In response, the ship fired its forward weapons on the Defiant and its aft ones on the Sungari.
"Matter-antimatter containment field weakening!" Shar said over the din of exploding consoles. "And Defiant shields are at forty percent!"
Nog winced. His Shelliak modulator weakened the Defiant's shields against directed energy fire, and this ladrion weapon of theirs was a particularly nasty example of the type. And the Sungari, of course, no longer had shields. "Eject the core."
"Ejection systems offline." The lights went out "In fact, at this point, I would venture to say that the entire ship is offline."
Nog looked down at a dark console he could now barely see. Even the emergency lights weren't working. The only illumination came through the porthole from the external lights of the Defiant and the uniden-
tified vessel. The Sungari was dead in space. If even the emergency systems were out, then the containment field was also down. Which means that this runabout is a big duranium bomb about to go off. Maybe that's why I didn't feel relieved—I'm not alive yet.
More illumination as the Defiant fired its pulse phasers. Thanks to the Sungari's attack, the enemy ship was also without shields. The phaser bolts tore through the hull as if it were tissue paper, and the ship exploded a moment later.
Good, Nog thought, urgently slapping his combadge, they can lower shields for transport now. "Sungari to Defiant. Emergency beam-out."
The room started to fade into a silver haze, then coalesced into the main transporter bay of the Defiant. He looked to his right, and saw Shar, who let out a long breath.
From the console, Chief Chao tapped her combadge. "Got them, sir."
"Are they injured?"
Tapping his own combadge, Nog said, "We're fine, Commander."
"Good. Report to the bridge."
"The Sungari's about to breach, Commander. You need to—"
"We're aware of the situation, Lieutenant. Remote shutdown isn't working, so we're using the tractor beam to push the ship as far away from the station and the wormhole as possible."
"Still inside the belt, though?" Nog asked.
"Yes. Why?"
Nog turned to Shar. "Will that affect the gases in the belt for the burst?"
Shar shook his head. "It shouldn't."
"Good," Nog said, then he moved to the transporter bay door.
As soon as the doors opened, his sensitive ears were assaulted with a cacophony of sound. Dozens of human civilians were standing in the hallways, along with a few security guards. Nog noticed that the guards were carrying phasers, which he thought might have been a tad excessive. The humans—presumably the Europani refugees—looked tired and scared. Nog couldn't bring himself to be surprised at that.
Shar had an odd look on his face, and one finger brushed against his right antenna. "You okay?" Nog asked.
"Yes, it's just something in the air. This many people crowded together, it changes the nature of the atmosphere. It's usually a bit more—well, sterile than this."
Nog nodded in understanding as he and Shar entered the bridge. Some debris from the enemy ship was visible in the lower right-hand corner of the viewscreen, but its focus was on the Sungari. The runabout's running lights were extinguished. A blue tractor beam engulfed the runabout and thrust it away from the debris.
Vaughn fixed his steely gaze upon the two junior officers. "Did they identify themselves at all?"
"No sir," Nog said dutifully. "They attacked without any warning."
The young Ferengi turned back to the viewscreen to see the Sungari moving farther away and deeper into the Denorios Belt—before exploding. Sighing, Nog found himself wondering how much longer Starfleet would continue replacing the station's runabouts.
"Set course back for DS9, Ensign," Vaughn said to Tenmei. "We'll collect and examine the debris once we've offloaded the refugees."
A thought occurred to Nog. "Sir, with all due respect—you took a very big risk, engaging in battle with all these refugees on board."
"We were the only option, Lieutenant. There aren't any ships docked at DS9 at the moment, and the station itself is out of range. In any event, there was every chance that the vessel would have turned its attention to the station after disposing of you two. We couldn't take that risk, even with so many civilians on board."
"Thank you, sir." Then remembering the whole reason for their trip to the Denorios Belt in the first place, he added, "Uh, sir, I'm not sure if Lieutenant Dax told you, but Ensign ch'Thane and I have determined a course of action that might disrupt the gateways."
"Thirishar, there you are."
