by S. D. Perry
Fascinating stuff…and this is going a sound really stupid, but I feel kind of guilty for enjoying myself so much today, for being so interested. Shouldn’t I be trying harder to get home? DS9, my home. That looks wrong now, how’s that for strange—but where do I live? I had my own quarters on the station (well, with Nog), but it’s not like I planned to settle down there. Then I was at B’hala, but that was definitely temporary, just a job…and now there’s a room for me in Kas’s new house…I know I’m welcome, I know that, but is that home now? Will it ever feel like home to me, even if Dad finally does come back?
Maybe I should look at what’s happening now as an opportunity to expand my boundaries, be out in the universe…be around some people who don’t care that my father is the Benjamin Sisko of the Federation, the Emissary, the one who transcended the linear plane. It’s clear from Dez’s attitude, at the mission conference and at lunch afterward, that he wants me working as part of the Even’s crew, for as long as I’m here—not just doing research or data entry, either. He wants me to be a full participant.
Jake Sisko, fortune hunter. That’s about the silliest thing I’ve ever written, just looking at it makes me want to laugh, but…okay, it’s kind of exciting, too. What’s wrong with that? I’m stuck here anyway, why shouldn’t I learn a new skill or two, do something interesting with these next weeks? At least I won’t have to sit around wondering what to do next, now that I can do anything….
Enough. I’m going to bed. Tomorrow, I’m going to pretend that I belong here.
“From the beginning,” Facity said, and sat back to listen and watch, already aware that he was as prepared as any of them. Eight days. It had been only eight days since they’d picked him up, and he was ready.
“We drop behind the second moon and establish orbit, timing the rotation so Drang can’t pick us up on a standard pulse survey,” Jake began, sitting back in his own chair. Dez would be meeting them in a few minutes, but for now, it was just the two of them, the post-breakfast dining hall otherwise deserted. The mission team was off in one of the web rooms, looking over a visual identification register that Neane had come up with—holos of the more valuable items they might happen across while looking for the Yaron Oracle. The rest of the crew was taking a tour of the dropship, checking out Prees’s superior refit.
“Why the second moon?” Facity asked, reaching for her cup of currant juice.
Jake didn’t hesitate. “The first probably has an observation relay, the third and fourth are too far out.” At Facity’s nod, he continued. “The dropship team loads up—Dez, Pif, Brad, Stessie, Coamis, and Glessin will be hitting the tunnels, and you, Fajgin, and Srral will stay on the ship; you’ll pilot, Srral will run the transporters, Fajgin helps move team members and inventory on and off the pad. Everyone else stays aboard the Even—Neane will have command, and—”
“Why is Glessin on the team?” Facity interrupted.
“In case anyone on the team sees one of Giani’aga’s boxes,” Jake said promptly. “Even the small ones are worth a fortune. There may be as many as seven of them on Drang, but they’re a popular forgery, so there are bound to be some fakes, too. Glessin can tell the difference.”
“Which is…” Not something he actually needed to know, but she liked to see if he’d been paying attention.
“He said the balance is different, and the colors…but basically, the real ones are alive,” Jake said, smiling. “They respire. The fakes just blow air.”
Facity smiled back, impressed as usual. This was the third time in as many days that she’d subjected him to one of her impromptu quizzes, and she had yet to watch him fumble an answer. “Go on.”
Jake gazed up at the ceiling, frowning in concentration. “Let’s see…everyone left on the Even stands by to hit Drang orbit as soon as the final objective is met, or to rendezvous with the dropship itself in case of an emergency. Prees pilots, Aslylgof is on tactical, Pri’ak stays in engineering…Triv is on communications…” Jake broke into a grin. He was obviously thrilled to be able to include himself in the plan. “…and Itriuma and I stay in the transporter room to unload and sort whatever you send us when we get close enough. Feg keeps the inventory list.”
Good boy. “How do I get us to Drang without being caught?” Facity asked.
“You go in over and through the magnetic fields in the southern hemisphere and head west, skirting the ocean line,” Jake said. “It’ll be the middle of the night where the vaults are, and an unlikely area to be monitored for invasion anyway, since the big decoy vault and tunnels are about seven hundred klicks to the north and west. There’s also a good chance the dropship will be confused with local traffic, because of the size. You’ll stay at the edge of transporter range for the easternmost tunnel boundary, set up a holding pattern, and send Stessie in first. She incapacitates the watch guard—at that hour, probably no more than three Drang—and disables surveillance, if there is any. She then splits up and moves out along the three main tunnels. Stess stays put at the transporter meet point—the TMP—transmitting Stessie’s information back to the dropship.”
Jake’s recital was probably as helpful to her, to look for flaws, as to test him, but she’d already gone over it so many times that it was difficult to actually hear it anymore. It was a good plan, though. Simple. Facity had been on infinitely more complicated runs, had dealt with everything from humidity-pressure alarms to holodecoys over shadow-trigger pit traps, and though she tried never to assume anything, Drang really did look easy.
