugh could
gather himself together. "We learned about this in planetary
engineering. If you explode a comet that's threatening
to strike a planet, all you do is increase the area
of devastation by turning it from one big impactor into a
whole bunch of medium-sized ones."
"Exactly," Farabaugh said, looking
relieved. "The destruction quotient goes up
anywhere from four to ten times, depending on the number of
fragments and their trajectories. And since a
phaser blast would tend to selectively refract
through cracks and fissures in the comet, it would be almost
impossible not to break it into fragments." Worf's
scowl faded into a more thoughtful frown. "What if we
increased dispersion and decreased intensity on the
phasers? That should vaporize the whole comet even if
it breaks apart."
"Except it will also create a
radiating impulse wave that will disturb other
comets in the cloud into new orbits," O'Brien
said. "Which means we might add one or two more
major threats for every one we remove."
"And there's no way to know that
without running the tracking program all over again
every time we vaporize," added Farabaugh.
"Too risky. We might POINT a comet at the
planet before we even knew we did it." Sisko
tapped his steepled fingers against his chin, considering his
rapidly dwindling alternatives. "Well, the one
thing we agree on is that we can't just sit here and
let Armageddon happen. So we'll have to find
something we can do." He shot an inquiring glance at
his chief engineer. "You must remember something else from
that planetary engineering class of yours, Chief.
What were the recommended ways of dealing with an
imminent comet impact?" "Deflection by modulated
photon torpedo blast," O'Brien said
promptly. "The idea was not to break it up, just
alter its trajectory enough to turn the hit into a
miss."
"And the photon blast probably stripped off just
enough of the dust mantle to vaporize a layer of
interior ice," Farabaugh guessed. "Then the gas
spurt would push the comet in the opposite
direction."
"Right." O'Brien waved a hand at the
multitude of colored streaks on the main
viewscreen. "The problem is, there's a lot more red
and yellow blobs up there than we have torpedoes.
And even quantum torpedoes aren't strong
enough to reach more than one or two comets at a time."
"Can we achieve the same effect by modulating
our phaser array?" Worf demanded.
The chief engineer shook his sandy head. "We'd have
to remodulate it for each blast, and you know how many
hours that would take."
"Not to
mention the fact that it would make the phasers
inoperable for defensive purposes," Odo commented.
"And considering that I've just detected the ion trail
of a cloaked vessel entering the system--"
"Location,
velocity, estimated size?" Sisko demanded.
For all the implicit trust he felt in Odo and
Kira, there were times when the captain would have given
anything for them to have had Starfleet training.
"Extrapolated destination?" Odo scanned his
panel. "Cloaked vessel is currently
two-hundred-and-fifty thousand kilometers out from
system center, traveling at seventy-five percent
impulse speed and slowing rapidly. It appeared
to be a Jfolokh-class vessel, but with the ion
trail dissipating as it slows, the computer can't be
sure. Extrapolated destination is an
equatorial orbit around Armageddon."
He looked up at Sisko. "If I had
to guess, Captain, I'd say the Klingon
blockade was back in town." Sisko grunted.
"Mr. Worf, notify the away team that from now
on, all communications are on secure channels
only. And tell them they either beam up soon or not
for a while." He turned toward his chief engineer.
"I don't care how you do it, Chief, but I want
the Defiant's emissions down as close to zero as
you can manage for the next few hours. I don't
want those Klingons to get even a sniffof our
presence here until we've located the survivors
and are ready to beam them out."
92 O'Brien grimaced. "I don't know about
zero, sir. I can recirculate the ship's thermal
output and put a magnetic bottle around our warp
exhaust, but there's not too much I can do about the
diffuse ionization off the shields. And with all the
comets bumbling through our current orbit--"
"--we can't turn shields off," Sisko
finished for him. "But we may be able to lower the
transfer charge without compromising our deflection
capacity. Do the best you can, Chief."
"Aye, sir." O'Brien
scrambled out of his chair, pausing only
long enough to tap open his direct channel down to the
Engineering deck. "Frantz, cap the warp
exhaust, now. Ornsdorf and Frisinger, start
recycling our waste heat through the impulse baffles
to equalize it with ambient."
"Aye, sir."
The competent calmness of that reply was so
obviously modeled after O'Brien's own legendary
composure that Sisko had to smile. "Desired
delta on the heat output?"
"As close to planetary infrared output as
possible," O'Brien said. "And I'm coming down
to recalibrate the power circuits for the shields, so
get all those lines stripped and ready for
modulation."
"Aye, sir." Satisfied that his ship was going
to be as invisible as any able-bodied vessel could
be, Sisko turned his attention back to Worf.
"Any response from the away team, Commander?" The
Klingon's glum look told him the answer before he
even began to speak. "Dr. Bashir says he is
not finished evaluating casualties among the new
Klingon encampment, Captain. They appear to have
experienced at least three impact events, although
none were as direct and damaging as the one that
affected the first settlement. He has asked me
to beam Ensign Ledonne into the new camp to aid
him."
"Is the Klingon
ship still out of short-range sensor detection
limit?" Sisko asked his security officer. When
Odo assented with a grunt, he nodded his approval
back to Worf. "Tell the doctor this will be his last
chance to reassign his team, or to beam any Klingons
aboard for medical treatment. What progress have the
others made in locating the hostages?"
"Commander Dax
has sent a full report on the interrogations
she and Major Kira have conducted so far, but says
they have been unable to convince any among this group of
exiles to cooperate with them as Gordek did. She
is no closer to identifying who the hostage-takers
are, much less what their location might be. She
has also transmitted the data she has collected
on the planet's environmental conditions, to be
attached to your logs." "Hmm." Rather than
reassuring him, that news made Sisko's skin
crawl with apprehension. The only time Dax went out
of her way to keep him informed of her scientific
discoveries was when she thought she might not be
coming back to explain them in glorious detail herself.
"Keep a high-security communications channel
available for the away team to use at all times,
Mr. Worf. And keep a close eye on their
vital signs. We still don't know if the exiles
they're dealing with are any more trustworthy than the
ones who found the Victoria Adams." Worf
grunted curt approval of that policy. "I have
already programmed an automated linkage between the
shields and the main transporter controls. We can have
the away team aboard with only a moment's loss in
defensive capability."
"Good work, Commander." Sisko saw the irritated
look Ensign Farabaugh threw Worf, and shook
his head warningly at the younger man. It was true that
Worf's preemptive action had usurped some of the
science officer's traditional
responsibilities, but the end result was all that
mattered right now, not how it was achieved. He
distracted Farabaugh with a wave of his hand at the
viewscreen. "As long as we've got a computer
simulation running up there, can we add the Klingons'
estimated course-heading to it?"
"Yes, sir. All I need is the tracking
data from Mr. Odo's station."
"I'm transferring it to you now. And for
your information, young man, I am not Mister Odo."
"Yes, sir. Sorry,
sir." Farabaugh ducked his head over his
panel, and, a moment later, a bright green disk
appeared at the far edge of the viewscreen. Even if
he hadn't known it was the ion-trace of the cloaked
Klingon vessel, Sisko's space-trained eyes
would have been caught by its unusual rate of
deceleration and its erratic slalom swings through the
comet field. "The Klingon vessel isn't
deflecting the comet debris, Captain,"
Farabaugh said unnecessarily. "It's taking
evasive action."
"I can see that."
Sisko could admire the fierce jerks and swoops
of the unknown vessel, even while he pitied any
Klingons aboard with weak stomachs. No inertial
dampener in the galaxy could cope with shifts that
rapid. "Interpretation, Mr. Worf?."
"I am not sure, Captain." Worf squinted
up at the
screen as if he could visualize the Klingon
ship better that way. "Perhaps they are practicing
battle maneuvers. If so, they are not
standard ones."
"If I didn't know any better," Odo said
drily, "I would say they were out glee-riding."
"Glee-riding?" Worf repeated. "It's what
Bajoran adolescents call careening as close
as they can to the rocks when they're out ice-sailing.
Personally, I call it trying to kill themselves just for the
fun of it." Watching the green disk swing wildly
out of its way to needle between two closely orbiting
comet fragments, Sisko had to admit that Odo's
description did seem apt. "If that really is a
Jfolokh-class vessel, it's running damn
close to its operating tolerances. The pilot's either
very good or very foolish."
"Or both,"
Worf said grimly. "I find it difficult
to believe that this ship has been sent to resume the
official Klingon embargo."
"They don't know that
we're here," Sisko reminded him. "And they've
probably sent all their better ships to man the
Cardassian border. No matter how it's getting
here, it's certainly headed for the orbit I'd
expect a blockading ship to take up."
"True." Worf glanced back over his
shoulder. "In that case, sir, I suggest continuous
passive scanning to be sure the Klingon vessel
does not attempt to beam anyone to or from the planet
surface." Sisko nodded at Farabaugh. "Do
it. And monitor their communications, too. I doubt
they'll be saying much on open channels, but it never
hurts to listen."
"Aye, sir."
The green disk that was the cloaked Klingon
vessel made one last swashbuckling swoop around
a spiraling comet fragment, then settled
reluctantly on station around the glowing amber sphere
representing Armageddon in the computer simulation.
Sisko lifted an eyebrow, noticing that the
skimmed comet fragment had been blasted into a
different direction by the encounter with the Klingon's warp
exhaust. "Looks like you'd better rerun your
impact prediction model, too, Mr.
Farabaugh," he said. "After all those close
encounters with the Klingons--" He broke off, sitting
straighter in his command chair. "That's what we can do!"
Odo gave him a caustic look. "Have a close
encounter with the Klingons?" "No--with any comet that
looks like it's going to hit the planet." Sisko
leaped out of his chair and began pacing, trying
to gather together his whirling thoughts. "We'll have to uncap
our warp core exhaust, at least long enough to alter the
orbit of the fragment we want to intercept. It's
either that or vent some of the thermal waste stored in the
impulse engines."
"Either way, we would leave a clear trail for the
Klingons to see," Worf pointed out. The
tactical officer did not sound negative, just
thoughtful. "If we plotted our course carefully,
however, we could use the planet's gravitational
field to loop us toward the comet with just a one- or
two-second impulse thrust. Then we would only
need to graze the comet with ou r angled shields in
order to deflect it." Farabaugh looked up from his
science console. "Can we plot a course that won't
affect the other
comets in the field, Commander? That way, our
collision models won't need to be rerun every time
we interfere."
"We can if we wait until the
comet is just about to enter Armageddon's gravity
well." Sisko came to a halt in front of the
viewscreen and pointed at the halo of clear space
around the planet. "All we'll need to do is
adjust the velocity of our circumpolar
orbit to be sure we're close to the comet's
projected entry point." Odo snorted. "And you
don't think the Klingons will notice when a comet
suddenly bounces off of empty space?"
"Not if they are on the
opposite side of the planet at the time,"
Worf said simply. "But that means solving some
intricate orbital mechanics equations--"
Sisko came to a halt in the center of his bridge,
stymied once again by the absence of Dax at the science
station. There was no way he could expect a
single-brained human to do all the monitoring,
modeling, and scanning his Trill science officer could
have handled with ease. "Mr. Farabaugh, who else
on the Defiant's crew has had science officer
training?" "UM--WELL, I went to the Academy
with Ensign Osgood down in the main weapons bay,
sir. I know she aced all her celestial
mechanics courses. And I think there's an
engineering tech named Thornton who did a stint on
a science research vessel. He's also an expert
on sensor systems." "Good. Contact Thornton
and tell him to come up and man your station. His job will
be to scan the Klingons and report back to you on
any changes in their orbit. You and
Osgood commandeer one of the
science labs and a sector of the main computer, and
set up a full-scale model of the comet belt.
I don't just want to know when every comet's going to hit
this planet, I want to know far enough in advance
to adjust our orbit, so we can intersect and
deflect it while it's still on the Klingon's blind
side. Is that clear?"
"Aye, sir!"
"I want your first
report by--" Sisko glanced at the shipboard
clock to estimate a reasonable deadline, and only
then realized why his eyes felt like he was squinting
past sand. From the time they'd left Deep Space
Nine yesterday until now, he'd put in seventeen
straight hours on duty. And so had the rest of his
original bridge crew, with the exception of Odo,
who had been forced to return to his cabin and
regenerate several hours ago.
"--oh-three-hundred hours. Odo, you have the
conn. Commander Worf, call up replacements for
your station and Chief O'Brien's." He got the
scowl he'd expected from the Klingon. "Captain--
was
"No buts, Mr. Worf,"
Sisko said crisply. "I refuse to take the
Defiant slow-dancing with comets unless my pilot
is fit and rested. Report back to the bridge
by oh-four-hundred. I assume we won't be
looking to deflect any impacts before then, Mr.
Farabaugh?"
"No, sir."
"Unless the Klingons start up
some target practice of their own." Odo's
ability to find a cloud in every silver lining would have
amused Sisko if his chief of security wasn't
right so depressingly often. "Let's hope that
doesn't happen, Constable." Sisko C ast a
sardonic look at the viewscreen. "Although if our
glee-riding friends over there do decide to start
shooting, with any luck they'll either be too drunk
or too motion-sick to aim straight."
The first dull crash jerked Kira's head around so
fast she nearly tumbled off the tall root she'd
been straddling. A puff of dust--or dislodged
vapor?--belched skyward like volcanic ejecta
above the impenetrable tract of plant life before
her. A tree just like the one on which she sat shuddered
dully where it poked up through the brush a dozen
meters away. Another unhurried
tremor; she felt this one vibrate through her bones,
and clenched at the roots underneath her as a flock of
silent, grey-green primates scattered away from
the rumble like startled pigeons. For just an instant,
she thought about calling out in alarm. She'd never heard
anything like this, couldn't scramble up any kind of
mental image to scare away more dire thoughts. The
closest thing memory could offer was the Cardassians'
giant mining drones, crunching their way through everything
that wasn't the ores they sought. But there were no ores
here, and presumably no Cardassians, either, so
her mind leapt to the only other thing this alien
environment had to offer a comet. The very
ridiculousness of that mental leap blew the rest of
her fears into silence. Back toward the main
expanse of clearing, dark Klingon figures
slunk moodily from place to place. Quiet yet
surly, biding the time leading up to their destruction with
what no doubt constituted a Klingon display of good
grace. While their lack of alarm helped
solidify her suspicion that no murderous rain of
ice was imminent, it also made her scowl in
private disgust. In the years since Bajor had
won its independence from Cardassia, Kira had
spent a great deal of effort trying to free
herself of what seemed unavoidable racism. In her
youth, fierce pride in her Bajoran heritage
had been the only thing that let her justify the anger
and bloodshed saturating her life as an
anticar-dassian terrorist. It wasn't until
she worked side by side with Humans and Trills and
Ferengi and Vulcans every day that she became aware of
how much her hatred of Cardassians had slipped
over into hatred of anything not Bajoran. The
realization had proved unexpectedly painful.
Disgust and loathing for the race who tortured your people
to near extinction had always seemed fair and right.
To forgive was the first step in forgetting, and forgetting was
a dishonor to the millions of Bajorans who had
died under Cardassian rule. She'd taken a
private satisfaction in flaunting the
Prophets' warning, "Hatred poisons the soil
so that nothing but more hatred can grow there." Her hatred
was different. Her hatred was just. And her impatience
with the Humans? Her distrust of the Ferengi? Her
disbelief in the Vulcans' sincerity? Her secret
suspicion that Trills did something immoral
by sharing themselves with a symbiont? It took her many
months to accept that all her fears, dislikes,
suspicions, and disdain were simply
fruits of the soil she'd let her just hatred
poison. After that, she'd begun the long task of
redemption. She'd even allowed herself the vanity of
believing she'd made
brilliant progress in learning to embrace the
values offered by other worlds and cultures. Until
today. She'd spent the better part of the last two
hours trying to wrap her mind around the concept that being
thumped, spat on, and snarled at by scowling
Klingons was little more than exchanging social
pleasantries. Not that she was any sort of expert
in their cultural ways. Still, her gut instincts just
didn't seem able to align themselves with what amounted
to a cultural habit of aggression. And I thought
I was a barbarian, she admitted with a sigh.
Picking her way carefully up the tree's rough
bark, she found a handhold above the tallest knee of
root and used that to hike herself almost a full meter
higher in an effort to improve her view. My
problem is, I just can't pretend I don't feel
what I feel. Dax's careful, rational
explanations aside, Kira found it hard to silence
those old instincts just for the sake of pretending she
respected any society that functioned more on
intimidation and posturing than on any kind
of true merit. Sympathy kept running aground
on the basic reality that every interview she and Dax
conducted had someone shouting and growling as though eager
to encourage a fight. If Dax hadn't suggested that
Kira spend some time off on her own--to "cool
off--the major might just have precipitated a
political situation of her own. A slow, chuffing
grumble crack-crashed its way closer through the stand of
brush to her left. Kira craned up on tiptoes
to steal a glimpse of the topmost surface of the
foliage, and instead caught only a
methane-tangy belch of breath in the face when the
creature making its way toward her finally smashed
its languorous way out of the undergrowth. By the time her
brain released some of its processing
capabilities from the act of bolting straight up the
tree, she was perhaps another two meters farther from the
clearing floor. She peered down--at least
slightly down--at the peaceful behemoth now
stripping bark from the woody growth it had just muscled
through. Not a Cardassian mining drone, but easily a
hefty second in both mass and size. It towered
a good four meters at the shoulder, with a huge,
blunt head that sloped down and forward to give it the
look of a crashball guardsman. A
flaret in their cultural ways. Still, her gut
instincts just didn't seem able to align themselves with
what amounted to a cultural habit of aggression.
And I thought I was a barbarian, she admitted with a
sigh. Picking her way carefully up the tree's
rough bark, she found a handhold above the tallest
knee of root and used that to hike herself almost a full
meter higher in an effort to improve her view.
My problem is, I just can't pretend I don't
feel what I feel. Dax's careful, rational
explanations aside, Kira found it hard to silence
those old instincts just for the sake of pretending she
respected any society that functioned more on
intimidation and posturing than on any kind of true
merit. Sympathy kept running aground on the
basic reality that every interview she and Dax conducted
had someone shouting and growling as though eager to encourage
a fight. If Dax hadn't suggested that Kira
spend some time off on her own--to "cool off--the
major might just have precipitated a political
situation of her own. A slow, chuffing grumble
crack-crashed its way closer through the stand of brush
to her left. Kir a craned up on tiptoes to steal
a glimpse of the topmost surface of the foliage,
and instead caught only a
methane-tangy belch of breath in the face when the
creature making its way toward her finally smashed
its languorous way out of the undergrowth. By the time her
brain released some of its processing
capabilities from the act of bolting straight up the
tree, she was perhaps another two meters farther from the
clearing floor. She peered down--at least
slightly down--at the peaceful behemoth now
stripping bark from the woody growth it had just muscled
through. Not a Cardassian mining drone, but easily a
hefty second in both mass and size. It towered
a good four meters at the shoulder, with a huge,
blunt head that sloped down and forward to give it the
look of a crashball guardsman. A flare of
bony plate ridged the back of its skull like a
tiara, angling to fit almost seamlessly with the armor-Like
skin encasing the rest of its bulk; necessary, no doubt,
to protect against whips and thorns and brambles as it
plowed its way through the hostile overgrowth that Dax and
Kira had reluctantly deemed impossible
to move through. The eyes it turned up toward Kira
were gentle, if stupid, and it paid her no more attention
than it took to fondle her toe with the tip of its
mobile upper lip before seeking out more edible fare
among the tree's scrubby leaves.
"Don't worry--she's harmless." Kira twisted
a look toward the voice, trying to look more annoyed
than embarrassed. "I was just climbing up for a
better view." Then she realized how awkwardly
she'd wrapped herself around a limb too narrow
to truly hold her weight, and couldn't hold back
her blush. "I guess I wasn't expecting
company," she finally managed. The Klingon girl
smiled--a smile remarkably free
of Klingon disdain, for all that it came and went like
a shooting star. Tossing a coil of woven plant
fiber onto one shoulder, the girl picked her way
across the top of the undisturbed brush-forest with an
ease almost rivaling that of the silent primates who still
danced back and forth across the large pachyderm's
trail. Even the bloody bandage cinched around her
thigh didn't seem to slow her much. She was easily
the youngest Klingon Kira had seen here at the Vrag
main camp, maybe a year or two past puberty,
the equivalent of a Bajoran fourteen-year-old.
She'd braided her glossy black hair into a
queue more severe even than Worf habitually
wore, but managed to offset that austerity with simple
formfitting clothes and not so much as a suggestion of the
armor and metalwork normally incorporated
into even the most casual Klingon attire. She
trailed one hand lightly down the huge animal's
side as she passed. The gesture reminded Kira
of nothing so much as the Bajoran farmers of her youth,
dropping unconscious touches here and there as they
walked among their herds, lest the clumsy
creatures forget a fragile humanoid moved
among them. "It's not like you couldn't have heard her
coming," the girl remarked as she stepped from
brush-tops to tree and offered Kira her hand.
"Banchory aren't very good at sneaking up on
anyone." Kira was surprised to recognize the
Klingon word for war wagon. She cast another
nervous look at the beast now languidly splintering
a branch the size of her thigh, and it occurred to her
that "war wagon" wasn't a bad description for these
animals.
Gingerly lowering one foot toward the brace the
girl created with her fist against the tree, Kira
did her best to unwind herself from her perch in something
resembling a dignified manner. "So did you bring
these..." She tried to remember exactly how the
girl had pronounced the word. "... these banchory from
Qo'nos with you?" The girl shook her head, caught
Kira's other foot against her shoulder before
the major could lose her balance, and guided her to the
relative safety of the roots with a strength that would have
been disproportionate in a Bajoran girl her
age. "No, the banchory are native
to Cha'xirrac. There used to be thousands of them."
She watched the banchory near them strip a long
peel of bark from one of the other trees, turning it
over, around, and inside out using nothing but the
delicate manipulations of its lips and tongue.
A flash of what might have been anger darkened the young
girl's face. "They once used this clearing in the
tuq'mor as an overnight spot, but they pretty
much avoid us now." By now, Kira had come to understand
that "tuq'mor" meant the impossibly thick snarl
of vines, bushes, trees, and ferns that seemed
to cover every inch of Armageddon's surface. It
occurred to Kira that she should have known that even
Klingons couldn't beat out a clearing the size of this
one without some kind of assistance. Kira forced herself
to sit without flinching when the banchory turned
to examine the other side of its newly made
clearing, all but brushing Kira with its stubby tail
as it lumbered past. "So why do they stay
away now?" she asked, as much to distract herself as
because she really cared for an answer. She
remembered the pile of mammoth carcasses by the
sea. "Is it because you hunt them?"
"Because Gordek and the other men
hunt them." The bitterness in her young voice
startled Kira. She clutched the rope over her
shoulder as though it were a precious bat'leth,
defiantly meeting Kira's gaze. "Grandmother
thinks we can do whatever we want because everyone on
Cha'xirrac will soon be dead. Gordek thinks we
can do whatever we want just because we can." A
peculiarly childlike frustration pursed the
girl's lips. "I thought honor was about more than just
how long your conduct was remembered, or what you could
force others to do." Kira's comm badge chirped before
she could think of how best to respond to such a comment.
"Dax to Kira." The Trill's voice sounded
stiff with frustration. "Could you join me and epetai
Vrag?"
"I'll be right there." She tapped off her
badge, then managed a smile for the girl with less
effort than she'd expected. "It was a pleasure
to meet youw"
"K'Taran." She thrust out her hand with
charmingly Human exuberance, but performed the
actual handshake with a certain clumsiness that
told Kira she'd never actually performed the
social ritual before. "Any pleasure belongs
to me," she said with deep sincerity. "The adults
say that you are the one who brought a doctor, to help
relieve our suffering while we wait for the end."
"Yes, we did."
Kira felt abruptly stupid. Here she was
chatting about local wildlife when it seemed almost
everyone and everything in the House of Vrag could
benefit from medical attention. "He was over in the
children's billet earlier, but probably has time
to look at your leg." She pointed out the trio of
dugouts where she'd last seen Bashir, as though
K'Taran might not know which ones they were. "He's
slim and dark, with dark hair." Then she remembered
the awkward Human handshake, and realized the girl
might have mistaken her for Human despite her
distinctly Bajoran Features. If recognizing
more subtle racial differences was challenging for
Klingons, she didn't want to think about how hard it
might be for the girl to tell Human male from
Human female. Especially when the female was as
tall and strong-boned as Dax. "He's the one with
short hair, and no freckles."
"Thank you." For a moment, she looked like
she might try the handshake again, but instead defaulted
to one fist against her chest in the Klingon equivalent.
"The concern you show for my people is honorable." Kira
watched her clamber off across the tuq'mor, marveling
again at the complexity of any word that so many people could use
to mean so many different things. That there could be so many
different forms of Klingon pleasantry seemed only
slightly more remarkable. The dugout tree-cave
currently hosting the Vrag Household conference
didn't look appreciably different than when
Kira had fled it more than an hour ago. Still too
dark, still too humid, still crammed with snarling,
snapping Klingons battling over yet another
gradation in the definition of "honor." Roots
snaked and intertwined so tightly through the walls that it
was impossible to tell what had been naturally
eroded into hollows by dripping water and what the
Klingons had excavated themselves. All their
attempts to personalize the dank, formless space
--all their tapestries and sculptures and
crudely fashioned furniture--only accentuated
what a dark, dirty, pitiful hovel the dugout
really was.
Dax seemed to appear out of nowhere, her soft
summons coalescing her figure from the
shadows just inside the dugout's low door. She
stood beside a rickety table, toying with the handle of a
simple water jug and watching the Klingons as they
argued. "We've got a problem." Kira nodded.
"You mean besides a shipload of missing Starfleet
retirees and rocks the size of space stations
falling on our heads?" The humor seemed to break
through Dax's pensiveness, and she turned away from the
discussion with a crooked smile. "In addition to that."
She dropped her voice to a more conspiratorial
tone. "The Klingon blockade is back.
Captain Sisko's going to cloak the Defiant and
try to avoid detection." Kira felt a little
clench in her stomach. "What about the away team? Can
we beam out?"
"Only if we leave now. No guarantees if
the Defiant is discovered." Because then the ship would have
to raise shields, and there'd be no telling when they
could lower them again. Kira paced in a slow circle,
rubbing at her eyes. "That would mean leaving without the
Victoria Adams's crew." Prophets, what
time was it back on board the Defiant? She felt
as though she hadn't slept in weeks. "And we'll
have to drag Bashir out by the hair. He won't leave
as long as there are casualties."
"But if we don't leave now," Dax pointed
out, ruthlessly nonpartisan, " we might not leave at
all."
"Then you will
simply be equal to the rest of us." Kira
tossed a glance over her shoulder, surprised to find
what had seemed a truly apocalyptic argument
now lulled enough for Rekan to eavesdrop. The others
arrayed beyond her, waiting; Kira couldn't tell how
much of their sour expressions were aimed at their
epetai and how much at her. "We're not completely
equal." Kira turned to face them squarely.
She'd be damned if she'd let anyone claim the
moral high ground, least of all a band of defeatist
Klingon exiles. "We intend to survive."
EPETAI Vrag lifted her lip in a civilized
snarl. "Fighting a pointless battle does not add
to your honor. The comets grow more thick daily. The
longer you are here, the greater the likelihood you will be
involved in a large-scale strike." She reached out
with almost prim disapproval and flicked Dax's hand
away from the water jug. "You would better serve
yourselves by accepting the inevitable and preparing your spirits for
their passage, or taking the one soldier you have found
and leaving now." Kira forced herself not to slap
the jug to the floor. "I'm not ready to ignore all
our options just yet." She turned pointedly
to Dax. "Now that the blockade is back, we can't
count on the defiant deflecting any comets away
from the planet." "But the Klingons holding the
hostages--"
"Can't get any help from us if we've broken
cloak and been attacked by Klingons. We'll have
to assume that the comets are going to keep coming. As it
gets darker, we might be able to see them hit the
atmosphere, maybe get a better feel for the
volume and frequency."
"Unfortunately,"
the science officer sighed, "that won't help us
pinpoint the impact zones." Dax lifted her
eyes only a fraction, but Kira knew she'd
made eye contact with the Klingon matriarch still hovering
behind Kira's right shoulder. "We'd be safer if we
moved farther inland. Right now, a major impact in
the ocean could flood this camp." Kira couldn't
help blurting a disbelieving laugh. "We're
fifty kilometers from the ocean!" "Someday, when we
have time," Dax said sweetly, "I'll tell you
all about how tsunamis on twelfth century
Caladaan created coast-to-coast
flood plains on most of their lesser continents."
Kira didn't really care to hear the whole
explanation--the fact that the example existed was
point enough. "What about initiating a physical
search for the survivors? Have we found out anything of
use in your interviews?" Dax shook her head,
sighing. "Even if we knew exactly where to look,
we can't get through the undergrowth unless we use
phasers. And that would take longer than we have."
"What about using the banchory?" Kira had meant
the question to stimulate discussion, not to slap shock through the
gathering like a hand across the face. The Klingons fell
into knife-
sharp silence, every one, and Dax asked, "The "war
wagons?"' Kira, what are you talking about?"
"They're a native animal, four or five
meters tall and built like a runabout. I saw one
outside." She pointed behind her, out the door and
vaguely in the direction of her encounter. "Dax,
you've never seen something plow through brush the way these
things can. We could cover literally kilometers every
hour." Dax turned a questioning look on the
matriarch. "Epetai Vrag...? was she
prompted. Rekan spoke without looking up from her
hands, apparently fascinated with their cords
of muscle and patterns of veins. "Was anyone with
this beast you saw?"
"A girl." Kira tried to decipher the
strange flux of emotion across the old Klingon's
face, only to find herself wondering if every deep
Klingon emotion looked to a Bajoran like anger.
"She said her name was K'Taran." A Klingon so
old that his brow ridge had begun to gnarl huffed with
sour laughter. "Another intractable daughter of
Vrag." Rekan snarled what might have been a
Klingon threat, or perhaps just an animal noise of
anger. It came overlaid with a memory of a young
girl's voice saying, Grandmother thinks we can do
whatever we want, and a sudden awareness of how
similar two individual faces could be.
"Epetai Vrag," Kira heard herself saying,
almost gently, "is K'Taran your granddaughter?"
Rekan answered almost before the question was finished. "I do
not have a granddaughter."
"They do not cease to exist simply
because you
might wish it so." The older male Klingon
who'd spoken before shook off one elder's grasping
hand, and aimed a backhanded swing at another. The
epetai composed her face into a haughty
mask that might almost have been convincing if not for the
anguish in her eyes. "The young ones who have left us
live and die by their own choosings now. They have chosen
a path that holds no honor and are no longer a
concern to this House."
"They're
a concern to us, if they are the ones who found our
comrades." For about the fiftieth time since beaming
down to Armageddon, Kira wondered how Dax could
maintain such a show of nonjudgmental courtesy when
all KIRA wanted to do was tear stubborn Klingon
heads off. "If you know where they are, tell us, so
we can talk to them and perhaps help them all
survive." Rekan met Dax's gaze with a glare
of challenge, but otherwise gave no sign that she'd
heard much less intended to answer. "Honor
dictated that this House be destroyed," she said
instead. "That could not be avoided, but it was never my
decision. We stand where we are because honor gave us
no choice."
"And because you've agreed to die,
everyone else has to die here with you?" Even
Dax's voice had begun to sharpen with annoyance.
"She does not know where they are." The older male
sniffed at the air as though displeased with the
smell. "None of us knows. They have made themselves
native. They wander the tuq'mor LIKE animals.
Except for the trails from their banchory, we see
nothing of them."
Dax glanced at Kira. "But you said K'Taran
was just here?" Kira nodded. "She thanked us for bringing
in a doctor and said--" The words were barely out of her
mouth before their implication kicked her in the stomach.
Turning slightly away from Dax, away from the
others, she slapped at her comm badge so hard she
was sure it would bruise her palm. "Kira
to Bashir." Furious at her own stupidity, more
furious still at her embarrassment when nothing but
silence echoed back across subspace. "Kira
to Bashir!" Nothing. No doctor, no wayward
Klingon, not even an open channel to hint that
Bashir's communicator still existed. The doctor was
gone. Rekan Vrag was the first to break the silence,
and although there was triumph in her voice, its icy
chill told Kira it wasn't a triumph she was
proud of. "You have given up another hostage," she
said accusingly. "Now do you begin to see what an
abomination is a Klingon without honor?"
CHAPTER 5
BASHIR WASN'T SURE which
irritated him more--being bound and blindfolded like some
sort of political prisoner, or knocking his
head against the floor of his captors' lumbering
vehicle every time it jolted over uneven terrain or
crashed its way through a new stand of underbrush. He
did know that the coil of fear gaining strength at the
pit of his belly only exacerbated the more facile
emotions that lurched to the surface. Fear for the
Victoria adams's still-missing crew; fear for his
two assistants, who shouldn't be abandoned to deal with
so many Klingon casualties on their own; and, yes,
fear for himself at the thought of being separated from his landing
party with a star system full of potential disaster
hanging over all their heads. Being all alone in an
alien scrub forest when a
comet sterilized the ecosystem was not one of his more
romantic visions of a heroic death. He felt the
little flutter of his comm badge's chirp from where his
body weight pinned it against the rocking floor.
