CHAPTER 4
GUL DIJMAS STARED AT his private display screen, schooling his face to an appropriately grim lack of expression. The muted noise of the command chamber filled the air around him, but he ignored it with the ease of long practice, his eyes fixed on the problem filling his screen. The arrangement of the game pieces soothed him, offering a mathematical complexity that mocked and mirrored the problem that waited beyond the hull of his ship. It was a shame, he thought, vaguely, his hand hovering over the image of the multi-squared board, that the solution to his other problem wasn't as amenable to analysis. He touched the red vizier, shifted it four diagonal squares, and smiled as the black monarch dissolved in illusory flames. The Cardassian version of chess was complex, owed much to the Klingon version of the game, and to the Bajoran variations; if Dijmas had his way, it would soon owe something to the Federation's game as well. His hand hovered over the controls, over the image of the burning monarch, ready to advance to the next problem, but he shook himself, shut down the program instead. The ship's computer had never been designed to play chess, not at his level, and it certainly had never been programmed to provide him with suitable problems, especially ones derived from the Federation's version of chess. He brought his own problems with him, a tape of a hundred games and situations, and rationed it strictly, eking it out so that it would last most of the voyage.
And he was still no closer to the solution of his most pressing problem. He touched keys, slaving his private display to the sensorman's console, and saw the technician's shoulders stiffen as he realized his captain was watching.
"No reports, sir," the technician—Tobor, his name was—announced, and Dijmas sighed.
"Keep scanning."
"Sir."
Dijmas leaned back in the command chair, watching the strings of symbols course across his screen, and wondered again if Gul Dukat had led them on a wild-goose chase. There was no sign of Helios in the barren system, and no place for it to hide, either, with only a couple of rockballs and three gas giants orbiting a nondescript orange star—there wasn't even an asteroid belt to hide the perturbations of a cloaking device. There had been no sign of Helios since the Avenger had fired on the pirate a day and a half ago. It had been pure luck that they spotted her that time, anyway—only the gods-who-are-not knew why Helios had decloaked, there in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps she'd been interested in the merchanter one of the flotilla ships had glimpsed briefly, but that ship had been too small, and too far off, to have been worth Helios's time. Whatever the cause, they couldn't expect that good luck again.
"Fleet status report," he said, to no one in particular, and a technician leaped to obey. "Put it on my screen."
He saw the sensorman relax as the slave link was broken, but ignored him, fixed his eyes instead on the image in his screen. It showed a schematic image of the star system, shown as if one were looking down at the star's northern pole, with the dead planets picked out in pale yellow, and the ships of the squadron indicated in bright blue. Avenger, the fastest of the scouts, had reached the far side of the system, was cruising just inside the outermost planet's orbit; the others had spread out in a pincer movement, the heavy cruiser Reprisal moving clockwise, supported by the frigate Vindicator, while the flagship, Onslaught, moved counterclockwise, little Counterblast trailing in her wake. His own Heartless remained stationed at the base of the pincers—the pivot point, if one wanted to be poetic. Standard tactics, effective tactics, he thought—if there was anything there.
"Sir," the communications technician said. "Message from the flag."
"Put it on my screen." Dijmas repressed a sigh as Gul Dukat's familiar face filled his display board, schooled himself to perfect obedience. "Sir. Heartless hears you."
"Good." Even in the screen's imperfect reproduction, Dijmas could see his superior's eyes narrow. "Your report, Dijmas?"
"Nothing, sir," Dijmas answered, in his most emotionless voice. "We have not picked up any signs of a ship, its gravity shadow, or wave emissions from a cloaking device."
"Then perhaps you should reevaluate the efficiency of your crew," Dukat said. "Helios was seen entering the system. She can't have left without our observing her."
"No, sir." But she wasn't seen, Dijmas thought. All we had was a shadow, it could have been a decoy, or just a bad reading. If I were Helios's captain, I'd be long gone from here.
"There is one further order that I want to give personally," Dukat went on, eye ridges contorting. "Helios is to be taken if possible—not destroyed. Have your boarding party on standby."
Dijmas felt his own eye ridges twitch. "Very good, sir," he answered, automatically. "But, sir—"
"Are you questioning my orders, Dijmas?"
"No, sir." Across the command chamber, Dijmas could see his second-in-command, Merid, staring worriedly at him, and hastily rephrased his question. "I'm concerned about Helios, however. She outguns all of us except Onslaught."
"I am aware of that," Dukat said. His tone changed, became faintly contemptuous. "You won't be attacking alone, Dijmas. Be assured of that."
Dijmas bit back his instinctive anger—he was no coward—and said, "Then we will be making coordinated attacks, sir?" It was a loaded question, and he saw Merid's eyes widen slightly. The squadron's last attempt at a coordinated attack on Helios had failed miserably, not least because Onslaught had rushed the attack.
Dukat's entire face seemed to tighten, as though he was holding in a shout of rage. "You have a great deal of responsibility in this, Dijmas," he said at last. "Heartless will be the pivot of the attack."
"I thank you for the privilege," Dijmas answered, conventionally, and saw Dukat's fleeting sneer.
