by Diane Carey
“Dozens,” Ekoor claimed instantly. “And hundreds more moment by moment. Weyoun’s announcement enraged Cardassians to wake up from our slumber.”
“Finally!” Garak gushed.
“Your resistance has shamed many of us,” Ekoor went on, rewarding Kira with a nod that seemed to indicate that he also understood who she was.
“Our armada has gone off to stand by the Dominion in the fight against the Allied fleet,” Ekoor said, “but we’re getting contacts now from many ship commanders. Weyoun—”
“Don’t tell me that fool broadcast his threat to the ships!” Kira burst out.
Ekoor nodded vigorously. “He did!”
“He doesn’t understand Cardassians at all,” Damar announced with contempt. “We will only collaborate so far. We will not be threatened.”
“Sounds familiar,” Kira grumbled.
Damar grasped Ekoor’s arm. “What are the commanders saying? Our ships—what are they saying!”
“Whatever they’re saying,” Kira interrupted, “we’ve got to get a message through to Starfleet and tell them about it. Ekoor, where’s the nearest planet-to-space communications system?”
“I know where it is,” Damar said. “Follow me.”
* * *
The edge of an abyss. Beyond, the abyss stretched nearly beyond sight, and at that point a sheer red wall rose. Dukat surveyed the surreal environment, its steaming gushers and unseen source of light despite the depths, and contemplated the alienness of Bajor.
“This is it, isn’t it?” he asked.
Nearly exhausted, Kai Winn paused to rest. “We’ve reached the end of one journey and stand ready to begin another.”
Yes, well, that was an answer to a simple question.
Dukat moved to the edge of the abyss and peered down into the spiraling canyon. Trite though it sounded in his mind, the pit really did look bottomless.
“What’s the matter, Dukat?” Winn pestered. “You look disappointed.”
“I know this sounds naive,” he allowed, “but I was expecting to see fire. After all, they are called the Fire Caves.”
“And with good reason.” She gathered her robes, knelt to the gnarly rocks, and put the Kosst Amojan down before her. Reverently she opened the enormous book, selected a particular passage, and closed her eyes.
She began to chant.
LANO KA’LA BO’SHAR LANU NO’VALA
PAHROM GARANA MOKAO BA’JAH
KO’SE NUSSO MA’KORA KAJANI …
LANO KA’LA KOSST AMOJAN!
* * *
Dukat frowned. He didn’t understand the words, and he wondered for a moment if she was leading him on.
That thought dissolved when the Fire Caves’s gaping abyss erupted into wall after wall of flames. Every tier was now burning as if giant curtains had been soaked in oil.
Such a sight! Breathless, Dukat absorbed the magnificence of mysticism and pondered the unrevealed science that made all this a wonder and a mystery. He felt as if the fires had come for him alone, to make him believe. The Pah-wraiths were sending him a message of victory. They would come if he freed them, they would go before him and knock down the Prophets and Sisko and the Federation and all its allies. The Cardassian Empire would gain its old greatness in the Alpha Quadrant. The name of Dukat would once again carry influence, instill fear, deserve respect.
This time, though, it would all be different. He would have his own respect, for a change.
Kai Winn opened her eyes. “Is that better?”
* * *
Derelict and wounded ships trailed sickeningly across the black skies all around. Some limped by, still firing, streaming leakage and flowing energy like life’s blood. Others speared through the damaged lines, scattering formations that struggled to recongeal. Two hours into the battle, and no side showed signs of retreat. Now the fighting at these speeds and with these maneuvers became far more dangerous, adding the very good chance of slamming headlong into a ship that no longer had the power to move out of the way.
Sisko snapped orders every few seconds, pausing in between to assess the ever-changing situation outside. He was trying to be Nog’s eyes and ears, for no one person could do it all. Nog had a very good ability to concentrate, but he had tunnel vision, and frequently concentrated too hard on one enemy while another slipped up behind him.
They were all working together, all watching, patching, fighting in their own way. Bashir hovered over a wounded man on the lower deck, the sixth emergency on the bridge alone, while funneling orders down to triage nurses on the lower decks.