Above him, the Klingon whose knee had been in contact
with his back since the beginning of their trip stirred
uneasily, grunting. "Look, this is
ridiculous." Bashir paused, waiting with
muscles tensed for a blow or a shove or a wad of
gag in his mouth to silence him. When none
came, he swallowed hard and disciplined his voice
into something resembling composure. "That's my away
team. If you don't let me talk to them, they'll
just trace my badge signal and find me." A
strong hand snaked beneath him, prying him away from the
floor less roughly than Bashir expected and
plucking the badge from his uniform breast with the same
casual dexterity an entomologist might use
to capture a roving beetle. He thought he felt
his captor shift and spin the way a person did when
flinging a small object, but couldn't very well listen
for the whisper of the badge's flight over the crash and
rumble of their transportation. Fear finally cut its
moorings in his stomach and diffused throughout his system.
"All right. The badge is gone. Fine." Pushing
up with one knee and one elbow, he managed to roll
himself clumsily. If hopelessness had one good
trait, it was that it wasted little time converting fear into the
anger more useful for survival. "Can you please
untie me now?" A grab at the front of his
uniform caught him when he struggled to his knees.
"Sit?
It was the first time anyone had spoken to him since the
girl who'd served as bait lured him into the underbrush
in search of casualties. This voice
sounded suspiciously the same. "Just tell me where
--"
"Sit"
She didn't wait for his compliance this time. Tugging
firmly downward on the front of his tunic, she
clearly meant to muscle him back to the floor, where
he'd spent the first part of this liaison. He
didn't consciously resist--rearing back away from
her grip was no more than an instinctive reaction
against being forcibly placed anywhere when he couldn't
see the world around him. But he knew it was a
mistake the moment his center of gra vity slipped
past thirty degrees. Hands clutched first at his
shoulders, then at his waistband as he tumbled
backward, then disappeared entirely when he hit
free-fall. The ground he landed on was softer than
he'd thought, not to mention much closer to the start of his
fall than it had seemed when he'd first been hauled
up several meters and dumped into the transport's
open bed. It poked and prodded him like a bundle of
sticks, but gave just enough not to pashir expected and
plucking the badge from his uniform breast with the same
casual dexterity an entomologist might use
to capture a roving beetle. He thought he felt
his captor shift and spin the way a person
did when flinging a small object, but couldn't very
well listen for the whisper of the badge's flight over
the crash and rumble of their transportation. Fear
finally cut its moorings in his stomach and diffused
throughout his system. "All right. The badge is gone.
Fine." Pushing up with one knee and one elbow, he
managed to roll himself clumsily. If hopelessness
had one good trait, it was that it wasted little time converting
fear into the anger more useful for survival. "Can you
please untie me now?" A grab at the front of
his uniform caught him when he struggled to his
knees. "Sit?
It was the first time anyone had spoken to him since the
girl who'd served as bait lured him into the underbrush
in search of casualties. This voice sounded
suspiciously the same. "Just tell me where--"
"Sit"
She didn't wait for his compliance this time. Tugging
firmly downward on the front of his tunic, she
clearly meant to muscle him back to the floor, where
he'd spent the first part of this liaison. He
didn't consciously resist--rearing back away from
her grip was no more than an instinctive reaction
against being forcibly placed anywhere when he couldn't
see the world around him. But he knew it was a
mistake the moment his center of gravity slipped
past thirty degrees. Hands clutched first at his
shoulders, then at his waistband as he tumbled
backward, then disappeared entirely when he hit
free-fall. The ground he landed on was softer than
he'd thought, not to mention much closer to the start of his
fall than it had seemed when he'd first been hauled
up several meters and dumped into the transport's
open bed. It poked and prodded him like a bundle of
sticks, but gave just enough not to puncture anything.
Springy vibrations sketched frantic movement all
around him, but it was the young girl's voice--"Get
aside! Humans are fragile--let him breathe!"
--that surprised him the most. Perhaps he wasn't such
an insignificant prisoner after all. Thin, rough
fingers picked at the bindings on his wrists, the knot
at the base of his skull cinching his blindfold
into place. He squinted hard against the light--
Oh, God, it's only barely morning back
home! --and blinked focus into the ring of faces
crouched around him. For one instant, the term "going
native" meant a little more to him than it ever had before.
Then he realized that none of the muzzled, grayish
faces bending over him were Klingons, and it relieved
his confusion at least a little. Their eyes
seemed big only in comparison to the smallness of their
other features, muddy green and curious above a
button rodent-nose and a mouth so tiny that it
announced "insectivore" even before the first of them
rolled out a long, prehensile tongue to swipe at
its corneas. Bashir thought he might be able
to scoop one up under either arm--they couldn't have massed
more than fifteen kilos apiece--but they probably
didn't need his help to move about their native
environment. They ran on all fours like lemurs,
their slim question-mark tails lifted playfully over
their backs. The grace with which they navigated the
upper storys of dense foliage put a zero-g
dancer to shame. They didn't even scatter or
squawk when the young female Klingon jumped down
into their midst. "Are you damaged?" she demanded of
Bashir, somewhat testily. "I... uh..." He
managed to tear his eyes away from the plushly furred
primates, only to fixate all over again on the
huge, armor-plated monster calmly picking at
whatever brush and limbs it could reach. It had smashed
an impressive trail through the knotted undergrowth
without even breaking a sweat; Bashir was suddenly
glad he'd been caught by the foliage canopy and
hadn't toppled all the way to the ground,
another two or three meters down. "Uh...
no..." he finally stammered. A Klingon tthat's
right, there was a Klingon, and he should probably look
at her when he answered instead of staring at her
strange menagerie. "No, I'm fine, thank
you..."
"Good." She clapped both hands to the front of his
uniform, then hauled him very carefully to his feet,
as though afraid he might break if she dropped
him again. "Then will you behave?" Bashir hazarded a
glance to left and right. Except for the winding trail
torn like a scar through the brush cover, there was nothing
to see except kilometer upon kilometer of
undulating, scrubby plain. As though the plants
had clawed their way a half-dozen meters above the
ground and re-created their own surface beyond the touch of
mud and burrowing creatures. Even though a loose,
light foliage above them shielded most of the humid
undergrowth from the sun, Bashir couldn't glimpse so
much as a hint of the massive trees that had marked the
perimeter of the Klingon's camp. "Will you behave?"
the girl asked again, more loudly. How many days would it
take people on foot to cross the same terrain this
creature had traveled in an hour? "Yes," he
admitted faintly. "Yes... I guess
I will."
The big herbivore was more comfortable to ride than
Bashir expected. More comfortable than when he'd thought
its broad back was the floor of a land-going truck,
at least, and he'd been forced to endure every bump and
thump and rattle. He knelt just aft of the great
beast's shoulders the way the girl showed him, tucking
his heels beneath him and being careful to keep all body
parts clear of where its bony skull ridge
scissored against the plates on its back when it
moved its head. The rocking of its big, slow steps
proved almost soothing now that he could see where he was
going and move his body to compensate. It pushed through the
snarl of plant life with such unhurried power that
Bashir smiled slightly in awe. One ponderous
step at a time, chin lifted above the froth of
greenery, casually splintering thickets and trampling
bracken like a ship smashing through Arctic ice. It
didn't even seem to notice the schools of
primates capering alongside it, dolphins in the
wake of a great whale. Bashir twisted to look at
the silent girl behind him. "This... animal!"
"They're called banchory."
This was the first word she'd spoken that wasn't in
Standard. The unconscious data
collector at the back of his brain noted this as an
interesting detail, even though nothing about it really
seemed to mean anything. "These banchory, then. I
saw some of their carcasses when we first beamed down,
back on the beach near Gordek's camp."
Feeling the life and majesty in the animal under him
only made that memory all the more horrific.
"They're CLEARLY not Klingon in origin. I
hadn't realized you'd had time to domesticate anything
on Armageddon." The girl still didn't look at
him, her eyes trained forward as though guiding the
banchory with her own sight. "The Klingons have
domesticated nothing here. The banchory belong to the
xirri."
"The...? was He broke off the question when she
swept a gesture toward the rear of their mount. No
point trying to turn any further without standing--he'd
only tip himself off the banchory again. Besides, he
had a feeling he knew what she'd meant
to indicate. They surrounded the banchory like
monkey-tailed butterflies. The slender, silent
primates snatched handfuls and tonguefuls of bugs
from the air as the banchory shook the undergrowth with its
passage. Once or twice, a bevy of what
appeared to be adolescents bounced
eagerly up from below with forelimbs full of broken
nuts and shattered seed pods. Bashir couldn't
tell if it was insects their agile tongues probed
for among those broken pieces, or pulverized bits
of plant meat to complement the rest of their diet.
Whichever it was, they hardly looked the role of
master banchory trainers as they chased after swarms of
disturbed lizards and jumped for escaping flies. More
like ramoras, taking advantage of some greater
creature's impact on the world. It didn't seem
an observation worth sharing, considering his situation.
Looking behind him, he offered his hand over his left
shoulder and tried on one of his more charming smiles.
"By the way, I'm Dr. Julian Bashir. I
thought you might like to know who you were kidnaping."
"I know." But, to his surprise, she still
took his hand and shook it with solemn gusto.
"K'Taran."
"Of the House
of Vrag? A flush of warm magenta darkened her
face, and she gnashed her teeth quietly. "Of the
House of me."
"I see..." That seemed as good an end to that round
of discussion as any. Shifting himself to look forward
again, Bashir watched the world dip and sway
in time with the banchory's ground-eating strides.
"Might I ask where we're going?"
"You're a doctor," K'Taran said bluntly
in his ear. "We have wounded." His first thought was to question who
exactly "we" might be. Then he caught a
flash of velvet khaki out of the corner of his eye,
as three playful xirri raced past in some kind of
game, and he thought perhaps he already knew.
"K'Taran..." He glanced away from the bobbing
horizon, wanting to look back at her but unsure
if she'd appreciate his scrutiny. "You realize
there's a very good chance everything on this planet--xirri
and banchory included--will be dead in just another few
days?" He almost thought he fel t the chill of her
denial sweep its way up his spine. But perhaps it was
just the threat of imminent rain that seemed to hang on every
dew-damp leaf they passed. "Klingons don't
cease to fight just because the odds are hopeless."
"I'm
sure that's true. But the crash victims you've
been holding hostage aren't a part of your fight.
If you let us evacuate them, I'm sure we can
make arrangements to take anyone else who--"
"My grandmother will
never let anyone go." For just that moment,
she sounded like a little girl--petulant, angry,
despairing for something she'd hoped for from her adults
but never gotten. "Besides," she continued in a more
defiant tone, "my shield-mates and I would never
leave without the xirri. They're our
friends. Like your scientists, they took no honor
promise to die." Neither did i. Bashir wanted
to tell her. But a roll of distant thunder distracted
him, and a vision of tragedy swirled up from the forest
floor to swallow his thinking before he could recapture
his train of thought. Despite the unchanging nature
of the planet's overgrown surface, the site of the
devastation somehow snuck up on them when Bashir
wasn't ready to see it. Naked, burn-scarred
limbs jutted out over a wasteland of mud,
charcoal, and blackened bone The brush was singed well
beyond this terminal edge; it hadn't been easy to see
amid the normal mix of woody scrub and
needlelike leaves, but now Bashir recognized the
sere of heat so intense it had razed a vast patch of
forest down to stubble. The local plants had already
begun to fight their way backm faster-growing and more
tenacious even than Britain's notorious heather.
A furry blush of green laid an inch-high
carpet over stubble, stones, and half-dead
brush. Rather than renewing the desolation, though, it
served instead to highlight the great emptiness. As though
someone had thrown a hasty blanket over the
corpses in the hopes no one would recognize the
outlined forms. The banchory brought them some distance
into the wasteland. Its heavy steps hushed to a
negligible crunching over the baby growth, but it
filled the void with a low groaning that sounded almost like
sobs. Anthropomorphizing, Bashir realized.
It only greeted the pod of other banchory milling
near a confusion of
upthrust stones; they answered in equally
loquacious murmurs, waggling their flexible upper
lips and swishing the stubs of their hairless tails.
It was a hard image to shake, though, when he
glimpsed what looked like a half-filled inland sea
another kilometer or two toward the horizon.
Peaty brown water gushed into it from all sides,
waterfalls of runoff from the mud underlying a continent
of canopy. Bashir doubted there could ever be enough
to fill the void. "Have you been living here?" he
asked K'Taran as she climbed past him to slide
down the banchory's nose. "No." She waved him
down, holding out her arms the way a parent might when
preparing to catch a child at the end of a
slide. "But we came when they needed us." The
banchory's nose was as solid as the rest of it, and
it hardly seemed to notice his weight as he shuffled
down it. Mud, slick and swimming with ash, belched
up around his ankles when he landed, and he added
another couple of days to a search party's travel
time. Assuming, of course, anyone had a chance to come
looking for him at all. They slogged toward a long
row of shelters at the edges of the destruction. Long,
stiff fans of greenery had been stacked across what
remained of the undergrowth's canopy, pitiful
protection from both sun and rain. The cadre of
Klingons milling among the injured xirri tested and
reinforced the structure almost unconsciously as they
went about their duties. A deeper mat of branches
had been piled directly on top of the mud to form a
crude bedding for the wounded. Bashir
reassured himself that they'd at least tried to keep
their patients above the mire, if not strictly out of the
elements. This was a great show of consideration for
Klingons, if what he'd seen at Gordek's
camp was any indication. "How did you know they needed
you?" He dropped to his knees on the edge of the
branch carpet, not wanting to actually walk on the
mat and spread muck among the wounded.
"Did the xirri send for you?" A pair of Klingon
men--neither much older than K'Taran--glanced up from
a few feet away, but it was K'Taran who finally
answered. "We knew they had a home near here.
Once Kreveth realized what had happened, we
knew the xirri would be needing help. So we
came." She remained standing behind him, out of both his
light and way. Even so, Bashir could feel
defiance rolling off her like heat. "I told you before
--they're our friends." Indeed she had. He decided
not to press the question further. A xirri appeared with his
medkit, dropping out of the brush's fringes like a bird
hopping off a branch. Bashir thanked the little
primate absently, and didn't even think about
blushing until after he'd cracked the case and dug
out his tricorder and one of the smaller tissue
regenerators. It wasn't as though K'Taran would
laugh at him for such a display of automatic
courtesy. In fact, she was probably delighted
to see him apparently taking her pronouncements so
seriously. Still, he didn't want to lie to her, not
even by implication. What he saw in front of him
was a thin,
sick lemur with no more evidence of sentience in its
expressionless face than there was in its
prehensile tail. It didn't change his
willingness to help it in any way he could, but it also
didn't distract him from the awareness that there were
perfectly sapient creatures hidden somewhere in this
jungle who also desperately needed saving. He was
almost halfway through the medical tri-corder's
primary scan when he realized that nothing about the
readings made any sense. Frowning, he
reinitialized the sequence and passed it over the
xirri's unmoving body again. K'Taran waited
until he aborted that scan altogether before demanding,
"What's wrong?" Something about being so close to an
impact site, probably. Interference on a
level Dax could no doubt explain, but which left
him only with a kit full of half-useless equipment
and not even a suspicion of how to fix it. All the
same, he punched up the tricorder's
recalibration command. "Something's the matter with my
equipment," he explained, not looking up from the
growing scroll of gibberish on the small device's
screen. "I'm not getting intelligible readings."
"Fine."
She suddenly bent close over one shoulder and
plucked the tricorder from his hand. "Then you can stop
playing with your toys and start helping them."
Bashir stopped himself from attempting to snatch back
the device, scowling up at her instead. "It's not that
simple. I don't know anything about xirri
physiology. Unless I can collect data on
how their bodies
function, I can't determine what drugs they can
tolerate, or what treatments they might require.
I don't even know how to calibrate a tissue
regenerator!"
"The xirri will tell you if what you're doing is
right." Frustration throbbed dully at the back of his
forehead. He hunched over and rubbed at his eyes,
suddenly wanting to be home and safe and sleeping in
his own Cardassian bed with no Klingons or alien
lemurs to worry about. "K'Taran," he sighed.
"Can the xirri even speak?" He hadn't heard a
sound from them. Not even so much as a grunt.
K'Taran verified this observation with a simple,
"They make no noise at all." Of course they
didn't--speech, language, true
communication... It would all make things too easy,
too straightforward for this mission. "They're
monkeys," Bashir heard himself saying. The sound of
his voice wrapped around those words almost shocked him.
"However close you've grown to them, whatever
feelings they might have for you, it's not the same as
language. You can't run on your own instincts and
call it communication." He looked up, expecting
to see fury on her face, and added sincerely,
"I'm sorry." She stared back at him, a
surprising amount of weary frustration in her own young
features. Waving brusquely at the xirri who'd
first approached with the medkit, she fished into her
pocket without saying so much as a word. The skinny
primate flashed over to her, green eyes intent, and
K'Taran flipped a small polygonal token
toward it with a flick of her thumb.
The xirri caught it with its tongue, then spatthe
chip into one naked palm. It looked like something
broken off a seal of pressed wax, or chipped from
a larger stone. Popping the token back into its mouth,
the xirri leapt into the burned-out brush and disappeared.
Curiosity burned sleepily in his eyes, but
Bashir had learned better than to ask for what
K'Taran hadn't volunteered. He sat with the
remnants of his medkit, and waited. By the time the
xirri returned, sitting still had combined with the
abysmal lateness of the hour shipboard to sink
Bashir almost over the brink into dozing. He thought at
first that he'd imagined the xirri's
multicolored companion, a nonsense dream
caricature brought to life. But when it approached
to within touching distance, he could smell the musky plant
life odor of the pollen scrubbed into its fur, and
see the sheen of drying wetness among the crust of
colored muds striped over its skull and face and
shoulders. The painted xirri squatted into a tall
sit that placed it almost on a height with Bashir, and
peered intently first at the doctor's hands, then the
insensate patient on the grassy mat before them.
K'Taran slapped a tissue regenerator
into Bashir's lap. "Go on, healer. Heal." It
was pointless. Bashir knew it was pointless--he was
too tired, the xirri was too badly injured, and
he just didn't have time to learn everything he needed to know
to be an adequate physician to these animals.
But even if he could find it in his hea rt to deny
treatment while there was some small chance he could give
relief, he had a feeling K'Taran and the other
Klingons now gathering around her wouldn't have
much patience with his ethical standards. Hadn't he
said everything on the planet would be dead in a matter
of days, no matter what they did here? So what
real difference did it make if even his best efforts
couldn't save a single xirri? His best
efforts couldn't save any of them. He had to depend
on Dax and the captain for that. He examined the little
xirri in front of him as best he could by touch and
sight, making assumptions about its body chemistry
based on such slight evidence as the condition of its
mucal membranes, the color of its blood. Where
muscle showed beneath folds of torn derreal layer,
he probed the elasticity with gentle fingers,
pretended its ropes and striations told him anything
really useful. Then he set the regenerator with a
few tentative taps at the controls. He'd
barely turned the head of the device toward his
patient before the painted xirri next to him reached out
and wound cool fingers about his wrist. Bashir
hesitated, switched off the regenerator by reflex,
and blinked down at the little primate. Licking its
eyes in what might have been agitation, the painted
xirri abruptly ducked one long finger into the
pucker of its mouth and brought it out smeared with the same
colored pollen that tinted its hair. It drew
slowly, lightly around the edges of the wound.
Brilliant red on the innermost edges, followed
by rings of saffron and umber shot through with smears of
green. Apparently happy with whatever it had meant
to convey, it settled back on its
haunches with a final flick of its long tongue, and
cocked an unreadable look up at Bashir.
He didn't know what else to do--the pounding of his
heart against his breastbone seemed to drown out rational
thought, leaving him to flounder in emotion. He reset the
device almost at random, moved toward the patient
again. This ti had a feeling K'Taran and the other
Klingons now gathering around her wouldn't have
much patience with his ethical standards. Hadn't he
said everything on the planet would be dead in a matter
of days, no matter what they did here? So what
real difference did it make if even his best efforts
couldn't save a single xirri? His best efforts
couldn't save any of them. He had to depend on
Dax and the captain for that. He examined the little
xirri in front of him as best he could by touch and
sight, making assumptions about its body chemistry
based on such slight evidence as the condition of its
mucal membranes, the color of its blood. Where
muscle showed beneath folds of torn derreal layer,
he probed the elasticity with gentle fingers,
pretended its ropes and striations told him anything
really useful. Then he set the regenerator with a
few tentative taps at the controls. He'd
barely turned the head of the device toward
his patient before the painted xirri next to him reached
out and wound cool fingers about his wrist. Bashir
hesitated, switched off the regenerator by reflex,
and blinked down at the little primate. Licking its
eyes in what might have been agitation, the painted
xirri abruptly ducked one long finger into the
pucker of its mouth and brought it out smeared with the same
colored pollen that tinted its hair. It drew
slowly, lightly around the edges of the wound.
Brilliant red on the innermost edges, followed
by rings of saffron and umber shot through with smears of
green. Apparently happy with whatever it had meant
to convey, it settled back on its haunches with a
final flick of its long tongue, and cocked an
unreadable look up at Bashir.
He didn't know what else to do--the pounding of his
heart against his breastbone seemed to drown out rational
thought, leaving him to flounder in emotion. He reset the
device almost at random, moved toward the patient
again. This time when the xirri stopped him, it was already
busy accentuating the ugly green, blotting out the
saner colors with bold, hectic strokes.
Bashir adjusted the regenerator in the other
direction; the xirri didn't interfere again. As he
watched bundles of muscle gradually
repair, and skin begin its slow crawl across the open
wound, it occurred to Bashir that it was probably best
that his main diagnostic equipment had failed him for the
moment, limiting what treatment he could supply. The
way his hands were shaking, he wouldn't have been safe
doing surgery, anyway. And even the most newly
recognized sentient species--no matter how
silent and unassuming--deserved better than the
jitterings of a shell-shocked Human doctor.
Sisko's luck held for four of the five hours
he'd allotted himself for sleep. His dreams roiled
uneasily with cloaked Klingon vessels that turned
out to be Cardassian warships hurling comets at the
Defiant. When Odo's gravelly voice
condensed out of one thunderous collision, Sisko at first
burrowed deeper into his pillow and tried to ignore
it. "Captain Sisko, report to the bridge,"
Odo repeated impatiently. "There's a
Cardassian vessel entering this system."
"Damn!" Sisko rolled out of his
bunk, still feeling
trapped in the remnants of his nightmare. He
yanked on his uniform and boots. "Have the Klingons
done anything to it yet?"
"No, but they may
just be biding their time. The Cardassian ship is still
out of weapons range."
"I'm on my way." He headed for the door without
waiting for an acknowledgment. Worf met him in the
narrow corridor bisecting the crew's quarters,
looking much more alert than Sisko felt. They
strode into the turbolift and told it, "Bridge!"
in curt unison. The lift hummed upward.
"Any news from the away team?" he asked his
tactical officer. Worf slanted him a curious
glance. "You were aware that I had the away team's
secure channel routed to my cabin?"
"Just a lucky guess. What have you
heard?"
"Little of promise," the Klingon said somberly.
"Dr. Bashir was discovered missing after Commander
Dax last spoke with us. They have a fix on his comm
badge and are looking for him now, but Dax
estimates it could take several hours to reach his
presumed location."
"How did he
get lost?"
"Unclear, sir. Major Kira believes he
might have been kidnapped by the same group holding the
Victoria Adams's crew."
"Lovely." Sisko scrubbed a hand across his
face, wondering what else could possibly go wrong
on this mission. The turbolift doors hissed open
before he could ask further questions. Odo turned to face
them from his watchful stance
beside the command chair. As far as Sisko knew, the
Changeling never did sit there, even when he was
left in command of the Defiant's bridge. "The
Cardassian ship is preparing to enter the far end of the
cometary belt," Odo said, passing information along with
Starfleet succinctness. Sisko glanced up at the
viewscreen, but Farabaugh's computer model had
been replaced by a real-time image of Armageddon
against a comet-hazed starfield. A blinking red
cursor now marked the position of the cloaked Klingon
vessel, in what looked like a geostationary orbit
above the comet-scarred main continent. "Mr.
Thornton is constructing an approximate sensor
image of the Cardassian vessel, using
preliminary data from our long-range scans."
"Good." Sisko sat and gave an approving
nod to the dark-haired engineering tech who'd
replaced Fara-baugh at the science console.
"Put it on screen when ready."
"Aye, sir. Convergent
resolution coming up now." The viewscreen
abruptly distorted, shrinking Armageddon to a
distant dust-stained globe in the upper corner,
while a steady twinkle in the background enlarged
into a massive battle-armored ship, many times
larger than the Defiant. Sisko whistled when he
saw its familiar military markings. "Looks like
we have some very official Cardassian visitors,"
he remarked. "My data banks identify this ship
as the Cardassian battle cruiser Olxinder,"
Odo said from his console. "Commanded by our friend Gul
Hidret."
"Why am I not surprised?" Sisko
leaned back in his chair, frowning as he watched the
Cardassian ship
enter the comet field. Unlike the Klingons, they
took no evasive action, nor did they appear
to slow and angle their shields to deflect the comets
they encountered. Sisko wondered if Hidret
understood the danger he was in--unlike the small
Defiant and equally small Jfolokh-class
Klingon vessel, the Olxinder was practically
guaranteed to get itself slammed with comets at the speed
it was traveling. A moment later, the blue-white
flare of phasers across the viewscreen
answered his question. Gul Hidret was dealing with the comets
with characteristic Cardassian arrogance, by summarily
shattering to pieces every large fragment in his battle
cruiser's path. Sisko supposed the ship's
heavy armor could take care of the rest. "For someone
who was worried about Klingon aggression, he's not
exactly trying to sneak in, is he?" Odo
commented. "No," Worf agreed. "I thought Gul
Hidret did not believe us when we said there were no
Klingons here." Sisko shook his head. "Commander,
I've found that what Cardassians say they
believe and what they truly believe have about as much in
common as Ferengi prices do with the true value of
an object." He watched the Olxinder execute
a gracelessly efficient turn, its corona of
phaser fire leaving an afterglow of superheated
gases in its wake. "But then why come? He must know
he cannot locate either of us while we are cloaked,"
Worf pointed out. "Why would Hidret make himself
such a tempting target for attack?"
"Perhaps to provoke us into it,"
Sisko said. Odo snorted. "More likely
to provoke the Klingons into it."
"Thus giving the Cardassians all the excuse
they need to start a war," Sisko finished
grimly. "The Klingons have just opened a hailing
frequency to the Cardassian battleship,
Captain," Thornton said, glancing over his
shoulder. "It's on an open channel." Sisko
exchanged puzzled looks with Worf and Odo. The
last thing he'd expected the Klingons to do was talk
first and shoot later. "Put it on the main screen,
split channel."
"Aye, sir." The phaser-wreathed glow of the
Olxinder vanished, turning instead into Gul
Hidret's furrowed visage on one side and an
even more familiar Klingon face on the other. It
wasn't the magnificent mane of gray hair or
the broad brow that jogged Sisko's memory so much
as the surprising glint of humor in those crinkled
eyes. He snapped his teeth closed on a
surprised curse. What in God's name was
Curzon Dax's old drinking buddy doing out in the
middle of the Cardassian demilitarized zone?
"Ah, Hidret," Kor purred in the same tone
of pleasant reminiscence he might have used to greet
an old lover. "What a joy it is to see your
face and recall once more the delightful memory of
how I demolished your last battle cruiser. How
nice of the Cardassian High Command
to give you another."
"It pleases me, too, Dahar Master
Kor, to see that your legendary drunken stupors
have not cost you all of your titles and privileges in
the Klingon Empire," Hidret shot back with
equally venomous politeness. The old gul's lined
face was rigid with some fierce emotion, but Sisko
couldn't tell whether it was fury or satisfaction.
"Although they have obviously
CONDEMNED you to manning an obscure post in an
unimportant system."
"How
unimportant can it be, when a Cardassian
ship as magnificent as yours drops by to pay a
visit?" Kor retorted. "Although it is a
Klingon tradition to welcome visitors, I'm
afraid you might not like my particular brand of
hospitality." Hidret raised his brows in mock
incredulity. "Are you telling me I have to leave? And
here I thought you would welcome my help in
evacuating the planet."
"What?" All traces of
humor evaporated from Kor's eyes, giving
Sisko a glimpse of the formidable warrior
Jadzia Dax had once been willing
to risk her life for. "What are you talking about?"
A little more satisfaction leaked out around the edges of
Hidret's inscrutable expression. "Aren't there
Klingons stranded down on that planet, being bombarded
by comets? I came to help you rescue them."
Sisko exchanged startled glances with O'Brien and
Worf. "I thought Hidret suspected those
exiles of being planted, to give the Klingons an
excuse to claim the planet." Worf snorted.
"More Cardassian lies."
"More Cardassian lies!" Kor echoed, his
voice a bubbling growl. "I don't know where you
got that information, but it's wrong. No one here needs
to be rescued."
"You're telling me there are no
Klingons on that planet?" The Dahar Master
bared his stained and shattered teeth. "I'm telling you
that no one needs to be rescued. The Klingons on this
planet have chosen their fate, and it is my duty as
a Dahar Master to make sure that no one interferes
with it. It is a matter of honor." Hidret
pointed an accusing finger at the viewscreen. "And you
can make no allowances for the Cardassians who are
dying of ptarvo fever, and need the drug that only this
planet can provide?" Kor snorted.
"Bring me a Cardassian dying of ptarvo fever,
and I'll be glad to let him beam down
to Cha'xirrac to be cured. In the meantime, old
enemy, the only allowance I will make is to let you
turn tail and run before I start firing."
"But--"
"But nothing!" The
Klingon's sudden eruption into a roar made even
Sisko start. "And if you ask one more question, your
answer is going to be a photon torpedo!" Gul
Hidret snorted in apparent disgust, but the
triumphant glint in his eyes made Sisko's
stomach roil in apprehension. He was starting
to suspect why the old Cardassian had engineered this
unlikely confrontation. "From you or from your ally?"
"Ally?" Kor demanded. "The cloaked
Starfleet vessel we spoke to several hours
ago. Her transmission originated from within this
system."
"You spoke to a cloaked Starfleet vessel?"
Kor's eyes narrowed. "That means the Defiant
is here."
"And they didn't even
bother to inform you?" Gul Hidret showed his own
teeth in a maliciously triumphant
smile. "How rude of them--" A photon
torpedo explosion slammed across the open channel,
and the Cardassian's smile vanished. "All right,
I'm leaving, damn you! Stop shooting!"
Hidret's side of the connection sizzled and went
black, but Kor's scowling face didn't vanish
with it. "I know you're listening in on this, Benjamin
Sisko. If not, then Dax probably is.
Take my advice, both of you, and follow that old
Cardassian fool out of this system. If you
don't, I'm afraid I will be honor-bound
to hunt you down and kill you."
CHAPTER 6
"Now I KNOW why they call this stuff
tuq'mor." From several feet above Dax's
headmwhich was currently at the same elevation as her
feet, although none of her was actually on the ground--
Kira peered down through the tangled vegetation at
her. Even higher up, an eerily silent troop of
lemur-like primates leaped and skittered through the
swaying twigs of the scrub forest, spattering them with
dislodged rain drops and pollen. "What does
tuq'mor mean, anyway?" Kira asked, her tone
so carefully measured that Dax knew she was trying
hard not to laugh. "It's the name of an
ancient Klingon goddess. Also known as the mother of
curses." Her rump-first fall into a pocket of
weaker branches had left Dax
suspended in a position too jackknifed
to scramble out of. Even though she was surrounded
by thickly grown shrubs and intertwining ivy, their
rain-slick branches gave her nothing to grab
onto. She wriggled a hand down beneath her to see if
she was close enough to the ground to push off. Cool muck
promptly closed around her fingers, soft and clinging as
liquid silk. She cursed in Klingon and wiped
her hand across her damp trousers. "See what I
mean?"
"I'm starting to." Kira reached a hand down
to her through the greenery. "You better let me help you
up."
"Brace
yourself," Dax warned as they locked hands. "My
skeleton alone probably weighs more than you do."
"Never fear. I won't drop you." Kira dug
her boot heels into the braided mat of branches
on which she stood, making it bounce a little beneath her.
She used her smaller weight to advantage, Dax
noticed, leaning back to leverage it into her motion
without overbalancing. With one smooth pull,
she hauled Dax out of her jackknifed spill up
to stand beside her, then lifted a smug eyebrow.
"Easy as a zero-gee somersault."
"Don't rub it in." Dax snagged an
overhead vine to steady herself, feeling the branches
creak and sag beneath her weight. Now that she was upright
and free, she had time to notice the welt of smarting
skin on her cheek where a branch had slapped her
during her fall. "I'm already jealous that you can walk
across branches I break."
"Sorry." Kira took a backward step
to ease the load on the swaying tuq'mor. "Maybe
you better go first
from now on, to make sure the branches can hold
you."
"I probably
should." Ever since they had entered the maze of
vegetation, they had been forced to walk anywhere from one
to three meters above the densely forested ground
level, with another meter or two of shrubbery making
an interlaced canopy overhead. The air inside the
tuq'mor was shadowed and cool, mist-filled in
places, and always soundless. No vagrant breeze
could stir the densely knotted branches of this
ecosystem. It reminded Dax of a coral
reef, braced to withstand the crashing of unseen waves.
"Although that means we'll be going even slower."
