Star Trek - DS9 011 - Devil In The Sky

by Неизвестный

  "You idiot!" Kira snapped.

  "What?" Julian looked up at her through a blur of tears and felt only confusion.

  "This is no time for silly heroics! You should have waited aboard the lift with the others!" He took a deep breath, coughed a bit, decided he was feeling better, and climbed to his feet. For a second he swayed, dizzy, and then he felt a dozen Bajoran hands reach out to help steady him.

  "Major," he said. "Thanks." Kira looked around. "You've been busy," she said.

  "I didn't send you this many weapons." "We had a run-in with a Cardassian security team down below," he said. "I thought it best to join you here." Kira nodded slowly. "As soon as we find Ttan, we'll head up and look for a Cardassian transport ship of some kind." The lift suddenly jolted to a stop. Julian caught himself before he fell, then looked at Captain Dyoran, who was pounding on the controls. The doors didn't open.

  Dyoran said, "They cut our power." "What do we do now?" Julian asked. He looked at Kira. If anyone would have a plan, he knew it would be her.

  Kira stepped forward, forced her fingers between the double doors, and heaved. They moved a few centimeters.

  Julian saw at once what she had in mind. "Come on," he said, "help us." He grabbed the doors too, as did several others, and together they pried the inner doors open. They were half a meter short of the next level, Julian saw--it was just a matter of opening the outer door, the ones that sealed the corridor from the lift shaft.

  He helped force the outer doors open. They slid aside more easily than the inner doors, and he found himself gazing out into another corridor exactly like the one below. The lights were still on here, though, and it was deserted.

  "Major?" He made a step with his hands and offered it to Kira. Nodding, she stepped out; then he boosted Dyoran, then Muckerheide up.

  "We'll find Ttan," Kira said.

  "Right," Julian said. He handed her his tricorder.

  "You'll need this. I'll get everyone out of the lift and organized. Call if there's a problem." Kira accepted his tricorder. He watched as she and Dyoran trotted up the corridor in search of the Horta.

  Aboard the runabout, Dax surveyed the ruins around her. Piles of blankets, pillows, backup sup- plies, and combat rations littered the floor. After an hour's search she still hadn't found the emer- gency tool kit. She'd already missed the first' win- dow to contact Kira and the others, and if she didn't find the tool kit soon, she feared the Cardassian reinforcements would arrive before she could warn them.

  If I were an immature human doctor, Dax thought, where would I put it? She sat in the seat where Julian had been, folded the table out of the wall, and tried to put herself into his shoes. It had been a long time since she'd felt quite that young and awkward.

  Of course, she realized, he'd go for the fast and easy solution. He'd drop the tool kit into the first available space. Which happened to be the opening the table left when it was folded out.

  She reached in and felt the smooth, cool plastic handle just inside and out of view, alongside a cup of cold replicated coffee and what felt like the remains of the ham sandwich she'd seen him eating. Yuck.

  She pulled the tool kit out, unfolded it, and re- moved the three shiny metal instruments she needed: a spheroid diatronic calibrator, a boxlike phase induc- er, and most importantly a standard Federation-issue screwdriver.

  Returning to the communications console, she dropped to the floor and rolled underneath to get to work. Time was running out. Fortunately it wouldn't take long to swap out a single crystal....

  Kira thought she heard talking and motioned fran- tically for Dyoran to slow down. He drew up behind her.

  Two? she pantomimed.

  He nodded an I think so.

  Kira took a quick glance, spotting two guards in front of a door. She regretted it when the guard closest to her suddenly whipped around and fired. The shot went wild, but it was enough to make Kira drop and roll back under cover.

  "Just two?" Dyoran asked.

  "Yes," she said, climbing back to her feet.

  Her badge communicator beeped. "Major," she heard Dax's voice say.

  Kira tapped her badge. "This really isn't a good time, Jadzia." She stuck her arm around the comer and fired her phaser blindly. Someone screamed.

