by Diane Carey
On the monitor, the marigold cloud spread toward main engineering. Closer, closer—it was almost there.
Kira watched Sisko, as curious as she was anticipatory of what he would do about this poison thundering down upon them. This wasn't a time for shilly-shallying or faintheartedness. She didn't think she was falling prey to either of those, but her hands were cold and her mind already spinning with ways to keep the fight going without having Ops as a command center.
Her hand was poised over the transporter's automatic-evacuation panel. One tap, and the machine would grab any life-forms left in the endangered areas and deposit them in the docking ring.
But Sisko wasn't making any orders of that nature yet. He gazed at Dax's monitor as if he had the time.
They watched as the marigold cloud pressed toward main engineering and the labs down there.
Finally he glanced at Kira. "I've got two and a half more minutes. I'm going to use them. Just to be prepared, adjust the emergency evacuation transporter to put us in the docking ring instead of on the planet. Our Cardassian guests'll have to contaminate the whole station before I give it up, and they've got to breathe too."
"I've done that," Dax said.
"Sir, we don't know what kind of protective gear they've got," Kira pointed out.
"Maybe not, but I'm willing to—"
"Attention, aliens."
Sisko straightened and looked into the air as if to find explanation written on the ceiling. "Uh-oh … here it comes."
Dax leaned forward, her flawless expression crimped. "They've tapped into the general broadcast system."
"See if you can home in on it. Use the biosensors once you get close."
"This is the High Gul of the Order of the Crescent. I am speaking to Benjamin Sisko, commander of the intruders. You are in possession of Cardassian property. You will surrender it immediately. I have immobilized your command areas. Surrender or I will do likewise to the habitation areas."
Narrowing her eyes and feeling as if she were waiting for a punch line, Kira waited a second to see if the voice would speak again.
When it didn't, she said, "Order of the Crescent … that's old-fashioned. It's from before either the Central Command or the Obsidian Order. Over seventy years! Maybe longer—I'm not sure. I heard some of the older Cardassians mentioning it."
Sisko nodded. "It could be an elaborate hoax."
Kira pressed her hand to her short hair as if to hold in her thoughts, then held the same hand out to him. "But the Order of the Crescent? How can that be? Who are these people? A history cult or something?"
Occult with contemplation, Sisko folded his arms as if he had all day and turned to face her. "I'll tell you who they are, Major. They're those corpses we found in the docking pylon, that's who they are."
"Corpses? You mean those dead Cardassians?"
"They weren't dead," he said, his low voice sequestered, bodeful. "They were in some kind of hibernation. Breaking into the chamber may have awakened them."
Smoldering, and suddenly angry that all her instincts had failed, Kira abandoned any composure and let her jaw fall. Her cheeks and hands turned cold. "What?"
He nodded slowly. "Those bodies are the people we're fighting. They didn't infiltrate the station at all, Major. They were already here."
"But that's—that's—"
"Spooky. Yes, it is. That's what we're dealing with, Major. A brigade of the dead." He crossed behind her suddenly to the other side of Ops and tapped the monitors and readouts.
"Fifty seconds to fail-safe … Evacuate immediately … repeat, evacuate immediately."
Watching them both, Dax held her poise as she said, "Transporter is activated and standing by. Benjamin—radiation is going into engineering. Shall I transport them out?"
Suddenly Sisko's expression changed. He crossed Ops again to another station and checked and rechecked the panels. All the readouts would say the same things—that they were about to die.
Dax turned and snapped. "Benjamin!"
"Stand by!"
The marigold plume began to flood main engineering on the monitors. Miles O'Brien's post. Had he gotten out? It was a pale, bitter assumption, a faint hope, that he had, and a gripping horror that they couldn't call and ask.
Kira felt her pulse hammer in her wrists and temples. What was wrong with Sisko? Was this some kind of breakdown? Had he snapped? Was this the time for the second-in-command to countermand?