The security was ridiculously unsophisticated for several reasons—first and foremost, because the Drang placed an absurd amount of faith in their aggressive reputation and their brute strength. They didn’t even use energy weapons, preferring clubs or their own bare hands, believing that no one would dare infiltrate their underground stores. To be fair, no one had, but there had been a war on. Second, they thought that using a decoy vault was brilliant, apparently not realizing that they weren’t the first to think of it…or, for that matter, that two or more decoys might be even better. They might be illtempered, but they weren’t the smartest lizards walking, no question. Third and not least, they didn’t really differentiate between having things and having nice things; to them, a priceless Bienwon’ata lamp or bottle of alphacurrant nectar was as valuable as a crate of souvenir resin beads…and they protected it all accordingly.
They’ll do better after us, though. This would probably be the Even’s only crack at Drang, so they had to be at their best…
…and is Jake really ready? She thought so. She hoped so.
Keep asking him questions, find out.
“When does the team beam over?”
“As soon as Stessie locates the room with the Yaron Oracle, or any of the articles that were taken with it,” Jake said, “which shouldn’t take too long. According to the maps, there are between eight and ten storage rooms off each of the three main tunnels, plus a couple of smaller connecting tunnels, but since the Drang aren’t worried about preservation, everything we’re looking for should be sitting out. The Oracle’s remains are in a heavy carved wooden egg, stained dark blue, about a meter tall. The Yaron robes, jewelry, and candleholders are all dark blue, too.”
Facity nodded slowly as he spoke, her mind wandering off target again, thinking how much she’d come to like the young human in such a short period…how much everyone on board was coming to like him. There were plenty of reasons why, but if she had to put it down to a single attribute, it was that he didn’t try to be what he wasn’t. There was a minimum of facade to Jake, and while that was a rarity in the retrieval business, it certainly wasn’t a flaw. Besides that, he had a quick mind and a warm sense of humor, he was definitely too honest for his own good…
…and let’s not forget, he’s got the reflexes of—well, of a young man. For retrievers, good reflexes could mean the difference between life and death, literally.
She’d learned just how precise he was the day before yesterday, when she’d
challenged him to a game of dom-jot in one of the web rooms. He’d absolutely slayed the table. He could’ve won a bundle, too, except he’d actually informed her ahead of time exactly how proficient he was. She’d thought he was flirting, at first, showing off, but no…and that was another area where he’d shown maturity and restraint, always ignoring her deliberate dress code, his gaze rarely straying from her face. Facity liked sexy clothes, always had, and early on, she’d also come to appreciate the reaction factor. It applied to everyone, too, all sexes, races, and species—the way people responded to what she was wearing or not wearing told her something about them. Jealousy, lust, indifference, respect, contempt…whatever the reaction, she usually walked away knowing more about someone upon meeting them than whatever assumption they’d walked away with regarding her. And young Jake Sisko, whose blushing inclinations were clear—female humanoids, no question—was a gentleman. He worked at not looking sometimes, but he was determined.
Jake was watching her, patiently waiting for the next prompt.
“The team goes over…” she started.
“…and tags the Oracle, and the dropship beams it out,” Jake picked up. “Then the team splits into pairs—Pif and Brad will take the long west tunnel, the one with rooms farthest from the TMP. Coamis and Glessin take another one, Stess and Dez handle the third. Stessie—except for Stess—will be keeping watch, posted at every likely Drang transport area she can cover, in case any of them decide to drop in unexpectedly.
“As long as they remain undetected, each team will collect inventory, stack it up and put transporter tags around it, then signal Srral to beam it out. At ten minutes after going in, regardless of security status, they fall back to the TMP and are removed.”
“And then…”
Jake nodded his chin at her. “You’ll signal to the Even, a few seemingly random clicks on an open channel, then head back out the way you came in. We hop out of hiding, pick you up as soon as you leave the atmosphere…and with any luck, the Even hits warp before the Drang even realize we were there.”
Smiling confidently, Jake reached for his own cup of juice, a citrus concoction. “We rendezvous with the Yaron three days later. And start figuring out what belongs where from the rest of the yield.”
“Oh, really?” Facity asked, arching one brow at his quick finish. “And what happens if something goes wrong? What happens if the Drang catch wind of what is happening before the team is finished?”
Dez answered, walking through the entryway. “Everybody grabs whatever they can carry and runs for the TMP.”
He sauntered to the table, grinning at Facity’s annoyed expression.
“Thank you, Captain,” she said, and rolled her eyes for Jake’s benefit. “Aren’t we lucky, to have such a brave and masterful leader?”
Jake laughed. Dez sat down, his bright gaze fixed expectantly on Facity…who sighed, and then nodded slightly. Dez had agreed to let her make the final decision, but had there been any question? Not after watching him play dom-jot.
“It’s fine with me,” she said. “I don’t think you’ll get much argument from the crew, either.”
Dez’s expression remained calm, but she could see the light in his eyes go even brighter. “You’re sure…”
Facity nodded again, pleased at the warmth and animation in her lover’s face as he turned to a curious Jake. Dez hadn’t said anything else about his own father since that first night, but watching him with the young human, talking and listening, showing him elements of the Even’s code system…for the first time in all their years together, Dez had started to seem…content. He was almost always happy, but she’d never seen him so content.
