Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Young Adult Books #2: Stowaways

by Brad Strickland

  “I’m not going back,” protested Sesana.

  “You’ve got to,” Jake insisted.

  Sesana crossed her arms. “And what will you and Nog do while I’m gone?”

  “We’ll try to get the doctor out of camp,” Jake said.

  “Are you crazy?” asked Nog. “They have a whole army in there!”

  “I know,” Jake said. “But their army is half new, and almost untrained. And from what Sesana has told us, no one has found the rebel camp in years—they won’t be expecting anyone to make a rescue attempt. I’ll bet the guards are there just to keep Dr. Bashir from getting out, not to keep anyone else from getting in.”

  “You’ll be taken on the spot,” Sesana told them. “Tikar’s army has no humans or Ferengi in it. I can get by, because I’m just another Bajoran face, but you—”

  “Good point,” said Nog. “Well, it’s hopeless. Let’s go.”

  “Hold on, Nog,” Jake said. He was tired and grouchy. He stood up, feeling the coarse sand crunch beneath his feet. “Someone has to stay and try to rescue the doctor before they can drug him. If Tikar’s going to let him die anyway when the vandellium bomb goes off, there’s no telling what kind of drug they might give him. We have to try to get him out.”

  “Then let me stay and try to get to him,” Sesana said. “You can go back and tell the authorities.”

  “That makes sense,” said Nog. With a faint note of hope in his voice, he added, “Doesn’t it make sense to you, Jake?”

  “Sure,” Jake said. “Only there’s this one little matter. Nog, can you find your way back to Sakelo?”

  “Of course!” Nog sounded indignant. “A Ferengi has an unerring sense of direction.”

  “All right,” Jake said. “What direction is Sakelo City from here?”

  Nog pointed.

  Jake glanced at Sesana. She shook her head and pointed in an entirely different direction. Jake said, “There you are. You and I couldn’t find our way back to the city—only Sesana can. So she has to go and we have to stay.”

  They argued some more, but in the end Sesana had to admit that Jake was right. She was the only one who could go back to the city for help. She left them, moving silently away in the gathering darkness of the short summer night. “I hate this,” muttered Nog.

  “I’m not crazy about it myself,” Jake replied. “What we need is a plan.”

  “What we need is a diversion,” Nog said.

  Jake nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

  “Of course it is. One of the Rules of Acquisition is that the greater amount you are taking from someone, the greater the distraction must be.” Nog made a depressed clicking sound with his tongue. “I figure that we need a distraction about the size of a landquake. Any ideas?”

  Jake had to admit he had none. They explored a little under the cover of darkness, and they found that they could climb the rockslide all the way up to the lip of the ravine here. The Turnaway camp had become a field of dark building and tent shapes dotted with the orange glows of cooking fires. It was a little startling to see just where the cloaking device cast its cover over the camp. One second Jake could see the fires clearly; when he took another step up the slope, half of them disappeared under the cloak. Another couple of steps, and they were all gone. Jake slipped, and a small rock clattered away under his feet.

  “Quiet!” pleaded Nog. “They may have electronic ears out.”

  “Then they’d hear you for sure,” Jake said with a grunt. The small stone rattled to a stop somewhere down the slope. An idea began to form in Jake’s mind then.

  “Hey,” he said, “I think you were right, Nog. The ideal diversion would be a landquake.”

  “Great,” Nog said. “How do we start one? I’m not well acquainted with Federation techniques of destabilizing a planet’s core.”

  “Not a real landquake,” Jake said. “But a landslide. We can manage that with a few well-placed boulders.”

  Nog caught on immediately. “The rim of the Rip has lots of rocky spots where we could pry loose some big stones,” he said. “If we sent two or three of those down, they might start an avalanche.”

  “At least they’d get the attention of everyone in the camp,” Jake replied. “And small rockslides must happen often here. They might not even think someone started it.”

  “But they’d have to investigate,” Nog said. “Because even a natural rockslide could destroy the camp, or part of it, anyway. Okay, let’s go.”

