Twist of Faith

by S. D. Perry

  —beyond that, I call Picard and Ro and tell them to get the hell away from here.

  Vaughn reached for his combadge—and felt a hot breath on the back of his neck, and knew he was as good as dead.

  With at least twenty platforms to descend, he’d been too late to stop Kitana’klan from hurting the Bajoran Kira Nerys. Once again, he had not anticipated correctly. His failures had already caused enough death; the obvious recourse was to cease failing. Taran’atar quickly moved to be near the silver-haired human, understanding that the whelp would try to kill him next. The human’s uniform indicated he was a Starfleet commander with a specialty in command or strategic operations, and therefore a priority target.

  Only Jem’Hadar could sense the di’teh, the aura of the shrouded, and even then only if they were physically very close. But he remained undetected as he held his position next to the commander; Kitana’klan was too distracted, too intent on his next victim to sense Taran’atar’s presence. It was as close as they’d been since their arrival, the best opportunity he’d had with the consistently wary soldier; even as the Starfleet human tensed, Taran’atar was in motion.

  He unshrouded as he grabbed Kitana’klan by the throat, holding on tight and diving for the floor. The unsuspecting young soldier was thrown off balance. He hit the platform awkwardly, half on his back, becoming visible as he struggled to get free of Taran’atar’s grasp, his concentration faltering.

  Kitana’klan was strong and fast but too young, unaware that his lethal rage wasn’t enough. Still holding him by the throat, Taran’atar swung himself over the youth’s thrashing body, straddling his chest.

  Kitana’klan snatched at Taran’atar’s throat and face, kicking at his back, his pale eyes shining with murder. The blows were powerful but poorly executed, barely effective. Taran’atar looked down into the young soldier’s twisted, ignorant face, and saw himself a long, long time ago.

  “Accept death,” Taran’atar said, but Kitana’klan still fought. A good soldier. Taran’atar moved his hands to the sides of Kitana’klan’s pebbled skull, took a firm grip, and twisted, hard. There was an audible crack, a sound of tearing muscle, and Kitana’klan ceased to be.

  The battle had lasted only seconds. Taran’atar smoothly rose to his feet, nodding at the silver-haired commander, whose eyes never wavered from his.

  “I take it you’re on our side,” the human said.

  “I am,” Taran’atar confirmed, matching the commander’s scrutiny. Silver hair usually represented older age in humans, he thought. Perhaps he was wise.

  “Good to know,” the commander said. “We can talk about it later.”

  The man shouted up at the four others not to fire as he hurriedly dropped to his knees in front of one of the machines, opening a wide panel. Taran’atar crouched next to him, ready to offer his assistance. He thought they might be too late to stop whatever destructive plan Kitana’klan had set in motion; the light of the power channel had started to change, getting brighter, and there was a growing sound, a sound like machinery that was dying, but perhaps the commander could stop it in time.

  Taran’atar hoped that it would be so. He could not atone for his mistakes if they all died.

  The machine was Federation and it adjusted plasma density. Looking at the numbers on the small internal screen, Vaughn saw what Kitana’klan had done almost immediately. Behind them, the light was growing stronger, and Vaughn thought that the chamber’s powerful hum was incrementally higher than before.

  Damn damn damn!

  The Jem’Hadar had instructed the system to increase density by twenty percent and then shorted the boards, including the alarm sensors. The structural integrity of the fusion reactors had been compromised, and the data indicated that the station’s power grid had ceased to accept the unbalanced flow of energy. A buildup was already under way, but if Vaughn could get to the venting system, there might still be time to release the mounting pressure.

  The Jem’Hadar who was not his enemy squatted at his side, and when Vaughn stood, so did he. Vaughn shouted up at the security team as he ran to the second bank of machines, the Jem’Hadar still with him.

  “Evacuate!” Vaughn yelled, recognizing that they probably only had minutes, wondering why there weren’t a hundred other alarms going off. “Get out of here, now, and tell everyone at least two hundred klicks away from the station!”

