by David Mack
• • •
Dax turned as her security chief announced, “Captain? We’re being hailed by Doctor Bashir.”
“In my ready room.” The Trill captain moved at a quick step toward her sanctum just off the Aventine’s bridge. “Sam, you have the conn. Keep the Falchion busy.”
Bowers pivoted into the command chair. “Aye, Captain.”
Behind Dax, the bridge crew continued to work in well-rehearsed concert, marshaling their varied forms of expertise toward the singular goal of rendering the Falchion deaf, dumb, blind, and toothless. Knowing the counter-offensive was well in hand, she pushed it from her thoughts as she hurried into the chair behind her desk and opened the comm channel on her holographic display. Bashir’s face snapped into crisp focus; he looked haggard and worn.
“Julian! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Ezri, but we don’t have much time. We’re being jammed—”
“By the Warspite, I know. But you shouldn’t be hailing us, they’ll—”
“Trace the signal back to us. It was a risk we had to take. We need your help.”
He was desperate. She couldn’t remember ever hearing such genuine trepidation from Bashir, who had always prided himself on putting up a cool front. “What do you need?”
“The planet’s data networks have crashed, and the civilian comm channels are jammed. Without them, we can’t get the cure to the pharmaceutical factories. I need you to help deliver the retrovirus’s quantum pattern to those sites, as soon as possible.”
She froze. It was an open call to insubordination. Letting him escape through strict adherence to the rules of engagement had been one thing; actively defying explicit orders from Starfleet Command and the Federation government was another. “Julian . . . I . . .”
“It’s ready to go, on a portable data card. We just need to get the pattern to the plants.”
“You’re talking about a court-martial offense.”
He calmed himself, and the fear left his voice. “I know I’ve asked the impossible, Ezri. And I know I have no right to put you in this position. For that, I apologize. But whatever you choose to do . . . and no matter what happens to me . . . I will always be your friend. I hope I can still call you mine.” A blue finger tapped on Bashir’s shoulder, and he looked away for a moment. “If you’ll pardon me, I’m told we need to go prepare for the inevitable.”
As he turned away, Dax’s eyes misted with tears and her heart swelled with admiration and affection for this quixotic man she’d once loved. “Julian!” Her exclamation turned him back toward the conversation. “Are you positive you have the cure?”
His answer was calm and devoid of ego. “I’m absolutely certain.”
She was going to regret this. “Stay right there, and don’t move.”
• • •
Six pillars of light shimmered into being at the far end of the lab, and Bashir felt his throat tighten as he realized the figures that materialized inside the transporter beams were clearly holding phaser rifles. Had the Warspite’s forces found them first? Or was this Dax coming to arrest them all herself? Beside him, Shar tensed as he watched the humanoid forms solidify inside the swirling columns of fading particles, and Professor zh’Thiin clasped one slender hand onto Shar’s shoulder.
Standing at the front of the away team was Dax. She held a phaser rifle in her hands, just like the personnel behind her. As soon as the last remnants of the transporter effect released them, she strode toward Bashir, followed by her team of security personnel, who were being led by the Aventine’s Takaran chief of security, Lieutenant Kedair.
Dax pointed toward the exits and snapped orders over her shoulder. “Lonnoc, we need to secure this wing of the complex. I want transport scramblers placed and active in thirty seconds. Rendezvous at the center junction in ninety seconds. Set all weapons for heavy stun, fire for effect. Move!” Kedair and the security team left the laboratory at a full run, and as they passed Bashir he saw that each of them wore a transporter inhibitor with retractable tripod base strapped across his or her back. Meanwhile, Dax joined Bashir and Shar at the comm terminal. “You two okay?” They nodded affirmations, so Dax turned her attention to the scientists. “Those of you who have weapons, set them for stun and help set up barricades at the main intersection. Those of you without weapons, find some place to hide and stay there till we come for you. I’ll be here with Shar and the professor. Go!”