Kira glanced up at the place where the leaves
glowed brightest, backlit by unseen sunlight.
"We're only making about half a kilometer an
hour through this stuff as it is. Another hour or two
shouldn't matter. At this rate, we're not going
to catch up with Dr. Bashir until sometime next
week." Dax tapped a familiar command into her
tricorder, then frowned as she compared the response
it gave her with previous readouts. "No, we're
getting much closer. According to Julian's comm badge,
he's located just a few hundred meters northeast
of us." Kira must have heard the worry beneath her words.
"His readings haven't changed at all?"
"No." Dax pushed
onward through the tangled branches, trying not to think
of all the ominous reasons for that consistency. More
to herself than to Kira, she said, "If these Klingon
children really are trying to protect the whole planet,
they have no reason to hurt Julian. They could have
taken him to tend to some wounded survivors--"
"But Boughamer said he was the only one badly
hurt," Kira reminded her. More rain drops
dappled down from the forest canopy, stirring
up shreds of mist from the swamp below. Tiny, silent
lizards leaped through the leaves to escape Dax's
progress, jeweled flashes in the shadowy light.
"Didn't you say, though, that K'Taran herself was
hurt?"
"No, I said she
looked hurt," Kira said, gloomily. "She
had a bloody bandage wrapped around one leg. But
that might have been as much a lie as the rest of what she
said." Dax slanted a curious look back through the
greenery at her. "Did she really lie to you,
Nerys? I thought you said she admitted to being epetai
Vrag's granddaughter."
"She did," the Bajoran admitted
with grudging fairness. "And mostly what she
talked about was how she didn't think there was any
honor in killing the banchory. Or in waiting around
for the comets to hit. I suppose she was telling the
truth about that, too." Kira snorted. "She's at
least fighting to survive syl-shessa, instead of just
folding her hands and getting sanctimonious about it.
I might not like how she's doing it, but I have to give
her credit for trying." Dax shook her head at her
friend's exasperated comment. She should have known that
Kira, former freedom fighter and
military officer, would find more to admire in
K'Taran's active resistance to death than in
Rekan Vrag's honorable acquiescence to it.
"There are as many codes of honor among the
Klingons as there are interpretations of Prophecies
among the vedeks," she informed the Bajoran. "By not
lying to you when she kidnaped Bashir, K'Taran
may have been obeying her own code. But, in a larger
sense, by struggling to evade the justice meted out by the
High Council, in her epetai's eyes she has
dishonored their house."
"And was Chancellor Gowron being
honorable when he exiled the House of Vrag
to certain death on this planet?" Kira demanded.
"Possibly." Dax felt the branches below her
thin out over a more watery stretch of swamp, and
angled to the left to find more secure footing.
Another troop of primates skittered out of a
flowering hedge as she skirted it, their velvet-plush
shoulders freckled with colorful blossoms and
pollen dust in an unconscious imitation of
Trill freckling. "What a Klingon considers
honorable depends as much on context as on
precedent. Depending on what infraction the House
of Vrag committed, this sentence of exile
might have been vindictive, or it might have been an
act of mercy." Kira heaved a sigh. "I'll
never understand Klingons."
"And they'll never understand us," Dax smiled.
"They find our Vulcan and Human and Trill
codes of law almost totally incomprehensible, because
they're meant to apply no matter what the motive
or result." She paused to map a path across an
almost-open stretch of running water before she trusted
her weight to the arching branches. "I can understand
epetai Vrag and I can even understand her
granddaughter. The only Klingon here I find hard
to decipher is Gordek." "Really?" Kira
leaped through the screen of DELICATE branches to land
on the other side, if her wildly swaying perch on
a flexing limb could really have been called a landing.
Her athletic ease was all the more enviable because it was
totally unconscious. "What's so hard to figure
out about him? He's a petty tyrant who wants
to start his own little empire, even if it's only going
to last until the next tsunami levels the
coast."
"True." Dax ventured out at last on the
largest bridging limb. "But the fact that he was
willing to bargain with us to get the equipment
he wanted--" The wood cracked ominously beneath her
weight as she reached the end. Dax cursed and took
a long, not entirely directed step across the cooler
breeze of the stream chasm with its murmur of hovering
insects, then found herself sinking through bracken like a
turbolift descending. A small hand reached out and
caught her, this time by the indestructible nape of her
Starfleet tunic, and hauled her back to safe
footing for a second time. "Thanks," she said,
regaining her breath. "Damn tuq'mnor."
"Mother of curses," Kira reminded her.
"Maybe we should have made a sacrifice to her before
we started chasing after Bashir."
"Or maybe we should have followed that banchory
trail, even though it didn't seem to lead in the right
--" Dax broke off abruptly. She'd found an
open crevice through the hedge wall and thrust her head
and shoulders through it, only to emerge into an
unexpected chasm in the tuq'mor. It looked as
if someone had taken a phaser and carved a canyon
through the
dense vegetation one meter wide, four meters
high and stretching out of sight along its sinuous
length. Coppery gold sunlight slanted down
into it, warm and inviting. She cursed again,
long and hard this time. "What is it?" Kirstand
epetai Vrag and I can even understand her
granddaughter. The only Klingon here I find hard
to decipher is Gordek." "Really?" Kira
leaped through the screen of DELICATE branches to land
on the other side, if her wildly swaying perch on
a flexing limb could really have been called a landing.
Her athletic ease was all the more enviable because it was
totally unconscious. "What's so hard to figure
out about him? He's a petty tyrant who wants
to start his own little empire, even if it's only going
to last until the next tsunami levels the
coast."
"True." Dax ventured out at last on the
largest bridging limb. "But the fact that he was
willing to bargain with us to get the equipment he wanted
--" The wood cracked ominously beneath her weight as
she reached the end. Dax cursed and took a long, not
entirely directed step across the cooler breeze
of the stream chasm with its murmur of hovering insects,
then found herself sinking through bracken like a turbolift
descending. A small hand reached out and caught her,
this time by the indestructible nape of her Starfleet
tunic, and hauled her back to safe footing for a
second time. "Thanks," she said,
regaining her breath. "Damn tuq'mnor."
"Mother of curses," Kira reminded her.
"Maybe we should have made a sacrifice to her before
we started chasing after Bashir."
"Or maybe we should have followed that banchory
trail, even though it didn't seem to lead in the right
--" Dax broke off abruptly. She'd found an
open crevice through the hedge wall and thrust her head
and shoulders through it, only to emerge into an
unexpected chasm in the tuq'mor. It looked as
if someone had taken a phaser and carved a canyon
through the
dense vegetation one meter wide, four meters
high and stretching out of sight along its sinuous
length. Coppery gold sunlight slanted down
into it, warm and inviting. She cursed again, long and
hard this time. "What is it?" Kira demanded,
wriggling through the dense hedge to pop out just to Dax's
left. "Blood of the Prophets!"
"Mother of curses," Dax said
again, wryly, then hauled herself free of the hedge and
clambered down to the open path. It was floored by the
same silk-soft mud as the rest of the tuq'mor, but
her boots sank only a few centimeters in before
they hit firmer soil. The banchory had
compacted this forest highway as well as blazed it.
She cocked her head, listening to the distant, deep
hooting that echoed up the path. "If we follow this
now, we might have to make a real quick exit."
Kira landed beside her with a squishy thump, oblivious
to the spatters of mud that threw across both her and
Dax. "Will it take us to Bashir's comm signal?"
Dax consulted her tricorder and nodded. "Yes,
it's the perfect heading from here. Almost too
perfect..." Kira glanced over her shoulder,
squinting against the sun. "You think it's a trap?"
"I don't know." Dax kept her tricorder
on as they walked, watching their mapped coordinates
get closer and closer to the ones she was receiving from
Bashir's comm badge. "But it's definitely not a
coincidence." She skirted a large pile of
olive brown banchory droppings. Their
half-sweet, half-fetid alien smell was so
strong in the still air that she knew they had to be
recent. "Wait." She grabbed at Kira's
shoulder to stop
her, then swung around with the tricorder chirping a
proximity alert at her, louder and louder. "According
to this, Julian should be within a meter of us. It looks
like the signal's coming from the wall of
tuq'mor over there." Kira scowled and began
yanking apart the thick stems of succulents, ivy, and
shrubs, trying to find a place wide enough to step through.
The tuq'mor seemed thicker along the edges of the
banchory trail, almost as if it was defending itself
against further inroads by the massive animals. When
the Bajoran finally found a gap wide enough
to squeeze through, however, the shadowy interior looked
just as pristine as the rest of the scrub forest. There was
absolutely no sign of Bashir, alive or
dead. Dax fought her way into the dense vegetation,
then glanced down at her tricorder and frowned. The
two sets of map coordinates were now dead-on, but
her proximity display still insisted she was a meter
away from where the comm signal was originating. "I'm
reading a vertical discrepancy," she said,
puzzled. "Julian's comm badge must be at least
a meter up from here."
"Or down." Kira slanted a grim
look at the wet muck of the tuq'mor, now only
a few centimeters beneath their feet. The interwoven
mat of shrubbery above it looked undisturbed.
"Although it doesn't look like anything's been buried
here."
"No." Dax
tilted her head back, peering up at the maze of
branches above their heads. "Here, you hold the
tricorder." Kira took it reluctantly. "I
can climb up there more easily than you can--"
"i'm not climbing." Dax flexed her knees,
then leaped upward, catching hold of the two largest
branches within reach and shaking them with all her
considerable weight. The entire forest canopy creaked
and flexed under her assault, sending a scurry of
tiny gleaming lizards out in all directions. One
of the jeweled glitters didn't leap, however. It
fell straight down from the branches, half a meter
too far away for Dax to catch. Fortunately, quick
Bajoran reflexes sent Kira diving after it before
Dax could even open her mouth to shout. A mat of
intertwined ivy strands bounced beneath the major's
impact, trampolining her back again just as Dax
dropped from her precarious overhead hold. They
collided hard enough to elicit mutual grunts, but
Kira's fingers never unclenched from around her catch.
"Is it--?" Dax demanded, steadying her companion.
"Yes." Kira rebalanced herself in the tangled
tuq'mor, then uncurled her fingers to show Dax the
gleam of gold and silver from the Star fleet
communicator pin. The frantic chirping
of the tricorder confirmed that it was Bashir's. "And it
looks like it was at just the right height to have been tossed
off a bangory."
From the first moment he'd seen the Defiant,
Sisko had loved it for its surprising combination of
cheetah speed and leonine power, purebred
sleekness and alley cat durability. However, the
one thing he had to admit his ship didn't have was
space. Where a larger starship like the Saratoga
boasted a wardroom for
conferences and planning sessions, he had to make do
with a bridge where veteran command officers mixed with
untested young ensigns and technicians. And when a
renowned Klingon warrior has just announced his
intention to hunt you down and kill you, the last thing a
commander needed was panic among his crew. "Mr.
Thornton," he said, more by way of test than because he
really needed to know, "do we still have a fix on the
cloaked Klingon ship's position?"
"Aye, sir." The junior engineer
glanced over his shoulder, not looking particularly
panicked. "I have the long-range sensors cranked
to maximum sensitivity. Even though the Klingon
ship has reduced its ion emissions to zero and is
modulating its waste heat to match the
planetary infrared spectrum, just like us, we're still
picking up a minute gravitational anomaly along
its extrapolated orbit."
"Enough of an anomaly to link to our weapons
targeting systems, so we can track and fire on the
Klingons?" Odo inquired. "Yes, sir."
Thornton tapped a command sequence into his science
panel. "I can also export my tracking data to the
viewscreen display, if you want."
"Do
it." Sisko watched a fuzzy, computer-generated
halo bloom on the distant curve of
Armageddon's oxide-stained atmosphere, then
glanced over his shoulder as the turbolift doors
hissed open to admit his chief engineer. "We've
got a Klingon Dahar Master on the lookout for
us, Chief. How invisible are we?"
"We've battened every electromagnetic hatch
we've got, from ions to infrared." O'Brien
detoured long
enough to cast a critical look at Thornton's
sensor settings, then gave his young technician an
approving clap on the shoulder before continuing to his own
seat at the empty engineering console. "Providing you
don't want to leap into warp any time
soon, the Klingons shouldn't even be able to prove
we're here."
"How close can we get to their ship without getting
caught?"
"Seventy kilometers, give or take a
few." O'Brien grinned at Sisko's
surprised look. "I did a little retuning on the
shield voltage controls. We're still putting out
some magnetic discharge, but now the polarity is tuned
to look just like the planet's magnet-osphere."
"What about our gravitational field?" Odo
asked. "Can't the Klingons track us the same way
we're tracking them?"
"No," Worf
said, before the chief engineer could reply. "Not unless
they already know where we are. A cloaked vessel cannot
be detected by gravitational signature alone."
"Especially in a system as orbitally
complicated as this one," Thornton added. "The
gravity well's way too bumpy to resolve
individual events unless you already know roughly where
you're looking." "Good." Sisko leaned back in his
command console, as pleased with the coordinated response
of his bridge team as with the information they'd given him.
He thumbed the communicator controls.
"Ensign Farabaugh, how soon do you have us scheduled
to intercept an incoming comet?"
"In a
little over ten minutes, sir. I was just about to alert
you." The junior science officer sounded as tired
as O'Brien looked, his voice scratchy but
confident. "Sorry for the short notice, but we had
to redo half our calculations after that Cardassian
battleship banged its way through the debris
field." "Understood. Are we still scheduled to nudge
that comet off course on the opposite side of the
planet from the Klingons?"
"Aye, sir."
Farabaugh hesitated, and Sisko heard the
murmur of a second voice in the computer room.
"But to get to our intercept point, we're going to have
to pass pretty close to the Klingon ship on at
least one orbit."
"How
close?"
"About one hundred kilometers." Sisko
winced. "My old piloting instructor at the
Academy used to call that kissing distance." He
looked over at O'Brien again. "You're sure the
Klingons won't be able to pick us up?"
"Not unless they have their scanners focused
directly on our position when we pulse the
impulse engines," O'Brien assured him.
"Otherwise, we'll be running on gravitational
forces and momentum. We should slip by like a Ferengi
going through a customs check."
"Then
let's do it." Sisko sat back in his command
chair, listening to the distant whisper of cometary dust
vaporizing off the shields. It occurred to him that the
sound couldn't actually be coming from the ice itself as it
smoked and vanished into empty space. It must be the
internal echo of the shield compensators, constantly
readjusting to keep the voltage gap steady and the
external forces balanced across the ship's hull.
"Course plotted and laid in for minimum impulse
thrust," Worf announced, his deep voice
anomalously loud in the thrumming silence. Sisko
wasn't sure if that was the result of his tactical
officer's tension or his own. "Ten seconds to engine
pulse." "Mark." O'Brien sounded much calmer,
but, then, he was the only one who really knew how
well their waste-heat output blended with the ambient
infrared. "Five, four, three, two... pulse
detected." Sisko could have told him that.
Despite the parsimonious engine firing, designed
to put the cloaked Defiant into the correct orbit
with minimal expenditure of energy, his years as her
commander had attuned him to the little warship's slightest
movements. He felt the shiver of redirected
momentum, subtle as the shifting weight of a baby
asleep in its mother's arms. "New heading?"
"Orbital plane forty-three degrees to spin
axis, rotation thirty degrees from planetary
prime," Worf said with satisfaction. "We are
on the correct heading for comet intercept at the lip
of the gravity well." Sisko glanced over at
Thornton, whose gaze never seemed to waver from his
sensor output. "What about our Klingon
intercept?"
"Still one hundred kilometers, assuming the
Klingons maintain their orbit. Estimated time of
closest passage two-point-five minutes."
"Commander Worf, please lay in potential
course changes to prepare for possible Klingon
detection. Straight attack, evasive attack,
evasive retreat."
"Aye, sir." Sisko swung his chair back
toward O'Brien. "How's the magnetic
signature of our shields holding out?"
"Still
matched to planetary polarity, plus or minus
ten percent. I'm slowly modulating as we
cross the magnetosphere." "Good." Sisko
brushed his gaze across the view-screen, eying the
familiar face of Armageddon with its halo of
cometary debris only long enough to be sure that nothing
had changed. He tapped his communications control
panel. "Farabaugh, any changes in comet
trajectories caused by our new orbit?"
"No, sir. We're traveling far enough inside the
gravity well to be out of range."
"Good," Sisko said again, but he was frowning as he
lifted his hand. That unexceptional answer had left
him with nothing left to do, no occupation to soak up his
surging tension for the final minute of countdown. He
contented himself with drumming his fingers softly on the arm
of his command chair and running through all the possible
battle-plans, should the Klingons somehow detect
their presence. It wasn't that he didn't trust his
chief engineer's camouflage or his chief
tactical officer's piloting skills. But to a
Starfleet officer who'd had ingrained a thousand
kilometers as the minimum undetectability
limit throughout most of his career, the idea of
sliding invisibly past a Klingon bird-of-prey
at one hundred klicks or less fell just short
of requiring divine intervention. "Klingons off the
aft side," said Thornton. His voice was so
quiet and emotionless that it took Sisko a moment
to realize the announcement meant they'd slipped
past. "No sign of ship activity detected from
passive scanning." The Defiant's bridge
murmured with the exhaled breath of her five vastly
relieved officers. No, make that four, Sisko
thought wryly. Odo looked just as
relieved as the rest of them, but the Changeling
didn't have the lungs needed to produce a thankful
sigh. "Estimated time of encounter with comet?" he
asked briskly. After a tense encounter like that, a good
commander knew how to focus his crew's attention on the
next challenge. Otherwise, relief had a way
of turning to distraction. "I am not sure," Worf
said unexpectedly. "I have the orbital course, but
I do not have the exact coordinates of the comet copied
to my piloting console." Sisko frowned.
"Thornton?" The dark-haired engineering tech shook
his head. "Sorry, sir. I can get sensor
readings on all the comets, but I'm not sure which one
Farabaugh's aiming us at." A
frustrated breath trickled out between Sisko's
teeth. Trying to deflect a comet without getting
caught by the Klingons was like trying to leave Quark's
bar without leaving a tip... it seemed easy to do at
first, until you kept getting tangled in one layer
of obstacles after another. Unfortunately, in this
case you couldn't flip a coin to a Ferengi barman
and have the obstacles magically vanish. "Odo, open
an on-line channel to Farabaugh so he can hear us
down in that science lab. O'Brien, I want you and
Osgood to start working on transferring the comet
impact model up to a spare station on the bridge.
And someone find out where that damned comet is!" The words
had no sooner left his mouth than the Defiant
shuddered under a scraping impact. A moment later,
a massive, smoking, black hulk of cometary ice
floated into the main screen's view. One whole
side was sheared freshly white from its contact with the
Defiant's angled shields.
"I hope," said Sisko ominously, "that was the
comet we were supposed to be deflecting. Because if
not..."
"Comet deflection one hundred percent
successful, sir!" The excitement in
Farabaugh's voice echoed brightly across the
open c ommunications channel. "With the momentum added from
sublimation, its new trajectory will take it out
of the debris field entirely."
"Well, there you go." O'Brien looked up from his
shield modulator controls with a mischievous
smile. "All we need is to do that another
hundred-thousand times, and Armageddon will be safe."
Even Sisko felt his lips stretch into a smile
at that image. "By then, most of the Klingons should have
died of old age," he agreed. "Allowing us
to leave the system just in time to collect our pensions."
The stifled spurt of laughter that trickled out of his
communicator panel told him Odo had added a
permanent channel between the bridge and the science lab.
He didn't bother reaching for his panel controls.
"When's our next deflection scheduled for,
Ensign?"
"Not for another forty-five minutes,
sir." There was a pause while two young voices
conferred in a murmur at the other end of the channel.
"With your permission, sir, Osgood and I would like
to grab some breakfast before then."
"Breakfast?" O'Brien
said blankly. "Don't you mean lunch?" Worf
rumbled disagreement from his piloting station.
"According to the ship's chronometer, it is currently
fifteen-twenty hours. Any meal served now would be
classified as supper."
Sisko felt his own stomach growl
uncomfortably. "I don't care what you call it,
anyone who wants some can get it. Just be sure to be
back on station by sixteen-hundred." He sat
back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "We have an
appointment with a comet, and it won't wait for us if
we're late."
By the time they met up with their fourth comet,
Sisko's bridge crew had subversive
interception down to a fine art. "Critical point
coming up at coordinates two-sixty and
four-forty-three mark twenty-nine." Farabaugh
looked up from the makeshift tracking console
O'Brien had rigged from one of the life-support
stations at the back of the Defiant's bridge.
They'd spent the slow hours between comet deadlines
moving both junior science officers back onto the
bridge, streamlining their data transfer
procedures, and perfecting their deflection
maneuvers. Osgood had settled in at the main
computer access panel, where she could concentrate on
the constant adjustments they needed to make in
their cometary impact model, while the Defiant
jockeyed back and forth through the cloud of cometary
debris. Thornton and Odo had adjusted the main
viewscreen's detection parameters,
autoprogramming it to focus on their cometary
targets both before and after impact. So far, their
peripatetic path and jarring encounters with comets
hadn't drawn any unwelcome attention from the
Klingons, although with Kor's ship settled in a stable
equatorial orbit, Sisko feared it was only a
matter of time until one of their intercept points
fell recklessly close to their enemies. In the
meantime, the
constant short-range passes they had to endure
on their unpowered gravitational orbits made the
muscles between Sisko's shoulders harden with
accumulated tension. Worf claimed the additional
challenge of evading detection while deflecting
comets made them better warriors, and even
O'Brien admitted that the adrenaline rush of those
close passes kept him awake and gave him new
motivation as the hours dragged on. Personally,
Sisko thought he could have limped along on the old
motivation--saving Armageddon and all its
inhabitants from mass destructionmfor quite a
while yet. "Time to gravity-well intercept?" he
asked, knowing the routine now by heart. "Twelve
minutes and counting." Osgood swung around at her
computer station, blue eyes somber in her fine-boned
face. "Captain, this comet fragment masses three
kilotons, four times as big as the others we've
intercepted. We're going to have to give it a much
stronger nudge with the shields to deflect it."
"It's
also heading straight-line into the gravity well,"
Farabaugh warned. "There's no curve-back
capture loop at all. We're not going to get a
second chance to bump it if we miss."
"Understood." Worf punched the new
data into his navigational computer, then
transferred the resulting course changes onto the
orbital model of Armageddon Thornton had
inserted in a corner of the main viewscreen. The new
loops added additional frills to the fading lacework
of their past orbits. Sisko narrowed his eyes,
watching the golden target spot that beaded their path
on the third orbit. "Mr. Farabaugh, correct
me if I'm wrong, but it looks like we're
deflecting this comet on the same side of the planet
the Klingons are orbiting."
"We are, sir," the young man admitted. "Due
to this comet's straight trajectory, it was the only
intercept point we could find. But at least we'll
be in the terminus when we do it. The dusk might
help disguise the comet's change in direction."
"Let's hope
so." Sisko glanced across at Worf. "What will
our closest pass to the Klingons be this time?"
"One-hundred-and-twenty-five kilometers," the
tactical officer replied. "Piece of cake,"
said O'Brien. Sisko grunted. "Begin
preparation for course changem" The blinding shock of a
phaser blast across the viewscreen sliced across his
words like a bat'leth. Sisko cursed and leaped
to lean over Odo's shoulder, scanning theld have
limped along on the old motivation--saving
Armageddon and all its inhabitants from mass
destructionmfor quite a while yet. "Time
to gravity-well intercept?" he asked, knowing the
routine now by heart. "Twelve minutes and counting."
Osgood swung around at her computer station, blue
eyes somber in her fine-boned face. "Captain,
this comet fragment masses three kilotons, four
times as big as the others we've intercepted.
We're going to have to give it a much stronger
nudge with the shields to deflect it."
"It's also heading straight-line into the
gravity well," Farabaugh warned. "There's no
curve-back capture loop at all. We're not
going to get a second chance to bump it if we
miss." "Understood." Worf punched the new data
into his navigational computer, then transferred the
resulting course changes onto the orbital
model of Armageddon Thornton had inserted in a
corner of the main viewscreen. The new loops added
additional frills to the fading lacework of their past
orbits. Sisko narrowed his eyes, watching the
golden target spot that beaded their path on the third
orbit. "Mr. Farabaugh, correct me if
I'm wrong, but it looks like we're deflecting this
comet on the same side of the planet the Klingons
are orbiting."
"We are, sir," the young man
admitted. "Due to this comet's straight
trajectory, it was the only intercept point we
could find. But at least we'll be in the terminus when
we do it. The dusk might help disguise the comet's
change in direction."
"Let's hope so." Sisko glanced across at
Worf. "What will our closest pass to the
Klingons be this time?"
"One-hundred-and-twenty-five kilometers," the
tactical officer replied. "Piece of cake,"
said O'Brien. Sisko grunted. "Begin
preparation for course changem" The blinding shock of a
phaser blast across the viewscreen sliced across his
words like a bat'leth. Sisko cursed and leaped
to lean over Odo's shoulder, scanning the
Defiant's shield and systems outputs for
damage. All the indicators were baffiingly
normal. "What the hell did Kor just shoot
at?" he demanded. "As far as I can tell,
absolutely nothing." Odo swept an impatient
hand across his displays. "It looks like the shot went
wide of us by several hundred kilometers. There's
no evidence of impact with any comet fragments,
either."
"Don't tell me they're just shooting in the dark,
hoping to hit us?" O'Brien demanded incredulously.
Worf let out a scornful snort. "The odds against
that are far too high to justify the waste of power. I
would have expected better from a Dahar Master.
Unless he was very, very drunk."
"The odds will get a lot better at a
hundred-and-
twenty-five kilometers distance," Sisko said
grimly. More phaser fire shattered across the
screen. "And Kor only needs one hit
to extrapolate our location and zero in." He
stood and began pacing, even though he knew the motion
couldn't ease the frustrated ache of inactivity between
his shoulders. He needed to be out doing something, going
somewhere--not trapped in this clandestine, cloaked
orbit, unable to move a muscle for fear of
Klingon detection. "All right, gentlemen, time for a
quick command conference. Do we try for deflection and
risk getting shot at by Kor?" Odo gave him a
somber look. "What other options do we have? That
comet isn't going to wait for us to find a safer
orbit."
"We could allow
the impact to occur." Worfs scowl looked as
if it had embedded itself permanently in his massive
forehead, but his voice remained carefully neutral.
"That would allow us to remain at maximum distance from the
Klingon ship." O'Brien threw the Klingon an
astounded look. "But it would break the deal the
hostage-takers offered us--who knows what they would do
to the Victoria Adams crew then? Not to mention that
Julian and Dax and Major Kira will be
left at the mercy of that comet!" Worf's face
darkened. "True. But if we chase this comet to our
death, many others will fall on Armageddon after it.
Should we sacrifice our ability to deflect them
all just to deflect this one?" Odo cleared his
throat, a humanoid habit he'd learned in his
years among solids. "You're assuming the first one
we deflect will be our last? Why? Is Kor so
invincible in battle?"
"The last time I saw Dahar Master Kor,"
said Worf succinctly, "he was a drunken,
reckless, nonsense-spouting old fool. But he was
at one time one of the mightiest warriors of the
Empire. I would not underrate him, even now." A
last flicker of phaser fire stabbed across the
nightside of Armageddon, then the Klingon ship
slid around the planet 's curvature, still firing
randomly into space. Farabaugh glanced over his
shoulder. "Captain, if we're going to deflect that
comet, we've got to move soon. Otherwise, we
won't be able to maneuver into an intercept orbit
at all." Sisko rubbed a hand across his slim
beard, giving in to the frustrated longing for action that
had been building in him since they'd first arrived.
"Commander Worf, lay in course change for
comet intercept. Chief, get our warp engines
on-line and our shields back as close
to battle-ready as you can without losing all magnetic
polarization. Odo, punch a high-security contact
through to the away team. We need to let them know what's
going on."
"Aye, sir," said O'Brien and Worf in
unison. Odo merely punched the order into his
screen, moving so rapidly that Sisko suspected
he'd been practicing the sequence in advance.
"I've got Major Kira now, sir."
"Major," Sisko said without preliminaries.
"Any luck locating Dr. Bashir?"
"No, sir." Sisko could hear the heavy
rattle of rain on leaves all around her, with a
background thrum from some nocturnal creature
chirping despite the downpour. "We followed the
trail of whoever took him as far as we could, but we
never even caught sight of them. If they really are
using the native pachyderms for transport, they can
probably cover nine times the distance we can in a
day."
"Understood." Sisko drummed his fingers on the
arms of his console, wrestling with the decision he had
to make. "Major, I want you to return
to the main Klingon camp," he said at last. "If
the hostage-takers decide to contact you or
to release any of the survivors, that's where they'll
expect you to be." He heard the breath Kira
drew in, even through the sound of distant thunder.
"You're expecting a comet to fall?" she guessed.
"But the hostage-takers--"
"--c't keep Kor from
finding us sooner or later, so long as we keep
bouncing comets away right under his nose," Sisko
finished. For a moment, all he heard in response
was rain and chirping. "What about the survivors from the
Victoria Adams?" Kira asked at last.
"And Dr. Bashir?" Sisko grimaced.
"We'll have to gamble that the comets won't hit near
them. Once the battle's over--with luck--we'll
be able to resume the search for them. And to resume
warding off Armageddon."
"Sylshessa." He could hear the
wry smile in Kira's voice. "I suspect
Kor's not going to give you enough time to drop your
shields and transport us now. So I guess
I'll see you after you've won." Sisko allowed
himself a smile in return. "And good luck to you,
too, Major. Sisko out."
"Captain." Odo turned to catch his
glance as soon as the transmission was cut.
Sisko turned to face him, barely noticing
Armageddon's terminator spinning massively
toward them as they crossed the planet's rusty
dayside. "We're being hailed on all wide-beam
channels by the Klingons. Should we acknowledge?"
"Under no
circumstances." Sisko slapped a hand down on
his communications console. "All hands to battle
stations," he snapped over the ship's intercom,
trying not to think of how few souls were actually aboard
the Defiant to hear him. "I want all phasers
charged and all photon torpedoes armed and ready."
"Captain." That was Odo again, glowering down at
his panel as if it had betrayed him. "The Klingons
didn't wait for our acknowledgment. Kor is
broadcasting some kind of message to us on all
channels."
"Put it
on screen," Sisko said curtly.
Armageddon's rusty image vanished, replaced
by a broad Klingon face tipped back in a roar
of gusty laughter. Kor looked very cheerful and very
drunk, but not a whit less threatening for that.
"Sisko? he roared, sloshing what looked like
blood wine toward the viewscreen. A spray of
ink red droplets momentarily blotted the display,
then trickled into a few out-of-focus runnels
dripping down it. "I know you're out there, Sisko!
Come out of hiding and fight!"
"Not if I can help it," Sisko said between his
teeth. "Odo, get him off the main screen, but
monitor his transmission, just in case he says
something useful."
"Yes, sir." The ancient Klingon warrior's
brazen face and disheveled gray hair
vanished, but the image that replaced them wasn't the
planet below. It was a crusted, black bulk of
ice, fractured in places and on the verge of
breaking into multiple, smaller fragments.
O'Brien whistled. "We'll have to be careful how
we hit that."
"Yes,"
Osgood agreed. "Too strong a blow will
fragment it and send some pieces falling onto the
planet. Too weak a nudge, and we won't
deflect it at all. What we should probably
try for is--" An explosion splashed through the
cometary haze before she could finish speaking, the
familiar searing glare of phaser fire. Sisko
cursed and swung toward Thornton. "Where's that coming
from?"
"The Klingons." The sensor tech sounded shaken
by the data now scrolling across his output screen.
"They must have changed orbit while they were rounding the
planet--they're coming up fast, heading fourteen-forty
mark threeb" More phaser fire, this time near enough
to send a ripple of magnetic interference humming
through the Defiant's shield controls. "Still firing
randomly?" Sisko demanded. "Yes." That answer
was Odo's, confident and calm at his panel. "They
should pass us in approximately-was A closer
phaser blast interrupted him, spasming the entire
viewscreen to white in a way that only a
close-range blast could do. "Damage report!"
Sisko ordered over the automatic shrilling of
proximity alarms. "Shields at ninety-eight
percent, no direct hit on any sector,"
O'Brien said promptly. Sisko opened his mouth
to acknowledge, but the image condensing into view on the
main screen stopped the words in his throat. The
cometary fragment they had intended to hit was glowing like
an incendiary had hit it, all of its fractures
and breaks standing out like shards of jagged
lightning against the black-crusted surface. The
light inside grew brighter instead of dimming as
phaser fire refracted and reflected its way through
the weakest points--until, with an explosion of
smoking icy debris, the comet shattered into a spray
of high-velocity fragments. Each chunk spun off
in a different direction, almost too fast to see
except for the plume of white vapor left behind it like
a contrail. With a cold ache in his stomach, Sisko
abruptly understood why Farabaugh had advised them
against trying to destroy the comets with phaser fire.
He spun toward the science officer, holding his
voice steady with an effort. "Do we need to stop
any of those fragments?"
"Working on that
now, sir." Farabaugh's words were clipped, his
voice tense enough to make the skin on Sisko's
back crawl with foreboding. "Osgood, check
intercept on fragment nine, that's the fastest one--"
"Too late." Even
muffled across the hum of the computer, Sisko could
hear the frustration in the other ensign's voice.