  They climbed up to the edge of the Rip and carefully picked their way along the edge. Fortunately, the summer-glow lingered on the horizon, giving them enough light to see the likely spots. Jake found a place which had to be over part of the camp. It looked ideal. Erosion had loosened a cluster of four or five large boulders there. The lower, larger ones were far too big for Jake and Nog to move, but the few on the top were smaller. If the boys could start them rolling, they would very likely knock loose at least a couple of the bigger stones, and once those started, an alarming rockslide would surely result.

  For about an hour Jake and Nog labored over the most likely stone, chipping away at the pebbles and soil that held the boulder in place. Finally the rock was so loose that Nog could easily push it over the edge of the Rip.

  “You’ll have to wait until I can get back down into the ravine,” Jake said, panting. Using a rough stone as a chisel had blistered his hands, and his mouth was dry. “Give me about another hour, and then send the rock over.”

  “Go,” said Nog in a weary voice. “I’ll meet you at the top of the big rockslide—if we live long enough to meet.”

  The climb down was harder than the climb up, because the sky had grown darker and because Jake had to be careful to watch his step. It wouldn’t do to slip and start a rockslide here—especially since Jake did not know how close any guards might be, or what sensors they might be using. Still, Jake reached the Rip floor in plenty of time. He stealthily picked his way across the jumble of stones at the bottom, getting as close as he dared to the entrance. Minutes crawled by. From here Jake could see the campfires again, and a breeze brought him the smell of burning wood and of cooking food. He could also hear faint voices, although they were so far away that he could not understand what they were saying.

  After he had waited so long that he felt like an aching statue crouched behind a boulder, Jake was almost ready to believe that something had gone wrong. What if the Turnaways had patrols up on the edge of the Rip, and what if they had captured Nog? What if they knew already that he was out here, and what if they should send a squad armed with phasers to search for him?

  What if—

  Crash! The sound of a huge rock bounding down the side of the Rip somewhere up ahead yanked Jake out of his worried thoughts. Then, with a roar and a clatter, more stones fell. Jake heard shouts of alarm coming from the camp, and he set off at a trot, bending low and trying to keep boulders between him and any watchers. As he got closer, Jake could hear what the Turnaways were shouting: “Another fall—get away from the cliff!” and “We need some help over here, quick—one of the huts is blocked!” All the rest was confusion, shouts and curses and the hubbub of lots of people caught by surprise.

  Jake finally came right up to the entrance. He could see now that the camp had a kind of dry moat around it, feeding into the central drainage channel. A metal drawbridge lay across it, but the guards fortunately had not drawn it up. Even better, the guards had apparently run to help the Turnaways who had been trapped in a hut by the slide. Jake hurried across it, hoping that no detection device was going off.

  He blundered right into a couple of Bajorans who were carrying spades and pickaxes. “Watch it,” one of them growled at him in the dark.

  Jake ducked around to the rear of the first line of tents and huts. He closed his eyes and remembered where Sesana had said the prison hut was. It should be a little ahead of him, and off to the left, between two large cylindrical tanks. It was still very dark, but the cooking fires, near the central
drainage channel, gave some light.

  Looking up, Jake could see the stars, but they wavered and danced in an odd way. He realized he was looking through the cloaking device that kept the camp safe. He only wished it gave a little illumination.

  He came to the first tank, as big as a house and made of rusty metal. Jake flattened himself against it and crept around the curve. Yes, there was a hut ahead, and it was unguarded. He dashed to it and tried the door. It clanked, and he bent close to see a primitive padlock.

  “Who’s there?” asked a sharp voice from inside. Jake recognized the speaker at once: Dr. Bashir.

  “Me, Jake Sisko,” he called back as loudly as he dared. “I’m going to get you out. Wait a second!”

  Jake felt around in the dark. Large stones were plentiful, and he picked up one half the size of his own head. He pounded at the lock with this, making sparks fly. The first attempt was a failure, and Jake was almost afraid to try again—and then he heard the noise of another rockslide over across the way. He grinned. Nog was outdoing himself! In the resulting confusion Jake hammered away at the lock, sometimes hitting it, sometimes missing it, once skinning his finger badly. At last it gave way with a sharp spang! Jake shoved the door open.