  He didn’t bother to see if they’d gone, hunting for the exhaust cone controls. He wasn’t familiar with DS9’s setup, but the equipment was all recognizable, and the hum was getting louder; it might already be too late to vent before the core went supercritical.

  “I will aid you,” the Jem’Hadar said, just as Vaughn spotted the controls for the cone.

  “See if Kira’s alive,” Vaughn snapped, scanning the console’s panels, feeling sweat run down his chest. There, emergency functions! Vaughn hit the key and a grid of options scrolled across the monitor. He saw the overload strip and jabbed at the touch square, praying for success—

  —and the screen went blank.

  No.

  Vaughn saw the board access panel and yanked it open, already knowing what he would see. From the convoluted tangle of broken cables, he was surprised that the monitor had worked at all. Alarms weren’t going off because it seemed that the Jem’Hadar had smashed the reactor sensor arrays all to hell, or at least the ones that would have triggered an overload alert.

  Vaughn couldn’t know how much time they had, he didn’t know the core capacity or how well the station’s systems worked, but he guessed five or six minutes at the outside. They still had time to get to a ship, to get away, but he could hardly see the point; even if the evacuation had been running like clockwork, he doubted very much that more than a few thousand people had managed to get out. Leaving the doomed station, leaving thousands more to die as they commandeered a private ship, seemed cowardly and arrogant.

  Vaughn slammed his fist against the useless console, feeling just as useless.

  There was no way for anyone to stop it. DS9 was going to explode.

  Someone was touching her face.

  Kira swam up from the dark sea, feeling terrible, feeling as though she was going to vomit from the pain in her head. The left side of her body felt strange, far away, and when she tried to move, her right arm went white-hot with agony.

  She opened her eyes and saw Kitana’klan bending over her, the back of one cold, scaled hand pressed against her forehead. She tried to move away, but her body wasn’t listening, her motor skills malfunctioning.

  Kitana’klan spoke, but his voice was garbled, only a few clear words reaching her.

  “…station…not…killed the…fusion…”

  The station. She remembered parts of what had happened, but her head hurt so much, and she didn’t understand what Kitana’klan was saying, let alone why he was talking to her at all, and there was a high-pitched whine in her ears—

  —hum, rising hum, Kitana’klan was at the reactor banks—

  —overload?

  The thought was more important than her pain. She struggled to sit up, ignoring the torment of her upper right arm, and there was Commander Vaughn, next to her, next to Kitana’klan.

  “Help me up,” she said, but her voice didn’t work, her own words as foreign as the Jem’Hadar’s. She tried again, and was now aware that the light around her was getting brighter, that things might be very bad.

  “Help…up,” she managed. Her voice was slurred, and she understood that she’d taken a blow to the head, but didn’t care. She didn’t care that her assailant, along with Vaughn, was gently easing her into an upright position, and she didn’t care about the pain. The station, she had to know what was happening.

  “…core overload, the…won’t vent,” Vaughn babbled.

  Kira concentrated as hard as she could, understanding that things were bad, they were critical. There had to be something…

  …get away from it. Get it away.

  If there wasn’t a
ny way to stop it from happening, there was only one option left.

  “Get me up,” she slurred. “Lift. Eject it from the top, my voice. Jettison. Up, we go up.”

  She must have made sense, Vaughn was talking to the soldier excitedly, and although she didn’t want Kitana’klan to touch her, she couldn’t stop him from picking her up, cradling her like a child. But she didn’t care about that, either.

  The station. The station.

  Colonel Kira Nerys spoke, her words vague but her voice strong with urgency. Taran’atar understood each word, but didn’t know what they meant. The commander apparently did.

  “We have to get to the top of the shaft, now,” he said, no less urgently than the colonel. “Can you pick her up?”

  Taran’atar did so. The colonel was light in his arms, and obviously suffering from a head injury. He could see the swollen flesh just above her right ear, and her eyes were blurred with pain; he thought her arm was broken, too. It was bad, that he’d let this happen.

