Star Trek - DS9 Relaunch 04 - Gateways - 4 of 7 - Demons Of Air And Darkness

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Yup, definitely still thinking like a cadet.

  After a few moments, Nog asked, "Actually, I do have a question. What's it like?"

  "My zhavey, you mean?"

  "Not exactly. What's it like for you?" When Shar hesitated, Nog added, "It's just that, all my life, Fa­ther's just been a regular Ferengi—not even that, re­ally. Now he's the most important Ferengi in the galaxy. It's kind of—well, daunting."

  "That is a very good word for it," Shar said. "The magnetron scan is negative. Trying a positron scan now."

  "Okay," Nog said. "It's funny, but part of the reason I joined Starfleet was so I wouldn't turn out like my father."

  That got Shar's attention. "How so?"

  "Well, at the time, my father was working for Uncle Quark. He was the assistant manager of policy and clientele."

  Shar looked as befuddled as everyone else did whenever they heard that particular title. "What does that mean, exactly?"

  Chuckling, Nog said, "In practical terms, it meant that Father did whatever Uncle Quark told him to do." He turned and looked at Shar. "My father is an

  engineering genius. And he was trapped under my uncle—I didn't want to be like that. I knew I could do better."

  "So you did. In fact, I'd say you probably did better than your father."

  Nog frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "I'm sorry, sir, I spoke out of turn." Shar turned back to his console.

  "It's okay, Shar, please—tell me what you meant."

  Shar hesitated. "I've seen what your father accom­plished once he joined the engineering staff on the station. Those self-replicating mines of his that they put in front of the wormhole probably kept the war from ending badly two years sooner. I just don't see why he would abandon that to go into politics."

  Nog adjusted the runabout's position as it started to drift away from the wormhole. "My father has a chance to change the face of Ferengi culture!"

  Shar looked back up. "Really?"

  "Yes. My father was entrusted with the nagushood and a mandate from former Grand Nagus Zek to bring about major reforms in Ferengi business practices."

  At that, Nog thought he saw Shar's antennae move back slightly. Nog wondered if it was an expression of surprise. Shar said, "Well, my zhavey was elected to the position of Councillor with a mandate from the Andorian people to improve our trading positions with non-Federation worlds. It hasn't happened yet, and she was elected eight years ago. May your fattier have better luck." And then Shar smiled.

  "I hope so," Nog said in all seriousness. "I think he has the potential to make our society even greater."

  "How so?"

  Shar seemed genuinely curious, so Nog checked the Sungari's position, and then began to go into a lengthy explanation of the reforms that Grandmother Ishka and Zek had devised and that Father was sup­posed to put into action.

  They spent the better part of the day working and talking about it, interrupted by the occasional moni­toring of short-range sensors and Shar's reports of his scans—none of which were of any help regarding the gateways. They paused for lunch—Nog convinced Shar to try a tube grub, which the Andorian didn't like any more than Prynn Tenmei had—and Shar asked more questions about the reforms.

  "So women are allowed to wear clothes now?"

  "Allowed, yes," Nog said as he washed a tube grub down with a swig of root beer. "Not all of them do, particularly once you get out of the capital city. But more and more are. If nothing else, it's cut down on illnesses—which has the doctors in an up­roar."

  "I don't understand."

  Nog smiled. "Ferenginar in general and the capital city in particular have a very damp climate. Women got all kinds of bronchial infections and things regu­larly when they'd go out. With more women wearing domes, they don't get sick as often, so the doctors do less business."

  Shar took a bite of his jumja stick. The Andorian had made a point of trying other worlds' cuisines— which was why he'd been willing to sample the tube grub—and he had developed a particular taste for jumja, much to Nog's abject confusion. "I have to confess, I never would have thought of the economic

  implications of women wearing clothes on the med­ical profession."

  Laughing, Nog said, "Unfortunately, Father has to. According to his last letter, he's had to sign off on all kinds of concessions to the medical associa­tion."

  Once they finished eating, they went through the wormhole and ran a few more scans inside, then the same ones on the Gamma Quadrant side. The end re­sult was more of the same.