"It's already gone atmospheric."
"Can we
hit it again with our phasers?" O'Brien
demanded. "Maybe blast it smaller, into more harmless
pieces."
"I don't have any targeting data,"
Odo warned. "I need specific coordinates
transferred in from the computer, now!" Sisko opened
his mouth to confirm that order, but a brilliant
explosion across the viewscreen stopped him. That
hadn't been the fierce, probing flare of Kor's
phasers--it had been the raging red-tinged
fireball of a comet, exploding up from
Armageddon's dense lower atmosphere. Fragment
nine hadn't waited for them to intercept it.
"Damage report," he said grimly. "On the
planet."
"Long-range sensors
show that fragment nine exploded over the open
ocean, Captain," Thornton said. "There'll
probably be some damage from shock waves and
tsunamis along the coast, but the away team shouldn't
be affected." Jaw muscles he hadn't even
realized he'd locked unclenched with Sisko's sigh
of relief. Before he had even exhaled the last of
it, however, Osgood had spun to give him an
urgent look. "Computer models show three more
large fragments and a mass of smaller
bodies on impact courses, Captain," she
warned. "They appear to be headed for the main continent,
near the away team." She saw Odo's scowl and
swung back to her station. "Transferring data
to weapons control--"
"It's too late for us to run an intercept
course on them, Captain," Farabaugh added
unnecessarily. "We'll have to use photon
torpedoes for deflection."
"And we can fire only two at a
time," Worf pointed out. "In the meantime, the
Klingons will have pin-pointed our location." Sisko
grunted, rapidly weighing up his options and finding
them all unpleasant. "Farabaugh, mark the two
largest fragments for Worf to aim at," he
snapped. "Commander, fire when ready." He took
a deep breath, seeing the distant flare of phasers
that told him Kor's ship had passed them and was
rolling merrily along their course, oblivious to their
cloaked presence. That wouldn't last much longer.
"Odo,
prepare for evasive course maneuvers on my
mark. Prepare to engage npon firing, at my
mark."
"Firing torpedos, now. "Worf
tapped at his controls with fierce restraint, making
the distant hiss of torpedo launch echo through the
ship. An instant later, two blossoms of
rose-stained light sprouted within the dust brown
curve of Armageddon's upper atmosphere.
"Both comet fragments were deflected into high-angle
trajectories, and are on course to exit the
atmosphere without exploding," Farabaugh reported
without being asked. Sisko grunted acknowledgment.
"As soon as torpedoes are rearmed, I want
to target the third large fragment--" "Klingons
approaching, seventeen-ninety mark six,"
Thornton said abruptly. The rusty curve of
Armageddon vanished from the screen, replaced by a
thousand smeared-out streaks of gauzy light as the
cloaked Kli ngon ship flashed through the comet debris
field at close range. "Firing phasers--"
Sisko opened his mouth to order return fire, but the
shattering impact of a direct phaser rocked him
sideways before he could speak. Instinct more than thought
spat the next words out of his mouth. "Red alert!
Evasive maneuver alpha!" Worf threw the
ship into a skidding turn, hard enough to slam half the
bridge crew into their consoles and tear the other half
away. "Damage reports." Odo
answered first, as calmly as if they hadn't just been
attacked without provocation. "Shields are holding
at seventy-eight percent. No structural
damage."
"All ship's systems on line and functioning,"
O'Brien reported. "But it looks like we might
have lost one of our comet-trackers." Sisko spared
a quick glance over his shoulder in time to see Osgood
prop Farabaugh up from where he'd been flung by the
shock of impact. Blood trickled down the young
science officer's forehead, but his eyes were already
fluttering open. He groaned a protest as
Osgood used her own weight to wedge him into the
corner between his console and hers, but she sensibly
ignored him. "Klingons are firing again," Odo
warned. A moment later, the Defiant shuddered under
a second direct impact, this time knocking
Thornton away from his science station. "Shields
holding at sixty-three percent."
"Evasive maneuver delta!" Sisko
snapped, then braced himself as the Defiant's
spinning course reversal again tugged at them harder
than the inertial dampeners could compensate for.
"Increase speed to warp five. Where are the
Klingons?" Thornton had to scramble
to regain his seat, but his response was still fast and
confident. "Klingon ship is four-hundred-and
fifty-kilometers away and dropping fast.
We'll be out of phaser range in fifteen
seconds."
"Maintain evasive maneuvers
until then." Sisko turned to check on the
status of his comet-tracking team and found Farabaugh
on his feet again, squinting painfully at his display
screen. "Mr. Thornton, please call someone
up from the medical bay to treat Mr. Farabaugh."
"I have, sir. Medic Walroth's on her
way."
"It's too late, Captain," Farabaugh
murmured.
Sisko frowned, but the young science officer looked
so unaware of his own bloodstained condition that he
couldn't mean himself. "Too late to stop the last comet
fragment, Ensign?"
"Too late to warn the away team,
sir." Farabaugh gave him an anguished
look. "I can't be a hundred percent sure, but it
looks like that fragment is headed for the area of the
Klingon's main encampment. It will hit in just a few
seconds." Sisko's gut clenched in
dismay. "Notify them anyway," he snapped at
Thornton, then vaulted up to scowl at the latest
computer model results. "How large an impact
are we looking at?" The sidelong glance Osgood
gave Sisko held a wealth of regret. "The
fragment was the smallest of the three, but it was still larger
than a shuttlecraft. And its velocity was low enough
to allow it to penetrate deep into the troposphere.
The best estimate is that it will probably be about as
powerful as a hundred quantum torpedoes. And there
are a dozen smaller fragments right behind it." A
somber echo of silence filled the bridge, until
the first bloom of light burst through the blue-black
shadow of planetary night. "God help the away
team," O'Brien said, watching the light spread like
a stain across the atmosphere. His voice was so
fervent it was hard to tell if the words were a curse
or a prayer. "God help Armageddon."
CHAPTER 7
SHALLOW, RESTLESS SLEEP. Hours after
Bashir's body had collapsed in exhaustion, his
mind remained feverishly kinetic--aware that he
slept, yet frustratingly unable to order his thoughts
beyond a miasma of dreams. The bark and cough of
Klingon voices melded with the skritch of
xirri feet on tuq'mor, an eerie symphony
of worry and unidentifiable sounds. Even the sharp,
here-again-gone-again thunder that had preceded each spastic
downpour throughout the long evening had soaked into his
unconscious until it twisted into a rolling,
swollen snake, filling the world, licking the edges
of the sky. It coiled into a knot that filled his
empty stomach; his sleeping body rearranged on
its stiff bower of limbs, hands clenching into fists in
front of his eyes to block the actinic glare of the
thunder's menace. I can't even run from you, he
admitted wearily. There are wounded here I can't
leave, and I'm too tired to be afraid
anymore. Whatever you're going to do, you might as
well get it over with. The serpent struck with
explosive speed, and Bashir jerked violently
awake. What could only have been thunder's contrail still
echoed off toward infinity. Its deep, almost
physical waves pounded hotly inside Bashir's
skull. The warm, plush bodies that had nestled on
all sides of him during sleep popped up with
equal alarm, all of them slapped from dreams by a
giant's hand. He reached instinctively to smooth the
fur on the closest xirri's skull. Light
stung his eyes--daylight, except... not
daylight. Bashir rose slowly, his breath
squeezed into a fist in his chest, and raised his eyes
to a roaring, flame-colored sky. Overlapping
shadows swung in wild arcs across the ground, across the
faces and bodies of Klingons and xirri. Burning
ribbons crisscrossed the night sky like flares.
Beyond the farthest stretch of horizon, a fat cylinder
of fire rocketed straight downward, dragging a
brilliant scar of light behind it. Gas and dust and
fire mushroomed suddenly skyward, exploding
light across the tuq'mor canopy, bathing the world in a
scarlet-and-gold brilliance that somehow leached all
life from it. Bashir stared into the roiling inferno in
an agony of silence. It seemed hours later that the
coarse cannonade of thunder finally cracked through their
tiny camp. "Is that the direction we came from?"
For some reason, he expected someone other than the
painted xirri doctor when he looked down at
whoever clenched his hand. Panic, struggling awake through
his confusion, lifted his voice to a near shout.
"Was that anywhere near the main camp?" he asked,
looking all around him for someone who could understand the question.
Xirri scampered past, some of them already carrying
wounded on their backs, others randomly snatching up
blankets, foodstuffs, tools in their
flight. The crash and rumble of banchory plowing their
way into the tuq'mor's leading edge almost drowned the
Klingons' alarmed shouting, but not the brave
battle-chants some of the young men had begun as they
swept up gear and passed it off to others. Bashir
wondered if they intended to stay and fight. Against
what? He spun about, searching the swarm of bodies
for a familiar face, and found K'Taran herding her
own small flock of xirri into step with the rest of the
exodus. He ran to her, grabbing at her arm.
"Where did that come down?"
"Over theon the closest xirri's skull.
Light stung his eyes--daylight, except... not
daylight. Bashir rose slowly, his breath
squeezed into a fist in his chest, and raised his eyes
to a roaring, flame-colored sky. Overlapping
shadows swung in wild arcs across the ground, across the
faces and bodies of Klingons and xirri. Burning
ribbons crisscrossed the night sky like flares.
Beyond the farthest stretch of horizon, a fat cylinder
of fire rocketed straight downward, dragging a
brilliant scar of light behind it. Gas and dust and
fire mushroomed suddenly skyward, exploding
light across the tuq'mor canopy, bathing the world in a
scarlet-and-gold brilliance that somehow
leached all life from it. Bashir stared into the roiling
inferno in an agony of silence. It seemed hours
later that the coarse cannonade of thunder finally
cracked through their tiny camp. "Is that the direction
we came from?" For some reason, he expected someone
other than the painted xirri doctor when he looked
down at whoever clenched his hand. Panic, struggling
awake through
his confusion, lifted his voice to a near shout.
"Was that anywhere near the main camp?" he asked,
looking all around him for someone who could understand the question.
Xirri scampered past, some of them already carrying
wounded on their backs, others randomly snatching up
blankets, foodstuffs, tools in their flight. The
crash and rumble of banchory plowing their way into the
tuq'mor's leading edge almost drowned the Klingons'
alarmed shouting, but not the brave battle-chants some
of the young men had begun as they swept up gear and
passed it off to others. Bashir wondered if they
intended to stay and fight. Against what? He spun
about, searching the swarm of bodies for a familiar
face, and found K'Taran herding her own small
flock of xirri into step with the rest of the exodus.
He ran to her, grabbing at her arm. "Where did that
come down?"
"Over the ocean." She took hold of his hand,
gripping it possessively instead of pushing it away
as he expected. "There's nothing that direction but the
poacher's camp." The poacher's camp... and
Heiser. Bashir watched the blackening cloud
slowly turn itself inside out. It was a terrible thought,
but he found himself hoping dismally that the comet's
destruction had been horrifying--That a lone
Human physician's assistant would have barely
had time to notice the approach of the light. That no
one had felt any pain. The rank stink of burning
wood feathered into their clearing like fleeing ghosts.
"Come." K'Taran pulled insistently at his hand.
"We can't stay out here."
Bashir tried to tug himself free, resorting
to peeling her fingers loose one at a time. "I've
got to get back to my friends."
"You'll never make
it."
"Then take me on a banchory!"
"No." He pried his hand from hers
with a last angry yank. "If there's another comet
strike--"
"Then you
will all die together." She made an
abortive swipe to catc h him again, but took the hint
and clenched her fists at her side when he jerked
back out of her reach. "It will serve no purpose!"
What purpose did it have to serve? Die apart or
die together, they would still all die in the end. And
Bashir had no honor issues to prevent him from
being with his friends when that happened. Whirling away from
her, he pushed through the jostling crowd, squeezing his
way against the flow of bodies until he reached the
makeshift bed he'd shared with his xirri helpers.
He didn't need any extra light to riffle through
his small clutter of belongings--the sky was still bright as
dawn, crisscrossed with contrails and filled with a
rumbling like a million launching shuttles. His
tri-corder lay where it had fallen when he passed
into sleep, open and on its side atop the pile of
branches. The regenerator he found a few layers
farther down, where it had slipped between gaps in the
foliage. Its power cell still glowed reassuringly,
charged and ready to work. Only his main Meedkit was
gone. He dragged aside handfuls of branch,
searching with both sight and feel for the metal satchel.
Mud, bits of broken tuq'mor, the remnants of
what might have once been some thick-skinned fruit,
but no medkit. Twisting in place, he
caught a glimpse of movement through the dancing
shadows, and watched three xirri heft one of the
unconscious patients between them by each grabbing an
outflung limb. A fourth xirri trailed them,
its arms filled with supplies and the strap of a square
metal container slung over one narrow shoulder. The
medkit bounced noisily along the burned ground behind
it as it ran. "Hey!" Bashir scrambled to his
feet. A growing layer of smoke met him when he
stood, catching at his breath and making him cough.
"Hey, wait! You have my gear!" As though the
xirri might understand. They disappeared into the confusion and
smoke, scaling the charred edges of tuq'mor and
joining the general mass of activity between the fires in
the underbrush and the fires in the sky. When K'Taran
appeared at his side again--this time minus any xirri
--he asked breathlessly, "Where are they going?" as
he fitted his tri-corder back into its pouch. She
moved him a few steps to one side, out of the path of a
banchory half-loaded with supplies. "I don't
know." Bashir watched two xirri pet a
fidgeting banchory into stillness so four waiting
Klingons could clamber aboard. "But you're going with
them," he said, more to indicate that he realized it than
because he expected any sort of
explanation. "Wherever it is"--she stepped up
close behind him to avoid another approaching
banchory--"it has to be safer than here."
And then her arms were around him, iron-hard and
tight. Bashir barely had the chance to gasp a
protest before she yanked him off balance with enough force
to shock the wind out of him. His feet skittered in the
mud; a clink of boot-on-metal kicked his
dropped regenerator out of sight beneath a skirt of
branches and burned leaves. K'Taran dragged him
backward as inexorably as a tractor beam. When
the pungent smell of wet banchory wrapped around
them like a wool blanket, panic swelled in
Bashir's stomach. He surged against her hold,
tried to tangle his feet in the burned detritus
all around, kicked back against K'Taran in a
desperate attempt to wrench himself free. New
hands--bigger, stronger pinned his arms, lifting him
against an armor-plated side. "Let me go!" Then
he was flat atop a banchory's wide shoulders,
pushed face downward by the weight of two Klingons,
his tricorder grinding into his hip. "Stop it!" he
pleaded. "You can't do this!" He managed to work one
arm under himself, but couldn't gain the leverage to lift
himself before the force of the banchory lurching up
from its kneel knocked him flat. "Let me go!"
He felt K'Taran's hand flex slightly between his
shoulders, but she said nothing. The trail they used
stretched wider than their banchory, smashed open
by everyone who had fled ahead of them, then gnawed at
by the streamers of flame that still trailed randomly from the
sky. Smoke curdled at banchory-height,
snaking through the tuq'mor canopy; Bashir heard the
shattering crash of a tree cleaving its own path toward
the ground disturbingly
nearby. Coughing, he struggled upright, away from the
worst of the heat pouring off the burning tuq'mor. This
time K'Taran let him. I hate you, he wanted
to growl at her. Except he didn't, not really.
He hated this grief, and the leaden, aching despair,
but K'Taran hadn't been the one to bring the comets
raining. She'd just forced him into what a Klingon no
doubt considered honorable inaction. And he hated that.
Hated having no way to save himself, and no one
else to save. Xirri raced along the crumbling
canopy, some slower than the laboring banchory, some
faster. Everything scorched by the impact that had first
exploded the clearing--two kilometers on all
sides--crackled and puffed into flame in uneven
spurts. The burn front seemed barely
moving, just irregular platters of fire scattered
throughout a nightmare landscape. When he first
glimpsed shadow figures jerking and turning behind the
tongues of light, he unconsciously identified
them as refugees like themselves, heading into whatever
insanity waited at the end of this pointless flight.
Then something in the parallax between banchory and tuq'mr
penetrated his stunned numbness, and he realized that the
trio of xirri were simply struggling behind the path of the
flame, not actually moving; K'Taran and her
banchory were passing them by. He didn't
consciously decide to rescue them. One moment, he
knelt on all fours on the back of a running
banchory; the next, he was grabbing at
ash-blackened tuq'm limbs and hauling himself off his
mount and into the inferno.
"Human, not" But he was free of her, still moving,
outrunning her in truth even as his thoughts raced
precious seconds into the future. He gained the
weave of charred canopy easily enough. It gave
gently under his weight, springy and firm, like a
trampoline. But the narrow fingers of vine and wood
felt more like a tightrope beneath his feet as he picked
his way across the surface. Thank God and his
parents' vanity for the coordination needed
to navigate the deadly course. Little worms of
fire twice darted unexpectedly upward from below.
The under-stories were burning, he realized.
Suddenly, the image of creeping along a
tightrope was replaced with a burning mine field, and
Bashir felt a sting of sweat trickle into his
eyes. The painted xirri looked up when Bashir
bent over it. A tiny, bloodstained figure that could
only be a child clung to the older native's back,
and the adult xirri dragged imploringly at the arm of
another, unconscious, adult. Bashir
recognized her from his earlier round of triage on the
xirri wounded--a young female suffering from what had
seemed like smoke inhalation and dehydration. Lucky,
compared to the others. He'd assigned a geriatric
male to keep her upright and feed her water, but
hadn't had the ability to do much more for her at the time.
Now, only the faint twitching of her eyelids
betrayed that she was still alive. Too much smoke,
too much excitement. Tug as it might, the painted
xirri wouldn't get her even five steps closer
to wherever they headed. "G." Stooping, Bashir set
his feet as widely as he dared and scooped the
panting female up with one arm. "Go!" he shouted
again, pushing at the painted xirri. "I've
got her." For a terrible instant, he thought the
message wouldn't pass between them. Then the painted
xirri touched his hand, light as a butterfly's
kiss, and bounded away with startling speed, the youngster still
clinging to its back. Cradling the unconscious
female against his shoulder to shield her from the smoke,
Bashir straightened and turned back for the trail.
He could hear K'Taran shouting, even though he
couldn't make out the words, and thought he glimpsed her
a ridiculous distance away. Flames cracked and
snapped in a wandering line between them; she'd moved
farther down the trail, away from the unburned path
he'd clambered across to reach here. The thought of
circling around turned his stomach to lead. All he
would do was lose himself and never find his way back to the
others before the fires overran him. Taking a deep,
smoke-tainted breath, he hugged his patient
protectively and ran at the line of fire before his
common sense could suggest otherwise. Heat washed
across him like a blast of desert air. A brief,
searing sting across the exposed backs of his hands, then
he was clear of it. Not even burned, he realized as
the trampoline canopy caught him and staggered him with
its chaotic gives and bounces. Then his foot
crashed through to nothingness, and he fell to one
knee so heavily that his jaw cracked against the top
of the little xirri's head. "K'Taran!" Instinct, that
was all--he'd shouted because some foolish primate
instinct said that any other ape close enough to hear you
might be recruited to help. He could see her already
leaping onto the tuq'mor, so very far away, too very
far away to do anything about the predatory fire or the
unravelling footing beneath him. Still, when the next
layer caved in with a roar, and K'Taran abruptly
slipped above his line of sight, she was the one who
called out. Bashir was too busy jamming his foot
into a knot of tuq'mor vines to answer. He had
to lift the little xirri over his head to roll her onto
the top of the canopy. He couldn't take her with him
--refused to let her fall and burn simply because
he'd been too stupid to find a path through the
tuq'mor that would hold his Human weight. When
K'Taran's ash-stained face appeared above the lip
of the ever-growing hole, Bashir thrust the xirri
toward her. "Take her! Take her!" But he
couldn't tell if K'Taran understood. Before her
hands even found a grip in the little creature's fur,
the world fell out from under him, and he went plunging into the
abyss.
The sky ignited two seconds after
Kira's hoarse shout of warning echoed down the
banchory trail. Dax knew what it was immediately--
her third Trill host, Emony, had seen an
asteroid impact in her youth from the outskirts of
Ymoc City. The memory had burned indelibly
into her symbiont's neural circuits the
explosion of light in the sky and the long rumbling roar
that followed, the iron-scented wind smashing down from
fire-colored clouds, the thunder of flames in the
distance as the central city burned. And, for
hours afterward, the slow downward drift of silent,
black flakes of ash. The light this time was different
--bright and sharp as a photon torpedo blast,
consuming the entire sky with its flare. "Get under
cover!" Dax shouted back at Kira, then turned
and dove for the most open spot she could see in the
wall of tuq'mor rimming the trail. The thick
tangle of leaves and branches resisted her entry,
snagging in her hair and gouging deep scratches across
the exposed skin of face and hands. Dax cursed and
dragged herself deeper, worming her way down through the
underbrush to the muddy wetlands below. The drenching rains
had covered the mud with a running glitter of water,
making all of it look exactly the same. Dax
paused, unsure where to burrow in. With the
clumsy noise of her passage through the tuq'mor
silenced, she could hear the ominous stillness that had
enveloped the scrub forest, as if every living creature
held its breath in fear. Jadzia's blood
jolted with a distracting surge of adrenaline, but the
symbiont's shielded inner brain was less
subject to such animal instincts. It calmly sent
her eyes sweeping across the wet glimmer, seeking out
the place where the tuq'mor sent the least roots
snaking into the mud. That was where the water would be
deepest-- Dax took a deep breath and dove
head first for the hidden pool, feeling water and mud
splash up around her even as her ears cracked with a
sound so loud it registered as pain, not noise. An
enormous boulder smashed down on her from above,
slamming her breath out of her lungs and hammering her
so deep into the muddy bottom that she felt the silken
hug of sediment close over her entire body.
Panic spiked through symbiont and host alike, and
Dax struggled to stop her downward momentum, thrashing
her arms and legs through the thickening sediment in a vain
attempt to escape the rock pushing her down. An
instant later, the enormous weight was
unac-countably gone. Dax twisted and speared her
arms upward, fireworks exploding across her
vision from lack of breath. She felt a last, sick
surge of energy kick through her muscles--the
release of her symbiont's inner reserves of
oxygen and glucose in a desperate attempt
to save its host's life and its own. With an effort
that strained every muscle in her body, Dax hauled
herself upward, swimming and climbing simultaneously
through the mud to unseen light and air. Two
convulsive jerks broke her head free of mud--and
slapped her face with scalding hot water instead.
Instinctive panic launched Dax further upward,
her face lifting with a gasp to meet the hot, dry
kiss of air. There wasn't time to worry if the
comet's fiery breath would burn her lungs--air
rushed into her starved chest without her even willing it,
oxygen and smoke and heat all mixed together in
treacherous blessing. Dax gasped twice, then smoke
burned her throat like acid and she lost all her
breath again in helpless coughing. She sank back down
into hot water and cooler mud, submerging up to her
chin before her frantically outstretched fingers caught
hold of an exposed root and steadied her. Her
next breath, however, was surprisingly free of
smoke. She opened mud-crusted eyes and saw a
swift of steam and exhaled gases rising from
the wetland's scalded surfave creating a layer of
clear, warm mist that buoyed up the sinking smoke from
above. For a long time, Dax did nothing but lie there,
gasping like a beached fish and allowing her symbiont's
internal reserves to build up to tolerable levels
again. The blinding light of the comet's first impact was
gone, but Armageddon's night sky still glowed with the
pale radiance of explosive afterglow. The top of the
tuq'mor glowed, too, sullen charcoal red where the
topmost branches and leaves had withstood the worst
of the firebali's passage. A flaming brand fell
into the water beside her, its ruby embers turning cold
and black after it hit. Something about that wasn't right.
It took a minute of muzzy thought for Dax
to realize she hadn't heard the sizzle the burning
wood must have made as it quenched. In fact, now that
she had time to think about it, she realized she couldn't
hear anything at all--no crackling of fire from the
forest canopy burning overhead, not even a splash of
water when she moved. The only noise her brain
registered was a sort of soundless shrilling that she
guessed came from her own deafened ears. Another
burnt branch dropped into the water from above, this time
close enough to splash Dax with raktajino-hot water.
She cursed--silently--and scrambled
to free herself from her muddy sanctuary. The burning
canopy wouldn't stay alight much longer, she
guessed; the smoke was already starting to clear as the
fires were extinguished by water-sodden wood. But deaf
as she was, she had no way to find Kira if she
stayed inside the tangled scrub forest. She would have
to return to the banchory trail--and hope her
companion was ambulatory enough to do the same.
With a scientist's unquenchable curiosity, Dax
noticed that the lower levels of the tuq'mor had
survived the comet explosion amazingly intact,
protected from the fireball by their own dense, damp
foliage. Many of the softer ivy leaves had curled
and crisped from the heat, but the thicker succulents
looked undamaged. Even some of the ivy-brambles had
survived where they dipped long tendrils into the
wetlands. This odd ecosystem may have been damaged
by the comet's blow, Dax thought, but it had by no means
been destroyed. The same thing couldn't be said of the
banchory trail, however. Huge swathes of its
tuq'mor rim had been smashed across the once-clear
path and now lay smoldering on the seared ground. The
lack of interlaced support at the scrub forest's
edge must have allowed the comet's shock wave
to penetrate more deeply there, while the open
air of the slashed trail had let the fireball
blacken the vegetation all the way down to the ground.
Dax's hopes of locating Kira sank as she
realized her line of sight wasn't much better here
than it had been back in the forest interior. For a
long moment, she hesitated on the edge of the
destruction, watching the silent flakes of black
ash drift slowly downward. Uneasy memory
stirred inside her, sparking the same morbid fear
in Jadzia that Emony had felt at Ymoc
City... were any of those ashes the remains of someone
she had known? Under her drying crust of mud, something
fluttered against her shoulder. Dax cursed again and
slapped at her uniform tunic, convinced she must have
inadvertently hauled some inhabitant of the wetland out
with her when she emerged. All she felt beneath her
fingers,
however, was the cool lump of her Starfleet
communicator, clinging stubbornly to her despite her
head to toe immersion in mud. It wasn't until the
small metal pin quivered again that she realized she
was being hailed by someone, and just couldn't hear the chirp.
She tapped down the communicator's response
button and held it to override whoever was hailing.
"Dax here," she said, feeling the vibration
of her words in her mouth and jaw even though she couldn't
hear them. "If this is the Defiant calling, I
can't hear you. You'll have to buzz the communicator off
and on in universal signal code." She got a
reply as soon as she lifted her fingers, but it
wasn't the staccato coded message she'd
expected. Instead, it was a long, chirping pulse,
almost exactly the same length as hers had been.
Eyes narrowing in suspicion, Dax held down the
communicator response button again, but didn't
speak into it. This time, she was careful to keep her
transmission much shorter. She was rewarded with an
equally short quiver in response, despite the
silence that was all anyone on the other end of that
connection would have heard. Assuming they coue
fireball blacken the vegetation all the way down
to the ground. Dax's hopes of locating Kira
sank as she realized her line of sight wasn't much
better here than it had been back in the forest
interior. For a long moment, she hesitated on the
edge of the destruction, watching the silent flakes of
black ash drift slowly downward. Uneasy
memory stirred inside her, sparking the same
morbid fear in Jadzia that Emony had felt at
Ymoc City... were any of those ashes the
remains of someone she had known? Under her drying
crust of mud, something fluttered against her shoulder.
Dax cursed again and slapped at her uniform
tunic, convinced she must have inadvertently hauled some
inhabitant of the wetland out with her when she emerged.
All she felt beneath her fingers,
however, was the cool lump of her Starfleet
communicator, clinging stubbornly to her despite her
head to toe immersion in mud. It wasn't until the
small metal pin quivered again that she realized she
was being hailed by someone, and just couldn't hear the chirp.
She tapped down the communicator's response
button and held it to override whoever was hailing.
"Dax here," she said, feeling the vibration of her
words in her mouth and jaw even though she couldn't hear
them. "If this is the Defiant calling, I can't
hear you. You'll have to buzz the communicator off and
on in universal signal code." She got a
reply as soon as she lifted her fingers, but it
wasn't the staccato coded message she'd
expected. Instead, it was a long, chirping pulse,
almost exactly the same length as hers had been.
Eyes narrowing in suspicion, Dax held down the
communicator response button again, but didn't
speak into it. This time, she was careful to keep
her transmission much shorter. She was rewarded with
an equally short quiver in response, despite
the silence that was all anyone on the other end of that
connection would have heard. Assuming they could hear at
all. "Kira!" It was joyful instinct that made
Dax say it into the communicator, even though she
knew her companion had to be just as deaf as she was.
Then she slowly buzzed the same message through the
pin in short on-off bursts, spelling out each letter
of the Bajoran major's name in universal signal
code. There was a long pause after she finished,
during which Dax began to worry that Kira's lack of
Starfleet training meant she might not know how
to translate that coded message. Then her own pin
began to vibrate, long and short bursts beneath her
cupping fingers. "Dax," it spelled out first. Then,
more slowly, "Tricorder position." Dax cursed
and yanked her mud-covered tricorder up from her
belt, praying it worked. It wasn't the immersion in
mud she was worried about--THE legendary
durability Starfleet built into its equipment could
withstand much worse conditions. But air-burst
explosions like the one they'd just endured had a tendency
to emit an invisible wave of electromagnetic
radiation in addition to its atmospheric
shock wave. Depending on how strong that EM
pulse had been, there was a good chance the tricorder's
delicate quantum circuits had been fused
by stray electrons. The instrument's display lit
up correctly, but the babble of machine code that
streaked across it when she punched in the request for
Kira's communicator pin coordinates confirmed
Dax's fears. It looked like all the higher-level
programming circuits had been scrambled. She
scowled down at the display's final result.
Alett gerivok--Vulcan computer code for the
number twenty-seven. But twenty-seven of what
units? In what direction? Could she even be sure
the tricorder had understood her request to begin with, and
wasn't just spitting out random nonsense? Well,
there was only one way to find out. Dax took three
experimental steps down the cluttered banchory
trail toward the place she'd last seen Kira,
then paused to reinput the request for her
coordinates. This time the racing lines of codes
steadied out on prern gerivok te prern--the code
for twenty-five- point-five. She glanced back
at her initial position, gauging the distance she had
traveled. a meter and a half seemed just about right.
Encouraged, she continued walking in that
direction, pausing to recheck the tricorder's
output every time she had to clamber through another tangle
of downed trees. At her sixth checkpoint, the
Vulcan number on the tricorder was higher than
before. Painstakingly, Dax retraced her steps and
checked both sides of the trail until the readout
would go no lower, then shoved herself into the charred
embrace of the tuq'mor. According to the tricorder,
Kira was only six meters away from her now, and the
sky still held enough luminous violet light to see through
the tangled vegetation. Dax rechecked the readout
once more to make sure she was heading in the right
direction, then clipped the tricorder back on her
belt and started searching through the smoky shadows. After
a moment, her communicator pin quivered again. Dax
paused, translating the vibrating dashes and dots
in mounting impatience. "Turn right under," they
spelled out enigmatically. Dax turned right as
ordered but saw nothing to go under, just more tangled
tuq'mor wetland. "Log," added her communicator
pin in slow, tired quivers. "In water." Dax
cursed, loud enough this time for her recovering ears to give
her a faint, tinny backwash of the sound, and knelt
down to scan the water line, looking for a charred log
big enough to trap a Bajoran female.
She found it not half a meter away, protruding from
a wetland pond like a tilted obelisk. Its
burnt wood was still ruby-warm on the upper
surface where it hadn't been quenched. The dying
firelight sparked glowing reflections in two dark
eyes, peering up at her CAUSTICALLY from beneath the
log's heavy shadow. Kira tilted her chin up just
enough to lift her mouth above the waterline and, faint as a
cricket's chirp, Dax heard her say, "About
time." Dax didn't bother replying, instead
plunging down into the still-warm muck beside her friend,
fearful that her position meant crushed limbs or
battered organs. To her relief, she found the log
split into a twisted fork half a meter below the water
line, trapping Kira's half-turned torso in a
vise of chokingly thick thorned branches. At
least half a dozen of them had snagged on the tough
fabric of her Bajoran uniform. Kira said
something else, too faint for Dax's shrilling ears
to hear, then demonstrated by reaching both hands up over
her head and wrapping them around the still-smoldering log.
