Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Young Adult Books #1: The Star Ghost

by Brad Strickland

  After a moment of surprise Nog realized that his uncle was not even talking to him but to Odo. “I am returning your nephew,” Odo said coldly. “He strayed into a place where he does not belong. I trust you will see that for the next day or so he remains in his quarters and out of trouble. Good night.”

  “Wait!” Quark squawked. “A moment of your valuable time, if you please, friend Odo.”

  Nog glanced around with some curiosity. Now he saw the reason why the place was so deserted: The Cardassians who had left Ops a few minutes before had joined more of their kind. A dozen or so of them lounged at the tables. No wonder the place was empty. No one wanted to revel with Cardassians.

  “‘Friend Odo?’” asked the security chief in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “That’s a new one, Quark. It has always been my impression that the minimum requirement for friendship is that two people like each other.”

  “Oh—I like you, Odo, I really do,” objected Quark. He blinked, probably realizing how incredible that declaration sounded. Hastily he added, “Or at least I hold the very deepest respect for you and the job you do.”

  Politely, with a bored smile, Odo murmured, “Even if you try to violate every rule the moment my back is turned. A strange kind of respect, Quark.”

  With a despairing glance at the Cardassians, Quark said, “We can’t talk here. Please, just a moment, Odo. I ask you—as a favor.”

  “Well,” Odo said, sounding really impressed. “If you’re that desperate, Quark, I can give you just a moment, no more.”

  Nog followed the adults into his uncle’s office. The door slipped closed, and Quark collapsed into his chair, moaning. “They are ruining me!” he complained.

  “Who?” asked Odo.

  “The Cardassians!” exploded Quark. “No one else will eat or drink here!”

  “Have the Cardassians broken the law?” Odo asked, some interest flickering in his voice.

  “They’re breaking me!” Quark said.

  Odo asked, “But what are they doing?”

  Quark flapped his hands in a gesture of angry helplessness. “They’re driving customers away and ruining my business. My receipts are down to almost nothing!”

  “You are serving the Cardassians food and drink,” observed Odo. “I assume that they, at least, are paying you.”

  Quark pounded the table. “They’re cheap!” he howled. “A Cardassian will nibble for hours at a miserable puckerplum salad, and they’re drinking nothing but plain, inexpensive water!”

  Odo sighed. “Quark, I will be glad to arrest every last Cardassian in the place—”

  “Thank you, thank you, friend Odo!” Quark bounded up from his chair, reaching to grasp Odo’s hand. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you—”

  “Let me finish.” Odo yanked his hand away. “I will be glad to arrest every Cardassian in the place the moment they break a law. Until then, however, they are your problem.”

  “But what am I supposed to do?” ranted Quark.

  With a thoughtful expression Odo said, “You might raise the price of puckerplum salad. Good night—‘friend’ Quark.”

  The security chief left. Quark sank back in his chair, glowering at Nog. “Up to mischief again, are you?” he demanded.

  Nog could not meet his uncle’s eyes. “Jake’s in trouble,” he muttered.

  “We’re all in trouble,” returned Quark. “And it’s all the fault of those miserable, tight-fisted Cardassians.”

  “Uncle,” pleaded Nog. “Jake needs our help.”

  Quark put both hands to his head. “Jake, Jake, Jake!” he shouted. “That’s all I ever hear from you! You know your father doesn’t approve of that human boy. Why don’t you find some normal Ferengi friends for a change?”

  “I’m the only Ferengi of my age on the station,” objected Nog. “But that’s not important right now. Jake himself saw the Ferengest—”

  With a hiss Quark made a complex sign with his fingers, an ancient Ferengi gesture meant to ward off evil influences. “That’s another thing,” he said. “You with your nonsense about Ferengests and haunts and I don’t know what else! I don’t need any more trouble from you. Until these Cardassians are off the station, I want you to stay in your quarters. Do you understand that?”

  “Uncle—”

  Quark waved his hands wildly. “I revoke your rights of free passage! I rescind your contract of freedom of movement! You are to stay confined to your quarters until further notice. You are bankrupt of the coin of freedom! You are—you are—what is that Earth term?”

