"Armed and ready," Merid answered. There was a note of distaste in his voice, and Dijmas allowed himself a quick grin. Gul Dukat had had a running feud with this pirate; he would be grateful to the man who brought him in alive, or, failing that, brought an intact body for the Gul's revenge.
"Tell the men that there will be a commendation for the man who takes Kolovzon alive. And a bar of gold-pressed latinum from my prize share."
Merid nodded. "If we can board, sir. I don't think the pirate will let himself be taken."
Neither do I, Dijmas thought. Kolovzon is just that little bit mad. He said, "Still, it would please Gul Dukat—" He broke off abruptly, a new train of thought filling his mind. Kolovzon is a little mad; there are no hiding places for sane men in this system. But what is there for a madman? Only the sun itself…"Merid, what do you know about something called a Metaphasic Shield?"
"Metaphasic—?" Merid bit off the rest of his words, eyes wild. "The Federation! They have it, and the Ferengi—"
"And maybe Helios." Dijmas swung around in his chair, so that he faced the main screen again. "Takel, raise the flagship. At once!"
"Sir." The technician's hands flashed across the control boards, and a face took shape in the screen. Not Dukat, Dijmas saw, and suppressed a curse.
"Onslaught here. What is it, Heartless?"
"Get Gul Dukat," Dijmas said. "At once. I know where Helios is hiding—"
Onslaught's officer started to respond, looking over his shoulder, but whatever he would have said was drowned in the sudden shrilling of alarms behind him. A second later, the same sound echoed on Heartless's bridge, and this time Dijmas did swear.
"Condition red," he said, and heard Merid repeating the command.
"Condition red, all hands combat stations. Condition red."
Check-lights flicked from red to green along Dijmas's status board, and a part of him registered that his crew had beaten their best drill time. And then all thought vanished as, in the viewscreen, the surface of the sun twisted, as though the liquid fire were rising to a boil. The surface split, fountained, and a ship exploded from the corona. It rose, trailing fire, and Dijmas could see the solar face painted on the projecting bridge, all too clear against the flames. Helios bore down on the flagship with increasing speed, a solar flare following it. Dijmas winced as he watched the readings shift, too slowly, Onslaught struggling to set its deflectors and bring its own phasers to bear. Too late, he thought, too late. . . . Helios fired then, a massive, full-power salvo that momentarily blanked Heartless's screens, and swept on without waiting to see the results of its attack.
"Sir, she's on an intercept course—" one of the technicians began, and Dijmas cut him off.
"Shields to maximum power. Stand by phasers."
Helios swelled in his screen, impossibly fast, boosted to near-warp speed by the slingshot effect of the gas giant. The grim face glared from its bridge, framed by the painted flames; for a crazed instant, Dijmas pictured that same image framed by the sun's corona.
"Helios is firing," Merid announced. "Ten seconds to impact."
Dijmas braced himself. "Fire when you have a target."
"Firing, sir," a technician said.
Heartless bucked as the phasers fired, momentarily draining power from the main engines. Then the viewscreen went white, and the entire ship seemed to stagger under the impact of a dozen phaser bolts. The lights in the command chamber flickered and went out, were replaced a heartbeat later by the dim glow of the emergency lights. Half the consoles were blank, their screens dead, but even as Dijmas registered that fact, the first flickered and produced a wavering emergency display.
"Damage control," he said, and smelled smoke drifting in the ventilators. Gul Dukat's voice was screaming in his ear, ordering his ships to pursue; Dijmas closed his mind to that, focusing on his own ship. "Damage control, report!"
"Emergency power on-line," Merid said, in a shaky voice. Dijmas looked at him, and saw blood welling from a cut along the line of a brow ridge. "Sickbay reports a fire on deck ten, under control. We've lost forward shields completely, rear shields at thirty percent. Engineering reports no permanent damage to the main power plant, but it will take twenty minutes to get the main power conduits flowing again. They say we've blown a dozen junction nodes; they're rerouting."
Dijmas nodded. "Casualties?"
"Five wounded in the boarding party—thrown against a bulkhead when the phasers hit."