Her wet uniform sleeves began to steam before she could
even lock her hands for one good tug against the tangled
thorns. She pulled them away a moment later just as
smoke began to rise. Dax winced, seeing
the places where the cloth had seared through on the
major's more stubborn attempts to extricate
herself. Lifting a finger at Kira to make her
wait, Dax pulled out her phaser and set it to its
narrowest, knife-thin firing spray. Taking a
deep breath, she let herself sink down into the muddy
water. She couldn't see much through the murk, but
by patting her way along the edge of Kira's torso
with one hand, she managed to sweep a careful line of
phaser fire at a ten-centimeter distance, severing
thorny twigs from their parent branch without trying
to disentangle Kira from them. She bobbed up to take
a second deep breath, then
submerged again and sliced through the tangled vegetation
on the other side of the fork. By the time she'd surfaced
again and swiped the muddy water out of her eyes,
Kira was already reaching up to grasp the smoldering log
again. "Wait." Dax tugged her friend's arms apart,
then began scooping water onto the glowing wood with
both cupped hands. It sizzled and steamed and
exploded in little hissing pops, making the log
slowly darken. Dax kept splashing until most
of the surface was completely sodden, then stepped
back and came around the log to stand behind Kira,
holding a thumb up where the major could see
it. She nodded and lifted her arms to clench tightly
around the dampened wood. "Now!" Kira's voice
said faintly, and she hauled herself half out of the water
with one strong upward jerk. Dax caught and steadied
her when her momentum faded, giving Kira a chance
to shake one booted foot free of the thorny
tangle. With the flexibility that came with her size,
the Bajoran then planted her heel on the log at
the same height as her chest and kicked herself clear
of the thorns, so powerfully that she staggered both of them
back a step in the mud. Dax caught her balance
first, grabbing hold of the nearest unburnt branch
to steady them both. "Are you all right?" she shouted at
her companion. Kira grinned at her through a mask
of ashen dribbles. Despite the burns on her
sleeves and the thorn cuts that had already started
dappling her legs with drops of blood, the
Bajoran major looked surprisingly unaffected
by her ordeal. "I've been through worse tortures
in low-security Cardassian prisons!"
she shouted back. What little Dax could hear of her
voice sounded cheerful. "At least here the water's
nice and warm." Dax shook her head, remembering
the instant of scalding heat just after the fireball's
passage. Her face still felt tender from that
momentary immersion. "Too warm for me!" she shouted
back, then paused to listen. A distant rumble echoed
through the fading shrill of her blasted ears. "That sounds
like another comet strike, either smaller or further
away. This must have been a major debris cluster."
Kira winced. "Don't say that like it's a good thing.
Another one could hit right here."
"That's statistically
unlikely," Dax informed her. "So is a stable
wormhole." Kira hauled herself out of the muck,
swinging up to balance with enviable ease on the
low-hanging branch. Dax groaned and forced her aching
muscles to scrabble their way to the same perch,
feeling weighted down by her wet and mud-sodden
uniform. "Our first priority right now is to get
back to the Klingon exile camp and see if
anyone's still alive there. After that, we'll contact the
defiant and see if they're still--I mean, see if
the battle with Kor is over." Dax lifted an
eyebrow at her. "Are we going to beam up if it
is?"
"No. We're going to stay here and locate
Bashir, even if we have to throw away our
communicator pins to do it." Kira took a deep,
decisive breath. "I never left behind a
member of the Shakaar who could have been rescued. And
no matter what Captain Sisko says, I'm not
going to start now."
"Sounds good to me." Dax led the way
back
through the charred tuq'mor to the smoke-filled chasm
of the banchory trail. The late night sky was even
more radiant with afterglow than before, spiked near the
horizon with a sunrise-bright flame and banded above that
with rust-tinged sky and coppery clouds. If she
hadn't known better, Dax would have thought it was dawn.
"Of course, by the time we make it back to epetai
Vrag's settlement, Julian may already have been
there for hours, waiting for us." Kira opened her mouth
to reply, then caught sight of the destruction wrought in
the banchory trail by the comet strike and broke into a
fit of startled coughing instead. "Not hours," she said
sourly, when she finally regained he r voice.
"Weeks. Because that's how long it's going to take us
to get back."
CHAPTER 8
the ONLY THING HE KNEW was that he was
coughing. So hard and so breathlessly that he thought he'd
tear his body apart. No up. No down. He
didn't know who he was talking to when he
croaked, "Stop! Stop! Put me down!" But they
listened to him. And even though the pain followed him and
rode up through him in waves so thick he thought he'd
vomit, Bashir realized it was true darkness
pressing in all around him, not just his own
unconsciousness. Strong Klingon hands lowered him
into a sitting position against a cool, uneven wall.
Distant thunder--or perhaps the explosions of
primitive mortars--trembled through the hard floor,
shivered through his stomach. Shock. Undoubtedly.
Whatever had happened, the pain alone was enough to bottom
out his blood pressure, and he harbored a
morbid suspicion that the cold wetness he
felt collected in his boot was something other than
water. A vague sixth sense of other bodies in
the same enclosed space. Bashir stirred only enough
to rocket pain up his leg and into his stomach, but
felt someone move touchably close in response
to his gasp. He wound his fingers in that someone
else's sleeve. "Where are we?" he whispered.
Another bone-deep rumble shuddered through the world, just below
the level of hearing. Then K'Taran's voice,
aberrantly loud, "Underground." It told him
nothing. But told him enough all the rules had
changed. "The xirri... the one I gave
you. .." "She's fine. She's with the others."
Better than could be said for him. He closed his
eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. A
warm blur of light bloomed against the outside of his
eyelids. He blinked, forcing himself alert, watching
a handful of Klingon youngsters appear behind the spread of
light as though chasing it ahead of them. Singed and
filthy, they each brandished some form of fire, most of
them carrying burning handfuls of tuq'mor in the slings
of their wet tunics. The huge cave came alive
with firefly motes of light as they scattered
to distribute fire all over the chamber. Voices
--some Klingon, some not--bloomed in the warming darkness
alongside the light. "The fire outside is
dying." One of the boys drew closer, a tree
limb almost as thick as his arm wrapped in cloth and
sputtering erratically. "But more fire is coming from the
sky. We will be here for some time."
He knelt beside K'Taran. The flames
strengthened somewhat now that he'd stopped moving, and the
sudden flare of their intensity hurt Bashir's
eyes. "Will he die?" K'Taran reached to take the
torch from the boy, her own eyes stark and gray in the
unreliable light. "He is the Human doctor.
He will tell us." And she held the light
across his outstretched legs. As though doing him some
favor. Years of practice with trauma patients
prevented him from vocalizing any sounds of horror,
but Bashir couldn't stop the panicky whirl of his
thoughts any more than he could stop his heart from thundering.
His uniform was soaked and muddy, tunic and trousers
all reduced to the same ash-riddled iron gray.
Rents in the fabric exposed minute flashes of
scarlet, but none of them accounted for the glossy
overlay of blood down the inside of his right leg.
He followed the stain upward to a knee already
misshapen with swelling. Then realized that it wasn't
edema pushing the fabric of his trousers medially out of
alignment. It was bone. His hands trembled as he
pried his tricorder out of its pouch. Its normally
reassuring warble rang piercingly off the flowstone
walls, and at least the scroll of readings made a
modicum of sense. BP was better than he
expected, although he didn't like his heart rate or
the shallowness of his breathing. Just reading the figure on
how much blood he'd lost made him dizzy. Still,
there was no arterial damage, and at least the
hemorrhaging was slowing. Folding the tricorder
closed in his lap, he rubbed shakily at his
eyes."...So..." K'Taran glanced down
at his leg, then up at his face again with painfully
adolescent bravery. "Will you die?" Leave it
to Klingons to stick with the most basic of questions. "Not
immediately." And for some reason, that struck him as
funny. He decided not to laugh, for fear he'd
frighten them. "Where's the rest of my equipment?"
Even as he asked, the bump and scrape of a dragging
container hurried up on one side. Bashir turned
his head and smiled at the painted xirri doctor.
"Thank you," he said, taking the strap of the medkit
when it was offered. As though some signal passed between
them, the Klingon boy left abruptly, and the little
xirri sidled over into his place. Only two
at a time with any given dead man, Bashir found
himself thinking as he fumbled with the latches on the kit.
It unfolded clumsily, the front panel
clattering onto the floor. Just another of many
quaint Klingon traditions. He found a vial of
stimulant and fitted it carefully onto his
hypospray. "I'm sorry about this," he said as he
calibrated the dosage. A brittle, unreadable
expression flitted across K'Taran's face. "It
is not your fault."
"I should have stayed to the trail. The first rule of
emergency medicine is to avoid making new
victims." This time she caught his hand, halting him
just before he delivered the injection. "It is not your
fault!" she declared when he blinked up at her.
Then, in a tone of choked embarrassment, "It is
my fault. You were caught in the tuq'mor, and the
fire was coming..." She released him and clenched
herhands miserably in front of her. "I did not
realize you would break so easily." He wondered
what she would think if she knew he was far less
fragile than most. Arguing the finer points of
blame was ultimately useless, though. Die from a
comet strike, die from starvation, die from an open leg
fracture. What difference did it really make?
Digging a container of sterile water out of the open
medkit, Bashir held the almost-empty bottle out
toward the painted xirri. He remembered using most
of his supply irrigating xirri wounds, and
remembered his native counterpart following him from
patient to patient with keen interest as he performed the
procedure. Now, Bashir only had to shake the
bottle once before the xirri ducked forward to take
it from him and scampered awaym hopefully in search of
water. K'Taran watched in silence as Bashir
sorted through the rest of his limited pharmacy in search
of something that might tackle the pain of a
comminuted fracture. Nothing powerful that wouldn't also
render him useless for both himself and any other wounded.
Choosing a more lightweight analgesic, he was still
counting vertebrae upward from his sacrum when
K'Taran asked quietly, "Is it true?"
Bashir finished counting, then carefully injected as
large a dose as he dared into his spine. "Is
what true?" She swallowed hard, but didn't
drop her gaze. "That you will die." Ah--that
eternal Klingon pragmatism again. Moving slowly
to give the spinal time to do its work, Bashir twisted
apart the hypospray and tossed the empty vial
back into his kit. "I don't know," he
admitted wearily. "I've lost a lot of
blood, and with no other Humans around, I can't
replace it. And whenever fractured bone is
exposed to air..." Just mentioning it made his leg
shriek with remembered pain, but the spinal already smothered
some of the reality. He managed to push the phantom
anguish aside. "Well, that's not good even when
you've got a whole sickbay to work with. If we're
really stuck down here, and this is all the treatment
I'll receive..." He met her gaze frankly, not
wanting her to see just how badly he was afraid.
"Yes," he said at last. "I'll very
likely die." The xirri returned with the water;
Bashir was just as glad to distract himself from
K'Taran's disturbing fixation with his impending
demise. He flash-sterilized the entire container,
then screwed on the irrigation lid with more dexterity
than he expected. Bending forward flexed the spur
of protruding bone, so he only sliced away the
fabric at the point of the actual break, instead of
opening his pantleg to the ankle the way he would have with
another patient. Blessed numbness let him
approach the procedure at a professional distance.
A patient's fracture, a patient's blood.
It didn't matter who the patient was. He showed
the xirri how to hold the bottle overhead so
gravity could work its magic on the water, and used
both his own hands to explore the fracture as he
irrigated. Only once did he find himself wishing
he had gloves or even sterile drapes. No
sense wishing for things that couldn't be had in an
emergency, though; he banned the thought from his mind and
went back to concentrating on his patient. They were
almost through the third bottle of sterilized water when a
reassuring hand closed on his shoulder and a warm
voice remarked, "You know, I'm getting less
enamored with the native botany by the hour."
It was the humanness of the voice that jerked Bashir's
head up; the swiftness of his movement scattered
sparks across his vision. He clapped one hand
abruptly to the floor, steadying himself, and blinked
furiously to keep from losing sight of consciousness.
The slim, elderly Asian man squatting beside him
rolled smoothly to his knees and CLOSED both
hands protectively around the doctor's upper arm.
"It's all right--I've got you." And the Klingons
have us both. Still, it eased his dizziness to relax his
weight onto someone else's strength. Leaving the
xirri to finish with the water, Bashir let the older
Human ease him back against the stone wall. He
almost felt a rush of blood back into his brain as
his sense of his surroundings realigned and sharpened.
Well, thank God, he thought wearily, turning
to really look at the man kneeling beside him. At
least we've found the Victoria Adams's crew.
He was fit, trim, and flexible in a way
completely at odds with the ancient wisdom in his dark
eyes. At least one hundred, Bashir decided,
for all that he looked not a instead of opening his
pantleg to the ankle the way he would have with another
patient. Blessed numbness let him approach the
procedure at a professional distance. A
patient's fracture, a patient's blood. It
didn't matter who the patient was. He showed the
xirri how to hold the bottle overhead so gravity
could work its magic on the water, and used both his own
hands to explore the fracture as he irrigated.
Only once did he find himself wishing he had
gloves or even sterile drapes. No sense
wishing for things that couldn't be had in an emergency,
though; he banned the thought from his mind and went back
to concentrating on his patient. They were almost through the
third bottle of sterilized water when a reassuring
hand closed on his shoulder and a warm voice remarked,
"You know, I'm getting less enamored with the native
botany by the hour." It was the humanness of the voice
that jerked Bashir's head up; the swiftness of his
movement scattered sparks across his vision. He
clapped one hand abruptly to the floor, steadying
himself, and blinked furiously to keep from losing sight
of consciousness. The slim, elderly Asian man
squatting beside him rolled smoothly to his knees and
CLOSED both hands protectively around the
doctor's upper arm. "It's all right--I've
got you." And the Klingons have us both. Still, it eased
his dizziness to relax his weight onto someone
else's strength. Leaving the xirri to finish
with the water, Bashir let the older Human ease
him back against the stone wall. He almost felt a
rush of blood back into his brain as his sense of his
surroundings realigned and sharpened. Well, thank
God, he thought wearily, turning to really look at
the man kneeling beside him. At least we've found the
Victoria Adams's crew. He was fit,
trim, and flexible in a way completely at odds
with the ancient wisdom in his dark eyes. At least
one hundred, Bashir decided, for all that he
looked not a day over seventy. He wasn't one
of the scientists--the cheerfully commercial jumpsuit
on his slim frame was a familiar staple of the
Interplanetary Space Foundation, a nonprofit
organization that supplied volunteers to research
projects in need of enthusiastic, unskilled
help. Although their advertisements promised
nonspecific "adventure and opportunity,"
Bashir had a feeling being shot down by
Klingons wasn't the type of adventure the
Foundation had intended. Still, there was something about his
friendly, high-cheeked face and the cut of his iron
gray hair that said
"Starfleet Brass," and Bashir found
himself wishing he could sit up straighter
to convey his respect. "Captain..." He wasn't
even sure why he said it. It just seemed the proper
title for the easy competence surrounding this man. A
little glimmer of something bordering on panic chased itself
through the old man's eyes. "Not here, son," he said
gently. Just that quickly, his contagious smile
resurfaced. "Here, we're just two Humans
stuck in the same problem." He shifted position
to offer one hand. "Why don't you call me
George?" Something in the keen way the old man
watched him after this pronouncement said that this was both a
lie and an order. Bashir nodded to show he
understood, and lifted his own hand for shaking. Blood
coated him like a torn glove. He pulled back
before their palms could make contact. "My name's
Julian, Julian Bashir."
"Dr. Bashir." He
flicked his eyes across Bashir's medical
uniform and dipped an acknowledging nod. "Our
hostess tells me you could use a few willing
donors." The blood. On his hand, his pantleg,
the floor. Everywhere but where it should be. "B
negative," he admitted, "at least two
units." Which would buy him time, CLEAR his head a
little, but hardly solve his problem.
Necrosis was necrosis, no matter how much
blood your heart pumped through it. "Well, I'm
A positive," George told him. "But we've
got at least seventeen other Humans I think we
can count on." He braced one hand on his knee in
preparation to stand, and Bashir reached out to catch his
wrist. George halted, eyes alert. "No
wounded," Bashir said firmly. He held the other
officer's gaze to make sure his commitment to this was
clear. "If they aren't completely healthy and
uninjured, I won't take their blood." First
rule of emergency medicine avoid creating new
victims. George nodded solemnly.
"Understood. You hang tight until I get
back." Then he trotted briskly into the deeper
cave, leaving Bashir feeling cold and
unac-countably alone. "Honor grants you the right
of restitution." K'Taran waited until the
doctor flicked a glance at her, then continued
formally, "Traditionally, your family would inherit the
right should you no longer be able to exercise it yourself. But
as you have no family here... I will take whatever
action you require of me. By my own hand." Taking
the empty water bottle from the xirri, Bashir
shook his head to stop the little native from
running off for another refill. "What are you
talking about?" he asked K'Taran. "If you ask
me, I will kill myself." She lifted the bottle from
his shaking hands and carefully wrapped it with its own
bloody irrigation tubing. "A life for a life."
Bashir snugged the bottle and its tubing back into the
kit, shaking again and feeling a little sick. "Don't
be ridiculous. I don't want you to kill yourself."
"Then what? Should I
maim myself in equal measure?"
"Stop it," he said firmly. There was only
one hypo
of system stimulant left, and he wasn't
sure he wanted to use it just yet. K'Taran
surprised him by slamming the kit shut almost on his
fingers. "No!" Bashir jerked away from her
slightly, pushing himself back against the wall. Some
distant awareness knew he'd moved the bones in his
leg again, but what the spinal didn't fully quench
surprise had already washed away. "Do not leave me
with this dishonor on my name!" K'Taran bent over
him fiercely, her breath hot against his face and her
eyes bright with a pain rivalling his own. "I have done
you a terrible wrong. I know from your face that even
Human blood will not erase it.
Please... allow me to balance the debt." He
tried to imagine offering up his life for anything when
he was only fourteen. Then he thought about Dax and
Kira, trapped God only knew where as the sky
fell down around them, and he wondered if it was really
worth raising such impassioned children when they only
grew up to be inflexible, impassioned adults.
"There's only one thing I want." He made himself
relax, but stopped just short of touching her hand. "Go
find my friends. There's room enough for everyone down here,
your grandmother's people included. But I can't go to them now.
Do that for me." At first he thought she might refuse
him. The mention of her grandmother darkened her brow
ridges with anger, and her jaw muscles bunched in
frustration. Then her eyes strayed for only an
instant to his twisted, bloody leg, and all her
adult determination returned with leonine grace.
"I will take the duty," she solemnly announced.
"Will you accept this as honorable restitution for my
crime?" The last painful knot of fear loosened
its grip on Bashir's heart. "I will." She
nodded once, grimly, and sprang to her feet with
all the vigor of a warrior marching into honorable
combat even though she'd almost certainly lose. Perhaps
that was all that was really facing her now. Still,
Bashir put out one hand to stop her before she could
launch herself toward the outside. "I have one more
favor to ask of you." K'Taran hesitated, eyes
dark and flinty with suspicion. "Our honor is in
balance," she told him. The doctor shook his
head, suddenly strangely embarrassed at having
been misunderstood, as though caught in a grave
imposition. "Not an honor debt," he assured
her hastily. "A favor." Then, swallowing hard,
Bashir sat as straight as he could, and clenched his
hands behind his back. "I was wondering if I might
impose on you to set a fractured bone. ..."
According to Dax's antistic tricorder, they were
halfway back to the main Klingon encampment when their
communicators chirped again. This time, Dax could
actually hear as well as feel the signal, although
there was still an odd metallic flatness to the
high-pitched sound. She waited a moment for Kira
to tap her pin and answer, frowning at her when she
didn't. "Aren't you even going to acknowledge the
captain's hail?" It was one thing to contemplate
disobeying orders when it came to evacuating without
Julian, Dax discovered, and quite another to simply
ignore the chain of command. "That's not the Defiant
hailing us," Kira answered. "It's the
wrong frequency." Dax took a breath, realizing
that for once her aching ears hadn't lied to her about a
sound. "Why would someone else be hailing us?" she
asked, then answered in the same breath. "The
Klingons."
"From Kor's ship?" Kira shook her head.
"If they knew we were here, they'd either beam us out or
phaser us. No, this has to be someone who wants
something from us..." Their communicators chirped again,
strangely high and urgent. "Should we just ignore
them?" "Probably," Kira said. Her dark eyes
met Dax's in a mutually thoughtful look. "But
what if it's the group who took Bashir?" In
response, Dax tapped her communicator on.
"Jadzia Dax here," she said calmly.
"Identify yourself."
"I am sending coordinates." The shock of
hearing Gordek's gruff, graceless voice on the
other end of that connection was only exceeded by the shock
of his next words. "Come and help us, or I will have the
Cardassians destroy your ship and all aboard
it." Dax lifted her hand to break the connection.
"Car-dassians?" she asked Kira in
astonishment. "How could a membe r of epetai
Vrag's exiles have any control over the
Cardassians?"
"The same way he could have a subspace
communicator," Kira shot back, her face
hardening to reveal the ruthless guerrilla leader she'd
once been. BECAUSE he's been dealing with the
Cardassians all along." Dax blinked at her
for a long, disbelieving minute. "Dealing in what?
Armageddon isn't exactly brimming with
galactic treasures."
"That's what we're going to find out." The
Bajoran tapped her communicator pin on.
"Send your coordinates, Gordek," she said
shortly. "We'll be there." The Klingon grunted
and rattled off a string of planetary coordinates,
then cut the connection as rudely as he'd opened it,
giving Dax no chance to tell him that those numbers
meant nothing to her. "He must be using Cardassian
plotting data," she told Kira in frustration.
"I have no idea where this location is." "Could we
focus in on his communicator signal, if we could
get him to turn it on again?" Dax gave her
tricorder a jaundiced look. "Not unless
O'Brien beams down and fixes this first."
"I don't think the captain
will let me do that," said a totally
unexpected Irish voice from her communicator.
"But if you really want to have a heart-to-heart chat
with your friend Gordek, I may be able to get you there."
"Chief?." Dax
demanded. "Were you listening in on that transmission
from the Klingons?"
"We've been scanning every frequency for your
signal, old man, ever since the EM surge of the
comet impacts cleared." That was Benjamin
Sisko's familiar coffee-dark voice, sounding more
impatient than relieved. "What took you so long
to report in? Didn't you think we'd be worried
about you?" Kira and Dax exchanged slightly
guilty looks. "We
wanted to ascertain the condition of the Klingon
refugees at the main encampment first, sir,"
Kira said at last. "And give Dr. Bashir a
little more time to show up before you abandoned him?" It was never
easy to fool Sisko, Dax thought wryly,
especially when what you were trying to do would have been his
first instinct as well. "Are you two all right?"
Kira's answer to that was more confident, if no more
accurate. "Just a few bumps and bruises, sir.
Request permission to stay on planet and
investigate the nature of Gordek's
dealings with the Cardassians." "Granted with
pleasure, Major," Sisko said grimly.
"We're currently out of Kor's firing range,
so we can drop shields long enough to beam you and Dax
straight to the origination point of Gordek's
signal."
"Any idea
how many Klingons are with him, Captain?" Dax
asked. She heard the mutter of an unfamiliar
voice on the bridge, then Sisko said,
"Long-range sensors indicate at least a dozen
life-signs there, although not all of them are strong.
Watch yourself, old man."
"Yes, sir." Dax
dropped her hand from her pin and braced her aching
muscles for the jerk of transport. An instant
later, the smoke and downed trees of the tuq'mor
vanished, replaced by a crackling red-gold
inferno. Dax barely had time to squint her eyes
shut against the glare before a pair of fierce hands
seized her shoulders and dragged her closer to the
fire. "This is your fault!" Gordek's dark
mane of hair was half-seared on one side, but his
blistered face held more fury than pain. "Your
shield generator didn't protect us when
the comet came! Look what came of it!" "Look
what came of not telling us the truth!" Kira might
have been half the Klingon's size, but her determined
shove and angry scowl still backed him a step away
from Dax. With her vision tempered to the glare, Dax
could now see the charcoal ghosts of three pole
buildings engulfed in the flames. The sprawled
bodies of several dead Klingons rimmed the edge of
fire, as if they'd been dragged out only far enough
to be checked for life-signs before their rescuers
dropped them and went back for more. The injured had
been moved to the shelter of the one building left standing,
built where the damp wall of tuq'mor around this forest
clearing had deflected the cometary blast. A handful
of Klingon hunters looked up from that sanctuary,
then came to ring Gordek, Kira, and Dax in a
deadly circle. Dax took a slow, steadying
breath and turned to watch their backs, making sure the
phaser on her hip faced Kira rather than the
exiles. "Why is this our fault?" she demanded,
aiming the question at the hostile watchers rather than
Gordek. "We never claimed that shield would save
you from a direct impact. And we offered you
evacuation to our ship-- you're the one who insisted on
staying here!" That sparked a mutter of
unease around the ring of fierce, furrowed Klingon
faces. Dax pressed the advantage, pointing a
finger at the Cardassian communicator Gordek still
carried in one meaty fist. "If you would rather wait for the
Cardassians to evacuate you than have the Federation do
it, that's fine. But where are they now that you need them?
Are they braving
the Klingon blockade? Have they responded to your
calls for help?" It was a shot in the dark, but it
went home. Two of the hunters turned scowling
faces toward Gordek. "Why aren't the
Cardassians here?" one demanded. "We told them
we had the last geset for them days ago. Didn't
they promise to evacuate us?"
"That was before the Starfleet ship was
here!" Gordek snapped back at them. "So?
If our homeworld was dying, as they claim theirs is,
would we not invade Hell for the cure?" growled an
older, battle-scarred Klingon. He pulled out a
vial of golden brown fluid from one tattered
pocket and held it up to catch the firelight. Its
high-tech polytex surface glittered
anomalously bright in this primitive setting.
"What is the character of their honor, these Cardassians
you have bound us to, Gordek? They will not
brave a single Klingon ship for the drug they say
saves their children's lives! I say we let their children
die! He dropped the vial contemptuously to the
ground, then wrung a shout of protest out of
Gordek by smashing it with one heavy, booted foot.
"That is our passage out of here!" the Klingon house
leader growled as the frothy yellow liquid ran and
puddled underfoot. An unpleasantly caustic
smell rose up from it--not familiar, but
evocative of something else Dax knew. She
frowned and juggled out her mud-encrusted tricorder,
then ran a discreet analysis of the fluid running
between her boots. The display panel flickered, then
coughed up a response in enigmatic Vulcan
machine-code. The older hunter spat into the
spilled geset, making his opinion of it
offensively clear. "I see no Cardassian
ships here to rescue us," he said brusquely.
"All I see here is an outcast from a once-noble
Klingon House--a small creature who cannot
salute the sky." Gordek snarled in wordless anger
at that insult, his shoulders rolling for a roundhouse
punch that Kira's lifted phaser stopped in
midswing. The big Klingon took a step back,
glaring down at her and breathing hard between bared
teeth. "Our wounded die while we dither here! You
should be transporting them up to stasis on your ship,
as your doctor did before."
"No." Dax's harsh voice jerked the
Klingon's furious glare over to her instead. "I
may not know the character of the Cardassians' honor,
Gordek, but I know the character of Benjamin
Sisko's. He'll defy the blockade
to evacuate innocent Klingon refugees, but he
won't give shelter to a single Klingon
traitor." Her accusation ignited the roar of
response she'd expected from all the hunters.
"Who calls us traitors?" demanded a younger,
dark-skinned male. "We have done nothing to betray the
Empire!"
"Except sell this to the Cardassians."
Dax lifted her tricorder to show the frowning
Klingons the Vulcan chemical symbols it
displayed. "According to my instrument, this is the active
ingredient in that geset you just spilled on the ground.
And if any of us were Human, we would be dead now."
Kira scowled down at the yellow rivulets
trickling toward her boots, stepping back to make
sure none of them came inffcontact. "What is it?"
"Drevlocet," Dax said
simply.
Even the Klingons hissed in response to that
statement. "The neurotoxin that the Jem'hadar used
to murder hundreds of Humans at the Hjaraur
colony?" Kira growled. "Yes. One of the
native animals--I'm guessing the banchory,
considering the number of them you've killed--must
synthesize it naturally, as a defense against the
biting insects here. It's been outlawed in every
military convention signed in the Alpha Quadrant
since Hjaraur." Dax fixed Gordek with her
coldest look. "But you've been purifying it and
stocking it up for the Cardassians. What did they
promise you to get you to make this drug for them? It
must have been something worth turning down our offer of
evacuation."
"A return to the
Klingon homeworld?" Kira asked shrewdly.
Gordek snarled and spit toward their feet. "As
if I would gratify that fool Gowron by giving him
a chance to exile me again. No, they said they would
give us our own ship and escort us through the
wormhole, so we could disappear into the Gamma
Quadrant. It was a high price, but they said they
were desperate to cure their home planet of
ptarvo fever."
"Ptarvo fever?" That made Kira
snort. "That's about as lethal as a foot
cramp!" Another wash of discontent rumbled through the
surviving Klingon hunters. "Then why would they pay
so much for this drug?" a younger one demanded, brow
ridges clenched with suspicion. "Because it can be
chemically modified to attack almost any humanoid
race--Romulans, Vulcans, Trill, and
Klingons as well as Humans," Dax said
flatly. "In fact, the only species whose
neural matter
we know it can't affect are the Cardassians."
She aimed another ice-cold gaze at Gordek.
"Did you know, when you agreed to purify this drug for
them, that it could be turned against your own people ?"
"No!" The
exile's roar was loud, but the undertone of guilt in
it rang clear to Dax's ears. "How could I? We
didn't have the equipment to know they were lying!"
"No," said the older, scarred hunter. "But we
knew they insulted our honor by the way they forced us
to bargain our lives for this drug. We should have
refused to deal with them from the beginning." He turned
toward Dax, dark eyes narrowed in
suspicion. "We have been in exile many months.
Are the Cardassians at war with the Humans now?"
"Not yet," Dax
said. "But they are certainly at war with the
Klingons."
"Then they will
use this drug against the Klingon Empire?"
"Quite possibly," Kira
agreed, her voice caustic. "When it comes
to war, Cardassians don't pay much attention
to ethical conventions." The older Klingon took a
deep breath, eyes closing for a long, bitter
moment. "Epetai Vrag was right. We should have
resigned ourselves to this new life, and relinquished
any hope of honorable redemption. Now we have
endangered our entire race through our dishonorable
striving."
"And what if we have?" Gordek
snarled savagely. "Did the Klingon High
Council care that they had endangered us when they
abandoned us on this death-trap planet? Our crime
was misplaced loyalty, nothing more! Should that condemn
us to bear the brunt of
heaven's wroth and die beneath this Armageddon sky,
just for the sake of our honor?." Silence
followed his words, a silence filled with the sullen
crackle of dying flames. Then the scarred older
hunter spat again, this time aiming his contempt
directly at the leader of his house. "Batlh
potlh law' yin potlh pus." Then he raised his
long hunter's knife and stabbed it deep into his own
throat. Kira gasped and stepped back from the
suddecardassians." She aimed another ice-cold
gaze at Gordek. "Did you know, when you agreed
to purify this drug for them, that it could be turned against
your own people?"
"No!" The exile's roar
was loud, but the undertone of guilt in it rang clear
to Dax's ears. "How could I? We didn't have the
equipment to know they were lying!" "No," said the older,
scarred hunter. "But we knew they insulted our
honor by the way they forced us to bargain our lives for
this drug. We should have refused to deal with them from the
beginning." He turned toward Dax, dark eyes
narrowed in suspicion. "We have been in exile many
months. Are the Cardassians at war with the
Humans now?"
"Not yet," Dax
said. "But they are certainly at war with the
Klingons."
"Then they will
use this drug against the Klingon Empire?"
"Quite possibly," Kira
agreed, her voice caustic. "When it comes
to war, Cardassians don't pay much attention
to ethical conventions." The older Klingon took a
deep breath, eyes closing for a long, bitter
moment. "Epetai Vrag was right. We should have
resigned ourselves to this new life, and relinquished
any hope of honorable redemption. Now we have
endangered our entire race through our dishonorable
striving."
"And what if we have?" Gordek
snarled savagely. "Did the Klingon High
Council care that they had endangered us when they
abandoned us on this death-trap planet? Our crime
was misplaced loyalty, nothing more! Should that condemn
us to bear the brunt of
heaven's wroth and die beneath this Armageddon sky,
just for the sake of our honor?." Silence followed his
words, a silence filled with the sullen crackle of
dying flames. Then the scarred older hunter spat
again, this time aiming his contempt directly at the
leader of his house. "Batlh potlh law' yin
potlh pus." Then he raised his long
hunter's knife and stabbed it deep into his own
throat. Kira gasped and stepped back from the sudden
rush of bright Klingon blood, but Dax had been
steeled for it. She knew this proud warrior race
almost as well as she knew her own. From the moment she
had discovered what geset really was, she had known
no honorable Klingon could survive learning he had
doomed his own people with it. The ring of hunters watched
their eldest fall to his knees in indomitable
silence, then slowly collapse face down in the
frothy yellow toxin. Then, with a wordless glance of
agreement, all beside Gordek drew their own
knives. "Before I die, I will hold the knife for
those wounded who are still conscious," said the dark-skinned
youngest, and the others nodded. He turned slitted
obsidian eyes toward Dax. "You can transport
the others up to your ship to heal, but you must promise
afterwards to give them the truth. And a knife."
"I promise,"
she said in somber Klingon. "And I promise
also to sing the honor of your actions in every great house in
the Empire."
"Then it is a good day
to die." The young man nodded a silent farewell
to his companions, then turned on his heel
and headed for the survivors in the unburnt hut.
Kira frowned after him, then turned an urgent
gaze on Dax. "Do we have to?"
"Yes." Without flinching or protest, Dax
watched the last two hunters of Gordek's house
end their lives in equally dignified silence. Hers
was now the task of cha'dlch, the honor witness, even
if the battle here was only one of internal
principles. She let her cold gaze settle
afterwards on Gordek, still standing with clenched fists and
scowling down at his fallen hunters as if their deaths
had been an insult he could fight them over.
"Gordek," she said softly. "You also have a
knife." His fire-lit gaze lifted to meet
hers, swirling with resentment and frustrated fury.
