The Way of the Warrior

by Diane Carey

Garak moved forward, approaching a man who, until today, had been his bane. "I'll try to keep that in mind."

  Sisko stood at the top of the stairs, looking down upon his operations center. Below, the cold view of Worf handing out hand phasers and holsters to Kira, O'Brien, and Dax stirred sensations in him that he would have banished in the night had he awakened from this nightmare. Deep Space Nine had become that which he had always imagined it, but which it never had really been—a lone outpost, undefended, the only battlement between a raging army and the peace that had been kept for generations. He felt like Major Anderson at Fort Sumter, desperately trying not to be the man who started the American Civil War.

  The inevitable war. Nothing could stop this.

  Was that true? Had he sifted the sands for every possibility? Had he contacted everyone he could contact? Had he scoured his mind for every argument that might turn Gowron's mind?

  Was it really too late?

  The Klingons were starting a war, moving to conquer Cardassia. It seemed in many ways so natural for them to do so that he began to wonder if he had exhausted the reasons why they would do this. This time it was neither greed nor gamble that set the Klingons on the warpath. This time, they were afraid.

  Could he use that?

  As he watched his crew don their hand weapons, any such scenario eluded him. If he were Gowron, thinking the way Gowron thought…

  "We're receiving a transmission from General Martok."

  Dax's report shook Sisko out of the cloud of possibilities through which he could no longer see.

  "Put him through."

  He came down to the main level as the big viewscreen drew in a bigger-than-life picture of Martok—the very essence of fury, probably insulted that Sisko had not only refused to help him, but had actively and violently moved to thwart him. They weren't used to that kind of offensive action from Starfleet.

  Better get used to it.

  "Captain," Martok bolted as if swallowing meat. "I demand you surrender the Cardassian council members to us immediately."

  "They're not Founders, Martok," Sisko said, controlling the sharp edges of his words. "We tested them. You were wrong."

  At first he thought he'd made a grave, gut-reaction mistake by calling Martok wrong, but then saw a flicker of expectations being blasted in the Klingon general's face. He really had believed it. There wasn't any ulterior motive.

  A flash of hope was dashed when, before Martok could respond, another form moved into the screen out of the shadows of the Negh'Var's bridge—Gowron.

  "It is of no consequence," the chancellor rebuffed. "All that matters is that the Alpha Quadrant will be safer with the Klingon Empire in control of Cardassia. Now…surrender the council members, or we will have no choice but to take them by force."

  That said it all, yet somehow compounded what Sisko had dreaded. Gowron meant to control his fears by controlling Cardassia and anyone else he felt might be at risk from Dominion infiltration.

  Sisko found himself scanning the Klingon's face, noticing flecks of metallic dust and blood. What had happened at the border? What was Gowron doing on Martok's ship instead of on his own? The other ship must have been wrecked, leaving Gowron shamed and furious—yes, it was there in his owl-like eyes. The humiliation of having been surprised by prepared Cardassians, of having a vessel smashed around him, and of having to abandon its smoldering hulk, then depend on someone else to rescue him.

  We can use that, Sisko thought. He's on edge. I can push him over.

  He reached into his deepest, darkest, backest pocket and pulled out his last card, one he knew would get some kind of rise out of Gowron, whether good or bad. "And risk an all-out war with the Federation?"

  Gowron's eyes blew wider and he leaned forward. "If a war starts here, the blame will be yours."

  "I doubt very much if history will see it that way."

  "History is written by the victors."

  Much as Sisko disliked admitting it, Gowron was right about that. History would be unkind to the Federation if they allowed their hard-forged peace to be shattered by a Klingon rampage with a distorted motive.

  Martok spoke up again. "Consider what you're doing, Captain. The lives of everyone on the station are at risk."

  Anger flared in Sisko's gut. What did he think they were? Huddling refugees?

  "I'm aware of that," he shot back. "But maybe you're not aware of what you're risking. We've had a year to prepare this station for a Dominion attack. And we're more than ready."

