“Very good,” the Nagus said. “I am glad that Quark has fronted our place in the game because this setup looks like it has cost a small fortune.”
“Oh, no, Father,” Krax said. “These are your loyal servants who expect only a paltry remuneration for their services. One of the Federation officers donated the monitors when I so kindly asked, and the commander has provided this place out of courtesy for me because our ship was destroyed.”
The Nagus smiled. Krax was learning his craft after all. Very good, getting this much equipment at so little cost.
He moved to the second monitor. It too showed a table covered with chips. No game had started yet. He was right. Quark would wait.
“Quark does not know of this?” the Nagus asked.
“He was not around when we tracked his signals. We found his sensor devices late last night. They are in perfect position. We can bleed the information off of them with no problem.” Krax stood at his full height when he spoke, as if tracking the signals were his own idea.
“It’s a good thing that I knew he would cheat,” the Nagus said, using his tone to keep his son in place.
“Yes. Yes, it is, Father. I would never have thought of that myself.”
The Nagus pushed Krax. Krax had to catch himself on the back of a chair before he crashed into a third monitor. “That’s right,” the Nagus said. “You are still too stupid to come up with anything so creative on your own. Now, are our players in place?”
Krax rubbed his shoulder, obviously in pain. Good. Krax had to find a balance between fawning and idiocy. He pointed to four different screens. “We have one at each of those tables. The players all have a receiver just inside the lobe so that we can communicate with them.”
“You had them put the receiver well inside the ear, didn’t you?” the Nagus asked.
Krax nodded. “Yes, Father. No one has forgotten that unfortunate occurrence on Risa when Gral was caught cheating because the hu-mon next to him overheard the receiver.”
“Good,” the Nagus said. Krax had gotten the hint. Krax had been the one to improperly place the receivers in that infamous Risa game. The Nagus wanted Krax to make sure the Nagus had not forgotten. Krax could not afford many mistakes. Ever since Krax had blown his chance to become Grand Nagus the last time they had visited this space station, the Nagus had been looking at all of his son’s actions with disfavor.
The Nagus grabbed the shoulder of the nearest Ferengi. He did not want to ask Krax this next question. “You have been watching the monitor all morning,” the Nagus said. “How has the system been working?”
Krax slid his face between the Nagus and the other Ferengi before the Ferengi had a chance to answer. “Actually, Father, there have been a few bugs.”
“A few bugs?” the Nagus said, his voice rising. He should have known better than to trust Krax with a makeshift system. This trip had been a disaster even before the ship blew up. But if they had kept their ship, they would have kept their own equipment and the Nagus would have had more control.
“Nothing serious,” Krax said, bowing as he spoke. The Nagus always thought of it as ducking and weaving to avoid a twisting grip on the ears. “I mean, nothing more than the rest of the station is suffering.”
“The monitors cut out occasionally,” the other Ferengi said, obviously not wanting to be deprived of a chance to speak to the Grand Nagus.
“Cut out? You mean like the lights?”
“Yes, Father.” Krax swallowed. The sound was audible. “You see, it is not too serious. The signals get interrupted, but only when the rest of the station is having problems as well.”
“You fool!” the Nagus said. “That could be the most important moment of the game! I am surrounded by idiots who don’t even understand the importance of acquisition!”
“Quark will be having the same problem,” Krax said, ducking and weaving.
“I do not care about Quark!” The Nagus had had enough. He took Maihar’du’s arm and leaned on the staff. “Just make sure the system works. All of the time. Do you understand me, Krax?”
“Yes,” Krax said, nodding his head so fast it looked as if it would fall off his short little neck.
“If I lose one bar of gold-pressed latinum, just one, due to your idiocy, you will no longer be by my side. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Father,” Krax said. “It will work.”
At that moment, the lights flickered and every monitor in the place went dark. Ferengi fingers moved across keypads, made fists, and pounded the top of the Federation’s screens. One by one, the monitors came back on.
“It will work, eh, Krax?” the Nagus said. He shook his head. Good thing he was playing with Quark’s money himself. Then at least the Nagus would make a slight profit—the enjoyment of the game itself—even if Krax’s system was a bust.
“Remember,” he said, shaking his staff at Krax and the other ten Ferengi. “Every one of you will no longer get special favors and deals from me if this plan fails. Fix those monitors. Now. And Maihar’du?”
The servant nodded.
“Get me back to the game as fast as you can. If that Quark starts without me, I may have to fine him a few bars of gold-pressed latinum.”
The Grand Nagus paused, and then he smiled. “On second thought, let’s dawdle. I could use the money.”
CHAPTER 15
THE TABLES WERE FULL, the conversation roaring, and the chips gleaming. Carefully wrapped decks of cards sat in front of the dealer’s chairs and the dealers stood behind them waiting for Quark’s signal.
Quark watched the door. Where was that Nagus? Zek would kill Quark if Quark began the game without him.
The game was already an hour late in starting and the players were getting restless. Two had come up to him to ask him if there was a problem. He had reassured them that everything was all right, that the group was only waiting for one more player. A player who had been around when Quark posted the schedule but was gone now.
The Nagus was up to something.
But then, that was what made him the Grand Nagus of all the Ferengi.
Quark wiped a hand over his brow. The environmental controls still hadn’t been fixed and the room was stifling hot. The mingled smells of unwashed human bodies and strange aliens made his nostrils twitch. The stink would only grow worse as the game continued. Players would not leave their posts until their last chip was gone. By the end of the game the final two players might well have been at the table for days.