“Captain,” Ezri called over the clatter and noise, “I have Admiral Ross.”
“Onscreen.”
The Admiral’s crackled figure appeared on the forward screen. Sisko couldn’t tell if it was Defiant’s damage or Farragut’s that was causing the disruption, though it didn’t matter.
“The Romulan flagship D’ridthau has been destroyed,” Ross said without formality. “Their entire line is collapsing”
“We’ll try to help,” Sisko offered.
“With what? Ben, we’re losing too many ships! We’ve got to find a way to turn the Dominion’s flank.”
“It’s too well protected,” Sisko assessed, knowing he could see the flank better from his position than Ross possibly could. “But their lines are spread pretty thin in the middle,” he offered as an alternative.
The Defiant took another hard hit, which luckily didn’t cut off the communication.
“You stick with the Romulans,” Ross told him. “Martok and I will hammer away at their center.”
“On my way.” He turned to Ezri. “Have attack fighters six-four and six-five follow us.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Jem’Hadar ship off the port bow!” Nog shouted as the ship took another rocking hit.
Sisko scanned the readouts on the starboard side from his place midships. They couldn’t plug any holes unless they could get out of here alive.
“Shields are down to sixty percent,” Worf reported.
Sisko almost said something about the shields, but O’Brien would be on it without prodding, and sixty percent was still a lot of deflecting power.
A second direct hit nearly threw them to their knees. Sisko clung to the helm, adding up numbers.
“Another Jem’Hadar!” Nog announced uselessly.
O’Brien climbed up from the lower trunks. “Diverting auxiliary power to port shield vectors!”
“Dax, we need some support from our fighters,” Sisko requested, far more calmly than he felt.
“Breen ship attacking off the starboard stern,” Nog reported, seeming to lose the will to shout anymore.
Just as well.
“Sir,” Ezri turned, “most of our attack fighters are either destroyed or under attack themselves.”
Sisko acknowledged with a dismissing nod, then turned to the helm. “You’re going to have to get us out of here, Ensign.”
“I’m trying, sir.”
Odo appeared out of a cloud of rank smoke from the ops console. “Sir, there’s a squadron of Romulan warbirds decloaking ahead, bearing one-seven-four mark one-three-nine.”
Ah, the cavalry.
“Make a beeline for them,” he ordered.
“On the way!” Nog said with a new cheer in his voice. “I just hope we get there in one piece.”
Around them dozens of Jem’Hadar ships and Breen fighters closed on Defiant. Sisko knew he’d been suckered—his reputation had preceded him. It would be a victory for them to take down the bulldog of Deep Space Nine, to destroy yet a second Defiant, and perhaps kill the crew that had stood them off for so long, sometimes single-handedly. He knew now that the holes had been punched in the Romulan lines to bait help from Starfleet, and he had attempted to answer that call. They knew he would.
Did they know how hard he would fight? He hoped so. Bring ’em on!
“Open fire,” he called. “Shoot at anything that gets in range. Never mind the shields. Eve
ryone concentrate on firepower, understand?”
“Aye, sir!” Worf eagerly answered.
“Understood!” O’Brien said, and they went to work.
Shot after shot rolled from the Defiant, blasting herself a path in the cluttered pool of space. Several ships tried to get out of their way, which felt good, but three persistent enemy vessels dogged them mercilessly—two Breen, one Jem’Hadar. As they beat off two of them, one Breen ship gunned its power and came around underneath Defiant. Sisko saw it on one of the monitors, but there was nothing to be done with all working weapons and all sensors engaged on the two that had them by the tail.
He was knocked breathless by an abrupt surge of the whole ship a full length sideways. As he grasped the command chair and tried to recover, half the engineering console blew out toward him. Only a quickly raised hand shielded his face from hot sparks that seared the skin of his wrist and knuckles. As he blinked past the smoke, he was gripped by the nightmare of O’Brien collapsing to the deck, his shoulder a matte of blood.
Sisko hammered the comm link on his chair. “Dr. Bashir to the bridge!”