Shar felt like a grelth had started weaving a web in his stomach. The voice spoke in Andorii, and it was one he hadn't heard in person for five years.
He turned to take in the unexpected sight of Charivretha zh'Thane, his zhavey. She had changed her hair since their last communication, and was as overdressed as her position always required her to be. She was walking with a group of Europani refugees who were being escorted onto the station by Ensigns Gordimer and Ling.
"I wasn't expecting to see you here, Zhavey."
She broke off from the crowd to approach her only child. Gordimer gave her a look, then saw Shar. Shar
nodded quickly at the security guard, who simply shrugged and resumed his escorting duties.
"I was on Europa Nova. We're trying to convince them to join the Federation, and I was negotiating. Ironically, the Federation's response to this crisis may help me solidify my argument—assuming there's a Europa Nova left when all is said and done." She stared at him. "I didn't realize you were on board. I would've thought you'd have been on the bridge when Elias brought me there."
"I was on the Sungari. They beamed me over before it blew up."
"Blew up?" Her voice raised an octave. "Obviously, I should have stayed on the bridge."
Shar's antennae quivered. "It's all right, Zhavey, everything turned out fine." He hesitated, and then lied. "It's good to see you."
Vretha's own antennae did likewise. "It's especially good to see you given what happened to your runabout. I was actually going to come to the station after I was done on Europa Nova in any case. We need to talk, Thirishar."
What would be the point? Shar almost said aloud, but he kept the respectful mask plastered to his face. "I'm afraid I can't right now, Zhavey. The crisis is not—"
Waving her hand in what appeared to be a dismissive gesture, Vretha said, "Of course not now, Thirishar. You have duties to perform, and I need to check on my ship—I lent it to the relief efforts so they could get the children off-planet right away. We'll talk when we both have time to do so." She stared Shar directly in the eye. "But we will talk. We have danced around this subject for far too long."
"Yes, Zhavey," Shar said dutifully.
"You always say 'yes, Zhavey' in that respectful tone," Vretha noted, "yet you never change, Thirishar. It is a stalling tactic I will not tolerate any longer."
"I'm sorry, Zhavey."
"No, I don't think you are." Vretha's voice sounded sad now. "And that is a pity." She closed her eyes. "But enough of this. We will speak later. Be whole, Thirishar." With that, she walked off.
Shar struggled to keep his emotions hi check. It would not do to smash a bulkhead right now with all this security and these civilians around. He latched on to the anger, wrestled with it, and forced it down into the dark comer of his mind where it normally lived— and from which it inevitably clawed its way out every time he talked to Vretha.
Once he felt he was under sufficient control, he also walked off the Defiant and into the docking ring corridor, where he saw Nog. "There you are," the Ferengi said. "Was that your—what's the word? Zhavey?"
"Yes, it was."
Shar himself hadn't noticed any alteration in his voice at first, but Nog almost flinched from Shar's tone. Perhaps I haven't buried my anger as efficiently as I believed, he thought with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant," Shar
said quickly. "I'm afraid that she does not bring out the best in me."
Smiling, Nog said, "That's all right. C'mon, we need to head to ops to brief everyone on our brilliant theory." As they walked toward a turbolift, Nog added, "Mothers can be difficult Mine took Father for all he was worth before the marriage contract ended, then remarried a richer man."
Frowning, Shar thought back to the conversations about Ferengi mores that they'd had in the Sungari. "I thought Ferengi women couldn't do that sort of thing before the reforms."
"Well, it was her father's doing, really. I think. Honestly, I don't remember most of that—I was very young. Father was destitute after that, and took me here to work for Uncle Quark."
"And now he's the Grand Nagus." Shar considered, then smiled. "It seems to me that your mother should have cause to regret her decision."
Nog laughed. "Probably. I wonder if Father's gotten in touch with her since going home to Ferenginar."
Shar smiled, and he already felt better, the anger well and truly buried now. This is where I belong, Zhavey, not back on Andor—no matter what you or anyone else says.
He also had to admire Nog's grace under pressure. He hadn't let their life-or-death situation get to him at all. / suppose that comes of spending most of the war on the front lines. Shar himself had been fortunate enough to miss any direct combat, spending most of the war working feverishly in a lab.
