The Way of the Warrior

by Diane Carey

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

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  ISBN: 0-7434-2082-9

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  Table of Contents

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part Two

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part Three

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Four

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Look for STAR TREK fiction from Pocket Books

  PART

  ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  "WE'VE GOT TO do better than this."

  Phaser rifles. Lightweight, efficient, somehow unassuring at the moment. They'd been modified, but not tested.

  The test was everything. The test was the future. Captain Benjamin Sisko hungered to pull the trigger, try the weapon on the creature who threatened his station. There was just no simulation for that.

  His dark skin was rosined with sweat, his attitude charred. He felt the sweat and saw it reflected in glassy access portals as he crept past. They'd been at this for hours. So far, no improvements.

  He paused and crouched at a junction. The space station's dismal corridors were guerrilla paradise, and that was both helpful and prohibitive. Unfortunately, given the talents of his enemy, the old station might very well aid the evil. That was the personality of Deep Space Nine. It was his to possess, as long as he could hold its slippery hand.

  Dodging down another length of corridor, he glanced behind him. At his flank, the slender form of Kira Nerys was barely a sliver of shadow. Grim and focused, she was slowing down after all these hours on the hunt, he could tell. And so was he.

  She was good at this, though. Of course, she had done it half her life, on the planet slowly turning nearby. But that was the past, and this was the bitter present.

  Ben Sisko reached a doorway and flattened against the bulkhead on the far side. Kira did the same on the opposite side. He nodded to her, held up his hand, and counted one-two-three with his fingers. His hand closed into a fist.

  The major struck the comm panel with her palm.

  The door washed open and all secrets were blown.

  Together they swung inside, leading with their rifle barrels. Sisko opened fire.

  An expanding burst of energy flowered into the quarters, swallowing every inch from floor to ceiling, draping the walls, caressing the furniture.

  After the burst, Sisko stopped, and waited. Beside him, Kira was breathing hard.

  Nothing happened. The enemy wasn't here. Again.

  On his heaving chest his comm badge whimpered for attention. "O'Brien to Sisko."

  "Go ahead," Sisko said, unhappy with what he was going to say.

  "We've swept all of level seventeen. No sign of the changeling."

  "Move down to eighteen," Sisko said. That order got him off the hook of having to say he hadn't had any success either. They had to do better than this. Couldn't fight what they couldn't even find. "We'll meet you there after we finish checking the guest quarters."

  "Just watch yourself, Chief," Kira said. "This changeling knows the station as well as we do. He could be anywhere. Or anything."

  The painfully obvious. She was either annoyed or joking—Sisko couldn't tell. Her voice was raspy, unreadable.

  "Aye, Major."

  Sisko motioned for Kira to follow. They would keep doing this until it worked. The only hard fact on their side was that the changeling had to be here somewhere. He could appear as almost any object of almost any size, but one thing remained faithfully constant—he had to be here.

  Clinging to that lacy truth, Sisko led the way to the next guest quarters. One room at a time, until they ran out of phaser power. Then it would all be over.

  The next door gasped open and they charged in, but this time, before Sisko could fire, a chair—and not a very attractive furnishing at that—suddenly blended out of form and into a jet of red-orange protoplasmic liquid. It arched over their heads as they ducked, then in midflight changed again, this time to the form of a bird. And out into the corridor, and away.

  Gone, before they could get off a shot.

  Grinding his teeth, Sisko hit his comm badge. "We found him! He's headed for the Promenade!"

  Together in their anger and frustration, he and Kira plunged down the corridor, trying to anticipate the moves of a creature so alien from themselves that it didn't even breathe. How could they think like that?

  "This is giving me a stomachache," Kira growled as they ran. "There's got to be a better way to fight changelings."

  "Obviously conventional weapons aren't going to be the way," Sisko heaved. "We have to be more creative than they are. And with beings who can turn themselves into any form, that's going to take some creating."

  Wiping sweat from her cheek as they came out into the open area of the Promenade, Kira snarled, "I don't know if I'm all that imaginative."

  She was furious and Sisko didn't blame her. That was fine—he'd rather have her on his side and mad. There was too much on the line.

  They came out onto one of the overhead walkways and made their way toward the stairs that led down into the main Promenade, running past two-person security teams also armed with phaser rifles.

  Below, standing in front of a shopping directory, a lieutenant was joyfully directing the action, seeming to thrive in his position at the middle of action. His wavy brown hair glinted in the unaccommodating Promenade lights, and his eyes danced.

  "All right," he said, "I want phaser sweeps of everything in the Promenade. He's here somewhere…let's find him. On three. . . . One…two…"

  His mouth made the shape of the three, but his voice was choked off.