  “Grounded,” Nog muttered.

  “You are grounded!” Quark thundered. “I have spoken! By the profits of my ancestors, if you show your ears outside your room before you have my permission, I’11 have them both for soap dishes!” Quark pressed a pad on the desk, and after a moment a private security man, a tall, scaly green Valpasian, came in.

  “Yes?” he hissed in his soft reptilian voice.

  “Vissh, my nephew is to go directly to his quarters. Take him there and see him inside. I will arrange a change in the exit code myself.”

  “Uncle—”

  “Go,” Quark ordered. “Now I’ve got to protect my investment. Maybe I could spread a rumor that puckerplum salad causes one’s neck to shrink—”

  “Come,” said Vissh. He laid a cold hand on Nog’s shoulder.

  Defeated, Nog went along quietly. Valpasians were a skinny, green species that had descended from a race of intelligent lizards, and they were quick and keen-eyed. He would have no chance of giving Vissh the slip.

  Still, Nog knew, he had to find some way of helping Jake.

  He wished he had some faint idea of what that way might be.

  CHAPTER 6

  With a strangled cry Jake threw his arms out and revolved them like a windmill as he tried to regain his balance. Before him, the now-solid “ghost” hovered beside a strange chest-high device shaped a little like a mushroom. The hooded creature held out its device of spheres and rods—and a voice, coming from this contraption and not from the creature’s lips, spoke softly: This form will adjust solidity for more comfort. The voice had an odd, nonhuman tone, halfway between male and female. It added, Close eyes, please.

  Closing his eyes was one of the hardest things that Jake had ever done. The vast emptiness of space terrified him, and he had the awful feeling that if he shut it out, he would open his eyes to discover himself alone and dying in the cold vacuum between the stars. But he forced his eyelids closed, and for a terrible minute he seemed to float in an infinite, lonely blackness. Then light burst against his closed eyelids, bright enough to make him see a vivid red, and he felt a humming, droning vibration. He took a deep, shuddering breath of that ozone-scented air.

  Open now. Is done.

  Trembling, Jake opened his eyes. He blinked. Now the life-form in front of him was almost transparent again. The station, however, had come back—partially. It, too, was somewhat transparent. Jake stood on a deck that was like fogged glass, and through it he could see the piping, support struts, and machinery that kept the life support functioning. He gasped at the brilliance of several “rivers” of multicolored light. Dazzling blue-white streams gave birth to bright yellow tributaries, which fed to orange branches, which finally gave way to very small networks of reds and purples and magentas. “What’s that?” Jake gasped. “All those colors!”

  The tall, humanoid creature turned its head to look at the rivers of light. That is energy flow of station power generators to all servo-mechanisms. Turning back toward Jake, the creature made the speaking device ask, That form is now functional?

  “Huh?” asked Jake. “Uh—do you mean am I all right?”

  Am I all right? said the creature.

  “I don’t know,” Jake said. “Are you?”

  After a moment of silence, the creature waved its speaking device again. Explain I, you.

  Jake’s head swam. “Well,” he said, “I am, uh, me. Jake Sisko.” He patted his chest. “Th
is form is I.”

  Then am I all right?

  Jake laughed. “No, no,” he said. “When you speak, you are I. I become you.”

  The creature inclined its head. Ah. You and I are a Whole. This form understands.

  “I—I don’t think you do,” Jake said. “Look, I guess I’m okay. But what’s happened? And who are you?”

  You are I.

  Jake shook his head. “No, let me ask it differently. Who is that form?” He pointed to the creature.

  Ah. Comprehended. This form is a Dhraakellian Quester, an expression of the Dhraakellian Whole. That form is—hu-man?

  With relief Jake said, “Right, I am a human. My name is Jake Sisko.” Remembering Molly’s invisible friend, he asked, “Are you—are you Dhraako?”

  The glaring red-orange eyes could not blink. They had no eyelids. But they suddenly seemed meditative. After a moment the creature moved its speaking device, and it said, The small one that sees and hears calls this form that. It could not comprehend the nature of the Whole. That is why this form has brought Jake Sisko here. Jake Sisko must help this form.