The other researchers hurried out, leaving zh’Thiin, Shar, Bashir, and Dax to speak in private. The Trill looked at Shar. “Julian said you have the pattern on a data card?” Shar nodded, and Dax extended one hand. “Give it to me. Quickly.”
Shar looked at zh’Thiin, who nodded her permission. He reached under the comm terminal and retrieved the card from its hiding place, then handed it to Dax. She plucked a spare combadge from a pocket on her belt and affixed it to the card. Then she set it on the floor, tapped the combadge, and stepped back from it. “Dax to Aventine. Lock onto this signal and beam it directly to the bridge. Energize.”
It took only about a second for a new transporter effect to fill the lab with white noise and prismatic light, and then the data card was gone. Dax tapped her own combadge. “Dax to Aventine. Report, Sam.”
Bowers replied, “Ready, Captain.”
“Sam, copy the data on that card and relay it to every pharmaceutical factory on the planet. This is an Alpha One command, and until it’s completed, you are to consider all other mission priorities rescinded. Is that clear?”
“Understood, Captain. All other priorities rescinded.”
“Good. Now wish us luck. Things are about to get pretty hairy down here.”
“Be careful, Captain.”
“Same to you. Dax out.”
Poised at the edge of calamity, Bashir felt suddenly, strangely light of spirit. Then Dax turned and accosted him with mock reproach. “What are you smiling at?”
“Keep this up and I might fall in love with you again.”
She drew a pistol-grip phaser from her belt holster and handed it to him with a rakish smirk. “Julian, I’m here to save your ass—this is no time to start threatening me.”
Twenty-eight
The rifle was cool in Dax’s hands, which she held steady despite the bone-deep chill that pervaded the snowbound science facility. Hunkered behind some improvised cover—a large lab table pushed over onto one side—she peeked over the top edge, on the lookout for company.
Bashir crouched on her right and peeked around the side of the barrier with one eye behind the phaser she’d loaned to him. “What are they waiting for?”
“Probably trying to figure out how much firepower they’ll need to blow through this choke point.” She looked back at the other two branches of the crossroads-shaped intersection they were defending, with help from Kedair, a handful of security personnel, and half a dozen lightly armed Andorian scientists who looked as if they had never fired a shot in anger in their lives. “The scramblers we set will keep them from beaming into the south wing, and I have two of my people guarding its only exit, so they won’t have much luck attacking from outside.”
“Which means they’ll have to—”
Phaser shots screeched overhead, loud and bright enough to make Dax and everyone around her squint in pain. More shots slammed against the barricades, and behind the furious shriek of energy weapons was the thunder of running feet. Overcoming her natural instinct to duck and hide, Dax forced herself to lift her rifle up and over the barrier to face her attackers.
“Weapons free!”
Her order snapped the rest of her compatriots out of their fetal curls and into action. As soon as they began to return fire, the oncoming wave of aggressors ducked into doorways and nooks, forced to slow their advance by resorting to two-by-two, leapfrogging cover-and-move tactics. Within seconds the metal lab table glowed a dull orange and grew too hot to touch.
Easy to forget how much punch a phaser on heavy stun really packs, Dax noted as sh
e edged back to protect herself from getting burned through carelessness.
Dax popped her head up to check the corridor—then ducked to avoid another barrage of incoming fire. More shots flew over her head from behind, reminding her that the enemy had the advantage of attacking a single point from multiple directions.
A lucky shot sent one of the defending Andorians sprawling backward, unconscious. Then a full-power blast ripped through part of the ceiling over Dax’s head. Smoldering debris rained down, along with blazing-hot motes of charged plasma. She lifted the muzzle of her rifle above her barrier’s edge and fired blind, filling the west passageway with a random surge of suppressing fire as she shouted to Kedair, “Time for Plan B!”