"See to them," Dijmas said. "Tell Engineering to carry on, get us back to full power as soon as possible. And, Sensors, track that ship!"
"Tracking, sir," the sensorman answered, and Dijmas thanked the gods-who-are-not that he had a competent junior on that post. "They're heading for the edge of the system—they've gone to warp, sir."
"Damn." Dijmas slammed his fist against the arm of his chair in sheer frustration. "Did we hit her at all, Merid?"
His second-in-command spread his hands. "I can't be sure, sir. We may have, but it's impossible to tell."
Dijmas took a deep breath. "And Onslaught?"
"We've lost the transmission temporarily," Merid answered. "Our sensors show serious damage to the warp drive containers—"
As if in answer to his words, the viewscreen crackled, produced a static-banded image. Gul Dukat glared from its center, fixing his anger impartially on his own people and the departing pirate.
"Dijmas, report."
"We've suffered minor damage to our drive," Dijmas answered, "but we should be back to full power in twenty minutes."
"And the pirate?"
"Escaped, sir. We've no way of knowing if we damaged her." One of the technicians was signaling frantically from his station, and, out of the corner of his eye, Dijmas saw Merid move to look over his shoulder, then straighten, a sudden grin on his face. "Excuse me, sir, I think we have a fix on their wave emissions." Merid nodded, and Dijmas allowed himself an inaudible sigh of relief. "That's confirmed. We have a fix on their wave emissions, bearing—?"
"Two-four-zero mark seven-zero," Merid said.
"Two-four-zero mark seven-zero," Dijmas repeated. "Permission to pursue?"
"Granted," Dukat answered. "Relay that course to the rest of the squadron. Then get after him, or I will hold you personally responsible, Dijmas."
"Yes, sir," Dijmas said again. His mouth felt stiff, bloodless, as though he'd bitten into numbroot.
"Dukat out."
Dijmas touched the keys that shut down the communications channel, moving with excruciating care, unable quite to believe that Gul Dukat would blame him for any defeat, and furious that he could do nothing to stop him. I knew, he thought, I knew where Helios was, I figured it out and warned you—but not quite in time. Damn you, Kolovzon. This is becoming personal.
* * *
Sisko looked at his people, gathered around the operations table, and felt an unexpected sense of satisfaction. Dax sat at his right hand, a display box operating in front of her. Odo sat to his left, his face drawn as always into an unrevealing scowl. Kira sat beside him, fingers drumming nervously against the edge of the table, where she thought no one could see. Bashir sat opposite her, looking eager and wary by turns, as though he couldn't quite figure out if he was flattered to be there, and Sisko hid a smile. It had been some time since he had been able to pull his primary staff together for a conference; it was to their credit that there were no immediate emergencies demanding their attention. In spite of himself, his eyes strayed to O'Brien, who sat at the far end of the table where he could watch the secondary engineering consoles without turning his head. O'Brien had done well to make the balky, unfamiliar Cardassian technology work as well as it did; Sisko was no longer surprised when things functioned as intended. But they were a good crew, even the ones he had feared would be most difficult to work with: Kira, and the truly alien Odo. They were still difficult—Kira with her temper, and Odo with his peculiar and unswerving sense of law—but Sisko sensed a new ease with each of them, and hoped it was the be
ginning of a new phase for the station.
"Very well," he said, and felt all eyes turn to him. Ops was closed to the rest of the station's personnel for the duration of the meeting; only his senior staff were present. He could feel the tension that decision had caused, the unspoken fear that there had been some new attack by the pirate, and smiled, hoping to deflect that worry. "I've called you in to give you an update on the Helios incident, and to discuss Dax and O'Brien's analysis of the tapes Ganges secured." He nodded to Bashir. "Thus your presence, Doctor, though there may be medical issues to be discussed later."
"Sir," Bashir said.
"To business, then," Sisko said, and looked at Dax. "Lieutenant, I'd appreciate it if you'd give us a summary of Starfleet's latest information on this incident."