"Yes," he said thickly. "And I will use it on
you! Dax took a quick step back when he launched
himself, reaching desperately for her phaser even as her
eyes judged the distance and her heartbeat drummed out
too late, too late, too late. She heard the
familiar shrill sound, but it wasn't until the
big Klingon actually thudded down across the seared
ground, sprawling limply over his own dead
warriors, that she realized Kira had pulled her
own weapon even earlier. "Is he dead?"
Dax demanded. "Of course not." Kira rolled her
victim off to one side, careful not to let any of his
clothing come in contact with the geset. "He's coming
back to the defiant with us." Dax frowned, her
stomach roiling with the injustice of four honorable
Klingons dead and this
SELF'-CENTERED traitor saved. "You're
really going to evacuate him from Armageddon?"
"That's right." Kira gave her a hard-edged
Bajoran smile. "I'm going to wake him up just
long enough for Odo to extract a confession that names the
Cardassians as his buyers. Then we're going
to extradite him--straight to Dahar Master
Kor's ship."
CHAPTER 9
"hear ME KOR. Now." Sisko never
particularly noticed how his voice sounded,
especially in the middle of a tense situation. The
only reason he suspected something about it changed was
the way his bridge officers and ensigns dove into their
work at times like these, as if Furies stood behind them
breathing fire down their necks. Even Worf
wasn't immune to the effect, although his stiff
posture made it clear he could have resisted that aura
of command if his officer's instincts ever told
him to. Sisko SUSPECTED he himself had looked
much the same way when he'd been on the receiving end of
Admiral Nechayev's steely voice only a
few hours before. "Excellent work, Captain," the
admiral had said, her ice-pale eyes gleaming
despite the cometary INTERFERENCE that danced through her
high-security transmission. "The loss of the
Victoria Adams--perhaps even the loss of her
passengers--may very well be worth finding out that the
Cardassians planned to smuggle drevlocet off
this Armageddon planet of yours. You may have just
saved millions of lives."
"Thank you, Admiral," Sisko said shortly.
"But don't start filing any obituaries. I
haven't given up on the crash survivors yet,
or on my away team." Nechayev arched her
eyebrows. "But I thought you said you had to drop back
into a depowered and cloaked orbit to evade the
Klingon blockade. How are you going to protect the
planet from comet impacts now?" Sisko
grimaced. "I don't know." Dropping abruptly
out of warp with his exhaust camouflaged and his shields
repolarized to blend in with the magnet-osphere had
seemed like the best way to evade Kor's drunken,
wild chase. It wasn't until after the
fact that he'd realized he'd once again trapped
himself into doing nothing. "I'll think of something."
"Perhaps," Nechayev suggested, "you could
negotiate with Dahar Master Kor." Sisko
eyed his sector commander in deep suspicion.
He'd never known the admiral to make a joke,
especially not in a situation as tense as this one, but
surely she couldn't be serious now. "What makes
you think the Klingons are going to be any more amenable
to negotiation now than when they fired on the
Victoria Adams?"
"Because
now," she pointed out gently, "you can inform them that this
planet is a natural source of drevlocet."
That brought Worf's head up from his intent
scrutiny of his piloting screens. "The Klingon
High Council swore to uphold the military
convention banning drevlocet!" he growled. "On the
Honor of the Emperor Kahless! They would never use
it."
"I am aware of that, Commander," the
admiral retorted. "In fact, it's all
that's keeping me from ordering five starships to take
control of that system immediately. I trust the Klingons
will protect Armageddon adequately,
once they know how dangerous the planet really is."
"That's why you want me to talk to
Kor," Sisko realized. "So he knows the real
reason why the Cardassians have been trying to goad
us into a fight."
"Precisely." The admiral
transferred her steely gaze back to Sisko.
"The stakes in this game are now very high, Captain.
Whatever you and Kor decide to do, make sure it
doesn't leave the system open to Cardassian
intervention again. And that," she added, tapping her
Starfleet Academy ring on the table in front of
her for emphasis, "is an order." Sisko
gritted his teeth and agreed, recognizing the
unwritten code that meant Nechayev really meant
it this time. And as soon as her transmission had
flickered out, he'd ordered the confessed traitor
Gordek transferred over to Kor's ship. It had
been his best stab at getting the Dahar Master
to turn a sympathetic eye on Armageddon's
evacuation. If Kor didn't respond to a warning
that could save millions of Klingons from dying in a
Cardassian chemical attack, he wasn't going
to respond to anything. Unfortunately, after an hour
of silence, that looked to be exactly the
case.
"Kor refuses to acknowledge our hail,
Captain." Thornton looked frustrated, as if
the Klingon's stubborn silence were his own personal
failure. "I've coded it as a priority
request, but the Klingons still won't answer."
"Are they jamming our transmission?"
"No, sir. Just
refusing to reply."
"Maybe Kor's still interrogating Gordek,"
O'Brien said doubtfully. "Just because he told
Odo all the gory details of his dealings with the
Cardassians doesn't mean he's going to be as
cooperative with Kor."
"Unlikely," Worf said. "We transported
the exile collaborator over three hours ago.
By now, Kor has either debriefed him or killed
him."
"Or both," Odo said dryly. Sisko rubbed
a hand across his beard, his gaze never leaving the
dangerous haze of cometary debris halo-+
Armageddon's horizon. "Ensign Osgood, how
much time do we have before the next fragment is scheduled
to impact the planet?" The science officer glanced
up from her computer model, looking
worried. "Almost forty-five minutes, sir--but the
next impact isn't a single fragment, it's a
cluster that stretches over two degrees of arc.
Unless we start soon, I'm not sure we'll have
time to deflect them all."
"Then we can't
afford to wait on Kor's convenience." Sisko
launched himself out of his chair, a flare of anger
burning off the stiffness that came from too long a
period of inactivity. "After seeing us fire on the
comet fragments that he blew apart, he must know what
we've been doing to protect the planet. He
might even know what maneuvers we've been using
to do it. The only thing he doesn't know right now is
exactly which comet fragments we need to deflect."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that,
Captain," Thornton said. "I've been seeing
a lot of diffuse scanner activity from the Klingon
ship in the past three hours. It looks like they're
tracking the whole cometary debris cloud now, just like
we are." "Kor is making sure he knows our
next move in advance." Sisko smacked a hand
against his useless weapons panel as he passed it,
making both Thornton and Osgood start. Odo
merely gave him an inquiring, upward
look. "So when we go to deflect those comets--"
"--Kor will obliterate
us," Worf finished grimly. Sisko scowled and
paced off another circuit of his bridge. "What
we need is a way to distract the Klingon
blockade long enough for us to deflect that cluster of
comets. The trouble is, if I were Kor, I wouldn't
be taking my eyes off those comets for a second.
What could possibly distract me and my whole
crew?"
"An act of God?"
asked O'Brien. "Like an ion storm or a
solar flare?" Sisko shook his head. "Hard
to duplicate in under an hour, Chief. What
else?"
"A summons
from the Emperor, or from Chancellor Gowron?"
Odo suggested. "Constable, if a summons came in
from Starfleet calling us away from Armageddon right
now, would you believe it?"
"No," Odo admitted. "Me, either. What
else?" A long silence followed his question this time. It
was broken at last not by words, but by one of the rarest
sounds Sisko had ever heard on the bridge of the
Defiant. Worf was laughing. It was a
full-throated roar of Klingon amusement, barely
distinguishable from a warrior's fighting bellow. It
made Odo jump and O'Brien curse, while
Sisko swung around to stare at his tactical
officer in disbelief and dawning hope. "What?" he
demanded. "What have you thought of?"
"The Batlh Jaj!" Worf's eyes gleamed with
the dancing red sparks that either danger or delight
could ignite. He saw Sisko's baffled look and
shook his head, so hard his braid whipped against his
shoulders. "The Batlh Jaj, Captain. The
Klingon Day of Honor. It is today!"
"What?" Two long strides took Sisko
over to the nearest panel, which happened to be
Osgood's. She gave him a quizzical look
when he leaned over her shoulder, but it wasn't the
arcane model of cometary orbits he was interested
in--it was the standard date-time readout in the corner of
her display screen. "Stardate 3692 is the Day
of Honor?"
"It varies from year to year, since the Klingon
calendar does not correspond to Federation standard,"
Worf informed him. "But the day we left Deep
Space Nine was wa'chorghdich--first day of the ninth
month. The Day of Honor falls three
days after that."
"I don't know about the wa'chorghdich," said
O'Brien. "But it has been almost exactly three
Standard days since we left the station." Adrenaline
began to fizz through Sisko's blood, born of both
excitement and foreboding. "Let me see if I can
remember my Klingon history," he said slowly.
""On the Day of Honor, the Klingons treat even
their fiercest enemies as blooded Klingon
warriors, with all the privileges and rights and
ceremonial duties that entails."" He threw a
challenging look at his tactical officer. "Are you
thinking what I'm thinking?" Worf's savage,
glinting smile told him the answer without any need
for words. "Oh, no." Odo's deep voice was
heavy with foreboding. "Commander, you're not going to make
us fight one of those hand-to-hand ritual battles
again, are you?"
"In reality, the Suv'batlh is not a
ritual," Worf replied. "It is a battle
to the death to resolve a challenge to one's honor."
"And on the Day of Honor, the combatants
don't need to be blooded Klingon warriors. They
can even," Sisko said in deep satisfaction, "be
Starfleet officers."
"Correct," said Worf. Sisko swung
to face Thornton again. "I want you to ram a
connection through to the Klingons--don't wait for them
to acknowledge it, just patch it straight into their display.
Can you do that?" The young sensor tech grinned back at
him, as if his reckless energy were contagious. "I can
feed it right through their viewing sensor circuits,
sir, so it REPLACES their external scan. The
only problem is, they can probably jam it within a
few minutes if they want to."
"They won't want to. Just give me a
minute's warning before we're online." Sisko
turned back toward Worf. "We'll need to hold
the Suv'batlh on the Klingons" ship, to distract
them while the Defiant deflects comets."
"Agreed. But allow me to point
out, sir, that if we win, we will not only have
defended our honor." Red battle sparks were
dancing in Worf's eyes again. "We will also have forced
Kor to grant any request we ask on that day."
"Any request?"
Sisko demanded. "Even cooperating with us to keep
the Cardassians away from Armageddon?"
"Yes, sir." Sisko's breath hissed between
clenched teeth as he weighed the odds and
juggled probabilities. "It's a gamble," he
said at last. "But I think we have a chance of
success. And if we fail, we'll still have managed
to distract the Klingons without making any overt acts
of war against them."
"Somehow, that wasn't what I had in
mind for my official Starfleet obituary,"
O'Brien commented. "Don't worry, Chief,"
Sisko told him. "You're not going. You've got
a family at home to worry about--"
"--and you'd like a chance to actually win this fight,"
O'Brien finished, sounding resigned. "Thank you,
sir. So who are you taking?"
"Worf," Sisko said, then glanced over his
shoulder inquiringly. He got a reluctant
Changeling nod in return, but the metal-hard
gleam in his constable's eyes told him his instincts were
correct. "And Odo. That way--"
"I've punched into the Klingon sensors,
Captain," Thornton interrupted, voice
calm despite the frantic way his fingers flew
across his controls. "Communications signal will be on
their viewscreen in ten seconds. Nine... eight.
.. seven..." Sisko took a deep breath and
prepared himself to glare straight at the
unoffending curve of Armageddon's rusty
atmosphere. He'd get no return signal from
this unauthorized transmission, at least at first.
"... three... two... on-line."
"Kor, this day is Batlh Jaj," Sisko
said, cutting straight to the heart of the matter with
Klingon-like brusqueness. "You cannot refuse a
challenge, even from a Starfleet officer who has
interfered in your blockade. I challenge you on
behalf of my insulted honor to engage in
Suv'batlh, three on three." He saw Worf
nod at him approvingly, although he wasn't sure
if it was his phrasing or his Klingon pronunciation that
was being evaluated. "Right here, Kor. Right now.
Suv'batlh." There was an agonizingly long
pause, during which the distant spiked bloom of an
upper-atmosphere comet impact flared at him from the
curve of Armageddon's smoke-clouded sky, a
foretaste of the disaster looming just outside the gravity
well. Then the screen rippled and became Kor's
broad-shouldered form, seated in his own stark command
chair. The older Klingon's furrowed face was
alight with surprise, respect, and laughter.
"A noble effort, Sisko!" Kor applauded in
the Klingon style, fist thumping on chest,
while the warriors around him watched and rumbled with
amusement. "Ironic, but still noble? Sisko narrowed
his eyes, ignoring the queasy ripple of unease that
twisted in his gut. "What do you mean,
"ironic"?"
"Ironic because your request comes just a little too
late." Kor's grin showed stained and straggling
teeth, but its honesty couldn't be doubted. "You may
have matched t he Klingon calendar to your Federation days
correctly, but you forgot about the length of the Klingon
day. The day of Batlh Jaj--what you call our
Day of Honor--ended ten minutes ago."
The devastation to Armageddon's surface seemed
endless. Kira had given up hoping to find any
sign of life among the burned and buried
wreckage. Ash carpeted what remained of the
tuq'mor like a silky gray shroud, and the mud no
longer steamed or simmered. A featureless black
cloud of ejecta had crept inland from over the ocean,
dimming the sky to dull amber. Only the hiss and
creak of cooling embers accompanied them as they
trudged along the dark tunnel that used to be a
banchory trail. That, and the distant, hollow boom
of comet fragments bursting not nearly far enough away.
Kira couldn't remember the last time her
body had hurt so much. Her ankles ached from
supporting her full weight on toes and arches
while climbing the jungle-gym roadblocks of
tuq'mor thrown down in their way; every other muscle
all the way up to her ass burned with a fatigue so
deep she almost couldn't imagine it fading. Dax had
made her last humorous comment uncounted hours ago.
Now, all Kira heard from the Trill was the
squelch and slap of her feet in the sticking mud, and
hoarse panting that sounded suspiciously like Kira's
own. if i ever get home, Kira thought, I will
never walk anywhere without pavement again. Dax's
grab at her sleeve stung the burns on her arm
and made her gasp. "Do you hear that?" the Trill
whispered, hauling her to a stop. Hissing through her
teeth, Kira pried the Trill's fingers from around
her scorched forearm. No, she wanted to grumble. I
don't hear anything but us hiking into oblivion! But
something in the dark wasteland silenced her--something about the
metronomic quality of the thunder she'd first taken for
exploding bolides. Something about the way it shivered
in her stomach and made the tuq'mor rattle. She
pushed Dax toward one singed-but-still-living hedge.
"Come on!" Finding cover within the blackened
tuq'mor was probably the easiest thing
Kira had done in the last seven hours. Wriggling
between knotted limbs like a fish darting among river
reeds, she hauled herself into what now served as the
topmost story. What parts of her weren't already
blackened by ash, burns, and mud readily picked
up a grimy coating of soot from the limbs and brush
that had taken the brunt of the last big air strike.
She crouched as low to the burned-out canopy as
exhausted muscles would allow, then hoped she
looked like any other clump of burned foliage as
she peered back down the trail. The banchory's
huge shadow preceded it. Dark as
the bordered path seemed to Kira's
night-adjusted eyes, it washed darker still, smothering
even the vestiges of detail. A figure, slim
and wild-haired, perched astride the moving mountain;
Kira doubted the rider would have stood out more clearly
on the brightest day. She didn't even have to worry
about missing the banchory's back when she leapt from the
tuq'mor. Her phaser jabbed the startled Klingon in
the spine before he could do more than jerk a startled look
over his shoulder. Kira used the flat of her hand
to push his chin forward, then looped her arm around his
throat for good measure. "Yes," she announced, very
close to his ear, "this is a real weapon.
No, I have no reservations about using it. You'd
better hope you can tell me something I l
whispered, hauling her to a stop. Hissing through her
teeth, Kira pried the Trill's fingers from around
her scorched forearm. No, she wanted to grumble. I
don't hear anything but us hiking into oblivion! But
something in the dark wasteland silenced her--something about the
metronomic quality of the thunder she'd first taken for
exploding bolides. Something about the way it shivered
in her stomach and made the tuq'mor rattle. She
pushed Dax toward one singed-but-still-living hedge.
"Come on!" Finding cover within the blackened
tuq'mor was probably the easiest thing Kira had
done in the last seven hours. Wriggling between knotted
limbs like a fish darting among river reeds, she
hauled herself into what now served as the topmost story.
What parts of her weren't already blackened by ash,
burns, and mud readily picked up a grimy
coating of soot from the limbs and brush that had taken
the brunt of the last big air strike. She crouched
as low to the burned-out canopy as exhausted muscles
would allow, then hoped she looked like any other
clump of burned foliage as she peered back down
the trail. The banchory's huge shadow preceded
it. Dark as
the bordered path seemed to Kira's
night-adjusted eyes, it washed darker still, smothering
even the vestiges of detail. A figure, slim
and wild-haired, perched astride the moving mountain;
Kira doubted the rider would have stood out more clearly
on the brightest day. She didn't even have to worry
about missing the banchory's back when she leapt from the
tuq'mor. Her phaser jabbed the startled Klingon in
the spine before he could do more than jerk a startled look
over his shoulder. Kira used the flat of her hand
to push his chin forward, then looped her arm around his
throat for good measure. "Yes," she announced, very
close to his ear, "this is a real weapon. No,
I have no reservations about using it. You'd better
hope you can tell me something I want to hear." The
Klingon spread both hands with fingers splayed--the
age-old symbol of unarmed threat. It was a
youthful female's voice that told her, "A
Human doctor named Bashir has sent me to find
his companions so they can wait out the comets in a
place of safety." K'Taran tipped just the
slightest glance back at Kira's startled face.
"Will that do?"
Nighttime cloaked the worst of the destruction, but a
few Klingon-tended fires and a renewed
blast of light in the southern sky let Kira pick
out enough details to know that honor hadn't spared
Rekan Vrag's encampment from Armageddon's
wrath. She clung uneasily to K'Taran's
middle as the banchory minced with surprising
delicacy around lumps in the carpet of ash. Kira
only recognized them as charred corpses with
considerable use of her imagination. It
wasn't worth the effort. As the beast finally slowed
to a shuffling standstill in what might have once been the
camp's center, Kira realized she didn't even
know for sure which part of the camp they were facing. Nothing
about the place looked the same; only the bottom-
most rootballs of the trees were left standing. Oh,
Prophets, I want to go home! "Major!
Commander!" Ledonne's slim, dark figure peeled
away from one of the still smoldering tree hovels.
Kira saw the eager relief in the young Human's
movements, knew what the nurse must be thinking when
she slowed abruptly and looked carefully from front
to rear on the banchory again. Still, it was Dax who
announced, almost cheerfully, "We found him," as the
banchory labored meticulously to its knees.
"Sort of." Kira slid to the ground, suppressing
a grimace at the packed-dirt fullness
in her knees and the overall anguish in the soles of
her feet. "K'Taran says Dr. Bashir sent
her to get us." She caught at the banchory's
small, conical ear for support in the hopes none
of the approaching Klingons would sense her weakness.
"There are caves several kilometers west of here.
They'll be protected from the explosions--safe from
anything but a direct ground strike. There's room
enough there for everyone." Everyone who was left, at least.
Kira could count the gathered faces on both hands.
She looked around for epetai Vrag, and found her
standing stiffly near the middle of the tiny crowd.
"She's lying." Rekan didn't even move her
eyes toward Kira.
K'Taran, proudly matching her grandmother's
glare, hopped to the ground beside Kira and lifted her
chin. "An honorable Klingon does not lie." "And
I say again"--Rekan bared teeth still sharp
despite her age--"you are lying." Kira felt
K'Taran flash with anger hot enough to reignite the
foliage. Stepping quickly away from the banchory,
Kira threw up one elbow to halt the girl's
forward surge, and thanked the Prophets when
K'Taran stopped without a protest. Kira was in
no shape to reinforce the suggestion. "What
possible motive does she have to lie to us?" she
asked Rekan. The old matriarch looked as though
she wanted to spit. "Dishonor needs no
motive."
"You have no right to question my honor! This time,
K'Taran shrugged off Kira's restraining arm and
lunged forward to shove aside the two adults standing
between her and Rekan. "I stand here, do I not?" she
snarled. "I have tied my life to this cursed
planet. I held my head proudly while our
ancestors' keep was burned and our family name
shattered and thrown to the dust. What more would you have of
me?" "Honor does not abandon its House!"
Rekan's eyes gleamed with a passion brighter than
all the stars Armageddon had thrown down on them.
"Honor does not bend law to whatever meaning suits
it."
"Law said only that we
should remain exiled on this planet," K'Taran
reminded her. "Law never stated that we must
necessarily die."
"The intent of a command is as
important as the words." Kira blurted a
disbelieving laugh without having meant to. "That's
what this is all about?" she asked, limping
away from the banchory to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with
K'Taran. "Because Gowron expected you to be
killed here, you're not allowed to take action
to prevent it?" Rekan lifted her eyes to a
place just above Kira's head, not even deigning
to meet her gaze. "I will not have this House judged as
being without honor," she stated grimly. "I will not have
this family go to Sto-Vo-Kor and recite
to Kahless how we tried to trick honor--how we
held hostages unrelated to our battle and tried
to run from our duty like Ferengi picking holes in a
contract of their own making." K'Ta ran moved in
front of her grandmother's stare. The electricity when
their eyes met made Kira's stomach twist. "You
do not believe I am lying." The girl's voice
sounded only hurt, and not as angry as Kira had
expected. "You fear I'm telling the truth--that there
actually is some chance for life." For the first time,
Kira glimpsed what might have been the love
fueling this angry war between them. "I fear that you are
wrong, "Rekan almost whispered. "I fear we will
die while fleeing, irrevocably disgraced."
"Shouldn't everyone be allowed to
choose their own path?" That was a question that had gnawed
at Kira since Rekan's first refusal
to evacuate her clan. "Is it honorable to force
your own fears on the rest of them?" Rekan hissed
at her through the darkness. "Swallow your bile. You
know nothing of honor."
"I know
that my people can feel right and wrong inside their own
hearts," Kira shot back. Fear, anger, and
fatigue stripped her of all social graces.
It was all she could do not to shake the older Klingon.
"We don't need a High Chancellor or anyone
else to tell us how to be honorable. Are Klingons
so simple that they can't decide that for themselves?"
Rekan's backhanded blow didn't surprise
Kira so much as the raw force in the old woman's
swing. She was on the ground, stunned and blinded with
pain, before her conscious mind even identified what
had smashed her down. "Be glad you are not a
Klingon," the epetai's scorn rained like
comet-fire from above her. "I would feed your own heart
to you where I stand." And Kira heard her own voice
say groggily, "I accept." Her vision cleared
with painful slowness, seeming somehow brighter and less
focused than it ought to be. But the shock and
suspicion on Rekan Vrag's face was
unmistakable, even through a haze of pain and
rattled thinking. "Your challenge to combat," Kira
continued, more carefully. "I accept." The epetai
frowned. "I did not challenge you!"
"You struck me." It was one of those moments Odo
would have scoffed at as being more creative than was good for
her. Some disconnected part of her kept spinning out the
words, with no particular concern for the battered body still
splayed out on the ground. "When one Klingon
strikes another, it means you want to do combat."
"You are not a
Klingon!" Rekan countered. And at last
Kira's instincts let the rest of her in on what
they were doing. "Batlh Jaj." The silence that
crashed down among them was almost hard enough to hurt.
Certainly heavy enough to crush most of the breath from
Rekan's lungs; her voice was thin when she said,
"You cannot conduct SUV'BATLH. There are only
two of you." "Three." Even Kira felt the
hurt that must have throbbed in Rekan when K'Taran
stepped forward. The older Klingon growled and swiped
at the air; Kira forced herself to crawl to all
fours, then slowly to her feet. "If we win,"
Kira said, moving to form a bridge between K'Taran
in front of her grandmother and Dax still waiting by their
banchory, "then that will mean our honor is
more true. We can lead anyone who wants to follow
us to K'Taran's refuge, and you won't do anything
to stop us." Rekan didn't nod. "And if I
win?"
"Then we all die." It was the answer that
had been true since before the challenge was even
leveled. Kira pulled herself as tall as her aching
muscles would let her. "I believe the choice of
battlefield is mine."
"TEN MINUTES!" It was a simultaneous
exclamation from at least three of the Defiant's
officers. Odo said the words in frustration,
O'Brien in disgust, but their voices were almost
completely overridden by Worf's furious roar of
indignation. Sisko was the only one who remained
silent, keeping his gaze locked on Kor's
until the uproar on both ships subsided
into uneasy silence. "I never thought to see a day when
Klingons hid like cowards behind the letter of the law," he
said at last, and had the satisfaction of seeing
Kor's laughter wiped abruptly from his eyes.
"What does the Day of Honor really mean? That it
is the only day on which Klingons will behave
honorably?" A snarl whistled between Kor's
clenched teeth. "Take care what you say,
Benjamin Sisko. If you were a Klingon, that would be
an insult worthy of Suv'batlh on any day."
"Would it?" Worf growled, before Sisko could
reply. "Then allow me to say that I, Worf,
son of Mogh, never thought to see a day when Klingons
hid like cowards behind the law, acting as ifbatlh
Jaj were the only day on which they needed to behave
honorably!" Kor crashed the mug he was holding
against the arm of his chair, splashing dusky blood
wine out in a violent spray. Anger had darkened his
broad face to almost the same shade. "You insult
my honor, Worf son of Mogh!"
"Good," said the Klingon
tactical officer between his teeth. "That was my
intention." Kor fell abruptly silent, staring at
them with a flicker of wariness breaking through the
wine-soaked fury in his face. After a moment's
pause, however, he acknowledged Worf's challenge
with a stiff, ceremonial nod. "As the one whose
honor has been challenged, we hold the
Suv'batlh on my territory. Your party will beam
over in fifteen minutes, Worf, son of Mogh,
armed and ready to fight. Qapla'!" The connection
sliced off, leaving the bridge of the Defiant
suspended in disbelieving silence. "You did
it, Worf," O'Brien said at last, sounding
dumbfounded. "You actually got Kor to accept the
challenge." Sisko let his breath trickle out,
feeling his jaw muscles quiver with the release of
accumulated tension. "Now all we need to do is win
it. Or at least entertain Kor long enough for the
Defiant to finish sweeping up that comet duster."
He vaulted out of his command chair, fiercely eager
to be off the bridge and accomplishing something.
"Worf, Odo, you're with me. Osgood,
Thornton, plot the fastest deflection course you
can through that cluster, and don't worry about keeping out of
sight of the Klingons. Just try not to use photon
torpedoes unless you have to. O'Brien, you've got
the conn. Call Clark and Nensi up to man
navigations and weapons while we're gone." His
chief engineer winced, uncomfortable as always with the
assumption of command, even though he was technically the
highest-ranking member left of Sisko's
decimated crew. He swung around at his station
to watch as they headed for the turbolift. "Captain,
don't you want a subcutaneous transmitter?
How else will you know when we're done chasing comets?"
"It will not matter," Worf said sternly.
"Suv'batlh cannot be conceded. It can
only be fought to the finish." "Oh." O'Brien
looked as glum as if he'd just been condemned to a
long prison sentence, Sisko noted in amusement.
"Well, in that case, good luck and--er-- K
apla. " was Odo snorted his scorn at that
send-off, but followed Sisko and Worf into the
turbolift with no visible reluctance. The doors
hissed shut, locking the three of them in tense,
prebattle silence. Odo broke it at last, his
voice gruff. "I assume that, since this is a
ritual combat, I won't be permitted to use my
shape-shifting abilities to win it."
"No." Worf's voice was equally brusque and
businesslike. "A Klingon warrior does not
attack by subterfuge. Any change in shape would
be considered a deceit and would disqualify you from the
Suv'batlh."
"Too bad," Odo said. "I might be able
to look just like a Klingon warrior, but that doesn't
mean I can fight like one." Especially true,
Sisko knew, because the Constable would refuse to wield
any weapons. Worf frowned across at the
Changeling, but it was a thoughtful rather than an angry
look. "Klingons measure their worth as warriors
by the strength and valor of their enemies. The
honor that accrues in ritual combat increases as the
task becomes more difficult. I think it would be
acceptable to ignore any blows that do not actually
decapitate or dismember you."
"Good. Then I won't have to actually wear
armor." Odo followed the others onto C
Deck, heading not for the main transporter room but
for the equipment bay next to it where they had a
closet-sized clothing replicator capable of
creating authentic Klingon outfits. As he went,
his dun-colored Bajoran uniform swelled and
shifted, turning to polished lacquer plates in
gleaming shades of ebony and maroon. Fortunately,
Klingon weapons and armor were stock items in the
replicator's data banks, along with most
clothing items from known space. Worf was humming as
he waited for his weapons to be made, a song so
deep and tuneless that it had to be a Klingon
battle-chant. "Klingon armor and bat'leth,
suitable for ritual combat," Sisko told the
replicator when it was his turn. A moment later
he was settling chest-armor over his shoulders, making
sure all the side-latches were snugged tight.
He'd lost count of how many times he'd done this over
the last few years, sparring Dax in
various holo-suite recreations. This time was
different, however. This time his life really would depend
upon what he was wearing. He became acutely
aware, as he hefted the shallow helmet whose curving
cheek-plates had been designed more for intimidation
than protection, that this was armor meant for warriors
whose arteries ran deep under leather-tough ligaments and
whose skeletons already made bony protective
plates around their vital organs. The warm pulse
of blood beneath the skin of his throat, a mammalian
evolutionary quirk he'd never had cause
to regret before, suddenly seemed like an invitation
to disaster. "Second thoughts, Captain?" Odo
asked, when he stepped out. Sisko glanced up at
his security chief, startled, then realized he'd
put on and taken off his spiked gauntlet three
times, searching for a comfortable fit that just didn't exist.
Worf paused on the threshold of the clothing
replicator, looking dismayed. "Only about the
armor." Sisko motioned Worf into the machine,
managing an almost-real smile. It was ironic that the
two warriors in their party with the least mortal
weaknesses were depending on him for their morale. He
rubbed a hand across his exposed abdomen and sighed.
"I'll just have to hope Kor went to school
before the Klingons were teaching Human anatomy."
"I shall endeavor," Worf said from inside the
replicator, "to make sure you do not have to face the
Dahar Master personally, Captain. You are as
goodwith a bat'leth as any Human I've seen,
but Kor would have you disarmed and at his mercy within...
minutes." Sisko raised an eyebrow at him as
he stepped out. "Why do I get the feeling you were about
to say 'seconds," Mr. Worf?." The
Klingon's chagrinned look told him he was right.
"It is not that I doubt your skill, Captain. But
to become a Dahar Master, you must have fought a
hundred battles, survived a hundred
Suv'batlh, and trained a hundred blooded
warriors. No amount of blood wine can dull the
fighting instincts of such a warrior."
"Are you sure you can survive for more
than a few minutes in a fight with him,
Commander?" Odo demanded, never shy about asking
embarrassing questions. "No," Worf said frankly.
"But in Suv'batlh, it is the overall outcome that
counts, not the individual win-hers and losers. If
you and the captain can surprise your opponents and win
your matches, then it does not matter that Kor
defeats me." "Unfortunately,"
Sisko said, "that is a rather big "if."" He
slid on his helmet, then hardened his face to the
expressionless mask that served him so well during
space battles. "Gentlemen, let's go defend
our honor."
He'd stopped being physically conscious of the pain
what seemed a whole lifetime ago. K'Taran,
following his instructions with stern determination, reduced
the fracture with an ease Bashir almost envied; the
ADVANTAGES of physical strength. Then, after
she left with one of the sluggish banchory trailing
behind, Bashir had taken further advantage of
Klingon prowess by coaxing one of the boys to carry him
around the massive caverns to check on the
Victoria Adams's crew and his xirri
patients. Bad enough that he didn't have the proper
equipment to do any of them any good--the traumatic
relocation to this damp, cool chamber wasn't helping
the wounded, either. He almost felt guilty accepting
blood from two hale and youthful volunteers,
considering he had no such panacea to offer the xirri.
He didn't specifically remember returning
to his own little bloodstained corner, and hoped
fervently he hadn't lost consciousness before tending the
last of the patients. It all seemed so
unfair. If he was going to break a leg during a
planetary mission, why the hell couldn't he have done
it when no one else needed his services? Or, at
the very least, have done it so that he didn't
hemorrhage a liter of blood in the process?
He wrestled his thoughts back to the moment, and
concentrated instead on the small, neat movements of the
painted xirri near his feet. The little native
doctor--a male, Bashir had finally determined
when he'd been able to catch a glimpse of
hemipenile bulges while they made their rounds--
had found a piece of what looked like broken chert,
and now used it to nick carefully, gently at the
fabric of Bashir's trouser leg. He'd already
extended the doctor's original cut clear to the
groin, and was almost finished in the other direction,
slicing patiently down toward the ankle and the
terminal hem. I've had nurses who weren't so
thoughtful. He certainly couldn't argue with the xirri's
diagnosis--even with the fracture reduced, his
knee had swollen dramatically. Another few
centimeters, and the clothing would have compromised his
circulation. "Thank you." The xirri blinked huge
eyes at him, with no expression Bashir could
readily discern. Then it bent again to its work,
tongue flicking rhythmically. Small, unglazed
dishes filled with a foul-smelling mash littered the
cave floor around them, the contents burning with an
almost invisible flame. Bashir patted around him in
the thin, watery light, wondering what trick of
nature made all the illumination seem to pool in
his lap and run no further. By the time his hand thumped
against the open Medkit, his thoughts had already staggered so
far in search of that explanation that he couldn't quite
remember what he'd been looking for. A cool,
gray-green hand slipped past his own, pulling his
attention toward the instruments laid out in their tray.
