by Diane Carey
The remaining Bird-of-Prey and the attack cruiser turned their sterns on it with panache, and bolted to warp speed, in direct hot pursuit of the Defiant.
Julian Bashir had been surrounded by patients in a disaster situation before but never by Cardassians.
They were everywhere, dozens of them, and he would've been lying to say it didn't twist his stomach a little. No one could have lived so closely with Bajorans for so long without having picked up a little of that baked-in unease about their former slave drivers.
Working to mend their wounds was good therapy, though, and he soon found himself well distracted.
Except when he had to give the blood screening. That was a bit nerve-racking. He knew the chances were slim, far better that the Klingons were overreacting to rumor…yet, still, the changelings were a terrifying force in the expanding galaxy, and he himself admitted that he was afraid. For whatever his patients were, Cardassian or changeling, he was glad of the Starfleet security officers at the door.
Because Sisko knew shapeshifters and how elusive they were, security guards were posted in pairs every few yards, and there were phaser rifles set on full power in their hands. The guards were on constant surveillance, looking, guessing, searching, with their rifles pointed in various directions through the area as each of the council members was tested and okayed.
Strange—imagine the Cardassian council being the least threat aboard a Federation ship…how times could change.
Least of all was the ever-tormenting acquaintance Gul Dukat, who now stood and said, "Thank you, Doctor. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to go to the bridge."
Bashir nodded, and turned to him with a blood-sequencing syringe. "This will only take a minute. Your arm, please."
Reminded of the loss of his ship by the unremitting pounding that thrummed through the hull every few seconds, Dukat flared with outrage. Evidently he knew. "What's the meaning of this?"
"Just a simple blood screening."
"I assure you," Dukat said loftily, "I am not a changeling."
"Then you have nothing to worry about."
"I find this whole procedure offensive."
Bashir nodded. Yet another.
"And I find you offensive," he said. "Now hold out your arm or I'll have a security officer do it for you."
Encouraged by another pitch of the deck beneath them and a roar of strain rushing down the bulkheads, Dukat held out his gangly arm.
Bashir buried a sigh—not exactly of relief. That was yet to come, if at all.
"Dukat's on his way up, Benjamin." Jadzia Dax found a moment to cast Sisko a toying glance as she piloted the battleship at blinding speed through the covert folds of space, toward the fortress that would be their survival.
"Just what I always wanted," Sisko cracked. "Two Klingons on my tail and Dukat on my bridge."
"I can't wait to hear him have to thank you for saving him and his council."
Sisko eyed the monitors, giving off numerical readings of the two ships racing after them. "You don't expect that, do you?"
"Oh, I think he'll feel obliged to do it now, rather than have to do it later, possibly in public," she said as she urged the ship up another half point in lightspeed. "But I do think he'll start complaining first."
Sisko shook his head. "Not even Dukat could be quite that ungracious."
"No? I'll make you a bet."
"What kind of bet?"
She turned so that he could see a quarter of her face, enough to show that she was smiling.
"I'll bet you a five-course dinner that he starts complaining within ten seconds of stepping onto the bridge."
"Taken," Sisko said. The unlikely, untimely banter gave him a jolt of hope. "But you'd better be ready for—"
He never got to finish. The turbolift hissed, and Dukat stepped onto the bridge, flanked by a security guard as tall as he was and twice as burly.
"Captain," Dukat said, "would you inform this security guard that he doesn't have to monitor my every move? It makes me feel unwelcome."
Admittedly surprised, Sisko glanced at Dax.
"You owe me a dinner, Benjamin," she said.
Dukat looked at her, then back to Sisko. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Captain Sisko bet me you'd thank him for the rescue before you started complaining."
Realizing that he as well as Dukat had been duped—Dax had maneuvered him into letting her get a dig in at the Cardassian—Sisko obliged her by saying, "I lost."
"Captain," Dukat said in a different tone, "are you aware there's a Klingon on your bridge?"
Captain, are you aware there's a scorpion crawling on your collar?
Dukat was glaring at Worf, and Worf was patently returning the glare. No love lost there.
Not feeling obliged to explain his bridge personnel to Dukat, Sisko merely said, "He's not the Klingon you should be worried about." He indicated the viewscreen and said, "Switch to aft view, maximum magnification."
The screen shimmered and changed.
And there they were—the big powerful one and the smaller mean one, coming at them like bullets.
Sisko knew that if he attempted to fire at them, it might deplete Defiant's warp-core power and she might reduce her speed just enough to be caught. Better to keep up the speed, and hope DS9 was ready for a fight.
Dukat was in wide-eyed communion with the screen. "Somehow the Klingons found out my ship evacuated the council members. I'd suggest you cloak immediately."
"We lost our cloaking device rescuing you."
There was a pause.
"Can this ship go any faster?" Dukat asked.
Sisko didn't look at him. He looked only at the screen.
"Not unless you want to get out and push."
"Any luck?"
Kira Nerys hung over the Ops table, searching as she had for hours for a sign of the Defiant's return. Her legs were stiff, her arms aching, and her stomach growling. Time to rest and eat?
Forget it.