As she watched him rush from console to console, searching for something he wouldn't explain, she thought of O'Brien … death by radiation poisoning. The tongue bleeds, the skin burns off in red flakes, blood vessels swell, pop open, eyeballs blister and swell.
Have I got my phaser? I'll shoot us all first.
"It's encroaching on the infirmary now," Dax said, her throat tight. "Benjamin, whatever you're doing—"
"I told you to stand by."
Holding silent, Kira felt her skin wither. While O'Brien could be anywhere on the station, working his engineering skills here or there, Julian Bashir wouldn't be anywhere but that little black area now turning orange with poison.
And Julian would stand his post until told otherwise. He would have faith in them, up here.
The transporter enact—it was right there. It was under her hand.
Dax's voice was very low, fierce. "Benjamin … the infirmary."
The infirmary was contaminated now. If Julian was in there, then he was dying a hideous death, slow and burning, and mercy would be to choke to unconsciousness before his skin was burned off his body. What was Sisko waiting for? A desperate shriek from a dying physician to get everyone else off?
"Sir," Kira attempted, "we have to get out of Ops and evacuate the whole central core! Our officers are standing by at their posts. They'll be killed by that cloud if we don't beam out! They're being killed now!"
"I said for both of you to stand by."
Sisko's tone was that of almost cheerful defiance. He hovered over a set of readouts that had held his attention since the cloud flooded engineering.
Kira watching him, drenched in shock, and finally spun to Dax and flagged her arms desperately. What's he doing?
Pushing back from her console, Dax stood up and with fluid motion abandoned her control center. "We don't have any choice. We certainly can't swallow that much radiation, and we can't defend the station if we're dead."
"Thirty seconds to fail-safe … Implement emergency evacuation immediately …"
Feeling her legs tingle with sudden resolution, Kira stared at him, held her breath, and tried again. "Sir, it'll be all right. I've been pushed back before."
The carpeted deck was uncomforting beneath her as she came to stand beside Dax, so the automatic transporter sensors wouldn't have any trouble finding her. Didn't make any sense, but she didn't care. Machines could break and she didn't want to be in the middle of one when it did.
"Fifteen seconds to fail-safe …"
Dax again placed her hand over the transporter trigger. "Ready, Benjamin."
Energize. Energize. Energize. Well? Energize!
Kira stepped away from Dax, toward Sisko. "Sir?"
He had pressed forward over the command center, his large hands spread like the feet of a giant hawk, his neck knotted and his eyes canted to one side.
"Ten seconds …"
Kira clenched her teeth.
Behind her, Dax abridged, "Benjamin?"
They both moved toward him.
"Five seconds to fail-safe …"
Kira drew a long breath. "Sir!"
Pushing to his full height, Sisko set his jaw and waited. There was nothing left to do. The decision had been made and there was barely time to unmake it. They were either cannily calling a bluff or they were trapped here, to await contamination and a slow and gory death by radiation poisoning.
Four, three, two …
And he had made his decision for all the Starfleet personnel still left on the station—they were trapped with him if he
was wrong.
Holding her breath for the last tick, Kira was swatted with the full impact of command authority, of Sisko's having made that decision and of his having the absolute right to make it for all of them. She had made decisions like that all her life, but only for herself.
"One … Fail-safe."
Ops fell silent, but for the soft whirrs of the computer systems working, and the occasional croak of a compromised system trying to get itself back online.
On the screen, the orange mange flooded the inner core of the station all the way to the top—to Ops. The picture looked like a spindle, but now with bright tangerine wool around it.
Quietly Dax said, "It's here."
Using only her eyes, Kira looked around. She listened.
She waited for her skin to start tingling. Like a sunburn—that's how it would begin. Then her tongue would swell.
"Fail-safe plus five … six … seven …"
No swelling. No sunburn.
"Fail-safe plus ten seconds."
No tingle. How long would it take?
She put her hand on the phaser at her hip. She closed her eyes. If she could save her eyes for a few seconds longer as her skin began to peel and her blood to boil, she would be able to aim, to shoot.
