Twist of Faith

by S. D. Perry

  Thomas Chang, the Aldebaran’s counselor for just over seven years, wasn’t officially on duty, but he spent a lot of his off hours on the bridge. He enjoyed the atmosphere of efficiency, liked watching the people he’d come to know so well as they applied their talents. Of course, watching them during downtime could often be just as interesting…but then, finding people interesting was how he’d come to be a ship’s counselor.

  Pretending to be absorbed in the contents of a science digest, Chang surreptitiously watched the men and women around him, occasionally tapping at the padd in order to deflect suspicion. He didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable…and besides, it was part of the game, trying to figure out what someone might be thinking about just by watching them, their gestures and body language. Shannon liked to joke that it was the Romulan in him, driving him to spy on the unwary. Because he was falling in love with her, Chang always laughed—but he couldn’t help feeling a vague sadness when the topic came up, recalling the story of his great-grandmother’s capture, and how that story had haunted him as a child. That the Romulans eventually released her, and that her life had been happy and full ever after…it couldn’t take away the memory of hearing the awful truth for the first time, that a brutal man had once hurt her—and that that man’s blood ran in his own veins….

  It seemed that he wasn’t above a little daydreaming himself; Chang let the unhappy feelings go, letting his attention wander back to the pleasantly directionless analysis of his friends and co-workers. Tiss Janna, for example; from the softly calculating gleam in her eyes, the way she kept pulling on a lock of her curly dark hair, Chang imagined that she was thinking about those green opal-and-quillion earrings that the Ferengi bartender had shown her the first night they’d arrived at DS9. She wanted them, but wasn’t willing to pay the obnoxiously high price that the bartender had quoted. Even now, she was thinking of a counteroffer…and perhaps imagining what Lieutenant Commander Hopping Bird would say about them on their next date.

  Chang shifted in his chair, casting a sidelong glance at the officer in question. Mike Hopping Bird, chief tactical officer and Tiss’s recent love interest. Only a few people knew, of course; Chang had heard it from Mike himself, and had been pleased. Mike and Tiss were a good match, and although they probably wouldn’t let their romance be widely known, Mike was going to give it away if he didn’t stop gazing at her with such obvious and ardent affection. It wasn’t much of a jump for Chang to guess what Mike was thinking about, particularly considering his own developing relationship with Shannon.

  There was a definite rise in the number of romantic relationships on board…and, Chang imagined, all across the Alpha Quadrant. There were innumerable statistics and psychological studies he could cite to prove his point, but put simply, as Captain Robison himself had said, “It’s an end-of-the-war thing.”

  Not that everyone was after romance. Kelly Eideman, the dynamic young woman currently slouched comfortably at the engineering station, had already been to DS9 three times to play dabo, and had done fairly well…although Chang couldn’t rule out a romance there, either. Some of the dabo girls at Quark’s were extremely attractive. As practical as the junior grade lieutenant was, however, he imagined that the slight smile she wore was for the clacking spin of the wheel, and the delighted cries of the watching crowd over each dabo win.

  He didn’t care much for dabo himself, but Shannon had been pushing for them to try out one of DS9’s holosuite programs, one recommended to her by Dr. Bashir. It was for some sort of combined gambling-restaurant-entertainment center, set on Earth in the mid-20th century, and there was a game called baccarat that Shannon very much wanted to try. Shannon, a researcher on the Aldebaran’s medical staff, had been corresponding with Bashir off and on for several years, debating something or other about chromatin formation, and had been excited to meet him. The doctor had turned out to be a very personable young man, and was apparently involved with the station’s counselor, one Ezri Dax. Dax was Trill, a species that Chang found to be highly perceptive as a general rule, and although he hadn’t met her yet, he was interested in hearing her take on Vanleden’s newest theories about focus charting—

  “You’re just pretending to read, aren’t you?”

  At the sound of Tiss’s voice, Chang looked up guiltily. Tiss was smiling playfully.