  “Uh, does that form mind if I call it Dhraako?”

  This form minds not.

  “Okay, Dhraako,” Jake said. “I’m glad to meet you. What are you, exactly?”

  This form is exactly an expression of the Whole.

  “Man,” Jake moaned. “This is gonna take a long time.”

  It did. Little by little Jake pieced together an amazing story. Dhraako was not really an individual, he gathered, but more like a part of a greater organism—an organism that was an entire species called the Dhraakellian Whole. Just as different parts of the human body served different functions, some of them circulating blood, others digesting food, and others seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting, so the different expressions of the Dhraakellian Whole were like organs. Questers, Jake gathered, were a sort of combination of eyes and ears. Their job was to observe the universe, somehow feeding the information they gathered back to the Whole.

  Jake asked, “Where do you come from? How did you get here?”

  With practice Dhraako was getting the hang of conversation. At first its dark-gray face had held no readable expression, but Jake saw that his impression had been mistaken. In fact, the flesh of the face was incredibly mobile, and the down-turned mouth quirked and wriggled as the cheeks swelled or shrank and the eyes glowed darker or brighter. He could not understand these strange expressions, but somehow they made the Quester a little more real and less alien. We live, the Quester explained, a kind of existence not like yours. This here-and-now is one expression of space-time. We live in another.

  “Is that why we can’t see you?” Jake asked.

  Yes. We live in a place between this material universe and a plane of pure energy.

  “Oh,” Jake said. “Like a different dimension?”

  Di-men-sion, said the speaking device, as if trying the word for the first time ever. Yes, dimension will serve. We know your place of existence, but it is cloudy to us. Our science has allowed us to observe. That is the task of this form: to observe and report, None of the large solid peoples can see this form. Only the very young ones.

  “You’re invisible to adults?” asked Jake.

  In-vis-ible, repeated Dhraako. Yes. This form, Dhraako, does not understand why young can see, old cannot. Jake Sisko is between young and old. Jake Sisko is partly aware of this form. That is why Dhraako must speak to Jake Sisko.

  “I see,” said Jake, wondering if he really did. “Are you the only, uh, Quester here, Dhraako?”

  The mobile face suddenly gave Jake an impression of enormous age and great loneliness. Yes. The ghostly form touched the mushroom-shaped device. Dhraako came in a Quester ship to this part of the galaxy through the fabric disturbance many of your years ago. All, all alone since.

  Jake frowned. “Fabric disturbance?” he asked. “Is that what we call the Bajoran Wormhole?”

  Worm-hole, agreed the device. Yes. Bridge to other side of galaxy. Where the Whole evolved. This expression, Dhraako, came first here when this station was constructed.

  “By the Cardassians?” Jake asked.

  Yes. Dhraako saw them and their victims, those Jake Sisko calls the Bajorans. Dhraako lived invisibly aboard this station to witness and report.

  “Wow,” Jake said. “You must be really old.”

  The Whole knows no age, said the device. But Dhraako knows aloneness. Dhraako felt the pain of the Bajorans. Felt the anger of the Cardassians. Dhraako—hard to say—feels inside that Cardassians wish to destroy. Dhraako does not like destroyment of those Dhraako observes.

  Jake felt uneasy. “I don’t understand, Dhraako. Do you mean that Deep Space Nine is in some kind of danger? Now?”

  Terrible danger, the speaking device said. Dhraako adjusted one of the spheres, and suddenly the voice increased in volume and urgency: Jake Sisko! This station will be destroyed! All aboard will die! This happens soon!

  “What?” Jake asked, feeling his stomach turn over. “Deep Space Nine will be destroyed?”

  All aboard will die! Must help give warning to save those forms aboard this station! The Quester leaned forward, its orange-red eyes blazing with intense appeal. Jake Sisko—you only can save this station!

  If Vissh had been a Ferengi, he might have suspected that something was wrong when Nog went along to his quarters so quietly. Vissh’s race hatched their young from eggs and allowed them to grow up on their own. Vissh had never had to deal with a young person. So he went his way sure that Nog was safe and sound and locked in.