"Fail-safe plus twenty seconds."
"Captain?" a voice popped through the same hole Sisko had come in through. "Captain Sisko? Are you still here? Hello?"
Kira opened her eyes and looked.
Bashir's benign gaze preceded him as he crawled in and strode toward them, looking from one to the other, brows up like a child's.
"What's going on?" he asked. "Why wasn't I beamed out? My infirmary alarms went off. The computer said the whole place was awash with radiation, but the transporter never came on. I asked Chief O'Brien on my way here, but he didn't understand either. So what is it? Am I needed on the planet or not?"
"Julian!" Kira uttered, her throat raw with relief. Her pulse hammered in her throat, echoing in her ears. He wasn't lying on the infirmary deck with his skin flaking off!
He looked at her, then grinned in a completely confused and self-conscious way. "Have I done something?"
"Captain! Captain Sisko! Captain Sisko!" Another voice. This one not nearly so lyrical.
A gremlin appeared in the hatch, popped out, and screeched to them, eyes ringed with white as he clutched two large twine-tied bundles, one under each arm. "Where's the radiation? What's going on? What happened? The alarms started ringing and there was this terrible voice drumming about fail-safes and contaminations and I kept waiting to get beamed off! I thought you had things in hand up here! I wrapped up as much latinum as I could carry and I've been waiting to get off. And while I'm on the subject, do you know that two-thirds of my patrons evacuated without even paying their bills? They ran right out the door! I mean, they didn't even pay! Do you know what kind of sight that is? It's like watching money grow legs and walk right out! I have their names and I want them run down!"
"Calm down, Quark," Sisko said. "Dax?"
Tilting her reedy body just enough to peek at the panel as if watching an errant child, Dax allowed the computer systems time to read themselves out and put the diagnostic conclusions up.
"Atmospheric sensors read stable," she said. "The computer is blocking off the main accessways, but there's no actual contamination happening." She turned to look at Sisko without taking her hands from her panel. "Nothing at all."
"Fail-safe … code red, code red … all personnel in contaminated areas are now overwhelmed … fail-safe … do not enter contaminated areas without protective gear … fail-safe."
"See?" Quark pointed at the speakers. "That's what I mean!"
Bashir blinked at the booming computer voice. "I think it's trying to tell us we're all dead."
Quark rounded on him. "I feel dead!"
The doctor didn't respond to the Ferengi's remark, but pulled his medical tricorder out of his shoulder pack and fiddled with it. "This doesn't make sense … according to the tie-in with the station computer system, we actually read out as dead. This is amazing!" He turned the tricorder and picked at the controls. "Something must be interfering with its sensing mechanism. Is that possible?"
Low in his throat, Sisko chuckled, "Smart bastard."
Rattled, Kira swung to him and burst out, "A fake! They almost got us to abandon Ops! They could've walked right in here and taken over if not for you!"
Lips pursed, Sisko sighed in obvious relief. "He made the computer believe the station was being contaminated and hoped we'd act as we were trained to act. But I sensed a red herring. After all, if he wants to destroy the station, there are easier ways to do it. He wants possession of it, intact. And if it's flooded with radiation, he wouldn't be able to use it for a month."
"That's incredible!" Kira rapsed. "How did you know?"
"I didn't, Major, believe me. I could've easily been killing us all. I guess you could say I made a bet that he wants the station more than he wants us all dead. There's just something about him—"
Suddenly the alert klaxons very unceremoniously fell silent. The blunt quiet was both soothing and unnerving.
Shaking her head with relief, Dax slid back into her seat as if she had never come out of it. "All ventilation systems read functional and clear now. The computer is giving up its effort. It thinks we're all out of the inner core. That or dead …" Then she paused, tapped, and her ivory face crimped again. "Benjamin, the outer short-range sensor grid alert just popped on."
"Why?" He leaned forward.
Kira snapped around to Dax and looked at the readouts that showed them what the sensors were finding in deep space around the station. "Another fake?"