  Dr. Bashir, rumpled and unshaven, stood just inside, his face showing confusion in the wavering light of an antique oil lamp. “Jake!” he exclaimed. “How did you even find me? Who else has come?”

  “Just Nog,” Jake said. “Let’s hurry—they may notice something’s going on at any minute.”

  “Right,” the doctor said.

  They paused a moment in the doorway, and when the coast looked clear, both of them dashed out and through the night. Both Jake and Dr. Bashir stumbled and slipped, and once Jake ran right into the corner of a small hut that he could not see in the darkness. But somehow or other they made it all the way to the last tent. Just ahead lay the metal bridge—and coming across it was a group of six Bajorans, three of them carrying torches. Two of them held on to a struggling, writhing figure.

  “Oh, no,” said Jake with a groan. Their plan had succeeded, but only partially. Dr. Bashir was out of captivity—but now the Turnaways had captured Nog!

  CHAPTER 9

  If you want to be a hero,” Jake whispered, “now is a good time.”

  Beside him Dr. Bashir crouched. They were behind a tent, and just on the other side a furious Tikar Antol was roaring orders. “This one says a friend of his is going to Sakelo City to bring back the authorities. You, Veldor! Take Beklesh with you and go in the fastest landtran to stop this friend. You can use the pheromone sensor to pick up the trail.”

  “What do we do with him?” a deep voice asked.

  “Kill him and toss him into the Rip, for all I care,” snarled Tikar. “Wait, though! Maybe you had better bring the friend here for questioning. Nothing must prevent the death of the Vedek tomorrow—we have to know whether the monks suspect that a real attempt will be made.”

  “Come on,” Dr. Bashir whispered to Jake.

  “But they have Nog—” Jake began.

  “And I’m getting him back. Come with me—I know what I’m doing.”

  Jake followed as the doctor hurried away. The camp was slowly returning to normal after the hubbub and confusion of the rockslides, but no one challenged them.

  They came to a domed stone structure with a mesh steel gate at one side. Dr. Bashir groaned as he tested the gate and found it locked. “This is the garage,” he explained hurriedly. “All the landtrans are in here. If we could get to them—” He stepped back and studied the building.

  “Look,” he said. “There’s a sort of ledge above the gate there. Do you think you could climb up to it?”

  “I could try,” Jake said, feeling uncertain. He had not had a lot of practice at climbing.

  “Then let’s see if we can get up there.”

  Dr. Bashir clambered up the gate. At the top he reached up, grabbed the edge of the overhang, and swung out. Jake caught his breath, but the doctor managed to pull himself up, painfully and slowly. “Come on!” he said in a loud, urgent whisper.

  The mesh was large enough so that climbing up the gate was almost like climbing a very steep ladder. Jake got to the top, reached up, and nearly lost his balance. He felt Dr. Bashir’s hand close on his wrist. “I’ll help,” the doctor said. “Ready? Go!”

  Jake kicked away from the building and tried to chin himself on the ledge. He got his shoulders up but realized that was as far as he could go under his own power. Fortunately, Dr. Bashir grabbed him and gave him a tremendous tug, and Jake landed on the ledge out of breath and shaky. “What now?” he asked.

  “Now we sit tight until they bring the landtran out,” the doctor said. “We’ll have to jump into it. It’s about a six-foot drop, so we’ll have to be careful. I’ll take the driver, and you go for the passenger. And don’t miss, whatever you do!”

  With no trouble at all, Jake could think of about a dozen reasons not to follow the doctor’s plan, but before he could mention any of them, two men came hurrying up to the garage. Jake saw them right under him as one of them unlocked the gate and rattled it open. “Both phasers on full charge?” that one asked the other man.

  The other one, whose voice revealed him to be Veldor, said, “I’ve checked them both.” He was carrying two short, rifle-shaped objects, phasers mounted to serve as medium-range personal weapons. The two men disappeared from view. A moment later Jake heard the whine of a landtran.

  Dr. Bashir touched his arm. “They’ll come out slowly,” he said. “One will have to get out to lock the gate. When they first come through, we’ll have to jump at the same time.”