  He probably shouldn't have given them fair warning, but he felt like saying it, and any satisfaction he could get out of the next events would be sustenance.

  Gowron laughed outright, as if Sisko were baiting him.

  "You are like a toothless old grishnar cat, trying to frighten us with your roar!"

  "I assure you this old cat isn't as toothless as you think," Sisko said, cashing in on his strong wish to tell it all. "Right now I've got five thousand photon torpedoes armed and ready to launch. If you don't believe me, feel free to scan the station."

  On the screen, Martok turned to one of his bridge officers, who nodded to him. Who could tell what that meant?

  Then Martok turned again, this time to face Gowron.

  "It is a trick. An illusion created by thoron fields and duranium shadows."

  "It's no illusion." Sisko suddenly felt very calm. If they believed Martok's report—where had he gotten false information about the station's weapons?—then they would come in too close and be cut to pieces.

  Sisko could live with that.

  "We shall see," Gowron said. "ChegHchu djajVam djajKak!"

  The transmission cut off abruptly, leaving in their memories the sight of Gowron's wild icy eyes ringed with white and set in his bronze, gnarled face.

  A few seconds ticked off; then Sisko automatically turned to Worf.

  So did all others.

  The moment turned uneasy—tainted by the shortsightedness of expecting Worf to be their token Klingon and explain to them all that they did not understand about those who attacked them now.

  Worf didn't flinch under their questioning eyes. Evidently this had happened to him before.

  He shifted his feet, glanced at the screen that now showed the Negh'Var and the other Klingon vessels sweeping in an unbroken pattern toward the station, and he seemed as separated from them as from the ship he had lost.

  With careful lack of inflection, he told them, "He said, 'Today is a good day to die.'"

  CHAPTER 21

  "IF THAT'S THE way he wants it, that's the way we'll give it to him. Priority to weapons systems."

  "Sir, that might weaken the shields."

  Crawling to his feet after adjusting something in the lower trunks, O'Brien winced as he caught his finger in his phaser holster and worked it free without shooting off his whole hand.

  "If we don't beat them off, the shields won't matter," Sisko said as he took a position at the Ops table to watch the approach of the Klingon ships. "Target the lead ships. Ready even-numbered photon launchers."

  In his mind he saw the heavy photon cannons and multiple pump-phaser arrays on the outer sections of the station shifting into place, each section slicing out a wedge of space to defend. They were the arms of his body and the parcels of his mind as he stretched out to defend what was his.

  The lead Klingon ships blew in, veered their patterns of approach to strafe the station with their disruptors, and it sounded as if a thunderstorm had broken loose outside.

  No sense waiting around for the inevitable.

  "Fire on my mark," Sisko said, just to get their hands on their mechanisms. "Fire."

  The crew worked their various controls—and he realized how many panels it took to manipulate the number of cannons they'd installed. Worf, Kira, Dax, and three other Ops personnel were all hunching over their consoles.

  From weapons arrays all over the outer perimeter, up the weapons sails and mounted on the docking rings, Deep Space Nine tore space a
part. The sound was even more penetrating than the hits they took from the Klingon disruptors.

  On the screens and smaller monitors all over Ops they could see Montana-blue bolts issue into the black sky all around the station, chasing the Klingon ships as they veered off to make another approach. The Klingons were being hit hard, their outer shields battered through by white-hot photon impact, and from the wobble of their wings, they were surprised.

  That wobble gave Sisko encouragement as he swung from monitor to monitor, trying to watch all the ships at once.

  "Ready odd-numbered launchers…fire!"

  The sound of more torpedoes flung into close space echoed through Ops.

  "They're still closing!" Kira called over the thrum of photon launch.

  "Ready phasers," Sisko ordered evenly.

  Worf turned. "Standing by."

  "Fire."

  Bright streaks of deadly concentrated energy threaded space like the tines of a spider's web, joining the station to its enemy's hulls and cutting through the weakened shields and into cold metal.

