The other two Ferengi ships had stopped attacking the Idaho. The third Andorian trader vessel went to help its injured comrade. The remaining trader vessel backed away from the Madison.
The nagus's ship didn't move.
"What do you think he's going to do, Commander?" Ensign Coleman said.
"He'll back off," Sisko said. "The Ferengi hate to fight prolonged wars. It eats into their precious profits. Anything he could make on the Nibix wouldn't be worth the eventual cost. Zek is a smart man. He knows that."
After a moment, the nagus's ship turned and retreated.
The Cardassian ships hadn't moved. Neither had the Jibetians. The other ships around the station had moved to the perimeter, watching, waiting.
Sisko hit his comm badge. "Dax? Are you all right?"
"We're fine here, Commander," Dax said. "Shaken but no damage."
"Good," Sisko said. "Let's take this baby home."
He wiped the sweat off his forehead. The first fight of the battle had taken less than a minute. Jepson was gone as was one trader vessel. Another was crippled, and the Ferengi, for the moment, were out of the fight. None of the starships had suffered any significant damage. Neither had the Nibix.
"Captain Higginbotham is hailing us. He's coming in scrambled," Kathé said.
"On screen."
Higginbotham appeared. His cheeks were flushed beneath his graying beard. "Benjamin, if we take the Nibix in close and the Cardassians attack, we won't be able to defend without threatening the station. If the Cardassians and the Jibetians join forces, we won't have enough firepower to defend that ship in close."
"I know," Sisko said, "but I have a secret that will do the trick. But I don't dare play the hand until we're closer to the station."
Higginbotham shrugged. "It's your call, Ben. We'll watch your back. Madison out."
He winked off the screen.
Sisko hit his comm badge. "Dax? Chief? Are you ready to fly her into dock?"
"Any time," Dax's voice said.
"How about now?" Sisko said. "Ensign Harsch, drop the shields around the Nibix and release the tractor. But stay close enough to shield it again instantly."
"Yes, sir," Ensign Harsch said.
The small thruster jets fired on the Nibix, and it eased toward Deep Space Nine. Sisko watched on his screen as the long lost ship moved into dock on its own power after eight hundred years in space.
Over twenty different warships from a half-dozen different cultures watched.
And waited for someone to make the next move.
CHAPTER
26
THE DOCTORS SURROUNDED the jury-rigged cold-sleep chamber. Dr. Bashir stood near the Supreme Ruler's head, monitoring the diagnostics. Dr. Wasner slowly raised the temperature on the chamber as Dr. Silverstein monitored the cellular damage. They had just started injections of nanobuilders designed to help the cells rapidly regenerate.
Silverstein estimated that the ruler had eighty-five percent cell damage in the weaker tissues. The nanobuilders were his only hope.
"He still has brain function," Bashir said as the temperature rose.
"But his heart isn't going to work. It's not ready yet. Slow it down, Wasner," Silverstein said.
"I can't slow it down. If I reverse the process, I confuse his body and he dies."
"It may not be that simple," Bashir said. "The Jibetians used drugs to induce cold sleep. Some of those might still be in his system."
"After eight hundred years?" Silverstein said. "I don't think so. His cells are breaking down. The chemical compounds would have broken down long before that." She prepared another injection and was about to slide it through the pin-sized hole in the chamber when Wasner grabbed her hand.
"Bashir's right," he said. "We're talking about eight-hundred-year-old technology, Celeste. The chemical compounds used by cultures back then were often harmful combinations that would survive anything natural. We need to scan for them. Only this is ancient technology. I don't know what to scan for."
"I do," Bashir said. He had already started the scan, but so far the results were inconclusive. "Give me a moment."
Silverstein set the injection down. She held her medical tricorder over the ruler's stomach. "He has no liver or kidney damage at all."
"The nanobuilders are working then," Wasner said.
"No," Silverstein said. "I injected them into his lungs and heart, not his bloodstream."
Bashir grinned at her. "That's it then."
