by Неизвестный
Be~ides, it's not like any place on DS9 is truly safe from the Hortas.
And as for Nog? O'Brien averted his eyes while the Ferengi youth gathered up his scattered "playthings." Well, he conceded reluctantly, any Ferengi who was willing to throw away anything, no matter how dis- gusting, deserved some credit.
"Okay," he told them both, "you can stay for now, and scrounge for provisions. But I don't want you getting anywhere near the Hortas, understand? And you'll head for shelter the minute they get past the bridge. Got that?" "Yes, Chief," Jake said. The seriousness, and the desperation, in his voice was positively heartbreaking.
Then he turned away quickly, as if terrified that O'Brien might change his mind at the last minute.
"C'mon, Nog, let's go lend a hand?' Nog hesitated, gazing wistfully at a tiny replica of a green Orion slave girl. He held the figure up to his eyes and twirled it between his fingers. "Nog!" The Ferengi hastily stuck the doll into his boot and chased after his friend. "I'm coming," he hollered.
"I'm coming! What's the rush?" A red-suited crewman bustled past O'Brien, block- ing his view of the boys. He carried a globe of Bajor that had most of its borders redrawn with bright green, erasable ink. Nobody, O'Brien noted, was sacrificing their weapons yet. Not far away, two Hortas happily shared an oval conference table. The stacks of melting Horta fodder glowed like bonfires.
"Security," he instructed, hoping to bring some semblance of order to the scene, "continue bringing food for the Hortas. Maintenance and engineering, try to..." He paused and shook his head wearily.
"Hell, try to repair the damage security is doing." This is not a long-term solution, O'Brien reminded himself firmly. The Hortas' progress toward the core had been stalled temporarily, but not for long. Did he have to dismantle all of DS9 in order to save it? He prayed that Commander Sisko could pull some sort of rabbit out of his hat, as he had before, while there was still something of the station left.
In the meantime, he threw another console onto the bonfire.
"Gangway!" Quark grunted. "Let us by!" He scur- ried toward Crossover Bridge 3, shoving his way past teams of station personnel coming and going with heaps of Horta fodder. Behind him, Rom tried to keep up with his brother, even though he was laden with a stack of steel carrying cases, piled up past the top of Rom's head. Quark looked over his shoulder. Why was Rom dawdling at a time like this? "Hurry, you dolt. There's no time to waste." "Perhaps, brother," Rom stuttered, "we would waste less time if you would help me carry these boxes?" His arms were wrapped around the bottom crate and his whole body swayed with the effort to keep the piled cases from tumbling over.
Quark merely hissed in reply. Some questions were not worth answering. He darted around a tall Coridan officer lugging a foot-long silver rod. He briefly con- sidered informing her that the artifact in her hands was in fact a sacred Bajoran relic, which it was, but why bother? There was no profit in it. Besides, she was too skinny for anything else. He started to hurry past several more Starfleet flunkies, then heard a too familiar voice pipe up to the rear.
"Oh, excuse me. I mean, you don't want to feed that to the Hortas. The Bajorans would be very upset.... " "Rom!" Quark snapped. He ground his molars together in frustration. Sometimes he wondered if his brother had been purchased in a discount offspring sale; if so, Quark bet that Rom had been marked down considerably.
Unsolicited helpful advice, offered free of charge!
Quark marveled at the sheer magnitude of Rom's foolishness. Next, Quark thought bitterly, he'll be offbring refunds!
As he drew nearer to Bridge 3, the activity around Quark increased. He navigated through the commo- tion, frequently looking backward to make sure Rom hadn't fallen too far behind. Then, for a second, his eyes widened as he saw two unexpected sights heading down the corridor in the opposite direction: an imma- ture male Ferengi and a dark-skinned human youth.
He stroked one ear thoughtfully as he hurried on.
What were Nog and Sisko's son doing here? Those two had to be up to something. Quark resolved to look into the matter at the first opportunity. After all, as the Rules of Acquisition so wisely counseled: One person's secret is another person's opportunity.
