by David Mack
“Too kind.”
Trom pivoted toward his next subject of interest. “Sarina Douglas. Human, genetically enhanced. Former field operative, Starfleet Intelligence. Former deputy director of security, Starbase Deep Space Nine.”
“Senior deputy,” Sarina corrected.
He stole a brief look at his padd. “According to Breen Intelligence Directorate files, you and Doctor Bashir share more than a domicile. You also acted together on a covert mission to the Salavat shipyard, in the Alrakis system, three and a half years ago.” He leaned down, as if to touch his helmet’s snout to her face. “Your crimes on Salavat, including the murders you committed during your escape from interrogation, have not been forgotten, Miss Douglas. The Breen Confederacy considers you a fugitive from state justice.”
“Oh, sure. You say you remember me. But did you call? Did you write?”
The Spetzkar commander straightened and took half a step back, putting him just out of Sarina’s reach—not that she had showed any sign of making a move to attack. “Your former status as a Starfleet officer, as well as Doctor Bashir’s, intrigues me. If you both have left Starfleet, whom do you now serve? Your dossier indicates that you belong to the Federation’s civilian espionage and counterintelligence service, the Federation Security Agency.” He regarded the rest of the team. “But we have no records of your associates.”
“My associates? I don’t know them. They were just hitching a ride.”
Trom kneeled in front of Sarina and seized her by her throat. “I see your irreverence for what it is, Miss Douglas. Cease and desist, or I will kill one of these people. Understood?” Sarina nodded, so Trom let go of her and stood again. “Let’s continue. Are these associates of yours nonofficial agents of the FSA?”
This time, Sarina said nothing. She closed her eyes and drew a long slow breath—no doubt to calm herself in preparation for what she knew was coming next. Trom nodded at one of the men who had guarded the group. “Doctor Nev? If you please.”
Nev thrust his stun baton into the small of Sarina’s back. Her screams were piercing and shrill, and they cut Bashir to his soul. All he could do was wince and shut his eyes. I can’t give in to save her. That’s the Breen’s plan—and it’s the last thing she’d want me to do.
After minutes that felt like forever, Sarina’s monstrous howls came to a halt, and the Breen doctor—though Bashir doubted anyone capable of such horrors deserved to bear the title—stepped away to let the Spetzkar commander inspect his handiwork.
“She’s done for now.” Trom looked at the others. “Torturing the Vulcan would be pointless.” He waved dismissively at Cole, Kitsom, and Webb. “They’d enjoy it.” Then he looked at Bashir. “And our superiors have a bounty on this one. Him, we take home as is.” The commander turned and walked away, uttering a string of untranslated vocoder gibberish.
Before Bashir had time to wonder what Trom had said, the synthetic ropes holding the team went slack, and the six prisoners crashed hard, heads first, onto the deck. Gloved hands seized Bashir by his bound ankles and dragged him across the deck. On either side of him, the rest of the team was hauled with the same lack of dignity, towed like garbage out of the cargo bay and through the frigid corridors, until they arrived, finally, at the brig, which was packed to overflowing with the ShiKahr’s officers and crew.
The low humming of a force field ceased just long enough for the Breen to hurl Bashir and his comrades into a cell. The six of them landed together in a heap. Then the force field snapped back on, filling the cramped space with its incessant angry buzzing.
As the Breen troops walked away, Bashir saw Sarina’s left eye flutter half open.
“Sarina? Are you all right?”
“Shh. It’s okay, Julian.” She gave him a weak smile. “I have a plan.”
Her smile faded as she passed out in his arms. He sighed. “I feel better already.”
* * *
A sharp hiss roused Bashir from his all-too-brief nap. “Psst. Hey you.” Bashir blinked slowly as he got his bearings. He was still in the brig, slumped against the bulkhead beside the force field. The hissing and the voice were coming from somewhere close by, to his right. He turned his head. Across the corner from his cell, behind the force field of another holding area, a young rust-furred Tellarite pointed at him. “Yeah, you. ’Bout time you woke up.”