"No fake," Dax said. "I'm reading a Cardassian Galor-class warship … fully armed and coming in at high warp, full shields."
The short-lived touch of victory in Sisko's eyes fell away.
"It's begun."
CHAPTER 14
"THERE IT IS … a mass exodus. They have left from their hiding places and hurried into the docking ring. Soon the inner core will be ours. Hard radiation is a great fear for soft-tissued beings."
The High Gul of the Crescent Order peered between the massive shoulders of Elto and Ren at the tiny auxiliary screens in their covert headquarters. Shuttle after shuttle, craft upon craft, even down to the small single-pilot traders, had abandoned the station.
"Elto, tie me in to the general broadcast system. I wish to flush out any stragglers and squeeze the bravery out of those huddling in the docking circle."
"Yes, High Gul."
Elto picked at the bare circuitry inside the wall, made a mistake, hunted for the correct connections, then tediously made them.
"Go ahead, Excellency," he said ultimately, seeming relieved thathe hadn't taken any longer.
The leader drew a sustaining breath, clinging to the significance of even small accomplishments for a man so long dead to his culture. Now his men would hear what they had long deserved to hear.
"This is the High Gul of the Crescent. I have control of your command center; of your engineering section, from which I have access to all your reactors; and of your entire central core. I have retaken this sector of space in the name of the Crescent Order. Once again, as it was in the deepest beginning, this is Cardassian space. Any who remain on this station and wish to surrender will be mercifully sent out of Cardassian jurisdiction. Any who resist will suffer the scorch of radiation poisoning, as did those bold lingerers in the contaminated sections. In a symbolic gesture of my complete control, I am now putting the station's communications systems back on-line—" He paused to gesture for Elto to comply. "—so that you will be able to notify us of your surrender and your location. I will wait ten seconds. If I do not hear from those of you who are hiding, I will begin to wash the docking circle with radiation, and there will be nowhere left to hide."
Elto glanced up at him, hope lurking in his sunken eyes.
Since the haze of reawakening had fallen f
rom the Gul's mind, his young men had all seemed more sunken, more skeletal than they had been in all those years past. He knew now that they weren't changing, but only that he had seen them through his affection for them and the sheen of their loyalty, as if seeing long-lost children and wanting desperately for them to be healthy, radiant, and well.
These young Elite were devoted to him and that was charming, but now, as the glaze faded, he saw the clear etching of skull plates, the depressions of nasal passages, the thinness of skin around bony arterial shells, and the shadowed cavities of their eyes.
Again, he wondered how he looked to them and hoped their devotion would haze their vision.
"Ten seconds, High Gul," Elto said. "No response from anywhere in the outpost."
"Perhaps there are none left," Clus offered from behind them. "Perhaps they're all out!"
"Then the station is ours," the High Gul told them simply. "This massive marvel is Cardassian once ag—"
"Attention, intruders."
They stopped, listened. In an instant the universe changed again.
"This is Captain Sisko of Starfleet, commander of Deep Space Nine and regional supervisor of this sector. We have not abandoned the operations center of the station. Repeat—we have not abandoned Ops. We have control of this command center, of weapons, of main engineering, the infirmary, the Promenade, the docking ring, and we have secured all reactor chambers against further tampering. We know your radiation leak was faked. You have invaded Federation property, you've killed my people, you've assaulted my Security chief and you've laid siege to my station. I'll give you time to surrender, but not much. Turn yourselves over immediately. Sisko out."
A hush cloyed them as the deep voice fell away. Suddenly all they could hear was the faint murmur of ventilators that normally no one ever really listened to.
"High Gul …" Ren's astonishment littered his voice. "But—but—"
Elto pushed and jabbed at the naked controls as if deeming them liars. "Why is he still there?"
"He didn't abandon his command center," Clus gulped, abashed. "He dared the radiation!"
"No," the High Gul corrected. His arms tightened at his sides. "He dared me. He gambled not only his life, but all his people's lives. It could easily, easily have been no bluff!"