"Yes, sir." Dax favored the table with her impersonal, catlike smile. "Most of it's old news, actually. They confirmed that there have been forty-two attacks in the past five years that can be attributed to an otherwise unknown ship known as Helios. Their computers give us an eighty-three-percent probability that our pirate is the same ship, this Helios. The Hammurabi made a sweep along the Cardassian border where Gift of Flight was destroyed, but they didn't find anything you didn't spot, Major. And they did not see any sign of Helios—their commander reported that she thought Helios had run back across the border. They did report increased Cardassian traffic, mostly military, and Starfleet Intelligence has confirmed a military buildup there."
Kira made a small, strangled noise of disgust, but said nothing.
Dax went on placidly, "Intelligence suggests that this is a response to the attack on Gift of Flight, or to other attacks which the Cardassians have not made general knowledge, but nonetheless I think we should increase our own surveillance of the Bajor system."
Sisko nodded. "I agree. Odo, what about the merchant captains? Was there anything in their interviews that give us a hint of what Helios is up to?"
"No, sir." Even for Odo, he sounded out-of-temper. "I interviewed everyone who has arrived at the station from that sector, but none of them report anything out of the ordinary."
"Well, keep on it," Sisko said.
"Sir, I don't think there's anything to be gained from further questioning." Odo looked, if anything, faintly affronted by the suggestion.
Sisko looked at him. "Perhaps not, Constable. But there will be other ships coming to the station, and other crew members will talk, too. I want you to keep an ear out for anything else that might be useful."
"Ah." Odo leaned back slightly, visibly appeased. "Of course, Commander."
"Thank you." In spite of his best efforts, Sisko knew that he sounded sharp. But then, Odo could be fairly abrasive himself. There was no harm in occasionally giving him a taste of his own medicine. "Dax, I agree that the regular scanning routines should be beefed up—even without this pirate, if the Cardassians are more active than usual, I want to be sure we know everything that's happening out there."
"Sir," Kira said. "Have you informed Bajor of all this?"
Sisko stared at her, and admitted to himself that this was the one question he had hoped to avoid, primarily because he didn't yet have an answer. "I have informed all shipping, including Bajoran, of course, of the attack on Gift of Flight," he said, carefully, and was not surprised when Kira waved the words away.
"But you haven't informed the government on Bajor," she said. "Have you?"
Sisko took a deep breath. "No, Major, I have not. Frankly, I wouldn't trouble the Bajoran government with something as vague as this."
"But—"
Sisko overrode her easily. "Major, all I could tell your government is that I have heard vague reports of some Cardassian military activity in their own sector of space—activity that is almost certainly directed toward internal problems. I see no reason to contact anyone until we have something definite to say."
Dax said, "Starfleet Intelligence is much more concerned about the pirate."
"Starfleet Intelligence," Kira muttered, but subsided.
Sisko could see from her expression that she was only momentarily silenced, and continued hastily, "I want the new scanning routines in place as soon as possible, Dax."
"Or course, Benjamin," the Trill answered, already busy with her controls.
"O'Brien," Sisko said.
"Commander." The curly-haired engineer looked up with a well-disguised start. His attention had clearly been miles away.
"Will you give us your analysis of the tapes from Ganges, please?" Sisko asked.
"Yes, sir." O'Brien leaned forward, cuing a display in his datapadd. "The information is all in the library computer in detail, but the high points are pretty simple. Helios is a hybrid of a lot of different technologies. It's a Klingon hull, but, oddly, a Romulan cloaking device; there are some Cardassian phaser mountings as well, plus some recognizable Federation stuff. As I said, the details are in my report. But the bottom line is, this ship is damn near as powerful as a Federation starship."
And a good deal more aggressive, Sisko thought. He said, "See if you can come up with a list of unique features. Things that will help Dax narrow her scan."
"Oh, it's all pretty damn unique," O'Brien muttered. He went on, more loudly, "Sorry, sir. I know what you mean. I'll see what I can come up with, but with the cloaking device to contend with, too…" He shook his head, visibly withdrawing, then shook himself again. "Oh, there is one other thing. About that cloaking device, I mean. I think—" He stressed the word. "—I can rig a program that will run as a subroutine within the main sensor program. It's sort of a virtual filter, homes in on the subspace frequencies where the wave emissions from a cloaking device are strongest, and amplifies them to where the computers can get a rough fix. The T'Marisu used it two years ago, against the Klingon renegades, and, even though Vulcan computers are a little different from what we have here, I think I can make it run."