  “What an odd question,” he said. “What else could I possibly be doing?”

  He tried, but couldn’t keep a smile from creeping up as he spoke. As well as he’d come to know so many of the crew, they had come to know him. The thought was warm, inspiring a sense of belonging, and although he’d been caught out at his guessing game, he didn’t mind a bit.

  Tiss started to answer—and then Lieutenant Eideman was standing and turning, running to the helm even as Mike Hopping Bird’s usually calm voice was rising to a near shout.

  “Commander, the wormhole—it’s opening!”

  Then Tiss was moving, calling for on-screen, calling for bridge personnel as Captain Robison strode from his ready room, head up and eyes bright as he moved to his chair.

  Chang felt an instant of cold shock, watching numbly as the brilliant colors spread out in front of them. The wormhole hadn’t opened since the last of the Dominion forces had returned to the Gamma Quadrant three months ago, and although the Aldebaran had been assigned to guard DS9 against any possibility of attack during their repairs, no one on the ship had really expected anything to happen.

  Thomas Chang swallowed his disbelief, hoping desperately that nothing would happen, refusing the idea that they might be in trouble. And even as he accepted that he was in denial, the first of the ships came through.

  They were just finishing up their informal meeting when both of their combadges trilled at once. Outside Kira’s office window, men and women were jumping to their feet, dropping tools and running to their half-assembled stations. On Kira’s desk, an incoming call blinked urgently; the Aldebaran was hailing.

  Kira and Jast both stood, turning to look out at ops. Shar’s voice spilled into the room, the young officer speaking quickly as he looked in at them from his position on the main floor.

  “Colonel, Commander—three Jem’Hadar strike ships have just come through the wormhole in attack formation, weapons and shields up, and they—they’re heading for the Aldebaran.”

  No.

  It was the unthinkable, the reason she’d put off upgrades for so long. Now, after three months of dead silence from the Dominion, it seemed that someone had decided to make contact, just when the station’s defenses were at a minimum.

  “Red alert. Battle stations,” she ordered. “Shar, send out a distress call, lock off nonessential systems and get me everything on our weapons. I need to know where we are exactly. Implement emergency shelter protocols, try to get us visuals on the main screen, and tell Nog to get the Defiant ready, now.”

  She nodded at Jast, who took her cue and hurried out of the office and across ops, toward its transporter stage. Kira reached for the blinking light of the Aldebaran’s call, already calculating the kind of damage they could expect if the ship couldn’t stop the fighters, her mind flooded with too-recent images of burning starships and a growing dread. No tractor beams, limited shields, all of the new tactical systems that aren’t even assembled yet—

  Kira felt sick and put it aside, praying that things weren’t as bad as she feared, suspecting that they were worse.

  Chapter Four

  “…and, considering all of that, do you think it could increase the energy dissipation effectiveness of the hull plating, in the event of shield envelope disruption?”

  Ezri sighed, wondering if she could just pretend to be asleep. Probably not; she was on her back beneath the flight control console, but Nog could see her face if he turned around…and she had encouraged him into a conversation.

  Next time, I’ll be sure to suggest a topic. Nothing so vague as, “What’s on your mind, Nog?”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure,” she sa
id, reaching up into the ODN bundle that swayed above her face and twisting two of the wire patches together. Ensign Tenmei would have to integrate them, she had the fiber torch, but she was below, working on the pulse phaser assemblies. It would have to wait. “It sounds good to me, Nog, but that’s really not saying much.”

  The problem was that Tobin Dax, her second host, had been a theoretical engineer two centuries ago; not only were the memories hazy, technology had progressed more than a few running steps past Tobin’s experience. And yet, as often as Ezri had told Nog that, he continued to ask questions and run his every idea past her, delivering each as enthusiastically as possible, the salesman in him shining through. As if she was actually an engineer, or possessed Jadzia’s natural ability toward technical problem-solving. Even with all of the symbiont’s experiences to draw upon, she wasn’t going to win any physics awards.