She looked confused. "Julian, I don't think his heart is going to make it."
"One more moment," he said. He scanned the liver and kidneys. "I was right. The chemicals are in there. The ancient Jibetians used a screen to slow the organs gently as the person went to sleep. Check the heart, Celeste. It might be there."
"What am I looking for?"
Bashir rattled off the Starfleet equivalents for the Jibetian drugs.
She glanced at him over the ruler, her eyes wide with horror. "But those will—"
"Destroy the nanobuilders, I know."
"Stop that warming process," Silverstein said.
"I can't," Wasner said. "Ancient or modern technology, it doesn't matter. Once the process started, it has to be finished."
Silverstein swore under her breath. Bashir reached behind him. He removed a hypo. "I have a few nanoscrubbers. We could send them in and hope they do the job clearing out the chemicals."
"They won't work, Julian," Silverstein snapped. "Nanoscrubbes must go straight into the bloodstream. His blood isn't moving."
"Straight into the bloodstream so that they can ease into the heart," Bashir said. "We don't have any choice."
An urgent beep made them all look up.
"His heart stopped!" Wasner said.
"Open this thing," Bashir said.
"You'll warm him too fast," Wasner said.
"It doesn't matter," Bashir said. "He's dying anyway."
"If it's not the warmth, it'll be the scrubbers," Silverstein said.
"Have you ever worked with them?" Bashir asked as he quickly filled the hypo.
"Not on cell damage cases."
"Then move. Our only hope is to try." He shoved her out of the way with his body.
Wasner raised the lid on the modified cold-sleep chamber and stale frosty air floated out. Bashir shoved the hypo against the frozen fabric of the ruler's cloak, then made the injection, careful not to put too much pressure on the ruler's fragile body. Since it was frozen, even the slightest movement could cause bones to break.
All three doctors stared at the diagnostic display.
Nothing.
No movement.
The heart had stopped.
"See?" Silverstein said. "It was hopeless."
"His skin temperature's rising too fast," Wasner said.
"It doesn't matter. His heart's not moving."
Bashir held the tricorder over the ruler's heart. "The nanoscrubbers have multiplied. They've sent a contingent through the bloodstream. I don't get any chemical readings from the heart at all now, Silverstein. Try your nanobuilders again."
"It's hopeless, Julian," she said.
He whirled. "You are not going to cost a man's life because you believe we're doing an impossible procedure. This is my infirmary and my procedure. Either you do what I say or I'll make certain you get court-martialed and reported to Starfleet's medical board. You'll never practice medicine again."
"You can't do that, Doctor," she said, squaring her shoulders. "I have decades more experience than you do. I know when something's impossible."
"You don't know. No one's done this before."
"Don't question me, Bashir."
"I'm not questioning you," he said. "I am ordering you."
"Celeste," Wasner said softly, "he's right."
She glanced at both of them, then carefully injected the nanobuilders into the heart. Wasner closed the lid on the sleep chamber and modified the temperature as best he could.
"That was a
ten-degree rise in temperature," he said. "It might have been too fast."
Bashir didn't care. He was monitoring the scrubbers. They had cleaned out the liver and kidneys and were now moving into the stomach.
The solid whine suddenly stopped.
He looked up. The ruler's heart was fluttering.
"Silverstein," he said.
"I see it." She began deep-cold procedures for easing the organs into working order. "Can you raise the temperature more, Wasner?"
"As soon as the blood flows evenly, Doctor," Wasner said. They watched as the heart stopped fluttering and began beating several slow even strokes on its own.
"What's the heart rate on eight-hundred-year-old Jibetians?" Silverstein asked.
"Probably not that much different than modern Jibetians," Bashir said.
"Then we've got it."
The blood moved sluggishly through his body and into the brain.
Silverstein shook her head. "There's amazing amounts of cell damage here," she said.
"Will he wake up?" Bashir asked.