The security chief ducked low as she pulled a small cylinder from her belt and armed it with a single press on its top button. Then she yelled over the clamor of phaser fire to a Kaferian member of her security team, “Zisk! Grenade!” The bipedal insectoid followed Kedair’s lead, ducked low, armed a grenade from his belt, and signaled Kedair with the best approximation of a thumbs-up he could manage with his three-digit manus. Then Dax drew her own grenade while Bashir peppered the south passage with random phaser blasts.
Kedair, Dax, and Zisk sprang to their feet and hurled the explosives overhand with speed and precision. Kedair’s flew down the north passageway, Zisk’s arced away to the east, Dax’s to the west. Then they dove for the floor, and Dax shouted for one and all, “Down!”
The nearly simultaneous pulses of searing white light were followed by peals of thunder so close they felt as if they could break bones by sonic force alone. Hot gusts full of dust and smoke billowed down the corridors and rolled over the intersection blockade. Fine silicate dust stuck to hair, skin, and uniforms, turning everyone identical shades of faintly metallic gray.
Risking a peek over the barricade, Dax saw the west passage blocked by heaps of smoking wreckage, broken thermocrete, and twisted metal. Glowing spurts of superheated plasma jetted from ruptured conduits, and a firefall of sparks from severed live wires overhead danced and scattered across the debris. That ought to buy us a few minutes, Dax figured.
Her combadge chirped to announce an incoming signal. She hoped for good news, but was greeted instead by the enraged bellowing of Captain Unverzagt. His voice was loud enough in the dusty confinement of the intersection for everyone present to hear him with perfect clarity. “Warspite to Captain Dax! Are you reading me, Captain?”
Dax coughed to clear the dust from her mouth. “This is Dax. I read you.”
He sounded apoplectic with fury. “What the holy hell do you think you’re doing?”
She spied Bashir’s approving smile in the hazy half-light and felt an odd sense of calm as she told Unverzagt the unvarnished truth.
“What’s right, Captain. . . . I’m doing what’s right.”
• • •
In theory, Bowers knew it was possible for him to monitor all of the synchronous tactical challenges facing the Aventine from the central position of the command chair, but he was too wound up to remain seated. He moved from station to station as reports flooded in, hoping that he could keep this perilous juggling act in motion for just a few minutes more.
He arrived at the tactical console. “Kandel, where’s the Falchion?”
The bald Deltan woman answered without looking up. “Still trying to maneuver back into jamming range, but her main antenna is still offline. We can hold her off.”
“What about the Warspite?”
Kandel shifted the focus of her panel to Andor’s southern pole. “Moving into a close-support profile for its strike team on the surface.” She silenced a new alert. “They’re beaming down additional troops. It looks like they have the lab complex surrounded.”
“Keep me posted if anything changes.” Bowers moved on, crossing the bridge toward science officer Helkara’s station.
The first officer was halfway to Helkara when Mirren turned from the ops console and caught his eye. “Sir, we’re receiving an emergency signal from Starfleet One.” As if Bowers wouldn’t know what that meant, she added, “Sir, it’s President Pro Tem Ishan.”
“I know who it is, Lieutenant. Do not open that channel.”
“But it’s—”
“Oliana, we’re carrying out an Alpha One command from the captain. All other priorities have been rescinded. That means no new incoming orders or communications. Understood?”
Discomfited, Mirren returned to work at her insistently chirruping console.
Bowers crowded in on Helkara and perused his progress. “How much longer, Gruhn?”
The svelte Zakdorn’s overlapping facial ridges mirrored his brow, which was creased with fierce concentration. “Almost there, Commander. The Warspite’s still trying to block the major channels, but I’m working around that by splitting the data into asynchronous packets on parallel subharmonic—”
“That’s nice, keep working, tell me when you’re done.” Bowers gave the second officer a complimentary slap on the shoulder, then moved on.
He was a few steps shy of the command chair when Mirren hissed at him, “Ishan is ordering us to acknowledge his transmission, sir.”
Bowers settled into the command chair. “Tell Ishan . . . it’s good to want things.”
