by Diane Carey
He raised his glass. They each took a sip of wine.
Kasidy drew a long breath and relaxed. "I'd say that's a good idea."
It was a wonderful idea for the four seconds it lasted.
The comm line twittered just when things were getting nice.
"Dax to Sisko."
Sisko who? Nobody here by that name.
But it was Dax, not anyone else who might be inclined to disturb them unnecessarily. Dax was the heartbeat of Deep Space Nine, and she wouldn't call unless the whole station were on fire.
These days…it could happen.
He leaned forward. "Go ahead."
"I think you'd better get up here."
"Oh my way." He sprang to his feet. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
"I know you will," Kasidy called as he dodged out the door, and something about her voice said she really did understand, that she had been forced to rush in the same way to her own bridge in moments of crisis.
Yes, she understood. So why did he feel so empty as he plunged toward the turbolift, imagining her sitting alone at the beautiful dinner table with the beautiful stew he'd made himself?
Hungry was a rotten way to rush to Ops.
As such, the operational center of Deep Space Nine was wholly unwelcome as his lift doors parted and dumped him there.
Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax was at the Ops table, bringing a Grecian elegance to the hard alien place with her ever-classic manner. She didn't seem surprised to see Sisko here so fast, and she didn't apologize for disturbing his first dalliance in many weeks. She didn't say a thing, in fact.
She looked at him, then with her own eyes guided his gaze to the main viewscreen.
Hovering off his station as if suspended in time, masked in its own silence, was a Klingon attack cruiser.
"It just decloaked," Dax said simply. A plain statement with an uncomplicated message, except that Sisko knew Dax well and she was giving him a set of unpleasant facts that could fester if he didn't handle them correctly.
The Klingon cruiser had just come out of cloak here, very close to the station, without announcing its approach. And why would it be cloaked in allied space?
Evidently, it wasn't here to deal with allies.
"That's the new Klingon flagship," Sisko said.
"The Negh'Var," Dax said. "There's a General Martok aboard, asking to speak to you."
A little late.
Sisko felt his jaw take a set. "Put him through."
CHAPTER 3
GENERAL MARTOK GAZED with the satisfaction of good drink at the lonely spiral that these days was called Deep Space Nine. There were no markings that showed the station to be a Federation outpost. It might as well still be Cardassian, for all its outward witch-gray hull and loamy shadows.
Such a creature, that station. There were few of them, and this the first he had seen himself. Any others were still within Cardassian space.
An appealing design, this clawed monster. Three curved docking pylons launching downward from its central spool like an insect's legs in repose, and three upward—like an insect in death.
Martok smiled. Ironic.
In his mind he enjoyed what the Starfleet controllers of that station were seeing right now, and saw in his mind their faces. They might be allies for this moment, but the Klingons still had their fangs. Not long ago, such a scene would have meant the deaths of all Starfleeters who saw it.
"Get me Commander Kaybok," he said to the bridge officer in front of him.
His private screen flickered, and his fleet commander's face appeared. "Kaybok."
"Kaybok, let these be your standing orders. No ships may leave this area, but especially the ship that just pulled in."
"The freighter, General?"
"Yes, the freighter Xhosa. It's been in Cardassian space and is headed there again. When it leaves, I want you to follow it out into the sector, then stop it and search it. If there will be a leak, it will be there."
"General," Kaybok said, his brow tight, "I do not know what I am searching for."
"For changelings, Kaybok."
"But…a changeling can be…anything. A floor, a boot, a cup …"
"Yes. For the first time, we cannot be sure who our enemies are. You never know where you'll find a changeling. This is unlike any enemy we have ever fought."
"What shall I do, then?"
Martok paused. There was no good answer for this. What to do against an enemy who could sneak away as the very clothes he himself might be wearing?
"Follow your orders," he said. "Even the station may be controlled by changelings by now. Keep alert. We must find out who is the enemy."
Kaybok appeared dismayed, but nodded sharply. "Yes, General."
"Martok out."
"General." His ship's space master turned and interrupted. "The station is accepting our hail. Shall I instruct the rest of the fleet to come out of cloak?"
"No, Drex. Leave the cloaks on, except for vessels I will give specific instructions about. The longer we keep these people in darkness, the more our advantage will be. I want them to know what they have at their door, but not be able to count."
"I understand, General."
"Well that you do."
"Sir," Drex began, moving to him and lowering his voice, "why are we threatening a Federation station? I am your second-in-command. You should tell me."
"Only the commanders know everything, Drex," Martok said roughly. "For you, I have an assignment. I want to know what kind of weapons are on this station. You find out."
Drex's mouth fell open, but only for a second. "How shall I find out?"
"I will give you names. The pressure you put on them is your choice. You must work quietly."
With a temperate nod, Drex briefly flared at the idea of putting pressure on somebody; then he drew back as if realizing what had just been ordered.
"Are we now spying on our allies, General?"
Martok leaned toward him. "Very carefully. After all, how many die not from frontal assault, but by a stab in the back while fighting? I want to find out how long Sisko's blade is. Now, keep your voices down…and let me speak to him."
"Captain Sisko, I bring greetings from your allies in the Klingon Empire."
