by Judith
ensign no older than twenty, face pale with fear, the looped chain of his
silver earring trembling. "You can't all die because of us." Bashir saw the
other four Bajorans beside the young ensign nod nervously. Apparently they had
discussed this act of sacrifice and he spoke for them all. "Do what
the captain wants. Save yourselves. We ... we'll trust in the Prophets."
"Thirty seconds to explosive decompression."
"Y'see?" Vash urged. "Even they don't want any false heroics!"
"It is not false!" Worf barked at her. Then he faced the Bajorans and stood at
attention. His words were calm and deliberate. "Ensign, your courage brings
honor to us all. But as a Starfleet officer and a Klingon warrior, I cannot
abandon you to an unjust fate." Worf placed his arm through the ensign's, taking
his stand beside the Bajorans. Jadzia promptly followed his example. Then
Bashir, Jake, and all the others, except for one, stood together on the hangar
deck, their fates as inextricably linked as their arms.
Only Vash stood alone.
"Fifteen seconds...."
"Captain T'len!" Worf's voice rang out across the cold, dark hangar deck. "If
Starfleet has forgotten the ideals for which it once stood, then let our deaths
remind you of what you have lost."
Bashir watched Vash rub a hand over her face, almost as if she was more
embarrassed than afraid to be so obviously on her own.
"Oh, for...," she muttered, then hastily crossed the few meters to link her arm
through Bashir's.
"Ten seconds...," the computer announced.
"Happy now?" Vash asked Bashir.
"We're in no danger," Bashir answered. "I don't know why, but I'm still
convinced this is a test."
"I'm convinced you're insane.."
With a loud bang, the personnel door guillotined shut
"Five seconds."
Bashir detected an instant increase in his heart's pumping action at the same
time as beside him he heard Vash say, "Oh, what the hell," and he felt her hands
on his face as she pulled him around and kissed him as deeply as he had ever
been kissed, just as the computer announced, "The hangar deck will now—"
Then the rest of the warning was swept away in the sudden roar of rushing wind
and the hammering of his heartbeat—and for all his enhanced intellect, Bashir
couldn't tell if he was reacting to the threat of sudden death, or to Vash's
thrillingly expert kiss.
CHAPTER 4
nog jumped in front of the Old Man to block whatever weapons the Romulans might
have, but before he could do anything else, the ribbon-like discharge from a
poly-wave disruptor smeared across his chest.
Instantly Nog felt his entire body numb, then he collapsed to the floor,
slightly puzzled by the fact that he was still alive. At maximum power,
polywaves could set off a subatomic disintegration cascade that was far more
efficient than disassociation by phased energy. He had seen Starfleet's sensor
logs of the aftermath of polywave combat—the ghastly scattering of limbs and
partial torsos left behind by the tightly-bound poly-spheres of total matter
annihilation.
Yet at the moment, whether he himself lived through such an assault or not was
of no importance to him. Because if the Old Man had been hit with even the same
type of low-intensity paralysis beam, it was extremely
doubtful that the elderly hew-mon's fragile body would survive the shock.
Nog lay absolutely still on the floor—he could do nothing else, no matter what
had happened to the admiral. Unlike a phaser stun, the polywave version left
its victims completely alert but completely immobilized.
His vision began to blur. He was incapable of blinking, and the flow of air
through his emergency breathing mask was drawing moisture from the surface of
his eyes. His hearing was also becoming less acute, as if the small muscles
connecting to both his primary and secondary eardrums were losing their ability
to function. The only sound he could hear clearly was the slow thud of his own
heart.
But... there. Somewhere in the increasingly indistinct background noise, Nog
thought he heard the Old Man speaking. Though how could the hew-mon do that if
he'd been paralyzed as Nog had?
Suddenly, Nog's field of vision shifted and shook as someone raised him up,
ripped open his emergency hood, and peeled back the air mask. At once his vision
cleared, and die first thing he saw was a young Romulan woman in the bronze
chainmail of the Imperial Legion waving a small device in front of his face.
The device, Nog realized, was a dispenser that sprayed a moisturizing mist, to
keep his eyes clear.
"Ferengi," the Romulan said, her voice distorted and muffled as if she spoke
from behind a door. "I am Centurion Karon. You are on board the Imperial
cruiser Al-tanex. Though you cannot respond, I know that you can hear me. Your
paralysis will begin to lessen within an hour. There is usually no permanent
damage."
Usually?! Nog thought with alarm.
The Centurion shot a second cloud of mist into his eyes. 'To answer what I
suspect are your most pressing questions, the crew of this ship are no longer
allied with the Ascendancy. We need to talk to Admiral Picard. We presume you
are his bodyguard or attendant. When we have concluded our discussions, if
either or both of you desire, we shall return you to a secure Starfleet base."
