Twist of Faith

by S. D. Perry

  In his current state of enhanced objectivity and heightened awareness, Shar wasn’t capable of fear for himself. But for the rest of the station, he grew more worried by the moment.

  They were in a scarcely used service corridor at lower mid-core when Kira found she could no longer avoid the obvious. She halted the team, realizing that if she was right, they needed to start a full-scale evacuation immediately.

  “Search the lower core,” Kira told Shar. “Concentrate on paths to and from the reactors, and around the fusion core.”

  Kira turned to face the others, calculating time and necessity, hoping that she was wrong but seriously doubting it. Kitana’klan was going to try and blow up the station; she could think of no other reason that he would have run to the lower core. He’d lied about everything, and she’d wanted so badly to believe him that she hadn’t taken enough precaution. And they were all going to suffer for it.

  Blame yourself later.

  “Ro, head to ops,” she said, working out plans as she spoke. “I want you to begin emergency evacuation procedures on the way. Call in everyone you need to get it done as quickly as possible. Have communications contact every ship in our immediate vicinity except for the Tcha’voth and tell them to get out of blast range, assume full-scale. Have Shar coordinate with the Enterprise and the Tcha’voth for whatever evacuation transport they can provide, we’ve got seventy-five hundred on board, and between the two of them, they can…”

  Kira trailed off, staring at Ro, who gazed back at her with a kind of terror-struck awe, her usually impassive face expressing a depth of feeling that Kira had never seen before. Seventy-five hundred, give or take. Something like a thousand on the Enterprise, nearly two thousand on the Tcha’voth—

  “Ten thousand,” Ro breathed, and Kira felt a deep chill hearing it said aloud, one that went into her bones. She’d assumed the prophecy had meant ten thousand Bajorans—it said that ten thousand of the land’s children would die, but between the two starships and the station, the number was too close. If only a half-dozen escape pods made it out, the number might even be exact.

  But it’s heresy, part of her objected, and Kasidy is on the station, the rest of the prophecy can’t come true if she dies.

  Maybe she won’t die. Maybe she’ll be saved. Maybe it’ll just be the rest of us.

  “Go,” Kira said. It was the only answer. They had to stop Kitana’klan, whatever he was doing. DS9 was not going to be lost because of one soldier. Or one heretical prophecy.

  Ro nodded, her anxious expression hardening to determination. “Yes, sir.”

  She turned and hurried away, already talking into her combadge.

  Kira turned to Vaughn. “Commander, it might be a good idea if you—”

  “All due respect, Colonel, but I may know more about the Jem’Hadar than anyone else here,” he interrupted, his jaw firmly set. Kira wasn’t going to argue.

  “Colonel, I have him,” Shar said, and the five guards immediately moved closer together, Vaughn and Kira both stepping in with them.

  “It appears that he’s at the fusion core, on grid twenty-two,” Shar added.

  Where the primary reactor banks are.

  “Get us to twenty-one,” Kira said, pulling her phaser, nodding at her team. “Set phasers on maximum.”

  Seconds later, the corridor sparkled away.

  When Ahzed in ops told him that the soldier had escaped, Nog didn’t feel vindicated. He felt nauseated and angry and afraid, telling the ensign that he would handle the security team’s transport personally before hurrying from the Defiant to the closest docking-ring transporter system. He informed ops that he was standing by at one of the larger cargo transports, and someone sent him the team’s signature signals, and then he could only wait and worry, alone. He felt cold and shaky, his stomach strangely empty-feeling, the rims of his ears burning with anxiety.

  I was right, nobody listened but I was right all along, he told himself, staring blankly at the CPG controls, his hands trembling just a little. Still, no sense of self-righteous indignation, no glimmer of smarmy satisfaction beneath his fear. As he waited for the word, he thought that he would happily forswear all material wealth for the rest of his life to have been wrong. The monster was loose, and when the destination coordinates for the team flashed across his console’s screen, Nog actually groaned out loud.