Bashir rubbed his eyes and surveyed his own cell. Sarina lay beside him, her head cradled on his thigh. Kitsom, Webb, and Sakonna slept on the deck. Cole had claimed the small space’s only bunk, where he had stretched out with his back to the rest of the brig.
The Tellarite became more insistent. “Hey.” He waited until Bashir looked back at him before he continued. “Don’t I know you?”
Whispering so as not to wake his cell mates, Bashir said, “I doubt it.”
“Your face is familiar. I know I’ve seen you before.” He grimaced, as if the effort of thinking was too great a strain for him to bear. “I’m Chief Tunk. What’s your name?”
“Unimportant,” Bashir said.
He pointed past Bashir with his three-fingered hand. “Who are they?”
“Even less important.”
The chief’s snout twitched as if he smelled something rotten. “If you were nobodies, you wouldn’t be locked in here with us. You’re not part of our crew—I know everybody on this boat. So if you aren’t with us, and you aren’t with the Breen, what are you?”
“Stuck in the middle.”
Tunk sounded annoyed. “You’re full of snappy answers, eh?”
“If I said my friends and I were here to help you, would you believe me?”
The Tellarite shrugged. “I might want some proof.”
“Sorry.” Bashir gestured at his scant undergarments. “What you see is what you get.”
Prisoners in other cells shuffled and shimmied closer to their force fields to join the hushed conversation. Most of them had no direct line of sight to Bashir, but he heard them moving: the scrapes of their feet on the deck, the soft rustling of fabric as they shifted position. Only a pair of faces, in the next cell down from Tunk’s, had a view of Bashir. A Bajoran woman and a Bolian man peered through the shadows at him. Bashir tried to inch away, to take cover deeper inside his cell, but he hesitated to wake Sarina or disturb the others, which left him trapped and visible. He looked back out at the ShiKahr’s officers in time to see the Bajoran woman’s eyes widen with surprise. “By the Prophets! Is that—it can’t be him. He’s dead.”
Bashir turned his face away, but he knew it was too late; the damage had been done. He had recalled reading of his alternate-universe alter ego in one of Captain Sisko’s after-action reports, but until now he hadn’t considered the possibility that he might be mistaken for the man—or the risk that his counterpart might be dead, instantly making his own presence suspect. In his imagination, a whoop and cry were about to go up, branding him an intruder.
Instead he heard the Bolian shush his shipmate. “Quiet, Raya. Keep this to yourself. You, too, Tunk. Not a word, not to anyone. That’s an order.”
Mumbled acknowledgments of “Yes, sir” came back from Raya and Tunk. Bashir turned back and looked across the dim confines of the brig. The Bolian man met his stare, smiled, pressed his index finger to his lips, and nodded once. His message was clear: Your secret is safe.
He had no idea why it mattered, but all the same he was grateful for the crew’s discretion. He gave a small nod of thanks, then turned as he heard his cell mates stir. Cole rolled over and sat up. Sakonna, Webb, and Kitsom sat up and roused themselves quickly but quietly.
Their synchronicity baffled Bashir. Did they all have implanted alarms? Or had the junior agents been conditioned to adapt to their superiors’ schedules? He decided it didn’t matter how they had awoken together, at least not for the moment. He twitched his thigh beneath Sarina’s head and jostled her gently from her light slumber. She squinted, then blinked as she sat up. “I see none of us are dead yet,” she said under her bre
ath. “So far, so good.”
“The night is young.” Bashir got up and stamped his feet to get his blood circulating. The other agents stood and stretched their limbs. In such close quarters, Bashir found the sudden profusion of movement awkward and intrusive of his personal space. He stopped his exercise and put his back to the wall. “Any plan to get us out of here, Mister Cole?”
The senior agent bent side to side, like a willow tree caught between competing winds. “Not at the moment, Doctor. Unless you have a plan you’d like to share.”
Bashir ignored the verbal jab. “We’re at a distinct disadvantage.”
Kitsom cracked his knuckles. “Nice of you to notice.”
“I’m serious. We’ve lost our uniforms, our equipment. Everything we had was on the Królik, and now it’s in the hands of the Breen.”