  "Recoil is causing some structural vibrations," O'Brien called over the thrum thrum of effort from the new weapons. "It's the station's design, sir. I was afraid of this."

  "Take note of where the weaknesses are and we'll do our shoring up later, Chief."

  "If we have a later," Kira tossed in.

  Sisko twisted around. "We'll have a later. Chief, what are the vibrations doing to us?"

  "We could have some hull ruptures in the pylons."

  "I don't care about that. What else?"

  "It's shaking loose the deflector housings. If they hit us there, we could lose the shields for a couple of minutes."

  "Set up a bypass in case that happens, and inform all internal defense posts to stay on their toes."

  Two explosions on the monitors lit up Ops and drew attention. A second later, there was another, then one more.

  "Eight Klingon ships destroyed!" Kira sang out. "Several others heavily damaged."

  They watched as a new wave of attacking ships swung in, attempting to bore through the station's surprise firepower by coming in on direct lines with the station's axis.

  "Contact Gowron," Sisko said. "Maybe we can put an end to this before it goes any farther."

  Dax worked at her controls, then shook her head. "They're not respon—"

  The station rocked hard, as if kicked from underneath.

  "They've given you your answer, Captain," Worf suggested.

  Sisko shook his head. Evidently Gowron had no intention of giving up yet. Of course not—other than being able to hold his own in a fight, Sisko hadn't given him a reason to quit.

  There were those who said a Klingon couldn't be reasoned with. At times, plenty of times, the Klingons themselves bore up that supposition with their very actions.

  He found himself looking at Worf. The big officer worked with unbroken concentration over his tactical board, his face set with determination and his wide shoulders shifting.

  There had to be some reason. Something that would make sense to Gowron…

  "Weapons stations," Sisko said grimly. "Fire at will."

  Volleys of phaser fire and photon torpedoes colored the Bajoran sky and blanketed the viewscreen of the Negh'Var with blinding swats of light.

  Gowron clutched the edge of the helm and gritted his teeth in raw frustration. In the command chair, Martok was boiling with anger, pounding the arms of his chair and shaking his fists at his crew whenever they were forced to bear off.

  At last he turned to Gowron and shouted, "They have betrayed us! They upgraded that metal knot without telling us! We were their allies!"

  "They upgraded it against the Dominion," Gowron snapped back, "and were not obliged to tell us."

  "But I had information that the station was unarmed!"

  "From where did you get this information!"

  "From the Cardassian tailor! Garak! He lives on the station! We wrenched it from him!"

  "You went on board the station, assaulted one of its citizens, were given the wrong information, formed a battle strategy based upon it, and now you are mad at them? Martok, you stumbled! Now that your face bleeds, you blame the floor!"

  Martok opened his mouth to shout a defense, but the ship was punted sideways by a direct photon hit. They both hung on as their bodies were sucked sideways by a sudden loss of gravitational stability.

  "They fight like Klingons!" the general choked as he stared in bald shock at the ash-gray structure hanging in open space and the garish bolts blasting from it.

  "Then they can die like Klingons," Gowron vowed. He ignored Martok and shouted at the bridge officers. "Destroy their shields! Prepare boarding parties!"

  Unwilling to have his command tripped from beneath him, Martok responded, "As you recommend," then did his own shouting at the comm unit. "All ships! Concentrate fire on their shield generators!"

  * * *

  "They've disabled two of our shield generators!"

  Dax's shout knelled disaster.

  Chief O'Brien dodged to enable his bypasses, but the Klingons were ready.

  Shimmering pillars of energy appeared around Ops—a half-dozen of them. Even before the Klingon boarding party was fully materialized, Sisko and Worf were on the move.

  Sisko shouted a warning to Kira, and Worf opened fire, blowing one of the Klingons to the deck just as the invader became solid. Good thing, too, because Dax was right behind that Klingon. Sisko couldn't tell if Worf knew what he was doing or was just lucky with his timing, but he put all his bets on the former and moved to defend his command center.