  The core! And only one level above the main reactor banks. With the six reactor conduits still offline, the energy flow to the station was coming from a single, central channel. Easier to sabotage and with more explosive results.

  “Energize,” Ahzed said, and Nog did it, promising himself that he would never again back down when he knew he was right, wishing that he’d learned that particular lesson a long time ago.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As soon as they transported, Kira raised one hand, circled in the air with her finger, then pointed down. The grid they were on was exactly that, although the holes were small and spaced far apart; they would have to move to the edge and look over the railing to see the level below.

  They had materialized on grid 21, one of the many mesh walkways that surrounded the secondary plasma channel in a series of reinforced metal arcs. The brilliant, glowing mass of moving energy was gigantic, an elongated column suspended through the middle of the lower core shaft and held in place by forcefields. The combined energy from the reaction chambers was still only two-thirds of what the station was used to, it had been since the attack, but the destructive potential was no less. If the core were to overload, the station and anything within a hundred kilometers of it would be blown to atoms.

  The twenty-first level of open walkways and platforms was closer to the base of the channel than to the top; the clear conduit extended high over their heads, at least eighty meters of it, and another twenty below. The air was cold, the vast chamber strangely lit by the brilliant spire of white-flame-colored, pulsating power. A deep, throbbing hum resounded throughout the shaft, providing a blanket of white noise that seemed to vibrate the very air.

  Together, Kira and Vaughn leading the way, the team sidled toward the railing, only five or six meters from the outside of the glowing tower. At various intervals up and down the core shaft, red alert panels flashed silently, their blinking crimson light barely noticeable in the vivid blaze of the massive conduit.

  Kira darted a glance over the side, looking down and to the left, tightly gripping her phaser—

  —and there he was. Unshrouded, kneeling in front of the first bank of reactor panels, Kitana’klan had his arms thrust into an open vent near the bottom of the system capacitance section. A phaser lay on the platform next to him…and only a few meters away, the broken body of an engineer, obviously dead. A male Bajoran she didn’t recognize, probably one of the techs who’d come in on the shuttle.

  Kira felt a sudden surge of hate for the Jem’Hadar, sick with the fact that she had been even partially fooled by such a creature; he’d surely been on one of the attack ships, already responsible for mass murder. He had killed two young officers and perhaps Julian in his escape, and now a civilian, a man who had voluntarily come to the station to lend his skills, to help rebuild what Kitana’klan had already tried to destroy once.

  And there he is, efficiently working away to finish us off, oblivious to everything else. Kira had tried hard in her life to learn forgiveness for, or at least understanding of, her enemies, but Kitana’klan didn’t deserve his life. She wanted him dead, and the sooner the better.

  She looked at Vaughn, who held up his own phaser, nodding, his eyes narrowing as he took another look at the unknowing saboteur. Safest to kill him outright, then undo whatever he was doing to the reactors.

  Kira jabbed a finger at Sergeant Wasa, beckoning for him to take aim; Wasa Graim was probably the most accurate shot on the station, and had trained half of the security force. A mostly solemn man in his early fifties, Wasa edged to the railing, carefully raised his phaser—

  —and before he co
uld fire, Kitana’klan was moving, scooping up his own weapon as he threw himself sideways into a shoulder roll, so fast that he almost seemed a blur as he disappeared under their grid. Wasa took a shot before the Jem’Hadar was entirely out of sight, missing the soldier’s heels by scant centimeters. The phaser blast skidded harmlessly across the metal grating.

  Damn! She didn’t know how he’d known, but it didn’t matter now, they had to—

  It happened so quickly.

  Kitana’klan was suddenly in sight again, dancing out from beneath the grid just long enough to fire, disappearing before any one of them could get off a shot—or get out of the way.