Sarina rested her hand on Bashir’s shoulder. “Maybe we should relax, Julian.”
“Relax? Are you serious?”
Cole shot a weary look at Bashir. “Patience, Doctor. Sometimes, if you wait quietly, opportunity knocks. But you need to be still in order to hear when it comes to your door.”
“Patience? Opportunity? Forgive me, Mister Cole. I was under the impression that you and your ‘organization’ made a practice of planning for all contingencies. I find it hard to believe you didn’t see this scenario coming from light-years away.”
“Who says we didn’t?” Cole folded his hands behind his back and stepped to within a millimeter of the invisible force field. He looked out at the imprisoned officers of the ShiKahr, and then he turned to face his own team. “Trust me, friends: This is far from over.”
Eighteen
By some standards, half a day was not a long time; under the present circumstances, however, Trom found its duration interminable. He stepped out of the turbolift onto the bridge of the ShiKahr, hoping to put an end to the spell of waiting that was driving him to distraction.
He walked toward the center seat. His second-in-command relinquished the chair as Trom approached. “The bridge is yours, sir.”
“I’ve had my fill of this universe, Crin. Tell me some good news.”
Crin waved over the senior tactical officer as he began his report. “Main power restored. All overloaded relays have been replaced or bypassed. Command and control systems are back online. Communications are back up.”
One detail was conspicuous by its omission. “What about the wormhole drive?”
Karn, the tactical officer, stepped in to answer Trom. “The jaunt drive, as this ship’s crew calls it, sustained minor damage. Engineer Solt says repairs are complete. Pilot Yoab is making himself familiar with this vessel’s helm controls and the navigation software for the jaunt drive. Rem is assisting him with the calculations for a jump to the B’hava’el system.”
“Good work.” Trom directed his next question at Crin. “Status of the Tajny?”
“We’ve taken it in tow with a tractor beam. Factoring in its additional mass and its effect on wormhole topology is part of what’s complicating Rem’s calculation of the jump.”
That was less than ideal news, but Trom had expected it might be the case. “If bringing it with us becomes untenable, we’ll have to set its self-destruct and continue without it.”
“Rem is sure he can make the jump work. But just in case, I’ve put a skeleton crew on the Tajny. If the jump goes wrong, we’ll cut them loose and abort.”
It was a prudent plan, one that maximized the company’s options. “Well done. But make sure everyone knows our priority is to safeguard this ship. It has to be delivered intact to our research teams. If that means sacrificing the Tajny, then so be it.”
“Understood, sir.”
“What about the scout ship the Federation agents were using?”
“It’s in the main docking bay. It appears to have suffered heavy damage.”
The first officer’s choice of words stoked Trom’s curiosity. “Appears to?”
“Our priority was to fix this ship, sir. I told Solt not to waste his men or his time on the scout. When we get home, we can release it to fleet operations, and let it be their problem.”
“All right. How long until—”
Crin turned his head away and looked down; it was a habit of his when he received audio transmissions through his helmet. After a few seconds, he straightened and faced Trom. “Jaunt drive online, wormhole generator fully charged.”
Trom pivoted into the command chair. It felt very different from the seats on a Breen starship. It wrapped around his upper body and offered a generous cushion beneath him. Let’s hope the lab rats back home think to copy these seats along with the jaunt drive. He gripped the armrests and lifted his chin. “Yoab! Status!”
The pilot looked up from the helm and rotated his chair to answer Trom. “Calculations complete, sir. I was double-checking them to make sure I didn’t miss any variables.”
“And? Did you?”
“I don’t think so, sir.” Left to hang on his own noncommittal answer, Yoab corrected himself a few seconds later. “No, sir, I didn’t. Course plotted and ready.”
“Crin, sound general quarters. All hands to battle stations. Karn, advise the Tajny we’re about to get under way. Yoab, how close will your jump take us to the Bajoran wormhole?”
Yoab checked his navigational chart. “Approximately nine point two light-minutes.”
“Can you put us any closer?”