“I want you on the tunnel team, Jake,” Dez said bluntly, “with me. We still have four days to go, but I don’t see the point in waiting to see if you can be more capable somehow. Stess is good but she moves slow, I’d end up doing all the marking…anyway, it makes more sense for her to stay at the TMP and keep watch while I go hunting with someone else, and I want you. Are you interested?”
Jake hesitated. “I—” And grinned, a beautifully unself-conscious expression of excitement. “I’m interested.”
That takes care of that, Facity thought, smiling, hoping hoping hoping that nothing would go wrong on Drang, suddenly wishing that her earlier meeting with Feg and Triv had gone differently. It meant nothing, the Ferengi were famous for sticking to their deals, the witnessed ones, anyway…but she had hoped that they would have at least tried to back out of their bet with her, that there would be bloodshed on Drang. Unfortunately, they were holding firm…and maybe it was because the job looked so very effortless, but she was starting to worry that they might actually have a chance of winning.
6
FOR THE DRANG time zone they were planning to hit, the early hours of the morning corresponded to the Even Odds’ s midafternoon…which meant that the team had a chance to digest a light meal as they mentally and physically prepared for the raid. Even if he had been hungry—and he was, in fact, slightly nauseated—Glessin’s training made it nearly impossible to imagine eating, dulling his senses with food. Nor did he participate in the anxious, excited chatter that echoed through the frigid air of the dropship’s bay as the crew got ready. Suited and outwardly poised, Glessin stood aside and watched, working to maintain his internal focus by observing the others.
He could see almost everyone—the entire crew was present except for Neane, who had the bridge. Srral was present, too, but had already gone inside the specialized transport, presumably to check relays or some such; as Glessin watched, Prees also entered the dropship, carrying a spare tool kit, her shoulders anxiously hunched. After four years of working with her, Glessin knew that Prees worried overmuch on missions; she was a fine engineer, and when it came to emergency repair—if it came to emergency repair—Srral was even better. Still, Glessin had never known an engineer to relax when his or her work was about to be tested.
The Karemman had to step past Dez and Facity, talking in low tones near the ship’s cabin door, smiling at one another in the private way that only committed bed-mates did. The captain and first officer were excited, Glessin could see it in the intensity with which they spoke, but they were still much calmer than any of the others, their anticipation almost a casual thing. Although he didn’t understand their lighthearted take on imminent danger, Glessin respected it. For most Cardassians, peril was a very serious business.
Against the bay wall nearby, the Wadi art appraisers were rapidly reading lists at Jake and Coamis, both young men paying half attention as they nervously checked and rechecked their gear belts, grinning too much, too quick to laugh at their own fumbling fingers. The half-Wadi archeologist was the newest crew member; he had only been aboard the Even for five months…which explained why he was almost as apprehensive as the human boy, Sisko’s son.
Glessin’s gaze settled on the human for a beat. Strange, how small the universe could sometimes be. Glessin had trained with a medic who had been positioned at Terok Nor, which the Federation had so cleverly renamed “Nine” when they’d sent Sisko there to represent their interests, some seven years ago. Glessin had considered mentioning as much to the boy, but the information was useless and doubtless uninteresting to anyone but himself…and interest was probably too strong a word for what he felt, anyway.
While he expected as much of the happily reckless Dez, Glessin thought it rash of Facity to be allowing a novice to go to Drang. The young Sisko was an agreeable enough boy, certainly, and he seemed at least as prepared as some of the others, but he’d been training for only days, not weeks or months. Glessin supposed it didn’t matter, in the end. They would survive and emerge victorious, or—or not.
There could be an ambush. They could be waiting for us.
Feeling a fresh wave of nausea at the absurd thought, Glessin swallowed heavily, ashamed at his stomach’s discontent…but aware that it was the past, not the present that sat so uneasily.
The past. He could feel
his focus slipping, turning inward. Before any and every mission, he was haunted by the specific circumstances that had led to his employment on the Even Odds…and it seemed that they would be no exception today.
There had been twenty in the fleet of Cardassian and Romulan warships that had sought to stop the Dominion almost five years ago, before the Founders had escalated their plans; that was also before the Federation had blundered in, he was fairly certain. It had been a strange alliance—the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar, Romulus’s version of the same, both wary, untrusting intelligence agencies coming together in the hope of destroying the Founders’homeworld, stopping their particular madness.
Glessin remembered feeling deeply honored to have been tapped for the assignment. He’d been trained as a medic in his mandatory military days, but had spent the few years since his tour studying biology, interested in historical species design…and he’d been “fortunate” enough to receive individual instruction from a man who secretly worked for the Order. The Order, which needed a few combat medics to fill out their veteran-staffed cruisers, headed to the Orias system to covertly meet with Romulan allies. And though Glessin had never seen combat, his instructor had been willing to attest to the competence and loyalty of his favorite pupil.