First, however, he had to get by Miles O'Brien. The human spotted Quark as soon as the Ferengi neared the bridge. He placed himself directly in Quark's path, his arms crossed atop his oversized human chest.
"Hold it right there, Quark," O'Brien barked. "What in blazes are you doing here?" Quark scoped out the scene before answering. As far as he could tell, Odo was nowhere nearby. Of course, the problem with Odo was that you never could tell for sure. It would serve that sanctimonious shapeshifter right, he thought, ifOdo were to turn into a chair or some such--and find himself fed to a Horta by an overeager Starfleet cadet. Quark cackled at his little private joke, then turned his attention back to Chief O'Brien.
"Doing my part as a public-minded citizen to help preserve Deep Space Nine." Quark gestured toward Rom and his heavy load. "I understand you're having a scrap drive of sorts." "Right," the human said dubiously. "Whatever you're selling, Quark, we're not buying, so you might as well be on your way." "Selling?" Quark exclaimed, clutching his chest as if shocked by the very notion. "Who said anything about selling? I am donating these, my own personal possessions, for the greater good of all concerned." "Right," O'Brien said again. The Starfleet officer had obviously been spending too much time with Odo, Quark concluded, and had been contaminated by Odo's relentless suspicion. It could be worse, though; Odo would have figured out this entire scam already.
"Look," Quark cajoled O'Brien, "do you want all this or not? Frankly, from what I've heard, you're in no position to be picky." Quark looked beyond O'Brien's looming form to where dozens of uni- formed officers were energetically feeding bits and pieces of DS9 to the approaching Hortas. The cries of the feasting monsters echoed off the increasingly bare and skeletal walls.
O'Brien sighed loudly. His eyes were tired and bloodshot. "Okay," he said. "What have you got?" "Kamoy syrup!" Quark declared, ignoring the way O'Brien's face wrinkled at the very thought of the noxious stuff. "Gallons and gallons of delectable, irresistible, Cardassian kamoy syrup. Just the thing for a hungry Horta!" And all of it completely unsalable, Quark gloated, but thoroughly insured. And who knew? Despite that blather about "donations," maybe he should file some sort of claim with the Federation as well? He could conceivably be compensated twice for the loss of the same useless merchandise. A venal grin threatened to break out over Quark's features. Modesty be damned, he thought; this is a stroke of genius.
"Oh, go on with it then," O'Brien said grudgingly.
He stepped aside and let Quark and Rom pass. "God knows there's little you can do to make the situation wcrse." Then O'Brien strode away and started shout- ing orders to workers who were patching holes in the bulkheads with plastene sheets. Quark caught snatches of O'Brien's directives, something about "infrastructure" and "babies out with bathwater," but he really didn't care about any of that. The lure of easy profit drew him on, Various security officers looked warily at Quark as he and Rom scampered and staggered, respectively, toward the waiting Hortas. "Fresh supplies," he called out by way of explanation. "Top priority. Chief O'Brien's orders." At the very edge of the bridge he found a team of sweaty Bajorans passing materials hand-over-hand, like an old-fashioned bucket brigade, to the Hortas on the bridge. Quark felt a twinge of alarm when he saw how close the creatures were to the core and, by extension, to his bar. Still, there was nothing he could do about that now. He snatched the uppermost case from Rom's pile and handed it over to the feeding team. Standing on his toes to get a better view, he watched gleefully as the case was transported by a succession of busy hands to a craggy rocklike entity even larger than the ones who had attacked his bar earlier.
The Horta, upon reducing a redundant air filter to a blackened smear on the floor, approached Quark's donation with inhuman enthusiasm. Its questing for- ward tendrils stripped away the metal casing. Kamoy s
yrup, pink and oily, leaked from the perforations in the container. The Horta lurched forward suddenly, consuming the entire box in one acidic gulp.