I should've gone with them to the Cardassian border. That's where the action is. If I'd pushed just right, maybe Sisko would've let me come.
Imagine. Off to defend Cardassians.
The whole universe was turned upside down. Defending Cardassians whom a matter of months ago she would have relentlessly killed.
Now they would find sanctuary here, possibly even on Bajor.
Imagine that!
The Ops table was damnably silent. Sensors swept space and came up empty. Something must have gone wrong. They would've been back by now.
"Not yet." Perspiration plucking at the buff curls at his forehead, Chief O'Brien worked at his station, urging the sensors to reach a little farther, then a little farther still. "Hold on—I'm picking up something on long-range scanners. . . . It's the Defiant!"
"They made it!" Kira reacted. The ship was coming in uncloaked and at high speed. That meant—
"Yeah," O'Brien confirmed, "but they've got two Klingon ships on their tail." He tapped in a request for details of speed and distance, then paused. When he spoke again, it was a huff of hopeful anxiety. "The captain's hailing us!"
"On screen."
The viewscreen popped on as though excited, showing Sisko on a smoking bridge, with staggering crewmen behind him trying to maintain their posts. They'd been engaged by the enemy.
The enemy. It hardly seems real—
"Chief! Our ETA is five minutes. Are the new systems on-line?"
"Yes, sir," O'Brien answered, leaving out the part about how badly it all integrated into the Cardassian design of the station. "I wish we could've tested them first."
"No time like the present."
Without even bothering to sign off, Kira came around the Ops table. "Raise shields! Red alert!"
"Drop out of warp."
Ben Sisko gazed with hard anticipation at the viewscreen that showed the giant clawed orb of Deep Space Nine looming at them out of the eternal soup. It was a relief, yes, but in a nonsensical way he felt dirty fo
r bringing the enemy down upon them. In his right mind he knew the Klingons would come here anyway, but somehow that didn't ameliorate his wish that he could've put an end to this once and for all way back on the Cardassian border, that perhaps he hadn't fought hard enough.
He shook himself out of those thoughts. "Reverse thrusters at maximum. Prepare for docking."
At his side, Dukat was an uneasy, unreassuring presence. "It looks like the Klingons chased us all this way for nothing," the Cardassian said.
"That remains to be seen. Klingons don't give up easily."
"Two ships against the station. I don't think they'd risk it."
"It may not be much of a risk," Dax put in, watching her monitors.
"What do you mean?"
"They've got friends."
Sisko pushed to his feet and came up behind Dax as the viewscreen changed, showing on its wide panorama a fleet of Klingon vessels coming out of the darkness.
Tension on the bridge doubled.
Grimly Dax reported, "The Klingon ships have raised their shields and charged their weapons."
Worf turned to Sisko. "What are your orders, Captain?"
In his mind, Sisko was already counting the ships he saw, adding up firepower and matching it against what he had in this ship around him and what the station had.
So this was how it was going to be. A couple of rogue ships attacking a Cardassian transport ship was one thing—a big thing, yes—but this was altogether different. The Klingons had trampled their treaty, and now they were shredding it.
This was not merely a diplomatic incident in a distant star system. This was an attack on a Federation outpost, and could be taken as nothing less than an act of war.
All right. So be it.
"Battle stations," he said.
CHAPTER 20
RED-ALERT KLAXONS WERE a living sound, the howl of some primitive animal brought forward into the modern age. Like the animal's noise, the klaxons signaled danger and anticipation, and the flashing red lights were like the frantic pumping of hearts in a panic.
"Status report, Major."
Sisko's voice was a low boom under the alert bells. Tense and wishing the action would get started, Kira peered into the readouts and monitors that gave them details about the Klingon fleet as it approached, then spoke up to answer his request over the sound of the red-alert noise.
"I'm detecting several dozen Klingon ships, including the Negh'Var," she said. "They've taken up positions just outside of weapons range."
"While you were gone," O'Brien broke in, "we spoke to Starfleet Command. They've sent a relief force under Admiral Hastur."
"When will they get here?"
O'Brien looked at Kira, and they both realized that until now they hadn't let themselves worry about when the reinforcements would arrive. The ETA had sounded all right when Admiral Hastur reported that he was on his way. It had sounded like a relief.
Now it just sounded like a long time off.
Holding his breath, O'Brien almost choked on the answer.
"Not soon enough."
"Not soon enough is not an answer, Chief. What's their expected time of arrival?"
"I'm sorry, sir. Admiral Hastur estimated roughly an hour and a half, but said he'd try to make it sooner. The last time we were in contact with them, we ran into static. The Klingons may be scrambling signals."
Kira spoke up from where she was monitoring the approach of the Klingons. "And, sir, if the Starfleet ships run into other Klingons out there, then they'll take even longer to get here."
"Then we can't depend on them. Prepare to defend the station at all costs. Chief, what's the status of your upgrades?"
O'Brien glanced at Kira. He looked suddenly exhausted. "Everything's installed, but I have suspicions about how the Starfleet-regulation mechanics are fitting into the Cardassian housings. I've done some hard bolting-down, but full firepower makes for a lot of shaking. On top of being fired upon—"
"Understood. We'll hope for the best. Prepare to dock the Defiant. I want to be in Ops when this plays out. Kira?"