  It took a while for Nog to notice that Shar had never actually answered his question. That's the sec­ond time he's danced around it, Nog thought. He con­sidered trying again, then decided that, if his friend didn't want to talk about it, Nog would respect that.

  As Nog piloted the runabout back into the worm­hole, Shar said, "Wait a moment. Computer, is the Kar-telos system within ten light-years of the Gamma Quadrant mouth of the wormhole?"

  "Affirmative."

  "We are fools. All of us. It cannot be the wormhole that is causing that gap. The Halloran fell through a gateway in the Kar-telos system."

  Nog blinked. "You're right. It's got to be something else. Well, wait a minute, it could be an unscientific reason." As Nog spoke, the Sungari came out the Alpha Quadrant side.

  Shar looked at the Ferengi. "What do you mean?"

  "We don't know what this area of space was like when the Iconians were around. For all we know, there was some kind of treaty with the people who lived here to keep out any gateways."

  Shar nodded. "Good point. Still, I hope they're not

  putting too much hope in this. The chance that we'll find the one thing—"

  "It's not our place to assume anything, Ensign," Nog said sharply. "We just do what we're told."

  "I know, and we're doing it. But it's getting us nowhere. I've done every scan the Sungari is capa­ble of."

  Nog couldn't help but agree. They'd spent too long at this as it was. "I'm setting course back to DS9. We can look at the data just as easily there—this way we'll free up the runabout for Europa Nova if we need it."

  "Wait."

  Frowning, Nog said, "What?"

  Shar was touching his left antenna. "The Denorios Belt. It's Ml of tachyon eddies, isn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "That might be it, then." Shar called up a record on the viewscreen. It was a Starfleet data record—with, Nog noticed, some information removed. "This is the declassified portion of Commander Vaughn's mission to Alexandra's Planet. Tricorder readings showed that for a fraction of a second, there was a disruptive effect on the gateway right around the time they were trying to detect a cloaked Romulan ship."

  Nog put it together. 'Tachyon bursts are used to de­tect cloaked ships."

  "Exactly. And it makes sense. The wormhole is a local phenomenon. At its absolute worst, it never has any impact on the space around it outside the range of the Denorios Belt."

  Picking up the ball, Nog said, "But tachyons move faster than light." He snapped his fingers, a sudden gesture that made Shar jump. "Sorry, but I just re-

  membered something. A couple of years ago, Captain Sisko re-created a Bajoran solar sailing ship."

  "Yes, I remember reading about that," Shar said. "What of it?"

  "That ship got caught in one of those tachyon eddies and wound up in the Cardassian solar system. Later, the Cardassians admitted that the ship the captain based his design on did the same thing centuries ago."

  Shar's antennae pulled back again. "Cardassia is within ten light-years of Bajor. Nog, I believe we have a workable theory."

  "Now we just need to test it," Nog said. "And it makes a lot more sense than the wormhole. The belt has always been a navigation hazard. That's why it took so long for anyone to discover the wormhole in the first place." He smiled and added, "Just don't tell Colonel Kira I said that."

  Shar frowned. "Why not?"

  "Adjusting position for best scanning vector," Nog
said, then turned back to the Andorian. "As far as the Bajorans are concerned, the Celestial Temple went undiscovered until seven years ago because the Prophets were waiting for the Emissary."

  Shar seemed to consider that. "That's actually a perfectly valid interpretation of the facts. In fact, you could even argue that the Prophets made the Denorios Belt such a navigation hazard in order to keep the temple hidden until the right moment."

  Nog grinned. "Do you believe that?"

  "Well, I'm not a Bajoran, and I wasn't raised in that religious tradition, so no, but it's an interesting hy­pothesis."

  "So there's no way I'm going to convince you that

  you need to live a profitable life so you can go to the Divine Treasury when you die?"

  Shar said in all seriousness, "Probably not, no. The Andorian afterlife is a bit more—complicated than that, I'm afraid." He turned to his console. "Com­puter, do a detailed scan of the Denorios Belt and then run program ch'Thane Gateway One using that data."

  "Acknowledged," said the pleasant, mechanical voice.

