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 three --"
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 –"
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 upon firing, at my mark."
"Firing torpedoes, 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 Klingon 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 Osgoo
d 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 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 catch 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 tricorder 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 medkit 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 shou
lder. 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.
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