  “Hurry, to that lift,” the commander said, and Taran’atar held Kira Nerys tighter, running to the caged platform. The rising sound of imminent overload and the now sickly-white light that bathed the shaft lent him speed; death was close for them all.

  The colonel gritted her teeth against the jostling motion, but did not cry out or lose consciousness. A good soldier, for a Bajoran.

  Odo had not exaggerated her strength.

  Vaughn slammed the lift controls as soon as they were inside—and the open platform, surrounded by a waist-high railing, began to move up, slowly, very slowly. It would take almost a full minute to reach mid-core. He could call for transport, but wanted anyone at the transporter controls to be concentrating on the evacuation. And by the time their moving signals were locked on to, considering the signal interference that was surely being caused by the power build, they’d have already reached the top.

  The growing whine of the imminent overload was joined now by a recorded loop, a woman’s voice explaining that there was an emergency situation. Her calm voice resounded through the core chamber.

  “Warning. Plasma temperature is unstable. Engage liquid sodium loop at emergency venting. Capacity overload will occur in five minutes. Warning. Plasma temperature…”

  Vaughn tuned it out, willing the lift to hurry.

  The Jem’Hadar stood stiffly as if at attention, his impassive gaze fixed on Vaughn, Kira barely conscious in his arms. Vaughn hadn’t had time to wonder about the soldier’s fortuitous appearance, but as the lift slowly ascended, he remembered Kira’s account of the Jem’Hadar strike against the station.

  Three ships firing, and one that tried to stop them. All Vaughn knew for sure was that he’d killed Kitana’klan, and that made him an ally.

  They were almost to the top, only a few more levels and the lift would reach the base of the station’s middle section.

  Vaughn reached out and touched Kira’s pale face, hoping to any god or prophet who might be watching that she’d be able to function long enough to authorize the lower core break. Her eyes were shut and her forehead was creased, but whether it was in pain or concentration Vaughn couldn’t be sure. Her injuries were severe; it was astounding that she’d managed to speak at all. Her solution hadn’t occurred to him, DS9 hadn’t been built by Starfleet, but her stilted command had been clear enough—although he feared her voice wouldn’t be, that the computer might not recognize her faltering commands.

  “…loop at emergency venting. Capacity overload will occur in four minutes.”

  Even if Kira could pull it off, how long would it take for the fusion core to reach a safe distance?

  The lift passed the very top of the straining fuel tower, passed open space, rising through a mostly solid landing. They came to a stop in a circular room lined with blinking lights and flashing consoles. For the first time since coming aboard, Vaughn was struck by the true immensity of the station.

  With an obvious effort, Kira forced her eyes open as soon as the lift stopped moving, as Vaughn slammed the low gate open and they stepped out. Ominous light filtered up from the lower core in shafts, the flashing red glow of the emergency panels combining to make unclean shadows.

  “Master con,” she said, blinking hard. They almost couldn’t hear her over the now piercing whine of the overload.

  Vaughn looked wildly around the room, spotting the main computer bank at eleven o’clock.

  “Over there!”

  The Jem’Hadar ran at his side; Kira gritted her teeth against pain as they stopped in front of the master console.

  “Down,” she said, and Vaughn helped the Jem’Hadar lower her feet to the floor, both of them supporting her.

  “…overload will occur in three minutes,” the computer noted.

  Kira forced her eyes open and saw the controls. The station. The lower core. There was a horrible, wavering sound, high-pitched, like machinery that was about to burst apart from overheating.

  My station. My people.

  “Hit three-one-four-seven-zero,” she whispered, and a hand reached out to the controls, hurriedly punching the code in. She wanted to crumble, to go to sleep, but Kitana’klan held her up and she knew that it was the end. One chance, and then it was over.

  Concentrate! The voice of every teacher she’d ever had, every commander, the voice of authority shouting in her aching head. Do it, get this done, don’t fail!

  “Computer, this is Colonel Kira Nerys, initiate…initiate lower core emergency separation,” she said. It took all of her energy to speak. “Authorization Kira Alpha…One Alpha.”