“Yes, sir?”
He turned—Bashir appeared in the vestibule. Psychic? Or just luck when they needed it most.
“You needed me, Captain?” Dr. Bashir spilled out of the lift and waved at the smoke.
Sisko just nodded toward O’Brien, who was miraculously crawling back into his chair.
“Chief caught a piece of shrapnel,” he called over the clatter and howl of battle. “Worf, shields aft!”
“Aft, aye.”
Julian Bashir choked his way across the bridge, dazzled briefly by the sheer weight of occurrences the captain was fielding, and bent over Miles O’Brien, who was gasping his way through waves of pain. Bashir recognized that in O’Brien—the engineer was trying to set the pain aside so he could get back to work. The gash in his shoulder had other ideas.
“I can’t leave you alone for a minute,” Bashir commented as he applied pressure to the bleeder.
“Just fix it, Julian,” O’Brien gasped. He reached up with his good arm and continued to work the panel in front of him, then winced in pain. “Careful!”
“Sit still or you’re going to wind up with one arm shorter than the other.”
The ship rocked sickeningly under them and for a moment Bashir had to stop what he was doing and hang on until the inertia turned him loose again.
“You’d do anything,” O’Brien grumbled, “to beat me at darts.”
“I haven’t lost a game to you in months.”
“I’m going to miss playing darts with you, Julian….”
Bashir frowned through the smoke at his friend’s blood-drained face. “What are you talking about? Your shoulder’s going to be fine.”
“I’m leaving DS9 … going back to Earth.”
Keeping a pressure pad on the wound, Bashir had a moment to absorb the shock. Had he heard right? Why would Miles go away?
“When?” he asked.
O’Brien coughed. “When the war’s over.”
Dealing with a wound of a different kind, Bashir dared the question whose answer he was afraid he knew. “Why?”
Sheepishly, O’Brien looked at him. “I’ve been offered a position at Starfleet Academy. Professor of Optronic Systems Engineering.”
Bashir sank back a bit. That wasn’t the answer to the question why.
“I see.”
O’Brien was still watching him, harder this time. The smoke was making their eyes water. “Well … somebody has to teach you officers the difference between a warp matrix flux capacitor and a self-sealing stem-bolt….”
“I suppose so.”
Bashir no longer looked at O’Brien, but concentrated on treating the wound, a convenient excuse to avert his eyes.
“Julian?”
“Yes.”
“I should’ve told you sooner. I couldn’t find the words. It’s just that Keiko—”
“Please, Miles. Let me take care of you.” Bashir felt his expression harden as he tried to suppress his emotions like a man. Tersely, unable to stop himself, he added, “While I still have the chance.”
A hard bolt slammed the ship from nearly dead ahead. O’Brien winced hard, bleeding from an artery.
“This is no good,” Bashir decided, tightlipped. “I’d better get you to sickbay.”
“I’m a little busy right now,” O’Brien resisted.
“That’s an order.”
“Look, Julian—”
On the main deck, Ben Sisko had been only half-listening, sifting for important words, and he caught the right ones. He cast his own words over there without looking at the two officers. “You heard him, Chief.”
With a sagging tone, O’Brien moaned, “Yes, sir….” at the same time as Nog reported, “Another Jem’Hadar to port!”
“Dodge them,” Sisko muttered. Would Nog be able to move fast enough? Could the ship wheel out of the way before that Breen got them targeted?
“Diverting auxiliary power to port shields,” Worf quickly attended.
“Dax,” Sisko called, “we need some support from our attack fighters.”
Another hit struck them from the wrong angle—Breen.
“Breen ship off the starboard aft!”
The Breen ship wheeled up on a wing, seemed to have them targeted, and then kindly exploded into a ball of roiling energy.
Sisko gasped, astonished. Had the Romulans come in?
“Did we do that?” he asked. Of course, he knew—
“Sir,” Worf interrupted, “I am reading Cardassian firing sequences in the Breen wreckage.”
On the heels of that, two Cardassian vessels veered in and blasted furiously at the Jem’Hadar pursuers, damaging one severely and blowing the other from now to Christmas.