  Above, Sisko almost yelled out a warning, but there was no point.

  An arm came around Julian Bashir's narrow shoulders and fixed beneath his chin, then pulled him sharply off balance. The shop directory itself had grown that long arm, too late for anyone to move in. They had failed miserably, and now the changeling had a hostage.

  CHAPTER 2

  TENSION, LOSS, DEFEAT. The terrible ring of those was a knell of the damned.

  Before anyone else could move, Chief O'Brien appeared suddenly from behind a towering cactus plant and pointed his phaser rifle into the face of
the changeling as the entity took human form with a punctuating slurp.

  "Bang," O'Brien said. "You're dead."

  "And so is Dr. Bashir," the changeling said with bitter victory. He withdrew his facsimile of an arm and set the chagrined doctor on his feet.

  His gut grinding with aggravation, Sisko dropped from the stairway and hurried to them.

  Behind him, Kira tapped her comm badge. "Computer, elapsed time?"

  "Three hours, twenty-seven minutes."

  "That's not good enough," the changeling said. "If one of my people were loose on the station for that long, there's no telling what damage he could do."

  "Schedule another surprise drill," Sisko said harshly. "If the Dominion tries to infiltrate the station, I want to be ready for them."

  Big words after such a big failure. He'd just lost his doctor and control of the station's central area to the enemy. He glared briefly at Security Chief Odo and couldn't help but feel a twinge of bitterness that the shapeshifter had so thoroughly faked them out. That was Odo's job, of course, and his conviction, but somehow Sisko endured a moment of irrational hostility.

  "And remind everyone," Odo was saying, "that next time they'd better sweep everything. A changeling can be anything. A post, a pillar… even a patch of reflective surfacing." He tapped the directory that had served as his hiding place.

  "We get the message, Constable," Chief O'Brien muttered.

  "I hope so, Chief," Odo crackled with that sandpaper voice. "Just remember, the Founders are even better shapeshifters than I am."

  His masklike face, smooth as putty, was enough reminder of that. They'd been fooled in the past by shapeshifters who could replicate alien features better than Odo could. What he did was natural, but untrained, like a soprano voice without a concert hall.

  But today it had been enough to make fools of Sisko and his security efforts. He'd lost the station, and only the charity of simulation had left it in his hands.

  He turned to leave, and flinched when someone was standing in his way who a moment ago hadn't been there—Quark.

  "Excuse me," the slippery barkeep said, "but if you're done scaring my customers away, I'd like to reopen the bar."

  Kira said, "Go right ahead."

  "Thank you." The Ferengi swung to Odo. "Constable, it just occurred to me that if I knew in advance how long it would take them to catch you during the next drill, well, let's just say you and I could split a substantial profit."

  Irritated already by having to play the bad guy because his own people had become those, and perhaps by Quark's double-tonguing, Odo stiffened and walked away without a word.

  The guileful Ferengi grinned, then added a final pinch. "Think about it!"

  He varnished his win with a glance at Sisko and Kira, satisfied with himself that somehow he'd gotten a moment's enjoyment out of a morning without profit, and also left.

  Sisko didn't say anything. He stepped to one side and let Kira take charge of the Security troops as they gathered around.

  "Performance reviews will be held starting at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow in the wardroom," she said. "Check with your team leader for the schedule. Dismissed."

  The words dropped like pebbles on the tightly woven carpet. No one was satisfied. They had just bet their lives and lost.

  When Kira turned to Sisko, he could tell that she was embarrassed at their failure. She was his second-in-command. She was supposed to be able to deliver success.

  He remembered that feeling from his past. It was no fun.

  "How about some dinner?" she asked, avoiding talking about the drill, at least for now. Avoiding saying the things they would have to say later, that their security measures, never mind their defense grid, had just been proven full of holes. If Odo could get away from them, as he'd pointed out himself, then a fully experienced shapeshifter could turn Deep Space Nine into a circus.

  But how could they fight aliens quite that alien? What weapons would make them cower? The phaser rifles offered a sense of security, but even shooting one of those creatures wouldn't necessarily destroy it. They worked on a whole different plane of reality, where physics was suspended and science was turned on its ear.

  Fight them…how?

  "Not tonight," Sisko said past his thoughts. "I've got a previous engagement."

  "Oh, that's right," Kira said. "Captain Yates got in this morning." She smiled, relieved to have a change of subject. "Give her my regards."

  Handing her his phaser rifle as if shedding himself of baggage, Sisko returned the smile, but it was a sham. "I will," he said.

  But I'll keep the day's adventures to myself.