As they entered me turbolift, Shar said, "Let us go and be brilliant, my friend."
Nog grinned. "Ops."
8
EUROPA NOVA
'take all transporters offline."
It was an order Kira had not looked forward to giving, but she'd known all along it was inevitable. Antimatter waste now made up an entire orbit of Europa Nova, forming a deadly green ring around the planet. The ring was thickest at the gateway, of course, the point from which the cloud of hazardous material originated, and it thinned as it arced above the planet surface. Now every ship needed to keep its shields up to protect them from the radiation. The concentration was such that, even at the polar regions, transporters were unreliable.
At least Nog's shield modulator is working, she thought, thanking the Prophets for her operations offi-
cer's impeccable timing in consummating his business deal just when they needed it most.
The Gryphon, the Halloran, and the Xhosa were on then- way to Deep Space 9 to drop off more refugees, and the Defiant was already there doing the same. The Xhosa had somehow managed to make some extra room, relieving the Euphrates of the refugees it had picked up, allowing Kira to remain in charge of the evacuation.
Europa Nova's surface transporters—still operational for the time being—were being used to bring the five hundred thousand the Jarada were allowing to Costa Rocosa to make use of the gateway there.
"Transporters offline," Captain Emick acknowledged, and Colonel Lenaris echoed the reply a moment later, followed by the civilian captains.
"Implement plan B," Kira ordered.
"We've found a landing site for the Intrepid," Emick said. "It's right outside Padilla. I think we can take the city's remaining population on this run."
"Good."
"Colonel," Taran'atar said, "I'm detecting a dense concentration of theta radiation in the upper atmosphere."
The voice of one of the officers on the Intrepid came through the comlink. "Confirmed," she said. "A solid mass of waste material has fallen out of orbit. On its present course, it'll land four kilometers due west of Spilimbergo."
Kira checked the configuration of the convoy. The Gryphon had been evacuating Spilimbergo. Between the starship and the assorted private craft, not to mention the earlier evac of the children, a bit less than half
of the city's population of three hundred and fifty thousand had been evacuated thus far. Right now, with the Gryphon on its way to the Bajoran system, the Euphrates was in closest proximity to the threat.
Without hesitating, Kira changed course and reset the shields for an atmospheric entry. "Kira to Bashir."
"Bashir here," said a very tired-sounding chief medical officer.
"Doctor, what would be the effects of a meteoric collision of a mass putting out"—she glanced at her console—"a hundred thousand kilorads of theta radiation four kilometers from a population center?"
"In a word, devastating. I could give you precise figures if you want, but the short version is the population center would be as good as dead."
"That's what I thought you were going to say."
Emick spoke up. "Colonel, what are you doing?"
"Saving lives," Kira said. "Doctor, how far from the population center would the waste need to be to minimize the danger?"
"Well, on another planet would be ideal."
"Julian..."
"Sorry, Colonel. I would estimate a minimum of a hundred kilometers."
Next to her, Taran'atar said, "I have reconfigured the tractor beam with additional power from the warp drive." He turned to Kira. "I assume your intent is to divert the meteorite."
Grateful for the Jem'Hadar's instincts, she said, "That's the plan. Activate the beam on my mark."
"Why not just destroy it?" Bashir asked.
Emick replied, "Doctor, if we could just destroy the antimatter waste with phasers, we wouldn't be in this
mess in the first place. Colonel, you sure you know what you 're doing ? "
"Euphrates is the only ship close enough, Captain," Kira said as she guided the ship through the cloud cover. "Our new modulated shields are protecting us against the radiation. As it is, we're cutting it close."
The other Intrepid officer said, "Colonel, I've found a lake about a hundred seventy-five kilometers northwest of Spilimbergo. You should be able to divert the mass there. The only life-form readings I'm getting within a hundred kilometers are flora."
Kira found that lake on her sensor display. The locals called it Lago DeBacco. "Got it. Thanks."
"Good luck, Colonel," Emick said. "With your permission, I'll inform President Silverio."