  "There's something I have to tell you," Dax said.

  "There's a Cardassian convoy about to arrive." "I know, I know!" Kira snapped. "Kira out!" She risked a quick glance around the comer and an energy beam almost took her head off. Damn cagey, she thought, pretending to be hit like that. She reached around the corner and fired blindly again.

  "Cover me," Dyoran said. "I'm going to cross the corridor." "Ready," Kira said grimly.

  Ttan came to full consciousness with the noise of phaser fire echoing in her senses. She rose and went to the door to her cell. Through the force-bars she could see the corridor. Both guards had vanished.

  Once more she heard sounds of phasers firing, and then the scream of an injured humanoid. She paused.

  Should she leave her cell? Gul Mavek might hurt her children if she did. But there was clearly something wrong. Had the Federation come to rescue her?

  It was a possibility she hadn't dared consider until now. The sounds of battle were getting more intense.

  She knew she had to do something, and soon.

  Finally she decided to take a look. If they had come to rescue her, she had to let them know about her children. Perhaps they already had them. Perhaps it was a matter of their finding her and beaming her back to their ship to join them!

  She burrowed through the stone wall, then out into the corridor, right behind the two guards who had been watching her cell. One of them whipped his weapon around and shot her at point-blank range.

  The phaser beam traced a painful line across Ttan's back.

  Ttan quivered all over for a moment, then leaped on top of him, acid pumping. In seconds his fragile carbon body had been reduced to a smoking black smear on the hallway floor.

  The other guard was still firing at someone else up the corridor, but Ttan leaped on him, too, for good measure. As his flesh disintegrated under her, she felt a strange thrill of satisfaction. It was selJ~defense, she told herself. That's what I'll tell Gul Mavek if he questions me.

  She surged forward. Two more humanolds were advancing down the corridor. They had smooth skins, like Captain Dawson of the Puyallup, but neither of them wore a Federation uniform. Clearly they weren't Cardassians. Who were they?

  The woman in the lead raised her hand in greeting.

  "Ttan!" she said. "My name is Major Kira. We have come to free you." Joy, joy! Ttan thought. It was true. The Federation had sent these people to rescue her.

  She stopped in front of the female and asked, "Where are my children?" The Universal Translator made a strange gurgling noise. Ttan hesitated, puzzled, then turned to exam- ine it.

  The Cardassian who had shot her moments before had hit her translator device, she realized with a gritty feeling inside. She tried again and got the same strange gurgling noise.

  "I can't understand you," Kira said. "What's wrong?" Slowly, very carefully, Ttan excreted acid in the exact pattern the Federation used for written commu- nication. It was a clumsy method of communicating, but Ttan had been taught to use it in case of an emergency, and this certainly qualified as one.

  When she moved back, large, blocky letters had been burned into the floor. They said: NO TRANSLATOR.

  "Can you understand me?" the woman asked.

  YEs, Ttan wrote. She moved back and etched anoth- er line: SAVe MY CHILDREN.

  "Your eggs?" Kira said. "They are safe on DS9-- the space station you were traveling to. The Cardassians didn't take them. They only beamed you to their ship." Relief flooded through Ttanmand then a cold rage like none she had ever felt before. Gul Mavek had lied to her. He had threatened her children when in truth he didn't even have them. It made everything else he had done seem all the more terrible. And she had believed him. Prime Mother, she had
believed him!

  Everything seemed to be coming together at once, Kira thought with little sense of satisfaction. But now they had to get out of here. She checked the time.

  They still had forty minutes before Dax would be in transporter range again... they had to hold out that long. Then perhaps Dax would be able to beam them a few at a time into whatever docking area this base had.

  "Major!" Bashir called.

  She jogged to the comer. With a sound like rolling boulders, the Horta followed. "What is it?" she called.

  "According to Ensign Aponte," he said, "there are Cardassians approaching from every side!" "Bring the others here," she said.