"Welcome to Deep Space Nine, General," Sisko offered by rote, measuring his words. He would respond politely to the so-called greeting, but without naïveté. If Martok's blunt entry into the sector was meant to convey some covert message, then there would be the same kind of message awaiting him here. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"It has been a long journey," Martok said. "My men require shore leave."
Sisko felt Dax shift slightly at his side, the tiniest hint that she also had suspicions. The most obvious—the Klingon mentioned how long his journey had been, but made no explanation of why he had made so long a journey. Sightseeing?
"Certainly," he said with control. "They can come aboard whenever they like."
"Good," Martok responded. He barked a command in Klingon to someone Sisko couldn't see on the screen.
Sisko knew the word—uncloak.
Didn't make sense. The ship already was out of cloak.
The answer wasn't pleasant, Sisko found, as a moment later he and Dax stood staring at the main screen, which showed quite passively the full scope of not one ship, not two or three, but a full Klingon task force rippling out of cloak.
* * *
"Too much for you, Captain Sisko?"
Martok's voice overlaid the scene before them, his words spoken with the smallest hint of espionage. He enjoyed what he had put before them.
The scene was imposing and unprecedented. For years—how many?—no Klingon fleet of that size had been assembled, at least none that Starfleet had any knowledge about, and Starfleet was not ignorant.
And now here they were, ship after ship, crowded on the approach lanes to Deep Space Nine.
Intercepting Dax's glance, Sisko felt his suspicions confirmed. Before them was certainly
no fishing trip the Klingons were enjoying. No packet run, no supply line.
"This is a Federation station," Sisko said with a touch of flippancy, "manned by a full complement of Starfleet personnel. We pride ourselves on being able to handle almost anything, General. Feel free to bring your men here for shore leave. They will be met at the docking ring by our Security teams, with whom they can check their energy weapons."
For a moment there was silence over the scene before them, hovering firepower enough to rip apart entire solar systems.
"I understand," Martok's voice came back.
"I look forward to meeting you. Screen off," Sisko grumbled. He turned around, leaned back on the Ops table, and let his expression turn hard.
"That was subtle," Dax said, her lovely mouth turned up in—well, it wasn't exactly a smile.
Sisko folded his arms. "How many of them are there?"
She touched the panel before her and waited for the readout. "I can't get a clear reading. Sensors are reading at least fourteen vessels in the immediate vicinity. That's not counting any that may still be cloaked." She looked up. "You're going to let them flood the station with their crews?"
"I haven't got a reason not to. It's one of those little thorns in the bush called alliance. It looks pretty until you stick your hand in."
Dax flickered an eyebrow. "Why so many ships?"
He shook his head. "Nobody needs that many ships. Put the station on silent yellow alert. Notify no one but security personnel and arm them with hand phasers. I don't want the Klingons to realize we're on alert status. They'll take that as an affront."
"But you don't trust them?"
"Hell, no, I don't trust them. I'll trust them the minute they explain why they're roaming my sector with a full task force."
"You won't trust them then," Dax said.
He looked at her, and for an instant, the shortest of moments, he saw not the lithe dark-haired woman who was too young for her job, but the clever and ancient trickster he had known for more years than Jadzia had been alive. Curzon Dax had found his own way to be ageless, and probably would have even if he hadn't been a Trill. These aliens and their conscience-transferring ways, the creature living inside Jadzia, possessing the thoughts of other lifetimes…for an instant all this seemed at Sisko's fingertips, as if he too could be one of them.
Sometimes he felt that close to Curzon. The old man's personality embraced Jadzia like scandal.
Then her gossamer cheek picked up a flash of technical lighting from the opposite side of Ops, and reality crashed in. Any sane man would have wanted her to be exactly what she was, and here he was wishing she were a withered codger for whose memories she was the current receptacle.
She was watching him. Yeah, that was Curzon's look. "How was your date with Captain Yates?"
"Short, that's how. Damned short." He let out in his tone, and knew Dax would pick up, the level of his suspicions. "Let's hope it's not short and damned. Get the station ready. And I want to talk to Odo."
Quark's bar wasn't the best saloon in memory, but in the desert of space any watering hole could become an oasis, given enough time. Chief Miles O'Brien figured he'd anointed this dump enough that it ought to be given a proper Dublin pub name, and maybe a painted heraldic insignia.
Now, how would that look? A charming old-time heraldic shield, decorated with a couple of Ferengi ears and a pocket with a hand stuck in it.
I need a hobby.
Enough concentration. He struck the back of his own wrist. A Gramillion sand pea flipped from the back of his hand into the air. He kept his eye on it as it soared, then snapped like a bass.
"Chief," Julian Bashir said from the other side of the small table, watching O'Brien as he laboriously chewed the pea he could've swallowed whole, "I'm beginning to think there's no limit to the wonders you can perform."
O'Brien sighed and wished he were somewhere else. "That's what I like about you, Julian," he droned. "You're easily impressed."
Strange. He hadn't spoken in a normal voice. He'd nearly whispered, even leaned toward Julian just a bit, as if afraid he'd be overheard.
He glanced to one side. Julian glanced to the other. The pervasive atmosphere of being watched was enough to peel skin.