  “But you think it’ll work?” he asked, turning around to look at her, his sharpened teeth bared in a sincere grin. “You don’t see a problem with the numbers, do you?”

  Be patient, he’s under a lot of pressure.

  Despite assurances to the contrary, Nog seemed to insist on holding himself personally responsible for how slowly things were going. Technically, he had taken over Miles O’Brien’s job. And while there were certainly more experienced engineers in Starfleet, none of them knew the station as Nog did, and no other engineer had received his formal field training on both DS9 and the Defiant. He was still terrible at the administrative aspect, often relying on Kira or Jast to deal with master reports to Starfleet, and he didn’t have the easy self-assurance about his ideas or work that the chief had, but he was determined, talented, and extremely eager.

  “No, I don’t see a problem with the numbers,” Ezri said truthfully. She’d already forgotten the numbers. “I think you should write it up and meet with Kira about it—but if I were you, I’d wait a few days.”

  Nog turned back to the bridge’s less than whole engineering station, nodding. “You’re right. And that would give me a chance to, ah, iron out the details. I still haven’t calculated the density of the subsequent particle cloud, which could interfere with shield harmonics…”

  She listened with half an ear, her wandering thoughts moving back to Kira. Ezri wasn’t one to push counseling, but she thought it’d be a good idea to seek the colonel out later, to at least make herself available. Even with half the communications systems on the station operating sporadically, at best, word had gotten around about the murder—although she supposed not many knew that Kira had been a friend of the murdered prylar. Julian had told her that.

  And so soon after losing Odo. It’s so unfair. Kira projected a comfortable understanding of Odo’s choice to return to the Great Link, but Ezri suspected that it still hurt her—and having to deal with the murder of a childhood friend would reinforce conscious and subconscious stresses of abandonment. That was the psychological standard, anyway; Ezri had been acting as station counselor for long enough to know that emotional reactions weren’t exactly set in titanium. I hope she’ll talk to someone about it, though. Before she has time to bury the pain.

  She would have gone to see Kira already, except for the incredible workload that had practically everyone on the station occupied; as disheartening as it was, Kira undoubtedly needed Dax’s engineering skills more than her ability to listen. The original plan, pushed for by the Federation and Bajor, had seemed feasible enough—take it all apart with the Aldebaran keeping watch, refurbish the Defiant’s tactical systems and armor, rewire communications and most of the subspace systems for the station, and put it all back together again in one short and brutal push. An updated Defiant, but more importantly, no more endlessly overlapping maintenance shutdowns for the station, no more makeshift patches between Cardassian and Federation technology that only seemed to last until it was really important for them to work….

  …and if ninety percent of the S.C.E. techs weren’t off repairing war damage, we could have gotten away with it, too. They just didn’t have the staff they needed to get everything done in a reasonable amount of time.

  Nog’s combadge chirped, and he sat up a little straighter as he answered, drawing Ezri’s attention. The obvious pride he took in his position was good to see; they’d all suffered in the war, and deserved a little happiness—

  —and the strangest thing happened. She was still on her back and was looking up at Nog, and the change that came over his upside-down face—a flash of pure panic that started in his eyes and seemed to spread, contorting his rounded features—had her believing, just for a second, that he was having some kind of a convulsion.

  “Nog, what is it?”

  He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He stood and stumbled to communications, running his hands over the console, and as she squirmed out from beneath the flight controls, Shar’s voice spilled out into the bridge.

  “—is on her way, but power up now. I repeat, the station has gone to red alert. We need the Defiant ’s interface on-line, and a full status report. Commander Jast is beaming over, but the colonel says to get ready immediately, attack ships are—they’re firing on the Aldebaran !”