Kira's arms flinched when she heard her name—a reaction that embarrassed her. "Sir?"
"Break out the sidearms, Major, stationwide. Inside or outside, we've got to be ready. We're in for the fight of our careers."
"The Klingons. First it was the Cardassians, then it was the Dominion, and now it's the Klingons. How's a Ferengi supposed to make an honest living in a place like this?"
"Come on, Quark. Move along. You should be in an emergency shelter by now."
Feeling wholly in his element as he choreographed the exit of civilians from the outer areas of the station, Odo was not surprised to find his arch-irritant still lurking about the Promenade.
Up and down the wide corridor, with all its entrances and exits, Starfleet security men and Bajoran officers directed station inhabitants toward shelters in the lower levels. The people moved with a silent resolution, not panicking, but with their faces creased by gruesome truth. They had come here under the peace established by the Federation, well away from hazard, which had been beaten back by Starfleet, and now all their structure might be collapsing, leaving those who believed themselves safe now discovering that they might have drawn the wrong straw.
Still, such was not his concern. It was not for him to tend to their emotions. At some point, all living things had to see to their own survival, whether physical or otherwise. Physically, all they had to do was cooperate with him.
The Promenade was now deserted but for Bajoran deputies standing posts with their phaser rifles.
"Quark," he began again, and approached the local underhand artist, who was wrestling a combination lock onto the closed doors of his bar.
The click of the lock was a tiny imitation of the heavy clanks and echoing booms caused by double-built airlocks closing all over the station, and the subtle irritating buzz of forcefields coming on at all the junctions.
"I'm not going to any emergency shelter," the Ferengi opposed. His face was frantic with determination. "This is my bar, and I'm going to defend it."
"Really," Odo drawled. "And how do you plan to do that?"
His animated face creased with scorn, yet somehow laced with the joy of plotting, Quark held up a box he had carried until now under his arm. Roughly the size of a place mat, the box was plain and battered, with dents on the sides and corrosion along the seams.
"With this!" he said.
Odo peered down at him with calculated ridicule. "You're going to hit them with a box?"
Quark's blue eyes bolted wide and his craggy teeth shone in his version of a joyless grin. "No, this is my disruptor pistol. The one I used to carry in the old days when I was serving on that Ferengi freighter."
"I thought you were the ship's cook."
"That's right! And every member of the crew thought he was a food critic!" He squared his thin shoulders and puffed up, even to standing on his toes. "And if the Klingons try to get through these doors, I'll be ready for them."
With the pride of a collector, and notably missing his usual false piety, he opened the case and held it before Odo, gleaming with intimidation and the solidity of being finally and utterly prepared.
Odo plucked out of the box the only thing inside—a piece of paper.
Pride dissolved from Quark's face. Shock swarmed in.
Odo squinted at the paper. "'Dear Quark…used parts from your disruptor to fix the replicator. Will return them soon. Your brother, Rom.'"
The box snapped shut. Quark stared at the paper in Odo's hands. "I'll kill him."
Odo looked up. "With what?"
As medieval as castle portcullises, thick airlock doors rolled shut in the crossover bridges. The boom of their weight as they closed echoed through the station's core. Armed guards rushed to posts at every junction where there wasn't a forcefield.
The Promenade, empty. The docking pylons, deserted. Living quarters, abandoned. If ever this place had been a bottle of the macabre, it was i
n this last hour.
The lights had been reduced in some places, to cut down on the chance of fire, but also to retard the movement of enemies who might breach the station's interior. Those who had lived here all these months could more easily function in the dim but familiar halls when things turned desperate, frantic, and bloody.
"That's close enough, Garak!"
Deep Space Nine's Cardassian-in-exile scuffed to a halt along the slight curve of the empty habitat ring, and found that it was not so empty here. As he had suspected—
He slowly approached the two Starfleet guards and the Cardassian standing between them.
"Dukat," he began, measuring his tone, "I just wanted to make sure the council members were safe."
Gul Dukat lacked his usual arrogance and today was a pillar of wariness.
"Hoping, no doubt," he challenged, "that your concern would curry political favor."
Scalded now by his own activities in the past, for which he refused to apologize, Garak cauterized, "Oh, and I take it your concern for the council members is motivated strictly by patriotism?"
"The council members are well aware of my patriotism," Dukat said, "and the sacrifices I was willing to make in order to save them. Now, why don't you go back to your tailor shop and sew something?"
"Because," Garak said forcefully, "if the Klingons do invade the station, you just may need my help."
He glanced at the Starfleet guards and their massive phaser rifles, and drew from his pocket his own small Cardassian disruptor. For an instant he enjoyed seeing terror cross Dukat's face at the sight of a weapon in Garak's hands, but Garak had no intent to use it as Dukat feared.
Yet he couldn't stand here and explain—it would be undignified to admit that he thought they stood a good chance of dying and he wanted to die fighting, at the side of other Cardassians.
"Who would've thought the two of us would be fighting side by side?" he mentioned.
"Just be sure," Dukat said, "when you fire that thing you're firing at a Klingon."