"Excellent," Sisko said, and meant it. "Get that installed as soon as possible, Chief." He saw O'Brien open his mouth, possibly to protest, more probably to remind his commander of the list of things that needed overhaul, and lifted his hand to stop the words. "Make it your top priority."
O'Brien subsided, with a fleeting grin. "Aye, sir."
"Right." Sisko looked around the table. "Dr. Bashir. I want you to run a full check of the station's emergency medical capabilities."
"I've already done that, sir," Bashir said. "And, if I might make a suggestion?"
Sisko started to nod, but the young doctor was already hurtling on, and he contented himself with lifting an eyebrow.
"I've put together several supplementary medical kits—special equipment, some drugs that are in common use among the Sector Eighteen settlers, that sort of thing. And several kits that are specific to Bajoran physiology as well. I thought they might come in handy, if any more ships are attacked. They'd fit on the runabouts easily, they only mass about eleven kilograms—eleven point three three nine, to be precise. It shouldn't have an impact on engine performance."
Bashir still sounded like an eager puppy, but there was something more to this offer of his, Sisko thought, than his earlier overenthusiasm, an enthusiasm that bordered on the officious. And it wasn't a bad idea, always assuming that they found survivors the next time.
O'Brien scowled. "I don't see that it would do much good. Why should this pirate be any less efficient next time?"
Bashir's eyes dropped. "We might get—lucky," he said, with a flippancy that did not hide the sudden hurt.
"It's worth the effort," Sisko said. "See to it, Doctor, if you would."
"Yes, sir." Bashir flashed a smile, his usual good spirits apparently restored.
"I wish you would inform Bajor of the Cardassian activity, Commander," Kira said.
Sisko frowned. "We've been through that, Major. The answer is still no, not until we have something real to report. I don't want to be responsible for a panic on Bajor—or for giving some of the extremist groups an excuse to start another purge of so-cal
led Cardassian sympathizers."
Kira's eyes dropped at that reminder of local politics, and this time Sisko knew he had her. "All right," she said, "sir. But I had to ask."
"Agreed, Major," Sisko said. I understand perfectly—I understand your concern for your people, and your hatred of the Cardassians. But I—we, you and I both—have to walk a tightrope here. There was too much at stake, for the Federation as well as for Bajor itself, for them to be anything but extremely cautious. Too much at stake to make any mistakes at all, a dry voice in his head corrected him. He shook that thought away, and looked around the operations table again. "Is there anything else?"
O'Brien shook his head, and Bashir said, "Not from me, sir."
"I think that covers everything, Benjamin," Dax said.
Kira shrugged, a faint, wry smile on her thin face. Everything except telling Bajor, the smile said.
"Ah. Commander," Odo said. "There is one thing I would like to discuss with you. It has nothing to do with this pirate, however."
Sisko nodded, puzzled, and looked at the others. "All right, then, that will be all. Odo, let's go into my office."
"Very well."
The constable followed Sisko into his office, remained standing while Sisko seated himself behind the desk. Sisko looked warily at him, and gestured toward the guest's chair. "Have a seat."
"Thank you, no," Odo answered. "I have been sitting, I would prefer to stand."
"Suit yourself," Sisko said. "What's on your mind?"
"Lady Diaadul. The Trehanna visitor."
"I remember." In spite of himself, Sisko smiled. He had caught a glimpse of her on the Promenade the day before, a slim figure wrapped in a blue veil the color of a summer sky, its edges thick with gold embroidery. The gold had glittered in the strong light, and the blue had been a striking spot of color against the harsh Cardassian architecture: a small bit of beauty in an otherwise unremarkable day. He had wondered what she looked like beneath the veil, and had decided that he didn't need, didn't want to know. The glimpse, the single image, had been enough, a reminder of the good things—a reminder even, in some pleasant, indirect fashion, of Jennifer. He had dreamed of her that night, and the pain had been reduced to a faint, melancholy knowledge, the awareness that she was indeed dead, and it was a dream.
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