"Thank you, Captain. Kira out."
As the Euphrates came out of the cloud cover, Kira quickly ran her fingers over the console, calculating the course she'd need to take. She had to angle her approach just right so that, when the tractor beam was activated, she'd be able to divert the meteorite to the lake in question. It was a delicate piece of navigation, made more challenging by having to account for prevailing winds—which, it turned out, were pretty fierce near Lago DeBacco.
Just like the good old days, she thought with a half-smile. Piloting skimmers around Dakhur Province in the dead of whiter, avoiding the Cardassian patrols. No sensors worth mentioning, wind shear way beyond the skimmer's capacity, flying by the seats of their collective pants. All she had to worry about was keeping alive and watching the other cell members' backs, with the assured faith that the Prophets would guide
them to freedom if they just kept fighting, kept believing. Politics didn't matter. You didn't have to say the right thing or not step on the appropriate toes or go through a chain of command—it was just you, the cell, and the enemy.
As the Euphrates neared the mass—which was careening toward the surface at an alarming rate, cutting a trail of green death across the sky as it fell—Kira shook her head at her own wistfulness. Great, now I'm getting nostalgic for the Occupation. What does that say about my life?
'Tractor beam ready," Taran'atar said.
It's so simple for you, she thought at her Jem'Hadar companion. You have your duty, and you perform it. You don't have to worry about what Starfleet will think or what the Vedek Assembly will think or what the Ministry will think or what the Bajoran people will think. You just have to do what you're told.
Sometimes Kira longed for that kind of simplicity.
The console beeped—they were hi range. She waited until the angle of approach was just right, then said, "Activate tractor beam."
As she spoke, she chang
ed course.
Her stomach lurched violently as the runabout— which had been accelerating toward the surface of the planet at maximum impulse—altered its flight path upward.
'Tractor beam holding," Taran'atar said.
Kira could only nod. The bitter taste of half-digested hasperat started to well up in her throat. It's been way too long since I did something like this, she thought. Stomach's not used to it. Been spending too much damn time sitting at a desk.
Taran'atar, of course, did not look in the least bit put out. "We are exceeding the tractor-beam tolerances."
Forcing the hasperat down, she said, "Just another six seconds."
The Euphrates continued to arc away from the surface, the ship fighting against the momentum of the antimatter waste to which it was tethered. The impulse engines strained, but held.
Then, finally, when the mass had changed course sufficiently to land in Lago DeBacco, Kira said, "Disengage tractor beam."
The Euphrates lurched as, no longer burdened with the tremendous mass, its velocity jumped suddenly. Once again, Kira's stomach heaved, but she kept her hands on the controls. Something blew out in one of the aft consoles. She couldn't afford to slow the runabout down, as any moment...
A shock wave rocked the Euphrates as the meteorite collided with the westernmost side of the lake. Kira was able to remain in her seat, but only barely. All those years of bouncing around in Bajoran skimmers pays off, she thought with a bitter smile. The shock wave was considerably less than a direct impact would have been—the Euphrates'^ tractoring also served to retard the meteorite's rate of descent, greatly reducing the force of its landing.
"Shields have held," Taran'atar said. "No radiation has penetrated. We remain uncontaminated. But this vessel's tractor-beam generator has burned out"
Kira smiled. We did it.
Then she put Lago DeBacco on the main viewer.
The smile fell.
Five minutes ago, Lago DeBacco had been a lush, thriving lake. Reddish-blue water flowed gently across, fed from several local rivers that acted as tributaries. An entire ecosystem had lived in it—a teeming mass of plant life.
Now, in spots where the runabout's optical sensors could penetrate the billowing green mist that filled the valley—irradiated water vapor from the lake—the terrain was reduced to blasted ruin. Trees and bushes proximate to ground zero that weren't vaporized were already showing signs of decay from the theta radiation. No one would be able to approach Lago DeBacco without decontamination forcefields for many years to come.
Star Trek - DS9 Relaunch 04 - Gateways - 4 of 7 - Demons Of Air And Darkness Page 9