Then, without warning, the Horta backed away abruptly. It made a peculiar retching noise, then spewed out a revolting stew of shiny melted metal and pink slime. The Bajorans threw another case to the Horta, but this time the creature gave it a wide berth, and so, as Quark watched in horror, did its assembled siblings. The security officers had to feed the nearest Hortas a partially dissembled diagnostic unit to keep the distraught beasts from tunneling away into the very floor of the bridge.
A Starfleet ensign grabbed Quark by the upper arm and began to escort him away from the scene. Quark barely noticed. His gaze kept going back to the regurgitated pink-and-silver mess the Horta had left behind.
I don't believe it, he thought. It was too terrible to accept, but there was no way to deny the awful truth.
Even a Horta wouldn't eat kamoy syrup.
CHAPTER 15
Kira FINISHED RIGGING the booby traps over the hole in the floor, then stood back to check her work. Every- thing looked perfect--the slightest pressure on the trip wire would set off the grenades. Let that be a lesson to the Cardassians: even one Bajoran could hold an army at bay.
Turning, she jogged out into the corridor. It was still deserted. The alarm shrilled more loudly than ever out here, a blaring wheep-wheep-wheep noise that grated on her nerves and made her want to cover her ears. If it affected her that way, she knew it would be bothering her pursuers as well.
"This way," she said, turning left. She headed up the corridor at a dead run. Rounding the corner, she came face-to-face with a Cardassian technician in a one-piece blue uniform. The Cardassian dropped a data board and dove toward a nearby room.
Kira stunned him, then paused and looked back at Ensign Aponte. "I need more warning, Ensign." She didn't add, If he were a soldier, we'd all be dead now.
"Sorry, Major." Aponte looked at her tricorder somewhat sheepishly. "We're being followed," she said. "About fifteen Cardassians. I don't think they set off the last trap you left, either, Major." "Damn," Kira said. Well, she thought, they couldn't fall for the same trick forever. "What's ahead?" "A lift... wait! There are people aboard it. A lot of them, too." Kira glanced around frantically. Where could they hide? She didn't see any cover, just the door the technician had dived for. Pressing the handpad didn't work; it chirped at her. Locked, she thought.
She took a step back, thumbed her phaser to full power, and fired. The locking mechanism disinte- grated, and the door whisked to one side, revealing a laboratory of some kind. Three Cardassians in blue smocks stood behind a table littered with half- assembled equipment. One of them snatched a phaser from the table and fired, but Kira ducked out of the way. If the Cardassian had been a soldier with a soldier's quick reflexes, she'd be dead now, she thought.
Heart pounding, she pressed herself flat beside the door and drew a stun grenade. This had better work.
She set it for a two-second delay, then tossed it into the room.
In answer, a phaser blast nearly took off her hand.
"Two... one..." she counted.
The grenade went off with a satisfyingly loud whump of sound. The corridor shook, and dust shot out from the laboratory.
Kira didn't wait. She whipped around and dove through the door, then rolled up into a crouch, swinging her phaser around to cover anyone still
moving. Dust settled; the three Cardassians lay on the floor in an unconscious heap. Most of their equipment looked like it had shattered beyond all repair.
Quickly she circled the room, stepping over bro- ken tables and shattered equipment. Just her luck-- the room proved to be a dead end, with no other exits or entrances. She'd have to cut another exit for them.
"Watch for the soldiers," she told the two ensigns.
"Keep them back as long as you can. And I want constant reports." "Right, Major," Aponte said.
Kira moved to the back of the room and used her phaser to cut a hole in the floor. This time she dropped a couple of stun grenades through first, to get rid of any possible resistance below, but rather than descend to the next level, she raced back out into the hallway. No sign of their pursuers yet, she was relieved to see.
"This way," she said, heading up the corridor once more. "! cut a hole in the floor," she called over her shoulder. "Hopefully they'll think we moved down a level. It may gain us a few minutes while they check it out. How far is Ttan now?" "Another sixty meters ahead," Aponte said. "Still one level up. She hasn't moved." "What about the Cardassians behind us?" "Moving slowly. I think they're checking for traps as they go. I'd say we have four minutes at most before they find that room. A bigger concern is that liftmits doors just opened." Great, Kira thought. She'd forgotten about it.