  Candles in space. The technology of twenty civilizations around him, keeping him alive, giving him purpose, and still like so many others he reverted to the simple easy silence of a candle flame when inner peace was elusive. He didn't ask himself whether he would've lit the candles if Kasidy weren't coming here tonight, whether he would instead have sat in dimness, combing again and again in his mind the activities of the day, and the damnations of how to defend against the unstoppable. There had to be some way to beat the Founders without wasting effort just finding them. Some way to reach them on their own level—

  Nope, the salad fork went on that side.

  The door chimed, and suddenly his only thought was getting the table setting right. His mind was snapping, that was it.

  "Come in," he said, then had a flash of panic—had he remembered to change into his civvies? Yes.

  "Hello, Ben," the woman in the doorway shadow said. "I hope I'm not too late."

  She was gorgeous. Exotic. Winsome. Or maybe he was just hungry for a reason to be happy.

  Yet even as he strode toward her, he was wishing the dam would burst and whatever was boiling in the quadrant would simply happen and be dealt with, live or die. The waiting was ghastly.

  But she was here now. . . .

  "Some things are worth waiting for," he uttered to her, and surprised himself with a genuine smile this time. He scooped up a small present on the table. "Here," he said. "For you."

  She smiled too, and the candles fell to shame. "Isn't that a coincidence? I have something for you, too."

  With the unceremonious efficiency of captains, they handed each other their gifts and opened them.

  As she drew a band of fabric from the wrapping, Kasidy reacted to the scarf as if it were much more than a scarf. "Where'd you find Tholian silk?"

  "The Tholian ambassador owed me a favor."

  She accepted his explanation and slipped the scarf around her neck. The color erupted to life against her complexion. He was glad he hadn't picked the purple one.

  "May I?" he asked, and held up his gift.

  "It's not silk," she said, "but I think you'll like it. It's from my brother's team."

  "Pike City Pioneers!" Sisko beamed as he pulled out the baseball cap with the team logo on the front.

  "My brother says if you're ever on Cestus Three, he'll get you seats in the dugout."

  The hat was a perfect fit, despite Sisko's newly shaven head, it'd be perfect. "How far is it to Cestus Three?"

  "Eight weeks at maximum warp."

  As he pulled off the hat and studied it wistfully, Sisko shook his head. "To see a real baseball game…might be worth the trip."

  "Tell you what," she offered warmly, "if you ever decide to go, I'll take you there myself. As long as you don't mind traveling by freighter."

  "I might just take you up on that." He didn't dare admit to her that it sounded like paradise at the moment, to abandon his concerns and responsibilities and drift off on some ship into the eternal darkness, at the end of which was a good old-fashioned ball game.

  "Did you do this all yourself?" Kasidy was picking at the table spread.

  "My father always says the way to a woman's heart," Sisko crooned, "is through her stomach."

  Well, that was almost trite enough.

  She didn't seem to notice. "Ah," she said, "so it's my heart you're after. . .
."

  They fell into each other's eyes and briefly were caught there, lost in the fine fibers of a web they both knew was there in the evening dimness.

  She broke away first, only a second or two—Sisko found himself lingering.

  "In that case," she was saying, "maybe you could tell me what all those maintenance crews are doing in the docking ring."

  "Just some retrofitting," he offered, and occupied himself in opening and pouring the wine.

  She didn't settle for that.

  "Now you are keeping a secret," she said. She closed in on him, delivering the silent persistence of the kind of woman he liked.

  "Let's just say," he began again, "we're preparing a few surprises in case the Dominion comes through the wormhole."

  Kasidy brought down one of her straight eyebrows and crimped her mouth. "Seems like everyone's got the Dominion on their minds these days. I hear the Cardassians have even sealed their borders."

  Sisko offered a sympathetic shrug toward those to whom a year ago, maybe a month ago, he would rarely have found sympathy. "They're worried about being infiltrated by the Dominion. The idea that there might be changelings loose in the Alpha Quadrant has everyone a little nervous."

  This wasn't what he wanted to be talking about—the business of the quadrant dropped at his door every moment of every day, because he was the gatekeeper at one of its most dangerous gates. Once in a while a man deserved to forget that, even for a few minutes. Vigilance was his lot and ordinarily he didn't mind. But today he was mad at it.

  "All I know is," Kasidy said, "I've got a cargo hold full of Teresian hardwood bound for Cardassia Prime, and now I can't deliver it. If you ask me, I think everyone's being a little paranoid." She paused. "Aren't they?"

  Uneasy to be the quadrant's barometer, he resisted her searching gaze. He wanted to tell her the attitudes she was reading were nothing more than fears mustered by rumormongers, people whose daily routine was dull and who clung to every thread of interest that came their way. "I hope so," he said, knowing he wasn't fooling her. "What do you say we forget about business?"