"Have your boarding party on standby," Dukat repeated. "Onslaught out."
Dijmas touched the key that blanked his screen, looked up to find Merid still staring at him. "Place the boarding party on standby," he said, "and pass the word that the crew may stand down to condition yellow."
"Sir." Merid bent low over his own console, relaying the orders, and then came to stand beside the captain's position. "Sir," he said, voice carefully lowered to be sure none of the bridge crew would overhear, "condition yellow?"
Dijmas could almost hear the rest of the question, the question even Merid didn't quite dare voice directly: Condition yellow—standby, not full alert—when the enemy might appear at any moment? When Gul Dukat might inspect at any moment? He smiled, knowing the expression went wry, and said, "The men need to eat, Merid. We've been at alert for six hours."
"We can eat at stations," Merid said.
"But not well," Dijmas answered. "Not well enough to keep everyone at full readiness, anyway. Have Chief-of-Supply organize ration-bearers, make sure everyone gets a decent meal. The crew can eat in shifts—let blue watch eat first."
Blue watch was the elite crew. Merid nodded, though he still looked uncertain. "I'll see to it, Captain."
Dijmas nodded, turned his attention back to the main display screen. In its depths, the unnamed sun glowed deeply yellow, its color enhanced rather than dimmed by the filters. A dark speck lay against its face: the innermost planet, little more than a ball of rock. The other planets were invisible, but they were just as dead—as space itself was dead here, Dijmas thought. Helios had certainly escaped. But if it had, how had it gotten past the squadron's sensors? He shook his head, still staring at the screen. And if it had not, where could it be hiding?
* * *
Cytryn Jarriel gave a final worried pat to the jury-rigged monitor that controlled the Metaphasic Shield, and straightened, glancing around Helios's bridge. All but one of the viewscreens were dark, and the single working screen showed a featureless haze of radiation, the interference of the sun's corona that hid the ship. They were blind, inside the sun's fire, but they were also invisible to the Cardassian sensors—or so he hoped. The strain gauges, external systems monitors deployed hastily across the bridge to keep track of the damage, all showed no change from the previous hour. An
d that, at least, was something: ever since Helios had been surprised by the Cardassian patrol five days earlier, the damage had been spreading, and there had been no chance to make more than temporary repairs. All the good he'd been able to do with the equipment stripped from Gift of Flight had been completely destroyed. It had been devastatingly bad luck that Gul Dukat's squadron had spotted them, just at the moment that it looked as though they might have escaped their pursuers. . . .
He glanced over his shoulder, toward the plotting table, and saw the captain looking back at him, a slight, gambler's smile tilting the corners of his mouth. Jarriel smiled back, unwillingly, and the captain beckoned to him. Jarriel gave his work a last assessing glance, and moved to obey.
The surface of the table was filled with a model of the system, the most probable positions of the Cardassian ships indicated by delicately shaded holographic models. Jarriel looked once at it, assessing both the tactical position and his own handiwork, then looked back at his captain. Demaree Kolovzon was tall for his people, topping Jarriel, himself not a small man, by half a head, and the lights of the table glinted in his slit-pupilled eyes. They were Kolovzon's least human feature—the Trehanna were remarkably humanoid in their outward appearance—and Jarriel met their gaze firmly. He knew better than to be fooled by the apparent congruences, but it helped to remind himself of the obvious differences.
"So," Kolovzon said. His voice was softly deep, with a timbre like the purr of a very large cat. "The Shield is holding?"
Jarriel nodded. "If it wasn't—"
Kolovzon grinned, showing teeth. "—we wouldn't be standing here. I take your point."
Jarriel nodded again.
"How long can we expect it to hold?" Kolovzon went on.
Jarriel sighed. This was the question he'd been dreading, the one to which he had no answer. "I don't know for certain, sir. The ship we took it from—you remember, the Ferengi trader two months ago? They had gotten the technology at second hand, had never tested it." He hesitated, judging the captain's mood, and added, "I suspect it was meant to be a last-ditch weapon against us."
To his relief, Kolovzon's smile widened for an instant. "It didn't work. But you're my engineer. What's your guess?"
"In theory," Jarriel began, carefully, "indefinitely. We're balanced very precisely, right above the point where the corona becomes dense enough to override the Shield. That assumes, however, that the Ferengi calculations were accurate."
"Isn't that a rather large assumption?" Kolovzon murmured. "Your Federation doesn't think much of them."
"Not entirely," Jarriel retorted, stung by the reminder of his past—it had been five years since he'd worked a Federation ship, and he'd served Kolovzon for four of them. "The Shield works, there's no question about that. And while the Ferengi may not be to your taste, they're not stupid. Or technologically backward."
Something ugly flickered briefly across Kolovzon's face, and Jarriel braced himself. He had scars already, from the captain's erratic temper. But then Kolovzon relaxed slowly. "I still want to know how long I can trust this thing."
I wish I knew, Jarriel thought. He said, "I would say, at least another ten hours. I'm showing strain building in the warp drive—I haven't had a chance to overhaul it since we met this damn squadron, I've been putting bandages on missing limbs down there, not making repairs—" He caught himself abruptly, made himself take two deep breaths, before continuing more calmly. "But, as I said, there shouldn't be a serious problem for at least ten hours."