  Wasa went down, dead before he hit the floor, a blackened circle appearing almost dead center on his chest. And with a single running step back across the platform, Kitana’klan ducked among the banks of machinery again. If he stayed low, they wouldn’t be able to spot him from their position.

  “Back, get back,” Kira whispered harshly, thinking fast, remembering something that Vaughn had said when they’d first started talking, about the superiority of a Jem’Hadar’s reflexes. He was fast, and deadly with a phaser, and now Graim was no more; they couldn’t hope to outshoot him.

  A trap, something he won’t suspect… She looked down at Graim and offered a silent prayer, fighting not to think of his two teenaged daughters.

  Kira huddled with Vaughn and the four security guards against the shaft wall, silently commending the team for the determination she saw in their grim faces. Vaughn spoke first, his voice low and hurried as he addressed Kira.

  “He’s going to stay there, to protect his work for as long as he can or as long as he feels is necessary. If you can distract him, draw his fire up here, I might be able to circle down and get behind him.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Kira said. “But I’m going.” The walkway they stood on led to platforms on either side, those connecting to more extensive passages across the core—and several runged ladders, in addition to the four half-caged lifts that ran the length of the shaft.

  “We should both go,” Vaughn said. “Or three of us, but not together. He’ll expect one or all of us to go straight at him, not two or three coming from different directions.”

  So if he kills one, he’ll think he’s safe. She didn’t want anyone else to die, but if it meant saving the station, she was ready.

  Kira nodded, glancing at the others, deciding that she and Vaughn would try it alone; more people meant more noise.

  “Make it look good, revolving shots, not a constant barrage,” she said. “Don’t hit any equipment. Keep firing until we get to the banks.”

  They were all nodding, but she could see the question in their eyes, as plain as stars at night.

  “If we don’t make it, call for additional security,” she said, answering what she knew no one would ask. “We have to stop him, we have to disable whatever he did to the main controls.”

  Although if Vaughn and I don’t get him, it may be too late. She wasn’t sure what Kitana’klan had done, but he must have known they’d find him within minutes of his escape. Whatever his exact plans, he was obviously confident that he wouldn’t be stopped before he saw them to fruition.

  With a silent prayer that the evacuation was going well, Kira and Vaughn separated from the team, heading away from Kitana’klan’s position toward the other side of the cavernous shaft. Behind them, the team began to fire.

  When they reached the first of the wall ladders across from the team, hoping that the tower of transforming matter would block them from the Jem’Hadar’s sight, Vaughn signaled that he would take it, that she should pick another route down. Whoever reached the lower platform first was more likely to be hit. He didn’t have a suicide wish, but one of them had to go first, and Kira commanded the station, her survival was more important than his.

  Kira must have realized it, too. She didn’t look happy but she didn’t hesitate, either; she nodded, pointing at herself and then at another ladder several meters away, near one of the lifts. If she was afraid, he hadn’t seen it. Kira Nerys was cooler under pressure than some Starfleet admirals he’d known.

  Still holding his phaser, Vaughn stepped down onto the rungs, quickly and quietly one-arming it to the bottom. When he reached the lower grid he turned, deciding the best approach to the reactor bank area. Neither way looked promising, the walkways and platforms all open, the only real cover provided by the power conduit; heading to the right seemed fractionally safer, there looked to be a secondary reactor station, a few solid control banks that could act as a temporary screen.

  Vaughn looked up, and saw Kira waiting to see which way he would go, her face a pale, half-shadowed oval by the light of the central conduit. He pointed to himself and then to the left; she nodded, then disappeared from view. Above them, more phaser fire erupted. Kitana’klan wasn’t firing back, and Vaughn seriously doubted it was because he’d been injured or killed.

  Let’s do this. His heart was pounding, his body itching with adrenaline. No matter how many times he’d walked into deadly situations, it was never something that one could get used to. He’d known other humans who’d insisted they felt no fear, but as far as he was concerned, they were either lying or fools.