She nodded, her mouth in a thin line. "That's the amazing part. Once the heart was repaired, we have him. He's going to make it."
"With his brain intact," Wasner said. "That low brain function, whatever caused it, saved him there."
"I think I know what caused it," Bashir said. He looked at the green glowing staff. Dax had said that it gave Jibetian rulers longer lives and great powers of recuperation. Such stories were often false. But just as often they were true. Maybe at some point in the future, he'd do a project on the powers of the material the staff was made of. Maybe.
Silverstein glanced over the sleep chamber at Bashir. "I'm sorry, Julian," she said. "If you had listened to me, this man would be dead now."
Bashir smiled. "We all make those kinds of errors, Doctor," he said, "which is precisely why I didn't want to do this procedure alone. Logically, we should have quit there. But there are times when logic is not enough."
Silverstein smiled. "Our captain reminds me of that often," she said. "I suppose he has a point."
Wasner kept monitoring the ruler's vital signs. They were steadily improving as the temperature rose.
Bashir hit his comm badge. "Kira," he said, "you need to send a message to Commander Sisko."
"I can arrange for you to send it yourself, Doctor," Kira said.
"I don't have time. Just let him know this: that our patient made it through the procedure. He's still in critical condition, but it is"—he glanced at the other two doctors, and they nodded—"our expert opinion that he will recover."
"I'll tell him, Doctor," Kira said and signed off.
Bashir leaned against the nearest chair. The cold, the tension, and the relief were finally getting to him. "One day," he said more to himself than anyone, "I'm going to run out of miracles."
"Nonsense," Silverstein said. "I think this procedure has convinced me that one should never underestimate the power of belief. Miracles happen, Doctor. Sometimes we just help them along."
The advisors were murmuring behind him, their joy muted by Ribe's obvious bad mood. He made no attempt to hide it now. The Ferengi attack on the Nibix had failed; he should have known better than to trust those strange little beings who only looked at the universe through their purses.
But he couldn't stop to think now. He had to act.
He stood near his chair, General Caybe beside him. The general had suggested going into the private room beside the bridge, but Ribe would have none of it. If the general didn't do what he wanted, he would shame the man in front of his own troops.
"Lord High Sir, I respectfully disagree. I think you're overreacting. The Federation is our ally." The general spoke in little more than a whisper. Not even the advisors could hear him.
"They have done nothing to show their alliance with us," Ribe said, "except to allow us to apply to their little club. They did this, it is now clear, so that they could take the Nibix for themselves."
"But, Lord High Sir, they are only protecting it. And they did. Their weapons are more precise than ours. If we had fired on the trader ships, we might have hit the Nibix."
"Then you are incompetent and should be relieved of duty." No one was listening to him. He damned the system that gave him no control over the military. Only the council had control. His ancestor, Bikon, had set that up too, so that a military coup had to happen against the entire government, not against one man as the first revolution had.
A few of the advisors overheard that last remark. They frowned at Ribe.
"What do you suggest we do, Lord High Sir? We don't dare fire upon our own ship."
Ribe leaned closer to the general. "Destroy the station," he said. "Then they cannot dock the Nibix, and we can take the ship for ourselves."
The general took a step backward. "If we fire on a Federation station, the starships will attack us. We'll start a war."
"So be it," Ribe snapped.
The general swallowed. The skin on his ridged cheekbones had turned white. "Lord High Sir, I must remind you that only by unanimous vote of the entire council can we go to war."
"Well, the council's not here, is it?" Ribe leaned closer to the general. "You will do what I say."
The general glanced at the advisors, who shrugged. Ribe suppressed a grin. He would win this. The general knew, as well as he did, that the head of the council could act for the council in the council's absence.
"Forgive me, General," said one of the crew. "But we are getting a message from the Defiant."
The general looked as if he were just granted a reprieve. He turned so that his back was to Ribe so that he couldn't see Ribe countermand the order to answer the hail.
"I'll speak to him," Ribe said. "I'll give this one last try."