  Beside him as he accepted the brutal tackle of another Klingon, Kira opened fire on one of them across the deck while Dax engaged another one with whatever she could of her martial-arts knowledge, though it was crimped by the lack of space here.

  As Sisko's throat throbbed in the Klingon's elbow, he had to endure watching another Klingon knock Kira's phaser from her hands then set into her with a dagger.

  While the blade was embedded in her side, Kira took advantage and rammed the Klingon in the eye with her elbow. As the pain drove him back, Kira swung around and let her boot heel do the rest of her talking. Then she slid out of sight behind the Ops table.

  How many of them were there?

  * * *

  A shimmer of transporter light buzzed in the Promenade, where no one ever directly transported, and suddenly Odo found himself dodging the strike of a Klingon bat'leth. The vicious curved weapon made a shussh as it washed past him, its sharp tines flickering under the corridor lighting.

  Battling down his own surprise, Odo ducked under the Klingon's arm and counterattacked, using what his other friends regarded as superior strength. Perhaps because he was not muscle and bone that could be too easily crushed or snapped, he had some advantage. But this Klingon and the one right behind him were upon him so fast that he had no chance to think of any physical advantages he might have.

  As they both cornered him and attacked him, he almost shapeshifted to his natural form, the gelatinous liquid that made him so out of place here, but he thought better of it. If he shifted here and now, and these Klingons managed to get away, the rumor would fly through the Klingon ranks that there were shapeshifters on Deep Space Nine, and any negotiations Captain Sisko was planning would be blasted away.

  So he fought with all his physical ability and his mental will, taking blow upon blow across his head and shoulders. Each blow left him numb in that place and he tried to dodge fast enough to make the Klingons' own plunges work against them.

  For a few moments, it worked. Then the Klingons realized what he was doing and began to work as a team rather than two random attackers.

  One of them pulled him back, off his own center of balance, and the other raised his weapon—

  A bolt of phaser fire crackled down the Promenade—at first Odo thought he was hit.

  Then the Klingons tensed, and fell backward without checking their falls.


  Stunned!

  Only half believing that he was free of these two, Odo spun around and shuddered with the effort he had expended.

  From down the Promenade, Julian Bashir gazed at him, holding his phaser.

  "Thank you, Doctor," Odo said.

  Bashir nodded. "Anytime."

  "Have you seen any others?" Odo fell in step with him and led the way around the great wide curve.

  "Not personally," the doctor said, "but I heard sounds of struggling and energy discharge near turboshaft D. I was coming to get you."

  "We'll secure the Promenade before we report to Captain Sisko."

  "That might not be so easy, if the shields are down and they're able to beam in anywhere."

  Odo made a disapproving sound in his throat. "I didn't let the Cardassians come back here once they were thrown out, and I have no intention of letting the Klingons have this station. If I have to turn into a bulkhead and fall on them one by one, Doctor, believe me, I'll do it."

  Of all the doorways on Deep Space Nine, only one led to the quarters where the Cardassian council members were under guard. Because that doorway was so heavily guarded, it was easy to find, and the Klingons found it.

  There, Garak stood side by side with Dukat, bleeding, bruised, breathless, as they wrestled for their lives with four Klingon warriors.

  The two Federation guards were on the ground, dead, along with the three other Klingons they had taken with them, and the carpet was mushy with blood as it drained and mixed.

  Beside him, Dukat somehow got a grip on a bat'leth and was hacking at two Klingons so viciously that blood ran like grape juice down both invaders' body armor.

  Finally one of the Klingons had enough and charged Garak, driving him up against the locked door panel. While Dukat and his opponent waltzed by, joined by the blows of the bat'leth, Garak endured the pressure of the Klingon's elbow against his skull.

  Abruptly then, the Klingon was hurled backward, arms and legs cast out before him, spine arched, as he struck the opposite bulkhead. A gaping gouge in his stomach burned with enduring energy.

  Garak immediately turned, clutching the disruptor he had taken from his opponent, and swung around to the other Klingons, picked one, and fired.