"How many aboard?" she demanded.
"Fifty-two. Major--" She looked up in surprise.
"I'm reading them as Bajorans!" "No," Kira moaned. It couldn't be Bashir--she'd told him to stay put.
"Yes," Aponte said, studying the tricorder's read- ings. "I think there are also two humans among them." "That idiot!" Kira raged. "Why couldn't he follow orders and stay where he was? Why--" She broke off suddenly. This wasn't the time or the place. What was done was done; she'd hash it out with Bashir later, and he'd better have a good excuse. For now, she'd make the best of things.
"Come on," she said. "We'll join them, then set up a real ambush for the Cardassians behind us." She tapped her badge communicator for the first time.
"Doctor, are you there?" "Here," her badge chirped. "We've moved up a few levels--" "I know where you are," she said. "Stay there. We will join you in three minutes. Make sure you don't shoot us. Out."
Julian stepped forward and waved when he saw Kira appear with the rest of the team at the end of the corridor. Now that they were back together, they could get on with rescuing Ttan, he thought.
Kira sprinted toward him. "Get back in that lift?
she shouted. "Hurry!" The way she sounded, half the base had to be on her heels, Julian thought. He groaned inwardly, but turned and began giving orders. Luckily Captain Dyoran was there to help.
He helped carry on several of the sickest, whose strength had given out on the trek to the lift. They had no weapons and couldn't defend themselves. When they were safely aboard, he hopped out and began counting heads as the Bajorans filed aboard. Fortu- nately they seemed to know how important speed was. In record time they had all scrambled aboard, leaving just enough space at the front for Kira, the ensigns, and him.
He stuck his head out and looked up the corridor.
Kira had stopped halfway to the lift while the others sprinted ahead. They brushed past him as they got on board.
He turned to Muckerheide. "What level does she want us on?" he asked.
"The next one up," the ensign said. "Get ready to go. There are Cardassians right behind us." "The level is punched in," Captain Dyoran called.
"I'm holding the doors open. Tell her to hurry up." Julian stepped out. Kira had been backing up slowly and was only four or five meters away. Now he could see what she was doing--setting the timers on what looked like Cardassian grenades of some kind. As he watched, she lobbed them down the corridor as far as she could. When she had set the timer on the last one, she turned and darted toward him.
As he stepped out to help Kira into the lift, a pair of Cardassian soldiers ducked across the far end of the corridor. Two more leaped out, knelt, and raised their phaser rifles. Julian whipped up his own phaser to fire, but before he could, an explosion rocked the far end of the corridor. Kira careened into him. Thrown off balance by the blast, he went down. Smoke and dust filled the air. Several ceiling panels fell, and the lights overhead began flickering out one by one. Julian's eyes began to sting. He blinked frantically, then began to cough. Something's on fire, he thought.
He rose to help Kira, but she dove at him, hitting his knees and knocking him flat as a sizzling bolt of energy zippe
d past his face.
"Keep down!" she cried. "We're going to have to crawl!" "Right!" he managed to say. His chest felt like it was on fire and his eyes were tearing. A third and fourth blast shook the tunnel. The lights went out completely; the only illumination came from the lift.
Julian struggled to his knees, but more phaser fire zipped past him. He dropped flat--and felt himself freeze up. He didn't know which way to turn.
Then he felt a hand on his arm. It was Kira, he saw.
She pressed her face close to his ear. "Watch my feet!" she said into his ear. "Follow them!" She turned and began to slide up the corridor on her belly, using her hands and knees to propel herself forward. Julian swallowed at a bitter taste in the back of his throat and tried to emulate her movement. It was more difficult than he would have imagined, and his legs and arms began to ache almost immediately.
He raised his head as they neared the lift and saw Kira make it inside. Tucking his head down, he crawled the last two meters, then rolled inside. The doors closed with a hiss and they started up.