  Nog looked positively ill. He ran back to where he’d been working and started digging frantically through his tools, calling for the computer to assess the Defiant’s current condition. There was a sudden flurry of movement behind them, as the three other techs on the bridge rushed to various unpaneled consoles and started powering things up.

  “…in-line impulse system operating at forty-two percent. Secondary subsystems for engineering interface, reaction control, science control, and torpedo launchers, inoperative. Primary subsystems for…”

  As the computer’s calm voice continued to list all that was wrong with DS9’s best defense, as only a handful of engineers raced to put it back together again, Ezri was suddenly quite sure that people were going to die. She tapped the flight control interface and scanned the numbers, Nog yelling for an interphasic coil spanner over the computer’s growing index of problems.

  Maybe a lot of us.

  It happened faster than Shar would have thought possible.

  Only minutes ago, he’d been trying to stay awake, vaguely wishing for the warmth of his quarters. Now he stood at the central ops table amid flashing red lights, relaying orders to Nog and trying to activate the display screen at the same time, about to call for an engineering status on the shield emitters—when the station’s sensors registered a hit on the Aldebaran. Even as the ship’s data flow fluctuated wildly, the screen that dominated ops spun to life, displaying the fierce battle.

  The trio of fighters were pulling away from their first run, flashes of brilliant light sparking from a series of shield deflections across the rapidly approaching Aldebaran’s bow. The Nebula-class starship seemed slow and lumbering as the three Jem’Hadar peeled away and looped back, strafing the saucer’s underbelly, their tactical choreography almost like hunting—a pack of vicious carnivores attacking some mammoth beast.

  All around Shar, techs were calling out instructions in low, tense voices, moving about purposefully and quickly, making room for the small crowd that erupted from the turbolift. Status reports started trickling in from all around the station, appearing on the table’s master display. Shar ran a collation and fed it to Kira’s office, channeling his body’s elevated awareness and need for action—stimulated by the situation, his antennae fairly throbbed with it—into lending him greater speed.

  When he looked up next, he could only see two of the darting fighters. Both twined back and forth in front of the Aldebaran as if taunting it, narrowly dodging a series of phaser blasts, the energy streams dissipating harmlessly into the darkness. He tapped at the table’s display, looking for the third ship, but there were problems with several of the station’s short-range sensors. He could only get a partial read, a suggestion of functional energy behind the Aldebaran’s starboard flank—

  —and there was an explosion low on the ship
’s structure, a misty spray of light and escaping gases forming behind what could only be the Aldebaran’s main engineering decks. The third fighter flew down and away.

  “Their shields are gone!” someone behind him shouted, and a glance at the Aldebaran’s interface confirmed it. A second later, the interface blanked out, but the station’s sensors picked up evidence of the powerful blast, much more powerful than could have been caused by a Jem’Hadar striker’s phased polaron beam. It was some type of quantum warhead, and even as Shar sent the newest data into command, Kira burst out of her office, a look of angry shock on her face.

  “We’ve lost contact with the Aldebaran. Tactical, can we get targeting for quantum torpedoes?” she called out, turning to face the main screen. All three of the ships were starting another run at the Aldebaran. The starship was turning, but slowly, much too slowly.

  Lieutenant Bowers was tapping frantically at his station’s console. “Negative. Launcher sets three, four, and seven are down, and the station’s internal locks are unreliable on five and six.”

  “Shar, establish communications with the Defiant, and try to get our interface with the Aldebaran back, at least text,” Kira said. “Mr. Nguyen, take your team and get to engineering, I want you and Terek’s crew on the shield-emitters. If we can get the Aldebaran close enough to one of the docking pylons—”

  But it was already too late. Even with the visual dampening, the cascade of light that flashed through ops from the main screen was blinding. Shar was suddenly too busy struggling to compensate the station through the shockwave to see it, but enough of the sensors were working to tell him the terrible, improbable truth, as hundreds upon thousands of pieces blew outward from where the Starship Aldebaran had been.