“Not without ripping us to shreds inside the Denorios Belt.”
Trom beckoned Karn. “What’s on long-range sensors?”
“Heavy activity in the B’hava’el system, sir.”
“Military or civilian?”
Karn bowed his head by the slightest degree. “At this range, our sensor readings are inconclusive. We’re picking up several energy signatures that could be from matter-antimatter warp drives, but we can’t ascertain any details beyond that.”
The commander nodded to mask his dismay. “So we’ll be jumping in blind. That presents a tactical hurdle. Recommendations?”
“It might be prudent to avoid confrontation, sir. We have the advantage of being in a military vessel. If the majority of traffic in the system is civilian, it’s unlikely anyone will try to challenge us. In which case, we emerge from the jump and set course for the wormhole. At warp two, we can reach it in less than ninety seconds.”
“Relay those orders to Yoab and brief the crew on the Tajny. We go in one minute.”
“Yes, sir.”
Trom settled into the command chair and drew deep breaths to calm himself as the moment of action arrived. The seconds passed slowly, dragged down by the weight of adrenaline and anticipation. Then Karn signaled Crin that all was ready. The first officer looked at Trom, who nodded his assent, and Crin gave the order: “Activate jaunt drive.”
“Engaging jaunt drive.” Yoab keyed in the jump command.
An indigo mandala of supercharged gases swirled into being on the main viewscreen, directly ahead of the ShiKahr. The cloud expanded to epic proportions in a matter of seconds, and then its center dilated to reveal the yawning throat of a wormhole, a shortcut through space-time. The interior of this artificial tunnel through the stars rolled like the sides of a kaleidoscope. Bursts of energy flared and danced along its ever-shifting curves.
“Increase power to the tractor beam,” Trom said. “Keep the Tajny as close to us as possible. Karn, charge the shield generators in case we need them. Yoab . . . take us in.”
“Yes, sir. Proceeding into the wormhole at one-half impulse.”
The maw of the wormhole filled the viewscreen as the ShiKahr accelerated inside it. Trom wasn’t sure what to expect of a trip through a synthetic wormhole, but he was surprised at how smooth the journey proved to be. No turbulence, no eerie sonic feedback. Just a hypnotic array of blue radiance that soon yielded to a point of light, which expanded within moments into a vista of black space dusted with bright stars.
All at once the ShiKahr was free of the w
ormhole, shot out into normal space-time with hardly any sense of disruption. Trom was glad no one could see his grin through his helmet. I could get used to this. “Yoab, report.”
“Right on target, sir. We’ve arrived in the B’hava’el system. Setting course for the wormhole, warp two.”
“Engage when ready,” Trom said. “The sooner we—”
“We’re being hailed,” Crin said. “On multiple frequencies.”
Karn’s console came alive with shrill alarms and flashing icons. “There’s a fleet of Jem’Hadar battleships in formation near the wormhole. Another Jem’Hadar battleship orbiting Bajor.” He paused as he saw the next detail. “As well as another jaunt ship.”
Crin turned from the communications panel. “It’s the jaunt ship that’s hailing us.”
“On speakers.”
A rich tenor voice wafted down from the overhead. “—why you’ve abandoned your assigned patrol sector. Repeat, this is Captain Jean-Luc Picard, commanding the free starship Enterprise. Captain sh’Pherron, please respond. Why has your ship—”
A wave of Trom’s hand cued Crin to mute the channel. “More than we bargained for.” He looked at Crin and Karn, then at Yoab. “To the wormhole, warp three.”
“Aye, sir.” Yoab triggered the warp drive, and the stars on the screen distorted into streaks as the ShiKahr raced toward its most viable route home. “Twenty seconds out.”
More alerts shrilled from the tactical console. “The Jem’Hadar fleet’s moving to block the wormhole,” Karn reported. “We should beat them there. Raising shields and—”
All the consoles went dark. The whine of the warp engines dwindled to a pathetic groan as the ship slowed and plunged back into normal space-time. Yoab struggled with the helm console, then slammed his gloved fists on its unresponsive interface. “We’re adrift!”