Odo fingered the sensor panel. “Sir, the Cardassians—they’re attacking the other Dominion ships!”
Turning forward, Ezri stared at the big screen. “I think they’ve switched sides!”
“Yes!” Nog shouted.
Sisko cleared his throat of the raw chemical smoke. “It couldn’t have come at a better time. Come about and head for the center of their lines. This is our chance to punch through.”
Ezri frowned over her communications system. “From what I can pick up, it has something to do with a Cardassian city that was recently destroyed by the Dominion.”
“Are they sending those messages?”
“I’m not sure who’s sending them,” Ezri said. “I’m picking them up on Bajoran encoding.”
“Bajoran?”
“Now it’s switching to Starfleet codes. Does that make sense?”
“I don’t know,” Sisko said. “Seems like somebody wants us to get the message as much as they want the Cardassians to get it.”
* * *
Grim realization came into the control room.
The Founder shuddered against her disease, but was more troubled by what she saw on the screens. Reports from space were changing in their tone, their results. At her side was Thot Pran, the Breen general, crackling with great disturbance. At the monitor, a stunned Weyoun gave the report he could not avoid.
“The ships are not responding to our hails,” he said. “The Cardassian fleet has turned against us.”
The Breen erupted into a violent hash of noise.
The Founder ignored his complaint. “Have our forces pull back and regroup at Cardassia Prime.”
Weyoun turned to look at her. “But, Founder, we’ll be completely surrounded. What if we have to fall back?”
“There’ll be no falling back. No more running.”
More rattling from the Breen.
She waited until he finished his ranting protest and avoided telling him what she really thought of him and all his kind, but on this issue she had to agree.
“We should’ve rid ourselves of the Cardassians at the first sign of rebellion. You’re right … it’s never too late to correct a mistake.” To Weyoun she added,
“I want the Cardassians exterminated.”
The Vorta blinked as if he didn’t quite understand. “All of them …?”
“The entire population.”
“That’s going to take some time….”
“Then I suggest you begin at once.”
* * *
“Captain,” Worf barked, “the Dominion forces are retreating to Cardassia Prime!”
A cheer broke out through the crew, briefly setting aside their busy damage control and their efforts to keep injured shipmates from dying if it could at all be helped.
“Sir, Admiral Ross and Chancellor Martok would like to speak to you.”
Not entirely unexpected, though somewhat charming.
“I’m sure they would,” Sisko huffed. “Onscreen.”
The split screen appeared again, with the Klingon on one side and Ross on the other. Ross looked as if he’d been dragged through an engine feet first. His bridge was a smoky mess and one large piece of bulkhead material lay at an angle behind the command chair. Martok’s bridge was shattered too, but somehow for Klingons that looked normal. Martok himself seemed charged with delight.
“I never thought I’d say this,” Ross gasped, “but thank God for Cardassians!”
“It’s as I predicted,” Martok claimed. “The day is ours.”
“Not yet it isn’t,” Sisko warned.
Ross seemed annoyed. “Ben, we’ve won a great victory! We’ve driven the Dominion all the way back to Cardassia Prime. We can throw a blockade around the entire system and keep them bottled up there indefinitely.”
“What if they don’t surrender?” Sisko pointed out. “What if they use that time to rebuild their fleet?”
Martok didn’t give Ross a chance to say why that somehow wouldn’t work. “The captain has a point. The Dominion has displayed an ability to build ships at an impressive rate.”
“Gentlemen, do I have to remind you of our casualties?” Ross rasped. “We’ve lost a third of our fleet.”
“And we must see to it,” Martok told him, “that those soldiers did not die in vain.”
“Admiral,” Sisko offered, “if the Cardassians are joining us, we have an opportunity to put an end to this war once and for all.”
Sisko wanted to sit down over a table and make everyone calm down and pay attention. Ross had spent a lot of years behind a desk, working with theories instead of real losses, and today’s losses clearly shocked him. He would need time to absorb the meaning of a full-out fleet assault. Then he would have to be talked out of this wound-licking mentality.