If either or both desire? To Nog, it almost sounded as if Karon expected that he
and the Old Man might be persuaded never to return to Utopia Planitia. What
could she ever say that would make that even a possibility?
Karon misted his eyes again. Though Nog could still only look straight ahead, he
now saw the Old Man, hood removed, being led away by two other Romulans without
sign of force or struggle.
The Centurion recaptured his attention with her next words. "No matter what
decision you ultimately make, neither you nor the Admiral will be harmed. Two
bions will now take you to our sickbay. When your paralysis has ended, we will
speak again."
Nog tried his utmost, but failed to make a single sound of protest. He wasn't
the one who needed sickbay—the Old Man was.
Her statement delivered, Centurion Karon slipped from his view, as once again
Nog realized he was being moved. And only full polywave paralysis prevented his
drawing back in disgust from the ... things that moved him.
Bions.
Starfleet Intelligence had examined captured bions, and Nog had read the
classified situation assessments with horror. Bions were supposedly artificial
life-
forms, created by Romulan science and now used as workers and soldiers
throughout the Star Empire. Though the creatures were disturbingly humanoid, the
Romulans insisted bions had no capacity to become self-aware. They were simply
genetically-engineered organic machines, no different from the myriad forms of
mechanical devices that served the Federation, from self-piloted shuttlecraft to
nanite assemblers. The only difference, the Romulans maintained, was that
instead of being built from duraplast and optical circuitry, bi
ons were
self-assembled—that is, grown—from proteins swirling in nutrient baths. Or so,
Starfleet warned, the Romulans would have the galaxy believe.
As far as Starfleet was concerned, there was a reason why bions had begun to
appear shortly after the Romulans had allied themselves with the Ascendancy,
and the first battles had been fought in the undeclared War of the Prophets.
Bions, Starfleet's biologists had concluded, were not genetically-engineered
artificial lifeforms; they were genetically-altered prisoners of war.
Nog shuddered inwardly, if not outwardly. The Romulans were now doing to their
captives what the Borg used to do with theirs. Except in the case of the bions,
the Borg's biomechanical mechanisms of assimilation had been replaced by
strictly biological processes.
The underlying technology was, without question, Grigari. And if only for that
reason—the unconscionable alliance with the Grigari Meld—Nog fervently believed
the Ascendancy deserved to be wiped out
Nog was grateful he could not see the dreadful mutants that carried him now.
Without constant misting his vision had blurred again, and he was able to form
only the vaguest impression of green metal doors sliding
open before Mm, a surprisingly narrow corridor moving past him, and, finally,
an oppressively small medical facility, where an angular treatment bed emerged
from a dull-green bulkhead, the display screen above it glowing with unreadable
yellow Romulan glyphs and multicolored status lights.
He was maneuvered onto the treatment bed, and almost immediately his vision
cleared again. This time the ocular mist came from an overhead pallet of
medical equipment. Just in time to give Nog a brief, shocking glimpse of a
bion.
Its face—for the bions were neither male nor female—was unnaturally blank, its
severe features nearly obliterated by the camouflage effect of its bizarrely
mottled skin, a dizzying patchwork of Andorian blue and Miradorn white, Orion
green, Tiburonian pink, and Klingon brown.
Even more disconcerting, its mouth was a tiny, lip-less gash intended to do
little more than ingest nutrient paste. The creature had no real nose, only two
vertical slits that pulsed open and closed like the gills of a fish.
Yet the real problem for Nog was what had happened to the bion's ears. Despite
years of working with hew-mons and Vulcans and other cartilaginously-challenged
species, Nog knew he still had difficulty abandoning the old Ferengi presumption
equating intelligence with ear size. And the same ruthless efficiency displayed
in the bion's other minimal features had reduced its ears to mere vestigial
curls of flesh that protruded from the jaw hinge like the wilted petals of a
flower. On a purely visceral level, it was as if he was looking at creatures
whose skulls had been flayed open and were empty—
that they could even stand upright with such minuscule ears, let alone carry out
useful tasks, was unnerving.
Hostage within his own still body, Nog could only watch now as one bion reached
above him. Its two fingers and thumb identified it as a common worker unit
Other versions, Nog had read, had up to seven fingers for delicate mechanical
repairs or complex weapons operation. No doubt other details of the bion's
specific capabilities were indicated by the markings on the front of its tight
gray jumpsuit and by the pattern of green stripes ringing each of its sleeves.
Perhaps even the identity of the captive species from which it had been created
was encoded there.
Another spray of mist clouded the air for a moment, and at the same time the
gray-suited bion moved to position its face directly in front of Nog's
unblinking eyes.