  “Identity confirmed. Request additional authorization.”

  Kira closed her eyes. “Override, Kira Zero-Nine. Disengage and initiate emergency launch…on my mark. Mark.”

  Did it, got it done… Kira’s head rolled to her chest, too heavy to hold up, but she kept herself awake; she had to know. And within seconds, she did.

  There was a tremendous buckling beneath them, the strange, fierce light from below swirling into shadow with a sound of immense destruction, of meter-thick support beams snapping like twigs, of applied force and ruin. Kira tried to open her eyes and it was dark, she didn’t know if the lights had gone out or if she’d managed to open them at all—but that terrible screeching sound had stopped, and she knew that it really was over.

  “Did it,” she mumbled, so tired that she thought she might sleep forever. And a minute later, when the jettisoned core exploded some 120 kilometers away in a blinding and spectacular blossom of devastation, when what was left of the station shuddered and rocked in the dark, pushed from its position by more than a dozen klicks, Kira Nerys slept on. There were no dreams.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In all, the injuries from the shock wave had been minor. Crusher had treated three broken arms, a couple of dislocations, and what seemed like a hundred minor lacs and contusions. They’d also had at least a dozen stress patients, all civilian, but nothing a mild sedative couldn’t relieve; once Dr. Bashir was out of the woods, Ezri Dax had also lent a few calming words to the frightened men and women who’d dropped by. The other doctors and infirmary staff had been a pleasure to work with…most especially Simon Tarses, who, to her delighted surprise, was now a full MD. And as the small hours of the morning crept up on them, all the beds were clear except for three.

  Not bad for a night’s work. Crusher was tired but content, and although she didn’t have to stay, she found herself lingering, enjoying the calm. Word was that everyone was back on the station now, which likely meant no more patients for a while; she imagined that DS9 was sleeping, thousands of people curled up in the safety of their beds….

  Crusher yawned, leaning against a wall near the supply cabinets. She knew better. With the station running entirely on backup, there were undoubtedly plenty of people working to stabilize systems and revise repair plans. It was just that curling up in bed sounded so heavenly at the moment—

  “Doctor Crusher?”

  It was Bashir
, again. It was true that doctors made the worst patients. Bashir was pleasant enough about it, but he’d asked twice in the last hour if he could get up.

  Crusher moved to the foot of his bed, catching a knowing glance from Dax in the soft glow of the emergency lights. She’d been at his side since he’d come out of surgery, not even leaving to change out of her bloody clothes; at some point she’d grabbed a scrub shirt and donned it where she sat.

  “Yes, Doctor,” Crusher said, smiling a little.

  “My BP and hematocrit are both within normal range, and I’m certain the tissue stitch has set by now,” he said, all seriousness. “I would release me.”

  “And if you were on duty, you could do that,” she answered. “Another half hour, Julian. Postsurgical standards apply to everyone.”

  The young doctor sighed dramatically, but didn’t argue, turning to gaze up at Dax instead; she smiled, stroking his hair. He’d been incredibly lucky, managing to get a seal patch over his right subclavian artery while he’d been in the process of bleeding to death. He said he couldn’t remember it, that he was certain he’d passed out, but there was no other explanation.

  Crusher left the young lovers to themselves, wandering over to check on the infirmary’s other two patients, both asleep. Another human male, John Tiklak, who’d pitched over a railing when the station had been buffeted by the initial blast, one of his four broken ribs puncturing his left lung, also a fractured navicular of the left wrist; and Kira Nerys, concussion, open humeral fracture, two broken ribs. The concussion had bruised Kira’s right temporal lobe, the injury severe enough that she was fortunate not to have suffered any permanent damage. Commander Vaughn had brought her in, explaining that like Bashir, the colonel had been injured by the Jem’Hadar soldier. Crusher hadn’t gotten the full story; Vaughn had been in a rush over something and had stayed only long enough to hear that Kira would survive.