The scalpels. Of course--he'd wanted something a
bit better suited to cutting. But when he tried
to lever himself away from the wall to lean forward toward his
ankle, a great spasm of pain ripped up his leg
and knocked him back again. God, this was so
embarrassing. He was supposed to know enough to foresee
what kind of movements would send him crawling out of his
skin. Opening his eyes, he found the xirri watching
him with its tongue coiled curiously just outside its
tiny mouth. It turned the
ned when he'd been able to catch a glimpse of
hemipenile bulges while they made their rounds--
had found a piece of what looked like
broken chert, and now used it to nick carefully,
gently at the fabric of Bashir's trouser leg.
He'd already extended the doctor's original cut
clear to the groin, and was almost finished in the other
direction, slicing patiently down toward the ankle
and the terminal hem. I've had nurses who weren't
so thoughtful. He certainly couldn't argue with the
xirri's diagnosis--even with the fracture
reduced, his knee had swollen dramatically.
Another few centimeters, and the clothing would have
compromised his circulation. "Thank you." The xirri
blinked huge eyes at him, with no expression
Bashir could readily discern. Then it bent again to its
work, tongue flicking rhythmically. Small,
unglazed dishes filled with a foul-smelling mash
littered the cave floor around them, the contents
burning with an almost invisible flame. Bashir
patted around him in the thin, watery light, wondering
what trick of nature made all the illumination
seem to pool in his lap and run no further. By the
time his hand thumped against the open Medkit, his thoughts
had already staggered so far in search of that explanation that
he couldn't quite remember what he'd been looking for.
A cool, gray-green hand slipped past his own,
pulling his attention toward the instruments
laid out in their tray. The scalpels. Of course
--he'd wanted something a bit better suited
to cutting. But when he tried to lever himself away from the
wall to lean forward toward his ankle, a great spasm
of pain ripped up his leg and knocked him back
again. God, this was so embarrassing. He was supposed
to know enough to foresee what kind of movements would send him
crawling out of his skin. Opening his eyes, he found the
xirri watching him with its tongue coiled curiously
just outside its tiny mouth. It turned the
piece of chert over and over in nimble fingers, then
scooted slightly closer to taste the laser
scalpel with its tongue. It tugged at the scalpel
very gently. The piece of chert ended up in
Bashir's lap almost as an afterthought. "Here..."
He tightened his grip just enough to make the native
pause and look up at him. "You activate it like
this." He turned the instrument until the power switch
faced the xirri doctor, then turned the scalpel
carefully away from them both and depressed the switch
with his thumb. A thin, glowing blade of light hissed
inffbeing from the end. "Use it like a normal knife, but
for God's sake be careful--it'll cut through bone and
fingers just as easily as it will my pants!"
Deactivating the scalpel with almost
ritualistic care, the xirri held it at a
respectful arm's length as it repositioned itself beside
Bashir's leg. "It's a shame they can't talk."
Bashir's thoughts seemed to be ringing, his head full
of broken glass as he looked meticulously
left and right in search of the voice he only
half-remembered. He found George just inside the
touch of the tiny lights, his head resting back against the
same wall that supported Bashir, his hands neatly
folded atop his knees. "The Federation may be
lenient when it comes to determining sentience, but I have a
feeling K'Taran's elders are going to want some more
quantifiable evidence than kindness and a good bedside
manner." For some reason, it didn't even seem
odd to be sitting in the blood-smelling dark
debating sentience
ethics with a Starfleet demigod while he felt
beside him for the tricorder he couldn't remember last
using. "So you believe they're sentient?" he asked
George. But quietly, as though their discussion
might embarrass the xirri. George turned a
wry look toward Bashir across the darkness.
"Don't you?" He finally found the tricorder
close against his left hip. He wondered if he'd
snugged it there for safekeeping, or simply
dropped it the last time he'd slipped away from
consciousness. Not that it mattered. The device had
reverted to whatever dementia had addled its brain
hours ago. A frightfully low blood pressure
played hide-and-seek behind a skirl of signal so
strong it almost washed his screen to white. By the time the
xirri tapped the tricorder's casing to gain his
attention, Bashir could barely tell he was a
Human through the confusion of contradictory readings.
Dropping the useless tricorder into his lap, he
forced a wan smile when the xirri politely offered
the butt end of the deactivated scalpel. "Thank
you again." His fingers felt cold when he reached for the
instrument, and his thoughts ricocheted briefly off the
idea that all his heat had collected into a burning
coil by his knee. But whatever rationality he'd
seen in that thought evaporated as he watched the xirri
pick up the empty water bottle and toddle off
toward the Cavern's water supply. Even the
exertion neces sary to follow the xiri's movement with his
eyes proved too much to sustain. Leaning his head
back against the wall again, he listened to the shiver of his
bones as the planet rumbled with distant damage.
"When I was young," George offered, his voice warm
and soothing, "I served under a man who had
a very flexible view of the Prime Directive."
He laughed softly. "He didn't have much patience
for politics and rhetoric. If he knew that
innocent lives were being threatened, he'd move heaven
and earth to save them, and the Prime Directive be
damned." Behind the darkness of his closed eyes,
Bashir half-remembered, half-dreamed an
image of Starfleet as it must have been on the
frontier. "He sounds like a great man."
"He
was. The best." George was quiet again, and when
he finally spoke, his deep voice smiled. "He
would have had a field day with Armageddon." Bashir
would have gladly given it to him. The planet, the
comets, the killing, impenetrable foliage, the
spiraling, threatening slash of fiery rain. Ice as
hard as boulders, boulders the size of houses,
shattering the mantle and spewing megatons of ash and
rock and gas back into an atmosphere growing
wintery cold for lack of sun. Feverish dozing
offered a nightmarish flash of Kira and Dax
swept up in a vortex of fire. He jerked himself
awake, leaping away from that image, and his hand seized
convulsively on the tri-corder still open in his lap.
It chirped politely, scrolling out a
neat queue of test results. Bashir stared at the
device for nearly thirty seconds, trying
to remember why seeing the tricorder hum through its
paces surprised him. It certainly wasn't the
dismal readings and predictions it produced--his
white-cell count was no higher than he'd already
suspected, and it wasn't like he'd expected any
better from his serum 02. Cupping the tricorder between
both hands, he lifted it and passed it across his
torso. "Why am I not getting interference?" he
asked aloud. "What?"
"My tricorder..." He tipped it to
face George as the older man scooted
closer. "It hasn't worked since I left the
Vrag main encampment. But now..." As though the
tricorder heard him, a long scrawl of pointless
code sketched itself through the middle of the readings,
swelling like an amplified virus until it had
taken over the small device's brain. Cool
water splashed across his exposed leg, startling him.
Bashir looked up, catching the painted xirri's
indifferent gaze, and the tricorder hissed with renewed
interference. George's thoughtful, "I wonder
what's happened now," barely penetrated the
pulselike hammer of Bashir's thoughts.
It had been the xirri patients the tricorder first
refused to scan. And when he'd first been carried
into this cavern, before any xirri had come close to him
down heretohadn't the tricorder produced
perfectly coherent scans in those first few
minutes? He made himself really look at the bands
of distortion while the xirri neatly irrigated his
leg precisely as he'd done himself a few hours
before. What did this look like? What could this be that
assumption simply hadn't let him see?
Medical school. A long, painfully boring
lecture on reducing tricorder interference
patterns that might crop up during
extravehicular triage missions. Oh, God,
he'd barely listened because he'd been so worried about
an upcoming xenosurgery rotation, and this had struck
him as something better left to the engineers, But now his
memory--which misplaced so little, even when it was only
half-overheard behind a bout of narcissistic
fretting seven years ago--exploded the answer
across the front of his brain like a supernova.
"Radio waves..." High frequency radio
waves, intersecting the tri-corder's fragile
sensory circuits. George dutifully held the
small device while Bashir popped
open the casing over the brains of his tricorder. "A
doctor and an engineer," the older officer commented
playfully after watching Bashir work for several
minutes. "You're a man of many talents."
"You have no idea." By the time he mated the
interference signal through the tricorder's
translator and back, the result through the
tricorder's speaker was no more than squeaky,
scratchy nonsense. The xirri recoiled
slightly, as if from fingernails on a blackboard.
Bashir reached out to catch its hand before it could scurry
away. "I know this is just a matter of sampling" he
said, keeping his eyes and smile on the xirri in the
hopes it might realize he was speaking to it. It
licked once, twice at its huge corneas, but
didn't move away. "Once enough language goes
into the translator, something I can understand comes out. So
I hope it works the same way for you. Is there
something I cando to keep you talking? To make you feed
enough data--"
"wish less-than wi/lly, regretfully
greater-than for more true communication--" The voice
seemed almost too small to be real. No emotion,
no inflection, just words spelled out as mechanically as
type on a bare computer screen. But
words! Bashir's heart raced against his breastbone.
George hissed a little sound of surprise.
"wnoises less-than loudly, vocally greater-than
made become a language? Such kindness comes"
George couldn't hold himself silent any longer.
"Hello?" The voice snapped silent. The
tricorder blinked, but said nothing. "Can you hear us?"
Bashir fought the urge to say the words too loudly,
but found it a hard impulse to ignore. "Can you
understand what I'm saying?" The xirri licked its
eyes again, rapidly, in nervous stutters. "Can you
less-than plainly, clearly greater-than hear
me?" Bashir exchanged a triumphant glance with
George, smiling so wide it hurt his cheeks.
"Yes."
"These less-than inanimate, unliving
greater-than things" The xirri whisked its tail around
in front to hover the tip above the tricorder
arrangement. "These give you my words?"
"Yes. I..."" For the briefest
instant, he thought of explaining the differences between
sound waves and electromagnetism, and instead said
only, "I can't hear your words with my ears without the
help of these things." The xirri nodded as though that
only made sense.
"Before this, I was only aware of less-than
vocal, random greater-than noises from your kind.
We did not know this was less-than intelligent,
rational greater-than speaking." No more than the
Klingons would have expected to discover xirri radio
language in their silences. "You led us to these
caves," Bashir said, gesturing around them. "Do you
understand what's happening outside?"
"We have not
less-than personally, recently greater-than seen
fire falling from the sky." Its tail swept into a
neat bracelet around its ankles as it settled
back on its haunches. "But we have less-than
old, remembered greater-than stories of such fires
from the past. These caves are where the xirri are told
to go."
"Then why didn't
you? When the first comets fell, there were xirri
outside who were injured." He thought about the
smoke-poisoned female, and the child this very xirri had
carried all the way from the blast crater. "Why
didn't you all come to the caves then?"
"Many less-than elderly, young greater-than did.
Others went
in search of our less-than alien,
childlike greater-than friends. They have no less-than
old, remembered greater-than stories to protect
them. Some were not among us, and we feared they would
burn." He remembered K'Taran's voice
saying, We knew the xirri would be needing help.
So we came. But it was George who finally said, very
gently, "The xirri have been good friends to the
Klingons." The painted xirri cocked its head,
reminding Bashir of nothing so much as a serious child
considering the weightiness of its reply. "The sky
has welcomed them with less-than fierce, renewing
greater-than fire," it said after a very long
time. "If that does not forge them into oneness with the
xirri, what will?" Bat'leths met and locked with a
clash of steel that thundered through the cold, dry air of the
Klingon ship. "You fight well," said the stocky
warrior scowling across that expanse of
blood-splattered metal at Sisko. The thick
tendons of his neck had made Sisko's slashing
cut a minor annoyance rather than a telling blow, but
it had still wiped the smug arrogance from his face. "For a
Human."
"Thanks." Blood dripped
down Sisko's face and seeped its salt taste
between his gritted teeth, but it didn't
impair his vision. The spiraling cheek-plate
he'd thought was ornamental had stopped a wicked
thrust of the pronged bat'leth point just short of his
eye. His shoulder muscles burned with exhaustion and
trembled with the effort of holding off his attacker, but his
grin was still exultant. Five minutes into the
Sul'batlh was longer than he'd ever expected
to last. Much of the credit for his survival had to go to the
space in which they fought. He'd known that Jfolokh-
class Klingon ships were small, but he'd never
seen the inside of one before. It was a single cramped
and cluttered deck, inhabited by a minimal crew of
five in addition to its captain. As a result,
Sisko and his opponent--a middle-aged Klingon
engineer even more beer-bellied than Kor himself--had
ducked and chopped their way through the various ship's
stations in a chaos of swinging bat'leths and ducking
Klingon ensigns.
With the steely clash of their weapons silenced,
Sisko could hear the disrupted sounds of Odo's
hand-to-hand battle with the young Klingon tactical
officer and Worffs more titanic clash with Kor. The
Dahar Master had refused to pursue his challenger,
forcing Worf to come forward and attack him or risk
forfeiting the Suv'batlh for cowardice.
Despite Korr's stolid stance, however, there was
nothing indolent or inebriated about his flying
bat'leth. The constant, shattering crash of his blade
against Worf's at times blended inffcontinuous
metallic thunder . "Captain!" The young Klingon
manning the sensor desk swung around, dark braids
flying in alarm. "The Starfleet vessel is moving
away at full impulse speed! Kor grunted,
dropping to one knee to avoid a desperation roundhouse
swing by Worf, then lunged up from below with the point of his
blade. Worf flung himself backward, tripping
over the empty chair of the weapon's console. He
brought his bat'leth up just in time to avoid a wicked
downward stab at his supine body, deflecting
Kor's blade just enough to skate off his ribcage.
Another bloody slash was added to the magenta
lacework he already wore. "Ignore the ship."
Kor took a step back, catching his breath and
incidentally giving Worf a chance to scramble back
to his feet. "If we win, they leave no matter
where they are. If we lose, they go wherever they like.
Watch them for signs of attack, that is all."
They'd played this same scenario out several times
now, the gasping old Dahar Master and the less
accomplished but far more fit Starfleet
officer. Each break in their furious fencing grew
longer and each interval of blade-work shorter, giving
Sisko a shred of hope that Worf might yet win,
if he could just wear Kor down. Odo, on the other
hand, was already teetering on the verge of failure. His
long-armed and lithe young opponent had settled on a
strategy of lunging and striking, oblivious
to Odo's apparently ineffectual attempts
to block him. Odo had reformed the rents in his
mock-armor so many times that it had lost all its
detail now, blurring into a generic solid
surface, randomly swirled with black and red. The
constant platinum flashes of protoplasmic
matter beneath it, revealed every time a blow sliced through
him, seemed to egg his Klingon opponent on
to wilder and wilder swings. Sisko doubted the constable
could hold his shape much longer. Not that he was in much
better condition, with his straining lungs and the dry rasp
in his throat that came from trying to breathe the
Klingons" harsher atmosphere. With a painful
squeal of gouged metal, Sisko's bat'leth
slipped across the engineer's blood-wet blade and
slid violently off to one side. He cursed and
swung toward the Klingon's knees, praying that his
opponent's defensive instincts would yank
him back rather than aiming his descending blade at
Sisko's undefended torso. He was
half-successful--his opponent did jerk away,
but not fast enough to keep the flat of his blade from
unintentionally slamming into Sisko's solar plexus.
All the breath from his lungs exploded out, making his
vision darken abruptly. Choking, Sisko tried
to stagger backward, away from wherever his opponent now
was. Fortunately, the small Klingon ship chose
that moment to stagger, too, its hull thundering with a barely
shielded explosion. "What was that?" Kor bellowed,
giving the sprawled and even bloodier Worf another
respite to climb to his feet. Seeing that his own
opponent had swung around to scowl at his readouts with
single-minded engineering focus, Sisko clung,
gasping, to the back of an empty console. The
black edges faded from his vision just in time to let him
see the violent spray of glittering white
fragments that erupted across the sensor's field of
view. It looked like a firework made of ice.
"Comet impact," the engineer said unnecessarily.
"oiccyah/ghuy'cha' gu'valthst" Kor's curses
were as magnificently extravagant as his flowing
silver-streaked mane. With absentminded ease, he
warded off a slashing attack from Worf,
then smacked his bat'leth against the back of his
pilot's chair to express his displeasure. "You're
supposed to be flying us through these things, D'jia, not
watching the fight!" She curled her lip without ever
breaking her gaze away from the main viewscreen.
"What fight? All I've seen is a bat'leth
practice, and not a very good one at that."
"Answer my question!" Kor
snarled, seemingly oblivious to Worf's
cat-silent approach right up to the second when he
turned and struck at the Starfleet officer, hurling
him halfway across the deck with the power of his bat'leth
blow. Blood trickled from Worf's nostrils.
"Why are we suddenly hitting comets?" "We're
not." Another shuddering impact hit the Klingon
ship, making the female pilot curse pretty
magnificently herself. "They're hitting us. All
of a sudden, none of them are where they're supposed
to be!"
"Well,
take evasive action!"
"I'm trying! The Klingon ship looped and danced
through the thickening platinum haze of debris that
seemed to be closing around them. Sisko's stomach
lurched, feeling the drag and kick of
uncompensated inertial fields. "But something
keeps disturbing them, and it's throwing them right at us!"
"What a coincidence." In one fluid
motion, Kor tore his engrossed engineer away from
his damage reports and threw him back toward
Sisko, then met Worf's next bat'leth thrust
with a blade-locking twist and jerk. "I don't
suppose your ship had anything to do with that, Worf,
son of Mogh?" he growled into the younger man's
blood-streaked face. "No," Worf said with
exhausted honesty. "They are far from here by now,
deflecting other comets away from Cha'xirrac."
Kor's furious roar drowned out the wet, hollow
sound of a bat'leth sinking deep into flesh, but it
couldn't drown the involuntary scream of pain that
followed. Sisko didn't have time to see who was hit
--he was too busy bracing himself against the ship's
drunken swoops to meet the engineer's next blow.
Rather than try to parry this one, he used the same
maneuver he'd seen Kor try on Worf--
dropping to one knee so that his opponent's blade
whistled over his head, then lunging up with the wicked
tip of the bat'leth.
The blade hit the Klingon engineer's rib cage
at what seemed like an awkwardly obtuse
angle, but to Sisko's immense surprise, it
slid over one rib and under another to bite deep within
his burly chest. The engineer staggered back, looking
more dazed than hurt, and peered down at the bat'leth
still protruding from his chest. "Good aim," he
croaked, then collapsed unconscious at
Sisko's feet, a bright trickle of blood
oozing from the wound. Grabbing at the nearest bulkhead
to steady himself, Sisko stared down at him, still not quite
believing he had won. The female pilot glanced
over her shoulder. "Begin-her's luck," she said in
disgust. "You bruised his gla'chih--the shielded
nerve plexus in his chest. He's out for a day at
least." She jerked her chin at Sisko, scowling.
"Go ahead, pull the bat'leth out. Nothing will hurt
him now." Sisko did as she said, watching the
trickle of blood slow as the wound closed. Then
he jerked his head up, suddenly becoming aware of the
silence around him. Not a single clash of bat'leths,
not a thud of falling bodies disturbed the ragged sound
of exhausted and pain-racked breathing. and jerk. "I
don't suppose your ship had anything to do with that,
Worf, son of Mogh?" he growled into the younger
man's blood-streaked face. "No," Worf said
with exhausted honesty. "They are far from here
by now, deflecting other comets away from
Cha'xirrac." Kor's furious roar drowned out the
wet, hollow sound of a bat'leth sinking deep
into flesh, but it couldn't drown the involuntary scream
of pain that followed. Sisko didn't have time to see
who was hit--he was too busy bracing himself against the
ship's drunken swoops to meet the engineer's next
blow. Rather than try to parry this one, he used the
same maneuver he'd seen Kor try on Worf
--dropping to one knee so that his opponent's blade
whistled over his head, then lunging up with the wicked
tip of the bat'leth.
The blade hit the Klingon engineer's rib cage
at what seemed like an awkwardly obtuse angle,
but to Sisko's immense surprise, it slid over
one rib and under another to bite deep within his burly
chest. The engineer staggered back, looking more dazed
than hurt, and peered down at the bat'leth still
protruding from his chest. "Good aim," he croaked,
then collapsed unconscious at Sisko's feet,
a bright trickle of blood oozing from the wound.
Grabbing at the nearest bulkhead to steady himself,
Sisko stared down at him, still not quite believing he had
won. The female pilot glanced over her shoulder.
"Begin-her's luck," she said in disgust.
"You bruised his gla'chih--the shielded nerve
plexus in his chest. He's out for a day at least."
She jerked her chin at Sisko, scowling. "Go
ahead, pull the bat'leth out. Nothing will hurt him
now." Sisko did as she said, watching the trickle
of blood slow as the wound closed. Then he jerked his
head up, suddenly becoming aware of the silence around
him. Not a single clash of bat'leths, not a thud of
falling bodies disturbed the ragged sound of exhausted
and pain-racked breathing. He looked for Worf first,
anxiously, and found him in exactly the position
he'd most feared. His tall tactical officer
lay sprawled across the empty weapons panel, one
arm dangling brokenly and the other locked above his head
in Kor's massive fist. The Dahar Master had
leaned all his considerable weight on his opponent,
keeping him trapped despite weak-ening struggles.
When the point of Kor's bat'leth dug into his
throat, deep enough to spring a bright pulse of blood
out with each beat of his strong heart, Worf stopped
struggling and just scowled up at him. "Qapla"
Despite his swollen and blood-wet face,
Worf sounded as stubbornly indomitable as ever. It
was hard to believe he had really lost. "The
Suv'batlh belongs to you, Dahar Master.
Now kill me."
"Is the Suv'batelh mine? On all counts?"
Kor glanced over his shoulder, frowning when he saw
his engineer recumbent at Sisko's feet. It
wasn't until his gaze skated past them toward the
third pair of fighters, though, that his face darkened
to the consistency of a thundercloud. "Kitold! How in the
name of the dead Klingon gods did tha t happen?" His
weapons officer stepped forward, swaying as another
comet thundered off the aft shield. One hand was locked
around his battle-gloved forearm to hold his dislocated
arm in place. The greenish pallor of his face
told Sisko he wouldn't stay on his feet much
longer. "It was subterfuge," he said hoarsely.
"The Changeling pretended to be more weary than he
actually was, in order to lure me into position for
his strike." Sisko's gaze went past the wounded
Klingon to Odo, whose mock-Klingon armor flowed
back into the constable's usual pristine uniform even as
he watched. "Is that true?" he demanded. Odo
gave him a stiff nod of acknowledgment. "It
seemed like a legitimate maneuver. I admit,
I did alter my appearance to a certain extent
to achieve the deception, but it is not as if I can
turn pale or sweat with fear. Nothing about
my shape-shifting ever endangered my opponent."
"It was trickery!" insisted
the young Klingon. "More like strategy." Kor
yanked his bat'leth abruptly from Worf's
throat, releasing him to stagger back and clutch at his
own wounded arm. "You were taken in by the oldest
warrior's trick in the book, Kitold! You
deserve to lose that arm, but I don't want
to smell your corpse all the way back to the
home-world. Go put yourself into a medical stasis
chamber now!" The wounded Klingon growled in
ungrateful acknowledgment before he pushed past
Sisko, heading toward the bank of stasis lockers
at the back of the main deck. Worf watched him go,
then turned a puzzled gaze on Kor. "Wej
Heghehugh ray', Suvtah Suvwi'? If someone
has not yet died, how can a Klingon warrior stop
fighting?" Kor snorted, richly scornful.
"Only a fool takes a death that means nothing.
I didn't get to be a Dahar Master by being a
fool." He reached out to steady Worf as the younger
male staggered, either thrown off- balance by the ship's
evasive swerves or perhaps just noticing the pain of his
many wounds. The only thing splashed on Kor's
robe, Sisko noticed wryly, was
blood wine. "Dujeychugh jagh. nlv yltuhoo
There is nothing shameful in falling before a superior
enemy. Through the luck of your captain and the wiles of
your Changeling, you have won the Suv'batlh you
challenged me to, Worf, son of Mogh. What
is your will of me?" Worf opened his mouth, but before he
could say a word, the female pilot swung around at
her console, pale eyes blazing. "Captain!
Security alert! Those comets that keep hitting
us--I think they're being deflected by a vessel
entering the system!"
"What?" Kor cursed and
shoved Worfaside, diving for his command chair.
"Identity of vessel?"
"I
can't tell!" The young Klingon sensor
technician pounded on his unresponsive panels.
"My instruments can't even penetrate the mass of
comets gathered in front of it! The debris is a
hundred times more dense than it should be. Whoever it
is, they must have followed the ice-giant's orbital
track all the way into the system, collecting
debris with their tractor beams the whole way."
"Cardassians!" Kor said with
disgusted certainty. "Who else would
apply themselves so diligently to such a coward's
strategy?" He threw an ironic look at
Sisko. "Gul Hidret is probably scanning
the system as we speak, hoping to find the charred
remains of both our ships."
"Possibly." Sisko took a step closer
to the view-screen, as if that could somehow make the
unknown vessel appear out of the icy haze. It
didn't, but the
silent, dusty curve of Armageddon's
horizon swung into view as the female pilot
looped around a particularly thick comet cluster.
He felt his gut twist with foreboding. "How many
comets is that unknown ship pushing in front of them?"
"Ten thousand, maybe more," the sensor
technician said grimly. "All gathered into a
space of only nineteen cubic kilometers and
accelerated to a quarter impulse speed." That made
Kor's breath whistle out in shock. "In what
direction?" he demanded. "Toward us?"
"No." The female pilot glanced up at the
blood-colored image of Armageddon on the
viewscreen, pity flickering in her cold Klingon
eyes. "Toward the planet." Sisko and Odo
exchanged appalled looks. "The away
team," Worf said hoarsely. "We must notify
them."
"To
let them prepare for their deaths with honor." Kor
nodded gravely. "It is a reasonable request.
Boost their comm badge signals through our
transmitter, Bhirq." Sisko slapped a hand
to his chest without even waiting for the Klingon
technician to reply. "Sisko to Kira, Sisko
to Dax."
"Dax here." Her calm Trill voice brought
a reminiscent smile to Kor's face, one that
faded into regret an instant later. "Go ahead,
Benjamin."
"A Cardassian battleship has just swept
up ten thousand comet fragments and launched them toward
Armageddon," Sisko said, with brutal curtness.
"You've got to beam out, now!" "Understood." The
advantage of having a subordinate with three
hundred cumulative years of experience was that she
knew when to ask for details and explanations, and when
not to. "Time to impact?"
"Forty minutes," said the Klingon pilot.
"Max."
"Then we might have a shot at getting
everyone on the planet into shelter. Julian and the
crash survivors have taken refuge in a deep
cave system. If we can get there, we should be
immune even to the impact of ten thousand comets."
Dax's voice had taken on the steely determination
that meant she wasn't going to take "no" for an
answer. "Permission to stay on planet,
Captain?"
"Granted," Sisko said, scowling. "Just be
damned sure you're inside that cave in thirty
minutes, old man, not out gathering up some last
DNA samples from an endangered plant." The
Trill science officer made a wordless noise of
amusement. "Don't worry, Benjamin. The
plants down here can take care of their own DNA
without any help from me. Dax out." Kor glanced
at Worf, who was quietly dripping blood across
the empty weapons panel that propped him up. "You
could make your Suv'batlh request the phasering of
these Cardassian comets," the Dahar Master said
suggestively. "Every one we shoot--" "robecomes
a cluster of smaller ones and spreads the destruction
even further," Sisko said flatly. "And there are
far too many to deflect with our shields, even using
both our ships." Odo gave the older
Klingon an ironic look. "In any case,
wouldn't those actions violate the honorable exile of
your countrymen?"
Kor spat toward the comet-clouded viewscreen.
"The Cardassians have already done that, Changeling."
The viewscreen flared with wild static for a moment,
then resolved into a forced transmission from the
Defiant. O'Brien's bleak gaze scanned
across them, unable to focus on Sisko since the
Klingons weren't transmitting back. "Captain,
sensors have picked up the arrival of the Olxinder on
your side of the planet, pushing a forced impact
wave of twelve thousand comet fragments in front of
them. The away team says you know about it. I'll
wait ten minutes for your orders, then start flying
through the field, trying to target the largest and most
destructive fragments. O'Brien out." Worf
groaned, not entirely in pain. "The Defiant's
shields cannot survive the onslaught of twelve
thousand comets!"
"Ten thousand," the Klingon sensor tech
interrupted peevishly. "So what is your
Suv'batlh request, Worf, son of Mogh?"
Kor repeated impatiently. "To save your
shipmates by making us sacrifice our own
ship to the comets?"
"No," Sisko said, before his wounded tactical
officer could reply. "Our request is to consider this
system from now on as a joint Klingon-Federation
protectorate. Correct, Mr. Worf?." His
tactical officer nodded, with the utter trust in his
commander that had won Sisko's appreciation from the first.
"And to cede to Captain Sisko any rights won by me
in the Suv'batlh combat." Worf fell
to his knees with a massive thud that Sisko
felt across the deck. "I fear I will not remain
conscious long enough to exercise them." Kor scowled.
"The second of those requests is reasonable and I
agree to it. But what sense does the first make?"
"It gives us the joint ability to
defend this system from the Cardassians," Sisko
retorted. "And prove to the entire galaxy that they
are not only smuggling banned neurochemical
weapons, they are also destroying an ecosystem they
don't own to obtain it." Kor's scowl grew more
thoughtful. "You think they didn't just bring those comets in
to hide behind? You think they actually planned to wipe
out everything alive on that planet, just to get their hands
on the last dregs of drevlocet?"
"That sounds like a rhetorical question
to me," Odo said caustically. Sisko took a
step forward, ignoring the angry ache of strained
shoulder muscles. "Your ship is cloaked, just like the
Defiant, and we know the Cardassians aren't very
good at detecting ion trails. They won't know
we're here until we fire our weapons, either at
the comets or at them. If we let them think what
they want to think--that we destroyed each other
battling over this planet, and left the coast clear
for them to move in, I have a hunch they'll
incriminate themselves exactly forty minutes from now."
"So we play dead, while the planet
beneath us dies?" Sisko grimaced. "I don't
like that either--but all our people should be safe and I trust
my science officer when she says the planet will
recover. What we do have time to save is the rest of the
Alpha Quadrant. Now, are you going
to cooperate with us, or does our Suv'batlh
request have to be the self-destruction of this ship?"
Kor gave that ultimatum the fierce snort of
disdain it deserved, since Sisko never had any
intention of enforcing it. "What about the House of
Vrag? If any live after the comet deluge, are
they going to be rescued against their will?"
"Federation policy only allows us
to evacuate planet residents who wish to leave."
Sisko never thought he would live to be grateful for
diplomatic equivocation. "The House of Vrag
will get to decide their own fate, and preserve their
own honor." The Dahar Master mulled that over,
then jerked his head in a satisfied Klingon nod.
"That will satisfy the High Council, provided there
are no more traitors like that garg-carcass you sent here
for disposal. When we get back to the homeworld,
I'm going to have to decontaminate my stasis
chambers just to get the stink of him out of them." At that
moment, Worf slumped into unconsciousness with a
violent crash of armor. Sisko cursed and
sprang to catch him before he rolled across the deck.
"We need to beam him back to the Defiant for
medical attention," he said to Kor. "And I need
to tell O'Brien not to fly into that comet storm. Have you
accepted our Suv'batlh conditions? Is
Armageddon now a joint Klingon-Federation
protectorate?"
"No." Kor grinned wickedly at Odo's
startled frown. "But Cha'xirrae is." Sisko
threw the elderly Klingon an exasperated glare.
He was starting to see why Kor and Curzon Dax
had gotten along so well. "Then my first
request as coprotector of Cha'xirrac is for you
to beam me back aboard the Defiant. We'll
patrol opposite sides of the planet--whoever first
detects the Cardassians beaming down to the planet
after the comet impacts gets to confront them, but it
has to be on a wide-open channel. Agreed?"
"Agreed." Kor
glanced up at the viewscreen, no longer hazed
with icy glitte now that they had escaped the
Cardassian-gathered swarm. Distant light
bloomed in the planet's dust-stained atmosphere,
the harmless high-level explosion of a natural comet
collision. Sisko's gut still jerked with dismay,
anticipating the inferno to come. "Provided there is
a planet left for them to beam down to."
"I can't believe you thought this was a good idea."
Kira bent as low as she dared, ignoring the twinge in
her lower back, pretending her thighs and knees and
ankles weren't screaming complaints loud enough to wake
all of Armageddon's past extinctions. "You've
got to admit," she grunted, grabbing Dax's arms
and hauling back with all her might, "it does give
us some advantages." They toppled to the
burn-scarred tuq'mor canopy one on top the
other. Eyebrow arched, Dax tossed a
look at the Klingons still struggling to climb the
tangled brush as she extricated herself from Kira and
rolled clumsily onto her back. "Let's
hope it's advantage enough." If it wasn't,
then they were no worse off than they'd been on the
ground. Give or take a few fall-related
injuries. At least she and Dax weren't pinwheeling
their arms or lurching about with one hand always in contact
with the tuq'mor. She watched Rekan's two honor
companions crack the scorched surface of the
canopy more than once as they stumbled into the formal
Suv'batlh wedge. If Dax and K'Taran could
lead their opponents over some of the more fire-weakened
surfaces, they might be able to keep their footing
even when the heftier Klingons broke through. Kira,
on the other hand, had a feeling epetai Vrag would
be harder to displace than her less-dedicated
counterparts. She would hang onto Kira's throat
with her teeth before she fell. For some reason, the
Klingon matriarch looked taller on top the
tuq'mor, standing proudly if not comfortably--with her
chin held high. She'd dragged loose the rhodium
comb pinning her hair in place the moment the challenge
was official. The mass of silver white hair that
cascaded down her back gleamed
unexpectedly bright in their ash-faded surroundings.