  When she turned back to the Horta, she found that Ttan had left a new message on the floor: i HELP. TELL HOW.

  "Ttan," Kira said, hardly daring to hope. "We need transportation away from here. Our ship is not large enough to carry all of the prisoners we have rescued.

  We need to capture one of the Cardassians' ships. Do you know how to get to their docking bay?" YES, Ttan wrote. FOLLOW.

  Turning, the Horta touched the wall and seemed to melt into it. Her body turned almost sideways, leaving a tunnel large enough for a person to walk upright.

  The sides of the tunnel smoked a bit from the acid she excreted, but the acid became inert almost at once.

  Kira stuck her head into the tunnel. Yes, she thought, this would more than do. She could see Ttan burrow- ing upward at a rapid pace, and on a twenty-degree slope. Clearly the Horta knew exactly what angle humans needed to comfortably follow her.

  Kira stepped back. The others were coming up the corridor in twos, with Dyoran and Muckerheide lead- ing the way. Bashir darted around the marchem and trotted up to her side.

  "We have about five minutes, Aponte says," he reported. "They think they have us pinned down here." He stared up the Horta's tunnel. "Amazing," he breathed. "Is she all right?" "She's been hit by several phaser blasts, but she's a tough girl," Kira said. She wished they had a dozen more like her. "You can doctor her to your heart's contentment once we get aboard the shuttle. She's taking us to the docking bay now." Julian jumped away from the tunnel. "She's coming back!" "What?" Surprised, Kira leaned forward to see.

  Sure enough, Ttan was on her way back down, enlarging the tunnel even more as she went. Two, possibly three men could have walked through it abreast. Suddenly Ttan veered to the side and disap- peared from sight. She darted in and out several times, and when she was done, the first section of her new tunnel now had a large stone column standing in its center, supporting the roof.

  Kira grinned. If they removed that column, she knew the roof would fall in--making pursuit impossi- ble. Ttan knew what she was doing, all right.

  "Why is she doing that?" Bashir asked. "I don't understand." "She's left a booby trap of her own," Kira said, and she took a moment to explain. By the time she finished, most of the rescued prisoners had queued up.

  Next came the hard part--waiting while everyone entered the tunnel.

  "Aponte, Muckerheide," she called. "You and Cap- tain Dyoran go through first, then Wilkens and Jonsson. Everyone else, follow in pairs. This tunnel leads straight to the docking bay. We'll find a ship there. Dr. Bashir and I will hold our position here, then seal the tunnel to keep the Cardassians from attacking our flank." "Right? Ensign Aponte said. She ducked into Ttan's tunnel, and the others followed, two at a time.

  Ten, Kira counted, twenty, thirty. She could only stand and watch, tapping her foot and trying not to get too jumpy. Hurry, she breathed. The Cardassians would be there soon.

  She glanced at Bashir. He was taking tricorder readings. "They're closing in!" he warned. "Both sides!" Forty, Kira counted. Forty-two, forty-four. Come on, come on. Then she realized they weren't going to make it.

  Tensing, she raised her phaser. "Get ready to fire," she said to Bashir. "As soon as you see movement, Then duck through the tunnel." Forty-four, forty-six.

  "What about you?" Bashir demanded.

  "I can take care of myself," she said. Forty-eight-- Something rattled down the corridor toward them.

  It took her a half-second to focus on it. "Stun gre- nade!" she shouted, and instinctively she threw her- self on Bashir.

  She got Bashir to the floor just as the grenade went off--and just as the last pair of Bajorans were about to duck into Ttan's tunnel.

  Then the walls were shaking and she felt the floor heave under her almost like a thing alive. Lights flickered and died, and with a horrible metallic rip- ping noise, something fell on top of her from the ceiling.

  She must have blacked out for a second, for the next thing she knew, she was inside the tunnel with Dr.

  Bashir. He was panting for breath in the semidark- ness, and his eyes were wild.

  "The last twow" she gasped.