Kolovzon nodded, and turned back to the plotting table. He rested his hands on the controls, staring pensively at the images, but made no changes, tilting his head to one side as he studied the display.
"Captain," Jarriel said. "The repair situation is getting serious. The Xawe ship wasn't nearly enough. I need—"
Kolovzon swung away from the table, and Jarriel braced himself again for a blow that didn't fall. "I know we need repairs," Kolovzon snarled. "You've told me we need repairs, shown me the damage, I haven't forgotten." He controlled his temper with a visible effort. "But there's nothing I or you can do about it until we get ourselves free of these damned Cardassians."
"Gul Dukat is very determined," Jarriel said, in his most neutral voice.
"I've pulled his ears once too often," Kolovzon said, "as you're the first to remind me." He looked back at the table. "Which is why I don't intend to hide here in this sun until he goes away. I want to deal with him, Jarriel, deal with him permanently."
Jarriel grimaced. "Captain—"
"Dukat thinks we're damaged, that we've gone to ground to wait him out," Kolovzon went on. "But if he continues on his current course, look here."
He touched keys, and the Cardassian ships in the tabletop display shifted position slightly. Squinting, Jarriel recognized Gul Dukat's flagship, just passing out of the shadow of the third planet, and the heavy cruiser that had inflicted most of the damage.
"They're trying a pincers movement," Kolovzon went on, his voice rich with contempt, "which is good of its kind, I suppose. But if we take the initiative, so—" He touched a final key, and the insubstantial model that was Helios emerged from the sun on a parabolic course that swept them past the Cardassian flagship. Miniature phaser bolts shot from the hologram, striking the Cardassian craft in a dozen places, and then the model Helios swept on, picking up speed as it swung around the gas giant, and accelerated out of the system at a speed not even the fast scout could match. "We can hit them first. If Dukat's ship is forced out of the hunt, the others won't pursue."
Or at least not as fiercely, Jarriel thought. He sighed, studying the images in the table's display. "This all depends on the Cardassians trying a pincer attack," he said slowly.
"What other tactic would they use?"
Jarriel nodded slowly. Cardassian tactics tended to be formalized; they hadn't been a major power long enough to train an innovative officer corps. It was a tribute to their grim determination that they'd gotten as far as they had.
Kolovzon was watching him with unblinking eyes. "Can the ship take it?"
Jarriel turned to study the strain gauges, a cluster of sickly yellow lights attached to nearly every console. "We have ninety-eight-percent normal shields," he said, "and we can shunt the power currently going to the Metaphasic Shield to main impulse—that'll come close to doubling our output, at least for the first twenty minutes."
"And the phasers?"
"Still at seventy percent of normal," Jarriel answered. "I can't guarantee you'll strike a killing blow."
Kolovzon grunted, dismissing the objection. "Have you got the cloaking device back on line?"
"Yes."
"Then we'll do it." Kolovzon touched another series of keys, produced an illusory screen, floating in the air in front of the main display. "The Cardassians should be right where I want them in twenty-eight minutes. Make sure everything's ready, Jarriel. I'll want to move instantly."
"Yes, Captain." Jarriel watched as the larger man turned away, but made no move to follow. He was as ready as the would be; his technicians had made all the repairs they could under battle conditions. And they were a good crew, as good as any he'd served with before. Not for the first time, he wondered briefly where Kolovzon had found them—in the first year after he'd lost his Federation papers, he'd served on three ships, none of which had been able to match Helios's crews for sheer competence. Kolovzon's people were good at their jobs; they were also as dangerous a crew as any he'd ever sailed with, to each other as much as to the enemy. Only Kolovzon's iron rule—an iron will enforced with an iron hand—kept them from turning on each other, and kept the ship from falling into deadly anarchy. And if anything ever happened to Kolovzon…He put the thought firmly aside. He'd made his plans for that eventuality—there were too many people on board who had no reason to love an ex-Federation citizen—and the lifepod was ready, stocked with oxygen and food and enough power to bring him into safe space again, and the false papers he would need to start over. Brief
ly, his hand touched the tiny sphere that hung on a fine chain around his neck. It contained the lock codes to his lifepod, his airlock, and would only be used when Kolovzon was dead. It was a numbing thought, and he shoved it away, refused to let it take root in his imagination. There was still work he could do to make sure Helios would survive this encounter; more, would emerge the victor.
* * *
"Gul Dukat wants this pirate very badly," Glinn Merid said.
Dijmas nodded, studying the latest tactical display. So far, their sensors had picked up nothing, no trace of the Helios anywhere in the system, no trace of anything except their own ships. But Helios had been seen to enter the system, and had not left it. . . ."Is blue watch back on station?" he asked, idly, his mind still on the problem in his screen.
"Yes, sir," Merid answered. "Gold watch is eating now, at yellow stations."
"Good." Dijmas frowned at the screen, facial ridges contracting. There was something there, something he should have realized—a tactical solution, hovering just below the level of consciousness, like the solution to a chess problem. "And the boarding party?"
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