  A yellow glare showed below, the headlamps of the landtran. It came nosing out of the garage. Dr. Bashir yelled, “Now!” and before he could take time to think about it, Jake leapt.

  The landtran had seats for the driver and a passenger, but the rear of it was an empty, open bed, like an ancient Earth truck. Jake and the doctor landed there, hard, but even before the two passengers could yell, Dr. Bashir had snatched up one of the phasers. The unlucky Veldor had tossed them behind the driver’s seat. “Out,” Dr. Bashir said. He waved the phaser menacingly. “Jake, get the other weapon.”

  The leap had jarred Jake’s recently injured ankle, and he gritted his teeth against the pain as he stooped to pick up the rifle. It was an unfamiliar device—Jake had never even fired a Federation phaser, and this one was bulky and heavy by comparison. Still, he held it the way that Dr. Bashir held his, hoping that he looked menacing.

  Veldor, a hulking, bearded Bajoran, climbed out slowly. The other, Beklesh, was smaller and more obviously frightened. “Keep them covered, Jake,” Dr. Bashir said. He moved into the driver’s seat.

  “You won’t escape, human,” said Veldor. “Tikar will have your head for this foolish attempt.”

  “Yes, well, compared to what he had in mind for me, that’s rather a mild threat,” replied the doctor. “All seems in order here. Veldor, give me the key to the gate. Now!”

  The heavyset Bajoran cautiously produced the key and handed it over. “Into the garage, both of you,” Dr. Bashir said. Over his shoulder he added, “Shoot them if they try anything. Full charge.”

  “Right,” growled Jake, trying to make his voice sound deep and menacing. He hoped the two Bajorans wouldn’t guess that he had no idea of how to fire this strange weapon.

  As soon as the two were inside, Dr. Bashir slammed the mesh gate shut and locked it. Then he threw the key away into the darkness. He clambered back into the landtran and put it into motion. The land-car trundled down to a cleared strip running down the center of the camp, a strip that served as a rough street. “Now,” said the doctor, “we have to rescue Nog. Jake, do you think you can drive this contraption?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake confessed.

  “Well, you’ll have to try. Here, get behind the wheel.”

  Jake eased into the position. The “wheel” was actually shaped more like a fi
gure 8 on its side. Dr. Bashir showed him how to accelerate by turning the right handgrip, and how to change gear speeds by turning the left one. “The brake is that pedal near your right foot,” he said. “Now—straight out of the camp, and then turn around.”

  They were heading out the back of the camp, opposite from the side where Jake had entered. The landtran lurched and shuddered when Jake changed gears, but it rolled right along. “There,” Dr. Bashir said. “Guardpost ahead. They’ll be expecting Veldor to come through, and they’ll expect him to stop. Don’t.”

  “Okay,” Jake said.

  Two Bajorans were standing sentry duty here, far from Nog’s rockslides of earlier that evening. They started forward casually, their phasers pointed down. The moment they seemed to realize that the landtran was not going to stop, one of them began to raise his weapon.

  Then Dr. Bashir suddenly stood up in the passenger seat and fired twice. Both guards dropped to the ground.

  “Don’t worry,” the doctor said as he dropped back into place. “I’ve set it on stun. They’ll be all right in an hour or so. Watch the drainage ditch!”

  They bumped along, the path becoming just the rubble-strewn floor of the Rip. “Stop for a second,” the doctor said. “We have to think. It’ll take at least an hour to get back to town, even at top speed—and that will mean leaving Nog behind.”

  “We can’t just leave him,” Jake said.

  “No. But we’re outnumbered, and at any second they may swarm out after us. What do you think we should do, Jake?”

  Jake felt miserable. How was he supposed to know? Adults were the ones who always wanted to take charge! He pulled himself together and said, “I don’t think we have a choice. We have to go back for Nog.”

  “You’re right. Turn around here,” Dr. Bashir said after a few moments. “No, turn away from the ditch, not toward it. That’s better.” He sighed and added, “Well, at least we’ll have surprise on our side. I’m surprised that we’re doing this myself!”