  That was only partly true. Nog was safe, all right, but as soon as the door hissed closed, he tried immediately to open it with a stern verbal order. The door did not move. Nog had hoped that Quark’s difficulties with his unruly Cardassian customers would distract his uncle from his threat to change the door codes, but Quark had remembered. It was time for Plan B.

  Nog went to his bedroom. Rom, Nog’s father, tried to be a good Ferengi parent. For example, he regularly searched Nog’s room to find anything that Nog might have hidden. To keep him happy, Nog concealed lots of small items in easy-to-find places: a lost ring he had found that bore an Altairian flame gem, a platinal coin he had sneaked from a careless gambler’s winnings, and other little tidbits. And he always protested loudly and angrily when Rom confiscated these.

  But that was only for show. In his real hiding places, Nog kept some treasures that Rom never found. He opened a light module. He switched off one of the light globes and removed it. Nog regretted having to break the globe, because figuring out how to get the replicator to duplicate the globe right around his special find had been very difficult. However, he was desperate, so he carefully wrapped the globe in a permasheet and smashed it. Then he retrieved his prize from the shards. He reprogrammed the food replicator to recycle the broken light globe and fabricate a new one, then replaced it in the module. Then he set about his escape.

  Nog’s Uncle Quark had one treasure that he valued above all others. It was a set of Cardassian isolinear chips. These computer components could override any computer commands that required security clearance. After weeks of careful planning, Nog had stolen one chip from his uncle’s supply. He plugged the chip into the computer terminal and ordered, “Computer override Quark’s order and open the portal of Rom’s living quarters immediately!”

  The door slid open and Nog dashed through. He felt a strong pang of regret. Quark would be sure to guess now Nog had opened the door, and he would demand the return of the stolen isolinear chip. Still, Nog thought, his uncle would have to admire his cleverness in stealing and using the chip. He hoped it would all balance out somehow. He took a twisting route that only he knew back to Ops. This time he was determined to see his mission through.

  Almost as soon as he arrived, the commander came out of his office, with Odo close behind. “They are annoying us on purpose,” Odo said. “We will have no peace on Deep Space Nine until you orde
r those Cardassians off the station.”

  “Odo, I can’t,” said Commander Sisko. He looked brutally tired. Nog realized the commander had been awake for almost twenty-four hours. The big man yawned and said, “As you said, we have no reason to arrest them until they break the law.”

  Odo leaned forward. He was beginning to look tired, too, melting a bit at the edges. “Commander, I have checked Gul Chok’s background. He and his crew have no legal standing among the Cardassians. They are little better than criminals, passing themselves off as representatives of their government. Chok may command his own ship, but he has no right to the military rank of ‘Gul.’ Has it occurred to you that the Cardassians could be terrorists?”

  “Of course it has,” Commander Sisko said. “Chok and his crew may be a group of space pirates. But Cardassians hang together, and his government is not about to confess to Starfleet that Chok is beyond their control.”

  “Or perhaps he is not,” Odo insisted. “Commander, I know the Cardassians. There is a real possibility that the Cardassian government has sent Chok here on a secret mission of sabotage.”

  The commander gave Odo a sarcastic grin. “Including wiping out Quark’s profits? No, Odo, I really can’t see that they’ve done anything that could seriously harm Deep Space Nine. I assure you, the second that I do—”

  Nog took a deep breath. He had concealed himself behind the Ops table. Now he stepped around it. “Commander Sisko,” he said. “I have to talk to you.”

  “You again?” With a disgusted grunt, Odo stepped forward and grabbed his arm. “You will have to learn your lesson more forcefully,” he said. “Very well—this time I’ll deal with you myself.”

  “Commander!” Nog shouted desperately. “Locate Jake!”

  “Wait,” Commander Sisko said to Odo. He turned to a console and said, “Computer, locate Jake Sisko.”

  After a moment the computer voice replied, “Jake Sisko is not on Deep Space Nine.”

  Frowning, Commander Sisko said, “When did he leave?”

  The computer said, “Jake Sisko is aboard Deep Space Nine.”