  He shook his head. "They didn't make it into the tunnel. They're both dead, crushed when the ceiling caved in." Kira tried to stand and almost blacked out again from the pain that lanced through the whole left side of her body. She glanced down. Her left leg was folded back at an odd angle, against the joint. Oh, by the Prophets, no. Broken, she knew. She felt sick inside.

  She bit her lip. He must have injected her with painkillers, she thought, for her to be conscious at all.

  Bashir gently turned her head to face him. "Easy, Majors" he said, voice grave. "Do you have another stun grenade? Anything explosive?" "No," she said. Her voice sounded small and' distant. I'm going into shock, she realized. This can't be happening. They need me too much. Her gaze drifted down toward her leg again. She stared, disbe- lieving. How could it look like that? That couldn't really be her leg, she decided.

  "Major?" Bashir turned her face toward him again.

  "Major! The column is still in place! Ttan's tunnel hasn't collapsed!" "Yes," she said vaguely. She reached for her weap- on, but it had vanished. "Give me your phaser," she said.

  "I lost it in the blast," he said.

  Kira drew a breath, then let it out with a gasp. Pain so intense she couldn't move, couldn't breathe racked her left side.

  "Major?" Bashir said. "What should I do? Help me, Major. I'm counting on you." She whispered, "Leave me. I've done what I had to.

  I'll slow you down. Get to a ship... get the others out of here.... " "I can't do that," he said.

  "It's an order!" she gasped.

  "Whatever you say," Bashir said. "You're a real hero, Major. Never forget that." For a second, Kira smiled. Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER 16

  After several TRIES, Sisko succeeded in going over the deputy secretary's head. Vedek Sloi, director of the Bajoran Council on Ecological Controls, appeared on the small screen in Sisko's office. It was not a clear transmission; her image wavered in and out of focus, and was sometimes distorted by waves of phosphor "snow." More evidence of the Hortas' destructive handiwork, Sisko knew.

  "Vedek Sloi, thank you for responding to my in- quiries." Finally, he added privately. The Vedek had been ducking his calls for hours, during which time the all-consuming Hortas had practically reduced the station to its bare bones.

  The Bajoran cleric, her gaunt features framed by a headdress of folded red fabric, acknowledged his greeting with a nod. "I apologize for the delay," she said. Persistent static gave her voice an unnatural, crackling accent. "The work of the Prophets, and of the council, is never-ending." Sisko was not surprised to discover that Secretary Pova's superior was also a religious leader. On Bajor, the line between church and state was often uncom- fortably thin. He hoped Sloi was more like the Kai Opaka and less like Vedek Winn and her followers.

  Kira could have informed him, discreetly, on Sloi's reputation and politics, but Kira, of course, wasn't here. Major, he wondered, where in hell are you? I need that Mother Horta back now.

  "I understand," he said. "Still, our situation is urgent. I assume you have been briefed on the emer- gency?" "My respected colleague, Pova Lerg, has kept me apprised of the details. He has also shared his opin- ions on the m
atter, with which I am inclined to agree.

  The Hortas do not belong on or below the sacred soil of Bajor." Damn/He'd half-expected this reaction, but Sisko refused to back down now. "With all due respect to your friend Pova," he said, deliberately letting some of his irritation creep into his tone, "perhaps he hasn't made our position perfectly clear. While we debate, the Hortas are on the verge of invading the core of DS9. Despite our best efforts, they are destroying this station and endangering the lives of everyone aboard, human and Bajoran. We have to transfer the Hortas to Bajor immediately." The Vedek shook her head. "The Prophets created Bajor according to their divine plan, a plan which clearly does not include the Hortas. If such creatures were meant to exist on Bajor, they would have dwelt here from the beginning. What you are proposing is anathema." Beneath his desk, and out of sight of Vedek Sloi, Sisko's foot tapped angrily against the floor. Incredi- bly, he found himself missing Pova, who at least pretended to secular motivations. "But alien life- forms have visited Bajor before," he pointed out.