  Crouching, Vaughn sidestepped his way to his left, alert to even a hint of sound or motion. The constant thrum of the reactors would cover any small sounds, but even well-trained Jem’Hadar weren’t known for their subtlety. If Kitana’klan took him out, he’d make enough noise so that Kira would at least have an idea of his location. And even a shrouded Jem’Hadar couldn’t hide from a phaser sweep.

  Vaughn edged around the conduit, the main reactor banks sliding into view. He could see the dead man and the console that had been tampered with, but no Jem’Hadar. Another volley of brilliant phaser fire stabbed down from above, the shots still too wide; the security team hadn’t happened across their target yet.

  Go, now!

  While they were firing, Vaughn ran, taking advantage of the fact that Kitana’klan wasn’t likely to stick his head up to take a look around. There was a narrow storage locker only a few meters from the reactor bank platform, situated at a widened section of the walkway. Vaughn reached it and squatted in its shadow, darting another look at how the reactor banks were situated.

  Three long rows, say seven meters each and four individual units, nothing taller than two meters… Kitana’klan would either be somewhere he could fire on anyone approaching his handiwork, or close enough to the front row to attack physically. Either way, going straight in was definitely a risk, and one they had no choice but to take. Time was a factor.

  So take a risk. He could run past the ends of all three rows, firing down each. If he stayed low, he might get lucky…

  …but the odds are a lot better that he’ll get me, first. Vaughn would have to hesitate before each shot, just long enough to be sure that Kira wasn’t in the line of fire—but that fraction of a second would be all that Kitana’klan needed.

  And my death would be all that Kira needs to find him. He wasn’t sure where Kira was, but she was certainly close by now. If his sacrifice meant saving thousands of lives, the choice was simple.

  When all of the security team members started firing again, he launched himself from behind the cabinet, crouch-running for the rows of equipment, phaser ready.

  Vaughn had just reached the first machines when he heard Kira cry out in surprise and pain, the sound cut off a second later when he heard a deep and loud, echoing crunch, and something landed heavily on the platform.

  Kira was behind a low console not far from the main banks, and was just readying herself to make a run across the open platform when she saw Vaughn. The commander was making a break for the equipment banks, crouching low, a look of fierce determination on his face.

  If they both ran at Kitana’klan, wherever he was among the reactor instrumentation, he could only kill one of them at a time.

  Go! Kira launched out from behind her shelter—
<
br />   —and felt brutal, shocking pain as invisible claws punctured her waist on either side, the crushing force of the grip stealing her breath.

  Kira swung both of her arms forward, hitting only air, behind me—

  —and before she could fire into the space behind her, before she even got her arm up, she heard at least one of her ribs snapping as the shrouded creature squeezed, a terrible, internal bone-sound. She started to cry out and then she was in motion, flying, the console rushing up to meet her face as Kitana’klan threw her into the secondary bank. She felt the right side of her head hitting solid plasticine, she felt something in her upper right arm give way in a wave of dark pain—

  Vaughn spun around, the sound coming from near the secondary station where he’d sent Kira so that she might have a better chance—and that was also effectively blocked from the security team’s line of fire. They’d stopped firing anyway, as soon as Vaughn had reached the main banks.

  He leaned against the end of the front row and shot a look around the corner, silently cursing when he saw Kira’s boots sticking out from behind the low console. Acting on reflex, he triggered his phaser and swept it across the open platform a meter and a half off the floor, the bright beam searing the shaft wall before crackling brilliantly across the conduit’s forcefield.

  Nothing. Kitana’klan would have unshrouded if he’d been hit. Behind the console? Circling around the core? Vaughn couldn’t randomly fire, couldn’t risk damaging the vital controls of the fusion reactors, and the soldier could be anywhere.

  He needed to get to the machine that Kitana’klan had worked on, his instincts screaming that time was running out. He’d have to call the security team down, even knowing that some or all of them would be killed trying to get to the sabotaged controls. Beyond that—