"Please, Lord High Sir, rethink your position. The Federation—"
"The Federation is trying to steal our heritage from us. Let me see their traitorous commander." Ribe stepped into the general's normal spot and faced the screen.
"This is Hibar Ribe, head of the Jibetian High Council. State your business, Defiant."
The face on the screen belonged to Sisko, and he looked as intransigent as he had before. "I am Commander Benjamin Sisko of the Federation Starship Defiant. It is my duty to formally inform you, under the treaty, that the Nibix, which is under our protection as the Long Night, will be docking on Deep Space Nine shortly. The ship will remain under Federation protection until officials from the Federation can arrive and officially turn the ship over to you. I have said this before, but consider this your formal notification under the treaty."
"I demand that the ship be sealed and that only my people be allowed to board," Ribe said. "Your people cannot be trusted with the wealth of Jibet."
"As I told you in our earlier communication," Sisko said, his voice even, "this ship, under intersteller salvage laws, is owned by the Federation and is a Federation ship. It will be turned over to you in good time without anything missing."
"You are taking advantage of this situation, Sisko. That treaty was made to protect the Nibix in case no Jibetian ships were nearby. The ship is clearly owned, and salvage laws do not apply. If you do not turn the Nibix over to us, we will consider that a declaration of war. If you have not turned the Nibix over to us in five minutes, we will destroy your precious space station."
Sisko smiled. "I don't think you'll want to do that," he said. "You see, your Supreme Ruler, Jibim Kiba Siber, is recovering in our infirmary. An attack might threaten his life, and you wouldn't want that, would you?"
Ribe felt as if he had been shot in the stomach. He gripped the railing behind him.
The hum of the bridge stopped. Every crew member had ceased working and was staring at the screen. General Caybe had taken the tiny replica of the Staff of Life from his pocket and was staring at it in shock.
Ribe's mouth was dry. As a boy, he had believed that Jibim Kiba Siber was one with the gods. Perhaps that belief had been right. Perhaps his family had
been wrong.
"No man can survive eight hundred years of cold sleep," Ribe said.
"Your Supreme Ruler has," Sisko said. "Thanks to the technology of the Nibix and the skill of modern medicine."
"I do not believe you."
Sisko's smile grew. "I thought you might not. Major Kira, please broadcast from the infirmary now."
Sisko's image winked out and was replaced by the resting body of the Supreme Ruler. He lay on a diagnostic table, his robes wrapped around him. His skin was normal Jibetian white, and he was clearly breathing. The green staff was beside him. A thin human also stood in the picture. He smiled.
"I am Julian Bashir, chief medical officer on Deep Space Nine. We found your Supreme Ruler alive when we discovered the Nibix. He had extensive cell damage, which we repaired. We expect little long-term damage. He should be awake in a few hours."
Ribe leaned against the rail. The Supreme Ruler looked just as he had in all the ancient paintings. A young man. Younger than Ribe expected.
Only a god could live so long.
Or perhaps Bikon had failed in more ways than one.
They would discover the sabotage and his own betrayals with the Ferengi. They would. Or maybe they already had.
Sisko's face returned to the screen. "So, you see, if you want to be at the Supreme Ruler's side when he wakes up after eight hundred years, you need to stand down your ships."
Behind him Ribe heard the general give the order to stand down and drop shields. The crew was moving in slow motion, as if they were as stunned as Ribe.
Ribe stood, his mouth open, not knowing what to say.
Sisko, after a moment, smiled at Ribe and said, "You're welcome."
Then he cut the transmission.
Odo and Jake had joined Kira on the bridge in time to watch the standoff between Sisko and the Jibetian leader. Jake clearly had questions but waited to ask them, a fact for which Kira was relieved.
When the Jibetian said nothing and Sisko ended the transmission, Kira felt her entire body relax. No war. At least not yet.
"Major," Tappan said, "Commander Sisko is hailing us."
"On screen," Kira said.
The Long Night Page 20