All around them were tables full of Klingons, stone-faced and huddled, their collective voices creating a surreal rumble in the bar.
And this pretending to not notice the Klingons' deliberate "act natural" poker faces was bloody not easy.
Quark showed up like a crab escaping from shore birds and put two drinks on the table between O'Brien and Dr. Bashir, and almost put one right in the bowl of peas.
"Thank you, Quark," Bashir said. "Can we get a little yamok sauce for these sand peas?"
The fishy barkeep glanced this way and that, peering at the gathering of Klingons, unhappier than he had ever been to have a full crowd.
"Quark?" Bashir persisted.
O'Brien shifted in surprise when Quark actually sat down with them. Sat down.
"Listen," the Ferengi said. "Do you hear that?"
Bashir looked at O'Brien.
O'Brien shrugged. He wasn't about to encourage whatever Quark was going after.
"I don't hear anything," Bashir innocently said.
"Exactly," Quark cracked. He leaned closer and his voice fell to a hiss. "The ambient noise level in this room is less than thirty decibels! On an average day it's sixty-five. When there are Klingons in the room, it can go as high as eighty-five."
Knowing he would regret this, O'Brien concluded, "So what you're saying is…it's quiet in here?"
Quark's ratlike face swiveled to him, eyes like painted buttons. "Too quiet! Something is terribly wrong."
"Like what?" Bashir asked.
O'Brien winced. Shut up, Quark, shut up.
And why did Bashir keep prodding? Hadn't he picked up on O'Brien's lagging about here for so long? They had to let the Klingons pretend to be relaxing on shore leave long enough to give Sisko a chance to find out what was really going on, and between Quark and Bashir, the cover was going to be blown off any minute now.
"I don't know," Quark said. "But have you ever met a quiet Klingon before? And look at the way they're watching the room. It's like they're picking out targets."
Well, this had to stop.
Pretending to give way to the bloodcurdling boredom, O'Brien put on his best Quiet Man mood and rose to his feet.
Quark gasped, "What are you doing?"
"I thought I'd ask the Klingons what they're up to."
"Don't do that!"
"Why not?"
His mouth hanging open for an instant, Quark coughed up, "I don't want them to know we're on to them!"
Dropping back into his chair, O'Brien grunted, "Suit yourself."
Relieved, he sagged back in the chair and let his legs spread out under the table. He'd taken a chance, but not much of one. Quark hadn't been likely to want a brawl in his bar, never mind the decibels. Maybe now the Ferengi would shut up and quit listening too hard, and maybe the Klingons would think their act was fooling somebody.
Shifting his chair so that he could see the most Klingons with the least glancing, O'Brien went back to pretending to be minding his own business. Quite a trick, when the principal view was Bashir trying to duplicate the pea flip. Missed.
The engineer sighed. "The secret is positioning the pea correctly on your hand."
"I thought I did," the doctor said in that boyish way of his. He reached for another pea.
Quark moved the bowl away from him. "What are you two doing? I'm telling you, the Klingons are up to something!"
"Calm down, Quark," Bashir said. "The Klingons are our allies."
"They might be your allies, but they're not mine."
"Relax," O'Brien said as if talking to himself. "If something's up with the Klingons, Captain Sisko will find out about it."
"Yeah," Quark said gutturally, "but will he tell me?"
The wardroom door opened with stylis
h silence, but in his mind Sisko imagined the faint swish and before him the Klingon walked in.
General Martok came alone. No bodyguards, no escorts. Was he so lacking in trust, even of his own men?
As he came into the room, the massive, armored Klingon looked slowly to his left, to his right, and even glanced at the ceiling. His every movement was one of reined suspense. This wasn't a man on shore leave.
Aware that he might have been falling prey to his own paranoias, those that naturally came to the commander of an outpost so far out in space, a place that would've been forsaken but for the quirk of nature it guarded, Sisko thought twice about what he was seeing. Could it be that Martok was ordinarily the suspicious type? Some Klingons were. And might it be that the Klingon task force of so many ships was out for a drive?
Of course. That was it.
As such, Sisko decided that this was not some flaw in himself making him measure what he saw with so tainted an eye. He wasn't imagining a damned thing.
Nor did he miss Martok's subtle bumping of the chairs as he made his way toward Sisko and Major Kira. Finally, after looking at the walls, the chairs, the table, putting a hard heel to the carpet, he looked up at the two of them.
Sisko stepped to him. But not too close. "So, what brings you here, General?"
"A valid question," Martok said. "But first…" He drew his dagger, a heavy business blade that could have only one purpose, and salad wasn't involved.
At Sisko's side, Kira shifted when Martok raised the weapon and sliced a cut into his own hand. He extended the hand and let the blood drip onto the tabletop.
"Let us be sure we are who we say we are."
He handed the dagger to Sisko with a clear message of what he expected.
Kira impugned, "You think we're changelings?"
"What I think doesn't matter," Martok said. "The blood will tell."
A piece of the puzzle clicked into place. One, at least, of Martok's fears, and possibly one of his motivations, had just explained itself. Were these fears personal, or was he a carrier for wider-based concerns?