  "Sungari to Deep Space 9," Nog said, opening a channel to ops.

  "Dax here. Go ahead, Nog."

  "Lieutenant, Ensign ch'Thane and I have developed a working theory for the lack of gateways in this sec­tor. He's running tests now to confirm it, but we're pretty sure it has something to do with the tachyon ed­dies in the Denorios Belt, not the wormhole."

  "Good work, Nog. I'll let Commander Vaughn know."

  "Thanks, Lieutenant. How's the rescue mission going?"

  "Slowly but surely. The first contingent of refugees are expected within the hour"

  "Great. I don't think we'll be at this more than an­other hour, so the Sungari should be available if they need it."

  "I'll let Commander Vaughn know that, too," Dax said. Nog could almost see her smile.

  Sighing, he thought, Dr. Bashir is a lucky man. Aloud, he simply said, "Sungari out."

  "I think I have something, Nog," Shar said, looking over a readout on his console. "Based on the records from Alexandra's Planet, and also some of Professor

  Namthot's notes, a compressed tachyon burst should disrupt me gateways, if combined with certain noble gases." With a smile, he turned to Nog. "All those gases are present in the Denorios Belt. We just need to figure out some way to harness them and combine it with the burst. I'm not sure how we could do that, but—"

  Nog peered at the readout. "Oh, that's easy. Rig the Bussard collectors on the Defiant—or some other starship—for those gases, modify an intermix cham­ber to infuse the tachyon burst with them, and then run it through the phaser banks—oh, wait." He took a closer look at Shar's display. "No, something like this, we'll need to run it through the deflector array—the phaser banks would burn out after two seconds."

  Shar stared at Nog. "If you say so," he said slowly.

  "One question, though—you said 'disrupt.' Disrupt, how?"

  Sighing, Shar said, "I wish I could answer that. We just don't know enough about how the gateways re­ally work. All of this is pure theory, but at least it's consistent with the available data. The problem is the unavailable data. That could easily come along and slice off our antennae."

  "So for all we know, this tachyon burst will make the gateways belch fire or something?"

  Shar's antennae quivered. "Let's not be silly. Still, it's a concern."

  "Yes, but it's not our concern. That's Colonel Kira and Commander Vaughn's problem. Are you done here?"

  Taking one last look at the data he'd accumulated, Shar said, "Yes, I think I've done all I can."

  "Then let's get back. Setting course for DS9."

  That's when a strange vessel came out of warp and fired on the Sungari.

  "Damage report!" Nog cried as he quickly put the runabout's shields up. What is it this time? he won­dered. It all happened incredibly fast. One moment they were alone, the next an odd-looking, oblong ves­sel ten tunes the size of the runabout blasted out of subspace.

  "Heavy damage to the starboard nacelle," Shar said. "Nothing critical, but we can't go to warp."

  "Returning fire." Nog targeted the phasers on the newcomer. I'm just glad I put off installing the shield modulator on the Sungari, or this damage would be a lot worse.

  "Minor damage to their shields," Shar said. "There's no match for this ship in the databank, although parts of it are similar to known ships. Length, two hundred me­ters, hull composed of a variety of roginium alloys— except for the secondary hull, which is duranium. Their weapons are some kind of directed ladrion pulse."

  "Whatever that is," Nog muttered.

  Another impact. "Shields at sixty percent. Struc­tural-integrity field weakened."

  "Send out a distress call to the station."

  "Aye, sir."

  Looking down at the console, Nog programmed a random firing pattern that Worf had taught him. It was designed to score multiple hits on enemy shields as hard as possible. The pattern was designed for the De­fiant, which had more powerful phasers, but the Sun­gari was more maneuverable. After that, he set a course that the computer knew as Kira-Three.

  "What are you doing?" Shar asked, sounding con­cerned.

  "Something Colonel Kira taught us about taking on a big ship with a small one."

  "Lieutenant, I don't think the SIF can handle this kind of maneuvering."

  Another impact. "I know we can't handle sitting here. Implementing pattern."

  The runabout moved in a zigzagging spiral pattern around the larger vessel, phasers firing at multiple points on their shields.