• • •
A ruddy glow in the north passageway, backed by a rising cry of steady phaser fire, made it clear to Dax where the Warspite’s forces intended to break through her improvised defenses. “Lonnoc, we’ll hold the line here. Julian, take the scientists and fall back to the end of the south passage.”
Kedair began waving the Andorian defenders back, away from the flashpoint of the conflict to come. Bashir, however, remained at Dax’s side. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“This is about to get ugly, Julian. You don’t want to be here.”
A half shrug. “I’ve done my part for Andor. Now my place is here. With you.”
A burst of light and a roar of noise filled the north passage.
Kedair cried out, “They’re breaking through! Get down!”
Dax and Bashir took cover behind the north side’s cobbled-together barrier of desks and filing cabinets. Kedair and Zisk flanked them, and the rest of the Aventine security team that had come with Dax huddled up close behind them, a second line against impossible odds.
Dozens of orange phaser beams lashed through the dusty darkness over their heads. High-power shots scarred the walls with carbonized burns, and smoke quickly filled the intersection.
Beneath the steady whine of phaser fire came a bright metallic clinking—
Thunder and blinding light, a concussive wave, then darkness—
. . . and Dax was alone in the blue twilight, stunned, immobile, her vision blurred, her hearing muffled. All around her, bodies lay strewn on the floor, some writhing in agony, some deathly still and half-buried in rubble. Her symbiont felt more present than usual, its mind more active. It was pushing her into action, taking command of her muddled senses in the name of self-preservation. Her body felt like lead mired in mud. It was so hard to move. . . .
A slow blink and her vision sharpened. Phaser shots were flying. Voices shouted.
A Starfleet Special Ops strike team, clad in solid black field combat uniforms, charged through their freshly blasted gap in the north passageway’s wall of debris.
Standing against them, alone in the corridor, was Kedair. She stood in the open, relying on her expert marksmanship and her Takaran distributed physiology to protect her in the face of overwhelming force. Undaunted, she stood as phaser beams lanced through her, leaving her dotted with holes. But thanks to a biology that had no vital organs, she remained on her feet, defiant and firing with unerring precision, picking off anyone who dared to brave the breach. Turning sideways to reduce her profile as a target, she held her ground, and between stunning the attackers, she brought down more chunks of the building on top of their heads.
Dax looked to her right and saw Bashir fighting his wa
y back to consciousness. She crawled to him and dragged him behind cover. As they collapsed into a corner, he coughed out a mouthful of red spittle and grinned at her with bloodied teeth. “Are we dead yet?”
“Not for lack of trying. Good to go again?”
“Ready when you are . . . Captain.”
She helped him up, and together they staggered back out into the fray to stand beside Kedair and tempt fate by holding the line for just a few moments more.
• • •
“That’s the last one!” Helkara exclaimed. The Zakdorn spun from his station to face Bowers. “All sites have confirmed receipt and verified the pattern data!”
A cleansing sigh left Bowers ready for what he knew had to come next. “Mirren, put Ishan on-screen, please.” He stood from his chair and held up his chin with pride.
The president pro tem appeared on the main viewscreen, his ashen face tinted with rage. “Identify yourself! To whom am I speaking?”
“Commander Samaritan Bowers, first officer of the Aventine.”
“Captain Unverzagt informs me your captain is assisting the fugitive Bashir on the planet’s surface. Is that true, Commander?”
Bowers feigned ignorance. “Captain Dax didn’t specify a reason for her away mission.”
“Commander Bowers, effective immediately, you are to relieve Captain Dax of her command and place her under arrest for conspiracy to commit espionage and high treason.”
“I understand, sir. Please stand by while I relay your order to our chief of security.” Bowers pulled his thumb across his throat, a slashing gesture that signaled Mirren to mute the channel and terminate the outgoing visual feed. She confirmed the switch with a nod, and he added, “Get me Captain Dax, on the double.”
Mirren worked quickly, then answered, “Channel open, sir.”
“Captain, this is Aventine. Do you copy?”