A wild mane of icy fire. When she fitted the
comb back into her hair, Kira thought it looked like a
thin, silver tiara framing the back of her skull,
an appropriate addendum to her cool alien
beauty. Kira positioned herself the required three
paces in front of the epetai, resolutely
squaring her tired shoulders. "The tuq'mor is the
battleground," she announced, loudly enough that the
Klingons now crowding the ground level could hear.
"Falling from the tuq'mor constitutes leaving the
combat, and that warrior is forfeit. Agreed?"
Rekan nodded once, fiercely. "Agreed.
Qapla!" Kira had imagined a slightly more
ritualized beginning to the combat, although it struck her
upon reflection that this was naive. Klingons were nothing
if not straightforward. Rekan launched herself at
Kira like a leaping rock-cat, slamming the smaller
Bajoran with the full weight of her body and driving
them both to the tuq'mor. Limbs cracked and jabbed
at Kira's back like broken ribs, then gave
way and dropped her a good foot into the dry
underbrush. Rekan pressed down on her from above,
her hand clamped under Kira's jaw. "If this were a
true Suv'batlh," she growled, "you would
be dead and I would already be the victor. Yield!"
Kira sucked a painful breath and locked her arms
in the tuq'mor beyond her head. "Warriors do not
yield!" And she kicked downward with both feet before
Rekan could respond. Limbs splintered in an
irregular mass, reclosing around Kira's slim
body with springy resilience all out of proportion
to their brittleness. Rekan tangled in the upper
story, her torso suddenly angled abruptly
downward, and Kira willfully snatched double
handfuls of white hair to twist among the brambles before
dragging herself laterally out of the older Klingon's reach.
It felt like wriggling on her back through a shattered
maintenance duct; cables of vine fouled her passage
so that spindly fingers of shrubbery could tear at her
uniform, prick at her eyes. By the time she found
an opening to haul herself back to the upper surface,
she bolted into the open like an ice-swimmer
reclaiming the surface. The tuq'mor canopy no
longer seemed such a sturdy playing field.
Adrenaline spiked her bloodstream with every placement
of her feet, every shift and crackle of failing
timber. She floated her arms out to either side in
search of a constantly wandering balance, and insisted to her
fear that running along the jouncing bushtops
was no different than walking scaffolding or climbing
trees. The dry sourness at the back of her throat
suggested she didn't find herself very convincing. Kira
half-hopped, half-stumbled in a circle to try and
place herself in the combat. Rekan had vanished,
leaving only snarls of torn silver hair
fluttering in the hot breeze. Growls and labored
breathing far to her right rear helped Kira locate
K'Taran, where the young girl wrestled a tall
male almost three times her age near the remnants
of one great hut-tree. She's going to lose,
Kira realized abruptly. It was a wonder she'd
held out as long as she had. Wrenching free of the
older male's hold, K'Taran jumped nearly as
high as his shoulder and scrabbled up the charred stump
to leap from its top. Her landing was awkward, but it put
distance between her and the big male; he lurched across the
canopy like a drunken mugatu, huffing and cursing.
That's the way, Kira thought. If you can't beat him,
wear him out. Taking the hint, she trotted a few more
long steps away from where she'd left Rekan,
scanning the dark battleground for the rest of the
Suv'batlh. She faced a distressing lack Of
silhouettes against the flaming sky. "Dax?"
"Down here!" The Trill's voice
floated up from below. She sounded distinctly
irritated and impossibly far away. "I'm
fine! K'Daq fell down with me, so we're both
out." Kira crouched as low as she dared, and peered between
her feet for a closer look at shadow movement within
the shadows. "You sure you're all right?"
"Nothing hurt
but my pride. Look after yourself! Sound advice.
If only it had come a moment sooner. A dark hand
shot upward out of the tuq'mor, as fast and fierce as
a spider. Kira backpedaled, lifting her knees
high to take her feet out of grabbing range, but not
quickly enough. Rekan clamped strong fingers around one
ankle, and Kira knew even before the Klingon
hauled back on her leg that she'd run out of
options. There was nowhere left to run. Kira hit the
tuq'mor canopy full length, her shoulders taking
the brunt of the impact, just ahead of the back of her
skull. She felt the tuq'mor creak and shiver, like
a stand of marsh grass under the thrashing of a great wind,
and her mind reeled wildly, I didn't fall that
hard? Did I really fall that hard? Then she
heard the thunder, and realized that these stomach-wrenching
tremors came from fathree times her age near the
remnants of one great hut-tree. She's
going to lose, Kira realized abruptly. It was a
wonder she'd held out as long as she had. Wrenching
free of the older male's hold, K'Taran jumped
nearly as high as his shoulder and scrabbled up the
charred stump to leap from its top. Her landing was
awkward, but it put distance between her and the big male;
he lurched across the canopy like a drunken mugatu,
huffing and cursing. That's the way, Kira thought. If
you can't beat him, wear him out. Taking the hint, she
trotted a few more long steps away from where she'd
left Rekan, scanning the dark battleground for the
rest of the Suv'batlh. She faced a distressing
lack Of silhouettes against the flaming sky.
"Dax?"
"Down here!" The Trill's voice floated up
from below. She sounded distinctly irritated and
impossibly far away. "I'm fine! K'Daq
fell down with me, so we're both out." Kira
crouched as low as she dared, and peered between her feet
for a closer look at shadow movement within the shadows.
"You sure you're all right?"
"Nothing hurt
but my pride. Look after yourself! Sound advice.
If only it had come a moment sooner. A dark hand
shot upward out of the tuq'mor, as fast and
fierce as a spider. Kira backpedaled, lifting
her knees high to take her feet out of grabbing
range, but not quickly enough. Rekan clamped strong
fingers around one ankle, and Kira knew even before the
Klingon hau led back on her leg that she'd run out
of options. There was nowhere left to run. Kira hit
the tuq'mor canopy full length, her shoulders
taking the brunt of the impact, just ahead of the back of
her skull. She felt the tuq'mor creak and
shiver, like a stand of marsh grass under the thrashing of a
great wind, and her mind reeled wildly, I
didn't fall that hard? Did I really fall that
hard? Then she heard the thunder, and realized that these
stomach-wrenching tremors came from farther away than
her own collision with the tuq'mor. She struggled
to climb to all fours. At first, Rekan's torso
blocked her view of the clearing and the Klingons standing
witness on the ground. The epetai had dragged herself
halfway out of the understory, the scratches on her
cheeks and the brilliant blood in her hair only
accentuating her fearful wildness. Now, her eyes
met Kira's with a flash of purest hatred, and
Kira knew in that instant that this battle wasn't
between epetai Vrag and Kira Nerys--it was a
battle between what used to be and what could
never be again. Kira said only, "Listen."
Tremors shook the brush in angry fists. Ash the
color of powdered bone drifted up from the tuq'mor
like smoke, and Kira had to grab at whatever whipping
limbs she could reach to keep from being shaken down between the
branches. Rekan only knelt where she'd
stopped, head lifted, face hollow. She reminded
Kira of one of the Klingons" dead goddesses.
Even perched and bleeding on the edges of sylshessa,
her dignity and grace were breathtaking Below them, the
Klingons did not panic. It occurred to Kira that
perhaps they were a people incapable of panic, those genes
having been shriven from their species ages ago
by warriors unwilling to tolerate such weakness. When
K'Taran's banchory groaned a long, low
bellow of distress, even the youngest of the children merely
scurried clear of its thrashing. Then the first of the
mounted banchory crashed into the open, and the bawling of
these lumbering newcomers nearly drowned out the cries
of surprise. Ash-stained primates--the little
green-gray lemurs Kira had seen haunting the
edges of the camp from the beginningmcrowded the backs of the
great pachyderms. One of them scampered forward, down
its banchory's plated rill to crouch on the wide
nose-bridge between the mammoth's eyes.
The "come hither" curling of its hands and wrists
seemed unmistakable to Kira. And, apparently,
to one of the children clustered at the base of the tuq'mor.
The boy took only a single step forward before one
of the older women reached out to stop him, stating
simply, "Epetai says we must stay." Kira
shivered at the helplessly loyal chill that passed
through the family. A few--most of them very young, although
some might have been the parents of K'Taran and her
rebel adolescents--turned their eyes upward
toward Rekan. No recrimination in those stark
gazes, no pleas. As though they all stated fact
to one another, and their epetai simply represented
what they already knew to be true. Duty, Kira
realized. Honor. It mattered so much to them, they
would willingly forsake all else, even survival.
Sinking slowly to her heels, Rekan stared down at
her children, and their children, and all the pasts and futures every
Klingon House created. "Must honor always be
cruel?" she asked softly. Not really to Kira, the
major knew, even though there was no one else-
close enough to hear. "I know in my heart what honor
demands of us... yet now that we face the final
moments... I would not see my children die. ..."
Kira looked down at her hands, not knowing
what to say, and sensing the question was rhetorical
anyway. "I would not have love and honor always run
in separate ways." The epetai straightened, and
her voice rang purely, clearly over the roar of
exploding comets and the rumble of fidgeting banchory.
"G. Take the children--they are this House's future.
Put yourselves in safety until the sky no longer
burns." When no one moved, she announced, more
gently, "Honor commanded only that we remain on
Cha'xirrac forever. Not that we must die." She
turned to Kira as the first of the elders lifted a
youngster into one of the primates' waiting arms. "The
Suv'batlh is ended," she told Kira, very, very
quietly. "G." Kira touched the epetai's arm
when Rekan moved to turn away. "You should come with
us." Rekan stared toward the burning horizon,
immobile. "You can't abandon them now," Kira
said. "Your House is going to need you when the comet
strikes are over." The Klingon shook her head,
and a ghostly smile brushed her eyes without appearing
on her features. "This House is of Cha'xirrac
now. It will need an epetai who is of
Cha'xirrac as well." She was silent for a moment,
watching K'Taran and her Suv'batlh opponent
work as allies in herding children onto the
banchory. Then she caught sight of Kira from the
corner of her eye, and smiled with what seemed
genuine warmth. "Such a look! There is no shame
in admitting that one's service is finished." She
gave the major one last nod toward the others as she
rose slowly to full height. "I go
to Sto-Vo-Kor at peace with the state of my
honor," she assured her. "Save your pity for the
survivors."
CHAPTER 10
ARMAGEDDON HAD, HORRIBLY, lived up
to its name. The comet storm had started violently
enough, with the enormous smoke-shrouded flares of
near-surface explosions. Within ten minutes, the
planet's atmosphere had congealed and darkened
everywhere, giving it an oddly opaque look in the
oblivious saffron sunlight. Watching from his command
chair on the bridge of the defiant, Sisko
realized he was watching the fall of cometary night, a
dust-driven darkness whose dawn might not arrive for
days or even weeks. But that was just the start. "The first
really big fragment is going in now." Ensign
Farabaugh turned at the comet-tracking station, his
eyes sober beneath a tidy bandage. "Impact in
two minutes."
"Will it explode in the atmosphere?" Odo
inquired. "Like the others, only bigger?"
"I don't think so," the young science officer said.
"It looks like this one is actually big enough and solid
enough to hit the surface. If it does, it could
excavate a crater one or two kilometers
deep."
"So much for being protected in a cave."
O'Brien saw the irritated look Sisko sent
him and shrugged. "Optimism is for command officers,
Captain. Engineers prefer pessimism, because it
saves lives instead of risking them. Are you sure
we can't just beam up the away team? We've had a
lock on their comms for the last ten minutes, and they've
barely moved."
"Not while the Cardassians are on our side
of the planet," Sisko said. "Chief, if you want
to be pessimistic, why don't you send those comm
coordinates to Farabaugh? That way, he can alert
us if it looks like a surface impact is going
to come too close."
"Good
idea." The chief engineer bent over his panel,
just in time to miss the enormous steel-colored light
that exploded across the upper half of
Armageddon's huge eastern ocean. A slowly
towering column of fire rose above it, its
crenulated ash-black clouds rising so high into the
planet's stratosphere that the topmost debris
drifted out of the gravity well completely and was lost
to space. A collective gasp of horror hit
the bridge, bringing O'Brien's sandy head around
toward the viewscreen so fast he almost slammed
into his console. "God Almighty! Is that anywhere
near the away team?"
"The impact wasn't," Farabaugh assured
him. "And I don't think the tsunami will run quite
that far inland--"
"The tsunami?" That was Ensign Frisinger,
Worf's substitute pilot, whose fascinated
gaze hadn't wavered from the viewscreen once since
the comet storm had begun. Sisko hoped he knew
his panel controls by touch. "What's that?"
"The shock wave in the ocean that the impact
creates," Osgood explained. "High-level
explosions don't usually make them, since they
displace air instead of water." Farabaugh was
punching a quick calculation into his station. "Looks like
the main wave should hit shore starting about three hours
from now. The backwash and secondary waves
will probably last through tomorrow evening."
"Let's hope the
Cardassians don't know that," Sisko said,
grimacing. "I don't feel like waiting that long
to confront them." The barrage of high-level
airbursts rose to an almost continuous glare of
explosions after that, as if the ocean impact had been
some kind of floodgate, opening to let all the rest
of the swarm pour through. The increasingly ash-choked sky
turned each bloom of light a deeper
crimson-tinted black, like roses charring in a
celestial flame. It was hard, watching from the
distant bridge of the Defiant, to remember that these
silent fireworks represented destruction on a
planetary scale. "Still getting signal back from
the away team, Chief?." Sisko couldn't
repress the question any longer. A second surface
impact had geysered up, this time from the shadowy
darkness that he thought represented the main continent. This
mushroom-
shaped debris cloud rose even higher than the
first, high enough that the debris sparked a firefly
glitter of auroral light when it burst through the
planet's magnetic s torms. "Off and on,
between the EM pulses. At least, it
doesn't seem to be getting any weaker."
O'Brien glanced back over his shoulder. "There
aren't any big fragments aiming for those caves, are
there, ensign?"
"No, sir." Farabaugh glanced over
at Sisko, the pale damp sheen of his face
belying his claim of being completely healed. "In
fact, there aren't any more big pieces left. The
whole storm is tapering off. In another ten
minutes, Armageddon should be back to business as
usual." Sisko sat up, his pulse sharpening
to battle-ready alertness. "Scan for the
Cardassian ship, maximum resolution."
"Got it." Thornto n's hand flew across the
science station, fine-tuning the resolution on his
sensors. There was something to be said for assigning an
engineering specialist to use his own instruments,
Sisko thought. "Image coming through now, sir. It's
the Olxinder, for sure."
"I can see that." The Cardassian
battleship's sharp-edged silhouette was just rounding the
planet's smoky horizon, leaving Kor's
patrol and entering their own. Sisko would have bet all
the antique baseballs in his collection that the
Klingon Dahar Master followed them, and
probably at a none-too-discreet distance. "I
want to know the instant you get the hint of a shuttle
launch, a transporter beam, or" "--a scan
of the planet?" Thornton glanced over his shoulder,
his quiet face lit with an unexpected smile.
"They're doing it now, sir. Sensors seem to be
set for native life-signs."
"Can their instruments penetrate
into the caves?" Odo demanded. "The
Cardassians might cut and run if they find
evidence of any surviving Klingons, not to mention
Humans, Trills, and Bajorans." The young
engineering tech shook his head. "I don't think
they've even got the resolution to cut through the
leftover EM furze. They're going to have to go
down."
"In a shuttle, too, at
least if they know what's good for them." O'Brien
saw Odo's questioning look. "You wouldn't catch me
trying to transport through that electromagnetic
mess." Sisko grunted. "Then get a tractor
beam ready, Chief. Frisinger, make sure
we're never out of tractor range--but don't
bump into Kor while you do it."
"Aye, sir."
"--ffDefiant." The crackle
of static coming from his chair's communicator couldn't
disguise the vibrancy of Dax's voice--or the
scientific excitement that ran through it. "Dax
to Defiant. Can you--?"
"I'm working on it," O'Brien said,
forestalling Sisko's unspoken command. "Signal
resolution coming up now."
"Link a secure channel to Kor," Sisko
said quietly. "He'll want to know that Dax is
alive."
"Dax to Sisko. Can you read us yet,
Benjamin?" "Sisko here. What's your situation?"
"Completely secured, Captain." That
was his second-in-command, sounding exhausted but just
as competent as ever. "All the Klingon refugees
are in stable health, and so are the survivors from
Victoria Adams's crew--all thirty-one of
them. We've managed to save a surprising number
of the natives, too, even the big pachyderms. They
seemed to have an instinct--"
"It's more than an
instinct for some of them." Sisko lifted an
eyebrow, knowing Dax was never that rude unless a
major scientific breakthrough was bubbling to the
surface. "Benjamin, some of the natives are
sentient!"
"Not just
sentient." That was a voice Sisko hadn't
heard in too long. Its weary British accent and
carefully precise language dissolved a knot of
tension he hadn't even realized he was feeling. "The
xirri are a full-fledged Class-two
civilization, Captain oral history, medicine,
long-distance radio communication-was
"The natives have technology?" Sisko
exchanged startled looks with O'Brien and Odo.
If the Klingons had knowingly violated the Prime
Directive when they'd chosen this planet for their
honorable exile, it was going to be a lot harder
to convince the Federation that they now owned half of it.
"The xirri's ability to communicate in radio
wavelengths isn't technological, Benjamin."
Dax sounded both dazed and delighted by that fact.
"It's a biological adaptation, bred into them
by reproductive isolation and the stress of cometary
impact. As far as we can tell, all the native
vertebrates have the same capacity, but--" Sisko
saw the urgent look Thornton cast him and cut
ruthlessly across his science officer's
explanation. "You can explain all the gory
details to me later, old man. I've got a
Cardassian gul getting ready to tip his hand, and
I want to be ready to slap it." "Understood."
There was a muffled grunt behind Kira's voice, as
if someone's toe had been stepped on. "Away
team out."
"I'm reading a power
surge in the circuits around the Cardassians'
main shuttle door," Thornton told him, before the
crackle of static had even faded from the bridge.
"I think they're getting ready to launch an
expedition to the planet."
"Shields at full power, cloak controls set
for imminent drop," Sisko said. "Set tractor
beam coordinates for a kilometer away from the
launch door."
"Coordinates laid in," O'Brien
confirmed. "Tractor beam fully charged and
ready."
"Launch doors opening," Thornton said. The
Olxinder slowly rotated as she orbited the
ash-dark planet, bringing her belly-slit shuttle
bay into gloriously clear resolution. "Shuttle
deploying inside launch bay."
"Red alert. Quantum torpedoes armed and
ready for launch." Sisko didn't really
expect Hidret to put up a fight, but you could
never tell what a weasel would do when cornered. It
would be stupid to be unprepared. "Shuttle
position, Mr. Thornton?"
"Four
hundred meters and accelerating. Six hundred,
eight hundred--"
"Drop
cloak and engage tractor beam," Sisko
snapped, anticipating the thousand meter mark.
O'Brien must have been equally primed for action--the
tractor beam flashed out before he'd even finished
calling for it, its gold-dust glitter smacking through
the silver cometary haze to seize on the
Cardassian shuttlecraft. Sisko felt the
Defiant rock with an unexpected jolt of
backwash inertia, and threw a frown at
O'Brien. The chief engineer was growling at his
controls. "If you're going to stay locked even though
we were first, the least you could do is match your beam
intensity... damn arrogant Klingons!"
Sisko's gaze rose to the viewscreen, startled.
He could see, now that O'Brien had
pointed it out, the mirror glimmer of a second
tractor beam, refracting back across the
planet's horizon. An instant later, the
uncloaked silhouette of a Jfolokh-class ship
rose above the ashen atmosphere, tracking back
along its beam toward the mammoth Cardassian
battleship like a fish reeling itself toward the
fisherman. "Hail the Cardassians on an open
channel." The corner of Sisko's mouth kicked
upward wryly. "And prepare for a three-way
conference, Mr. Thornton."
"Aye, sir." Armageddon's seared
image vanished, replaced by a duplicate
image of scowling, furrowed faces. Kor's
expression, however, was one of pure military
ferocity, while Gul Hidret's had clearly
been plastered over shock and indecision. "Is this an
act of war, Captain Sisko?" he demanded, in
what was probably meant to be a preemptive
strike. "Are you actually working in league with these
Klingon ruffians after all?"
"Yes, I am." Sisko
allowed a cold slice of smile to show. "I'm
legally required to, Gul Hidret, since this
is now a joint Klingon-Federation
protectorate." "What?" The Cardassian's
scowl lost a little more of its assurance. "When was that
treaty signed?"
"An hour ago, in Klingon and Human
blood," Kor retorted. "All it needs now
is some Cardassian blood to be complete."
"Nonsense!" Hidret sounded as though he might
choke on his own disbelief. "You think to fool me
by making such wild, unreasonable claims."
"I admit, you were the one who first suggested this
alliance," Sisko said wickedly. "The more I thought
about it, the better an idea it seemed." Hidret
shook his head. "I don't believe it. You're
going to let this Starfleet officer interfere with your
dishonored exiles, Kor?" "No," said the Dahar
Master grimly. "We're going to make sure that
my dishonored exiles haven't interfered with the
sentient natives whose civilization we just discovered.
Of course," he added maliciously, "any little
ecological problems they may have caused will pale
in comparison with the devastation we just saw you create."
"What?" Gul Hidret looked
like a man whose worst fevered nightmares had just
erupted into waking life. "You're lying! There are
no sentients on that planet--"
"And how
would you know that, Gul, if you've never set foot
on Cha'xirrac?" Sisko asked silkily. "It
--it was surveyed by the medical teams scouring this
region for the cure to ptarvo fever." Kor
snorted. "If you ever needed a cure for the randiness of
youth--which I very much doubt--your searches here found no
cure for it."
"All you found here," Sisko continued, "was a
cheap and easy source of drevlocet. Isn't that
right, Gul Hidret?"
"Drevlocet that the Cardassian High Command
would like to modify to use on Klingons," Kor
finished. "Isn't that right, Gul Hidret?" The
elderly Cardassian grimaced, the wrinkled
canyons of his face growing deep and darkly
shadowed. "I refuse to answer such accusations in
this--this inappropriate setting! I came here in
response to a willful attack against the
Cardassian people, only to find it was a trap!"
Sisko permitted himself a scowl. "Our
diplomats can settle who set the traps in this
system, Gul Hidret. But the fact remains that
this planet beneath us is now its own sovereign state,
subject to no external interference in its
ecology or its affairs."
"Exactly what I'd be the
first to tell you," the elderly Cardassian
insisted. "And just as soon as you release my shuttle
full of emergency medical personnel, I'll be
on my way."
"Good," Kor said. "I hate to break it to you,
old enemy, but your ship seems to have a most
unfortunate attraction to comets. It would be a shame
if one actually penetrated your shields and caused
a hull breach." Snaggle-teeth bared in a grin that
would have done credit to a crocodile. "And the longer you
stay in this area, the more likely that is to happen.
Don't you agree, Captain Sisko?"
"Definitely." Gul
Hidret slapped at his communicator controls,
breaking the connection without another word. Kor
promptly broke into a massive roar of laughter.
"That old targ's going to be swerving aroun d every speck
of dust between here and Cardassia Prime, thinking each
one's got a photon torpedo buried in it," he
decided. "I think I'll follow him halfway
back and plant one, just to put him out of his misery."
"Be my gor snorted.
"If you ever needed a cure for the randiness
of youth--which I very much doubt--your searches here found
no cure for it."
"All you found here,"
Sisko continued, "was a cheap and easy source
of drevlocet. Isn't that right, Gul Hidret?"
"Drevlocet that the Cardassian High Command
would like to modify to use on Klingons," Kor
finished. "Isn't that right, Gul Hidret?" The
elderly Cardassian grimaced, the wrinkled
canyons of his face growing deep and darkly
shadowed. "I refuse to answer such accusations in
this--this inappropriate setting! I came here in
response to a willful attack against the
Cardassian people, only to find it was a trap!"
Sisko permitted himself a scowl. "Our
diplomats can settle who set the traps in this
system, Gul Hidret. But the fact remains that
this planet beneath us is now its own sovereign state,
subject to no external interference in its ecology
or its affairs."
"Exactly what I'd be the
first to tell you," the elderly Cardassian
insisted. "And just as soon as you release my shuttle
full of emergency medical personnel, I'll be
on my way."
"Good," Kor said. "I hate to break it to you,
old enemy, but your ship seems to have a most
unfortunate attraction to comets. It would be a shame
if one actually penetrated your shields and caused
a hull breach." Snaggle-teeth bared in a grin that
would have done credit to a crocodile. "And the longer you
stay in this area, the more likely that is to happen.
Don't you agree, Captain Sisko?"
"Definitely." Gul
Hidret slapped at his communicator controls,
breaking the connection without another word. Kor
promptly broke into a massive roar of laughter.
"That old targ's going to be swerving around every speck
of dust between here and Cardassia Prime, thinking each
one's got a photon torpedo buried in it," he
decided. "I think I'll follow him halfway
back and plant one, just to put him out of his misery."
"Be my guest." Sisko
nodded at Thornton and O'Brien to disengage.
The Defiant's viewscreen shimmered back to a
view of comet-haloed ships, just in time to show their
tractor beam vanishing. The Klingons' paler beam
twinkled out a moment later, and the Cardassian
shuttle darted back into its launch pad like a reef
fish diving for cover. A moment later, the
battleship's warp nacelles glowed to life and it
was gone, shaking them with the nearness of its jump
to lightspeed. Kor's ship rippled into cloaked
invisibility in that same instant, and Sisko felt
a second wash of ion discharge tremble through his ship.
"Alone at last," said O'Brien, sighing. "Not
quite." Sisko lifted his gaze to the sliver of
Armageddon's--no, Cha'xirrac's--darkened
skies, seeing the charred but living planet beneath that
ashen veil. "We have some new friends to meet,
Chief. Let's hope they're a little easier to get
along with."
"Than the Klingons and
the Cardassians?" Odo snorted. "Captain,
I believe that's what Quark would call an
ears-on certainty."
Kira had climbed out of the cave system feeling
worn, ancient, as battered as the surface of
Cha'xirrac. She'd kept her eyes downcast,
preparing for the onslaught of bright light after hours in
the womblike dark. Instead, a soft grayness
enveloped the world, and the muted features of the terrain
sent her memory tumbling backward a dozen
years. Before the Federation came to safeguard
Bajorm before the Cardassians declared the
planet raped to a shell and no longer worth the
expense to maintain--Kira had walked through this same
armageddon landscape under a different name. Rota
Province had been battered for forty days and forty
nights by every surface-launchable warhead the
Cardassians bothered to keep on Bajor. Not
atomics--the Cardassians were far too frugal
to waste expensive destruction on Bajoran sheep
who had no way to fight back or run. They'd
shattered Rota with slow-moving conventional weaponry,
all because of rumors that the Salbhai resistance
cell had taken up hiding among the homesteads and
villages of that wealthy province. Well, they'd
gotten Salbhai and her fighters, along with eleven
thousand farmers, timbermen, and peng herders. The
resultant desolation looked exactly like
Cha'xirrac did now--soil blasted down to the
bedrock, trees blown down like a children's stick
game, the rivers and marshes choked with carcasses,
mud-slides, and debris. It had been hard
to imagine that anything would ever be able to live in Rota
ever again. And it was hard to imagine Cha'xirrac coming
back to life after such apocalyptic devastation. The
view had not improved much from the roof of a shuttle.
Kira sat, knees hugged to her chest, and
watched a distant curtain of smoke ripple against
a sky only just now dimming down to the color of
natural dawn. No more trees poked their heads
above the tuq'mor canopy. No more banchory
crashed their slow, gentle ways through the foliage.
Only ash pattered like sand through the brush still standing,
tainted with the bitter scent of distant fires.
"Looking for someone?"
She glanced down, startled by Sisko's sudden
presence. "Not really." The smile she forced on his
behalf didn't feel very convincing, and his own amused
expression suggested she could have done better.
Sighing, she scooted toward the front of the small
craft to slide down its nose. "How're
negotiations coming?"
"Very well." The captain stepped
judiciously aside as she jumped to the ground,
neither helping nor hindering her descent. "Actually,
there doesn't seem much to negotiate. The xirri
are still more than happy to share Cha'xirrac with their
Klingon friends, and the Klingons still have nowhere else
to go." He gave a little shrug that Kira thought
indicated acceptance of the situation, although she wasn't
completely sure. "I think the House of Vrag
is relieved to have some purpose here.
Something to call themselves other than "exiles.""
Kira nodded, warding off a thought about how a certain
caliber of Klingon would have worn that label
proudly, and looked out into the wounded tuq'mor again.
If she looked very carefully, she could find a few
spots of defiant green amid the wreckage.
"It looks like we'll be making several trips with the
Victoria Adams's crew," Sisko went on.
"I'd rather not stack them in three deep this time, but I
also don't want to make any more shuttle runs
than absolutely necessary. Our friend George is
busy sorting the survivors into shiploads while the
Klingons work out the terms of an ongoing scientific
study with Dax." Kira nodded, a bit absently.
"He's your secret dignitary--the one Starfleet
didn't want the Klingons to get their hands on."
When Sisko didn't say anything to refute that,
she angled a weary grin up at him. "His name
isn't really George, is it?" Her captain
changed the subject as smoothly as if she'd never
brought it up at all. "So how is Dr. Bashir
holding up?"
"Ledonne says he'll be fine. She's given
him something that'll keep him out until we get back
to the station." She glanced reflexively
back toward the shuttle, even though she couldn't see
inside. "She was doing patient triage with him when
he was kidnapped. I think she's feeling guilty
for not realizing what was happening and doing something to stop
it." Sisko followed her gaze briefly, then
somehow ended up scrutinizing Kira with his head
tipped slightly toward his shoulder. "And what are you
feeling guilty about?" The question caught her without a
ready answer. "I don't know. Nothing."
Everything. She started to pace away from him, aborted
it, and ended up making a frustrated circle that
only put her back where she'd started. "I guess
I just don't understand what Klingon honor is
supposed to be good for," she finally blurted. "What
purpose does it serve to take the best, most noble
members of their society and... sacrifice them!
Why can't there be some middle ground between perfect
compliance to honor and death?"
"Because sometimes perfect compliance is death."
Sisko met her angry glare with a placidity that
said he hadn't been making light of her dilemma.
"Curzon once told me that he didn't think he
would ever fully understand what the Klingons call
honor, even if he had a dozen lifetimes to study
it. In many ways, I think the Klingons
are still learning and refining their
own concepts every day. It's part of what makes a
culture vibrant and adaptive. But it is a
hard thing," he said with resonant seriousness. "A
hard taskmaster. It's not our place to say whether
or not the rewards are worth it.". Federation
rhetoric--noninterference, respect for another
culture's ways. Worse yet, it was rhetoric
Kira's head believed in, even when her heart
ached for want of a better, less tragic way.
"I've often thought honor among Klingons is more
religion than social," Sisko continued, leaning
back against the shuttle's nose and crossing his arms.
"Like fate among Humans, av'adeh'dna among
Vulcans, and pagh among your own people. Honor
isn't just a list of rules that Klingons adhere to the
way you might a recipe. It shapes them, leads
them, determines the character of their souls." He motioned
back toward the huddle of Klingons and xirri
inside the mouth of the caves, and Kira was abruptly
struck with the incongruity of that sight. Of the wondrous
potential represented by a handful of battered
warriors and the small gray-green primates who
had adopted them. "Honor led them here to be
protectors of Cha'xirrac--better
protectors than any combination of starships or
comets could be. They've been reborn, through fire and
ice." He smiled a little at the drama of his words.
"No rebirth ever comes without loss. Epetai
Vrag knew that." He caught Kira's gaze up
in his own. "Maybe honor required a
sacrifice to balance the scales--life for life.
You can't hold it against her if she willingly made
that choice." Perhaps not. But Kira couldn't help
wishing for a solution that didn't require bloodshed
to water the seeds of new life. "Dax says the
planet will recover," she said suddenly. It was
something to hang on to. A memory of Rota
Province as it had been just a few months ago,
soft and green and scattered with delicate prairie
flowers that couldn't have existed in the shadows of
Rota's forests. New life, celebrating with a
song of colors. Someday, this planet would look like
that, too. "So not just a new life for the Klingons,"
Sisko commented. "A whole new existence. A
whole new world."
"Yes." Kira stood up with sudden
decision. "And maybe, if they're lucky, a
whole new meaning of honor. One that involves
cooperation rather than fighting, and survival rather
than sacrifice." Sisko made a somber
noise. "I'm not sure that they'll still be Klingons
then," he said. "And, somehow, I think there will always be
a Day of Honor celebration on Cha'xirrac."
"That's all right."
Kira glanced back at those glints of
water-shielded vegetation, as stubbornly tough as
Klingons and as quietly surprising as the xirri.
"Just as long as it is followed by a Day of
Rebirth."