  "SIF holding," Shar said. "Their shields are weak­ening."

  Just as the Sungari came about on its last pass, the enemy vessel fired again.

  Several of the aft consoles blew out. Nog's con­sole stopped responding to his commands. The run­about continued forward on its own momentum, Nog unable to control the vessel's movements any longer.

  "Shields down!" Shar said over the din of the alarms. "Impulse engines and weapons offline, trans­porters down, and SIF at fourteen percent." Shar looked over at Nog. "One bit of good news: their shields are down as well. Your maneuver worked."

  Nog ground his teeth. "That might mean something if we still had weapons. Did the station get our dis­tress call?"

  "Impossible to be sure, but considering that all of our other ships are at Europa Nova..." Shar trailed off, then glanced at his console as it beeped. "They're coming around for another pass."

  "Ready thrusters," Nog said.

  "We can't evade their weapons with thrusters," Shar said.

  Nog's left leg started to itch again. "It beats sitting still and waiting for it. Transmit the specs for the tachyon burst to the station in case we don't make it."

  "Done," Shar acknowledged. His console beeped again. "They're charging weapons."

  Nog closed his eyes.

  6

  EUROPA NOVA

  "coming our of warp, entering standard orbit."

  Colonel Kira Nerys's fingers flew over the console of the Euphrates, suiting actions to words as she led the convoy of nineteen vessels into orbit of the Class-M planet. The world was a bit smaller than Bajor, and looked more blue from orbit than the greener tinge of home—or, at least, parts of it did. As the Euphrates and the other ships entered orbit, antimatter waste be­came visible. Amorphous green material, it clustered in chunks in a close orbit, hanging menacingly over the exosphere.

  Kira then looked back down at the screen on her console. She'd been studying the library records on Europa Nova. The planet was pastoral—like

  Earth, covered in oceans; like Bajor, awash in vege­tation.

  Or, at least, she thought, like Bajor was before the Cardassians. Seven years later, even with the best ef­forts of the planetary government and the Federation, Bajor still bore the scars of the previous half-century.

  But Europa Nova had been spared those scars. The colonists had built carefully, constructing their small cities in places that could handle t
he inevitable envi­ronmental damage of urbanization with minimal im­pact on the overall ecosystem, and utilizing the arable land for farms. Five cities were festooned about the landmasses, including one on a remote island. Smaller villages, towns, military bases, and research centers dotted the rest of the two continents.

  Kira had been especially fascinated by the cities. Generally, the architectural progression of a city—if it had one at all—was to emanate from the old in the cen­ter to the new as it expanded outward. Bajor, for in­stance, had several cities with millennia-old temples and other older buildings in the middle of town, sur­rounded by more modern architecture. Europani cities, however, went the other way around: dull, modern, pre­fabricated structures formed the hubs of the cities—the original, simple constructions of the twenty-third-century colonists who of necessity favored functional­ity over aesthetics. As the cities expanded and the colony prospered, the buildings became more elaborate and artistic. According to the records, the style was a melding of Earth Gothic and Tellarite Churlnik—both involving elaborate decorations on stonework.

  The world also had gained an impressively rich cul­tural and scientific reputation during its first hundred

  years. Europani duranium sculpture had become espe­cially popular in the last decade or so—there had been an exhibit at the Akorem Laan Museum on Bajor a few years back—and, according to Keiko O'Brien, some of the most important breakthroughs in botany and agriculture of the last fifty years were by Eu­ropani.

  And these people repelled the Breen. Where Bajor at the height of its renaissance still fell victim to the Cardassian Occupation, where Earth itself had been unable to prevent the sneak attack that had devastated Starfleet Headquarters, this group of humans, who had barely been on their world for a full century, man­aged to stay out of the Dominion War.

  Next to her, Taran'atar said, "I am reading an Akira-class Starfleet ship already in orbit. It registers as the U.S.S. Gryphon. There are also several non-Starfleet transports—and an increasing amount of theta radiation originating from the antimatter waste field dead ahead."

  Kira nodded, then opened a channel. "Euphrates to Gryphon."