The bion's eyes were humanoid in size and placement, but the portion of the
eyeball mat was typically white in most species was a lustrous black. Nog didn't
know if that color provided a specific, engineered advantage; he suspected it
was a cosmetic detail designed to remove any sense of personality from the
bions. Even a Vulcan's placid eyes could convey emotion. But bions had eyes that
revealed nothing. Whatever secrets the pitiful creature's brain held, its flat
gaze betrayed no trace of any individuality or past life.
The bion mercifully stepped back out of Nog's sight
Nog waited for whatever would happen next, thinking of the Old Man, worried
about where he had been taken and what their captors had done with him.
Long minutes passed without sign of anything else moving in the medical
facility, and Nog concluded he had been left alone. He willed peace upon his
racing
mind. There was nothing he could do until his paralysis ended except meditate on
the Great Material River, and hope that somehow it would take from him his
mental clarity—of which he had no great need right now— and, just for a few
hours at least, transfer it to Jean-Luc Picard, who most certainly did.
After all the effort these Romulans had expended in order to contact the the
admiral, Nog didn't want to think what would happen when they realized that
their prize captive was not the great man of years past, only a man.
Nog's thoughts paused. Hadn't someone once said something about that condition?
But whether it was exhaustion or the effect of the polywaves, he no longer
recalled who.
Another lost memory, he thought, troubled, as his consciousness finally sank
into the Great River. In time, he supposed, that would be the fate of them all.
CHAPTER 5
he was only nineteen, but Jake Sisko already understood the inevitability of
death. And on the hangar deck of this Starfleet vessel of the future he was, in
his way, prepared to die.
Or so he told himself.
But even as the computer's warning was drowned out by the explosive burst of air
that rushed over him, tugging him back against the linked arms of his fellow
prisoners, Jake still didn't believe that the time of his death was near.
Part of the reason for his confidence in his survival came from his half-felt
suspicion that the Bajoran Prophets might intercede, or that, at the very least,
their existence implied that death might not be the end of his own awareness.
But as to whether it was faith in the Prophets or faith hi Dr. Bashir's logical
assessment of their situation—
that they were merely being tested by the Vulcan captain of mis ship—or simply
the fire of his youth that at this moment made him unwilling to accept the final
extinction of his intellect, Jake wasn't certain.
All he knew was that when a second blast of air rushed over him, and he realized
that the ship's atmospheric pressure had been maintained and that he could
still breathe—he wasn't really surprised.
Smiling broadly like most of the others at their close call, Jake glanced over
hi Bashir's direction. What he saw men did surprise him. The doctor was engulfed
in an embarrassingly passionate embrace with Vash. Jake couldn't help gawking as
a handful of excited conversations began around him and he saw Vash draw back
from the doctor, look around, and he heard her say, "Guess you were
right, Doc."
Bashir was looking decidedly flustered, and Jake felt himself experiencing an
unexpected pang of jealousy. Vash was extremely attractive, in a dangerous,
older sort of way.
Then his and everyone's attention was diverted to the personnel door as it
opened once again and Captain T'len reappeared, accompanied by her two visored
officers in the black Starfleet uniforms with red shoulders.
"Is the test over?" Bashir asked. Jake appreciated and mentally applauded the
defiance in his tone.
"It is," T'len replied.
But the doctor wasn't finished. "May I ask what the purpose of it was?"
"It was necessary to see if you had been altered by the Grigari. No Grigari
construct yet encountered is capable of facing a life-or-death .situation
without attempting to bargain for its life."
Jake vaguely recalled Kasidy Yates telling him sto-
ries of the Grigari, though she'd seemed to imply that few experts believed that
the fabled lost species was real—merely a name given to an amalgam of legends
that had accumulated over time.
Bashir was nodding at Vash, who was still standing beside him. "Not a very
convincing test. Vash here was ready to bargain with you from the beginning."
Jake regarded Bashir anxiously, wondering if it was a good idea to say anything
that might provoke the captain, but the Vulcan seemed unperturbed by the
doctor's identification of a logical flaw in her test.
"Vash is not a Starfleet officer. Her reaction was in compliance with historical
records of her personality."
At that the archaeologist broke away from the group of captives, heading
straight for T'len. "Yeah, well what about this reaction?" she said
threateningly, leading Jake to half-expect she'd try to deck the Vulcan captain
when she reached her.
But before Vash could cross more than half the four meters that stood between
her and T'len, what looked to be a phaser beam shot out from the visor worn by
the officer on the captain's right. The silver beam hit Vash dead center, and
she immediately crumpled to the deck as if stunned.
"Whoa...," Jake whispered. Then, as Bashir, Worf, and Jadzia rushed to Vash's
aid, he took a closer look at those special clear visors of T'Len's officers,
what he had at first thought were a type of safety eyewear. After a moment, he