The lights went out and the conversation stopped. A group of eighty beings held their breath. Quark started counting, praying that the emergency generators would kick in. They didn’t have to. By the time he reached ten, the lights were back on.
The conversation resumed, as loudly as it had been before. It almost seemed as if the players’ voices were connected to the power grid.
Quark smiled at the image. Just imagine if he could shut off the conversation in the bar by pressing a button.
Someone tugged on his sleeve. He looked over to see Rom cowering beside him. Quark closed his eyes. Another problem.
Rom tugged again. Quark opened his eyes and grabbed Rom’s hand. “Careful,” Quark said. “You’ll ruin the sweater.”
“I’m sorry,” Rom said. His apology came too quickly. Something was wrong. “I need to speak with you.”
“So speak,” Quark said.
“Not here,” Rom said, looking around.
Quark glared at him. He didn’t want to leave the room. He had a large investment to protect as well. Finally Rom leaned over and whispered, “The signals are cutting out.”
“They’re doing what?” Quark shouted.
Players at the nearest two tables looked over. Quark nodded to them and grinned, feeling a panic rise in his stomach. “Ah, we were talking about the remaining player, the Nagus,” he said, trying to make something up at the spur of the moment. “He, ah, is in a holosuite. We need to get him, Rom. Come along.”
Quark grabbed his brother’s
arm and pulled him out of the room. The bar was empty, except for the Dabo girl who looked bored. Quark snapped his fingers at her. “Go stand in the door,” he said. “Make sure no one leaves.”
She nodded and left her station. Quark pulled Rom behind the bar itself.
“I didn’t say anything about a holosuite or the Nagus,” Rom said.
“I know that,” Quark snapped. He kept his voice low. “What’s going on with the equipment?”
Rom glanced nervously around, took a step back from Quark, and then said, “The monitors keep cutting out. The entire system just shuts down. I personally checked all the circuits again but found nothing.”
A Starfleet ensign, a pretty young woman whose eyes, skin, and hair were a fine chocolate brown, peeked in the bar, apparently startled that it was empty. Quark made himself smile at her—he had been trying to catch her attention for days—but he could do no more. He couldn’t even invite her in. His body was shaking with fury.
The ensign smiled back and ducked into the Promenade. Quark whirled on Rom. “The monitors were working fine two days ago. What have you done to them?”
“Nothing.” Alarm made Rom’s voice rise. “I have simply got them to work every time they stop.”
“How long has this been going on?” Quark asked.
“Since last night,” Rom said.
“And you decide to tell me now? One hour after the game should have started?”
Rom took another step back. “I thought I could fix it.”
“You thought you could fix it! You thought you could fix it!” Quark grabbed Rom’s earlobe and pinched so hard that Rom fell to his knees. “Fixing it means that the system works all the time. It never cuts out. It never quits. You do not repair. You improve.”
Quark let go and Rom fell backwards. He clasped a hand over his red, swelling earlobe. “Right now they’re working.”
“Right now is not good enough,” Quark said. “You must have them working all the time or I will hold you personally responsible for every hand my players lose.”
“You can’t do that!” Rom said. “They don’t always know what’s going on.”
Quark froze. “They’re supposed to know what’s going on. Is something else wrong? Hands don’t change that fast. A player can handle a flicker or two.”
“That’s right.” Rom got up, still holding his ear. “That’s right. I was wrong.”
Quark grabbed his brother’s elbow and pulled him closer. Rom clapped his other hand on his remaining earlobe. “You’re not telling me something,” Quark said.
“It’s nothing important,” Rom said. He was whining again. That self-pitying human sound. Quark hated it.
“It might be important to me,” Quark said.
“I don’t think so,” Rom said.
“I do.” Quark grabbed the tip of Rom’s ear. Rom squealed.
“It’s nothing, it’s really nothing,” Rom said, as he tried to wrench his ear from Quark’s grasp. “It’s just that the link between the players and our people watching the monitors sometimes cuts out too.”
Quark let go of Rom’s ear, too stunned to cause any more damage. First the Nagus, then the murder, and now this. “Are the two problems related?”
Rom massaged his ear with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know,” he said. “The systems are completely different. And one quits while the other keeps working. It makes no sense to me.”
“Well, it does to me,” Quark said. “Someone is sabotaging me.”
“Who would do that?” Rom asked.
“I don’t know.” Quark kept his voice down. “But I will find out.”
“You had better find out quickly,” Rom said.
That brought Quark’s attention back. “No! You had better fix the system quickly.”
Rom nodded, cringing so that his shoulders protected part of his ears. The lights flickered. Both Ferengi looked up. “Maybe,” Rom said, “no one is sabotaging you. Maybe that is your problem.”
“Maybe,” Quark said. The lights flickered again and there was a rumble as the entire station shook. “But it doesn’t matter what’s causing the problem. The fact is that I am going to lose a lot of money if we don’t solve this right now.”
Rom scuttled around the bar. “I’m sure the players will do fine on their own.”
“Hah! Those two couldn’t play their way out of a child’s game.” Quark banged his fist on the counter. “I’m stuck paying their entry fees, the Nagus, and Odo. Four hundred bars of gold-pressed latinum that I could lose if I’m not careful. And I’m not careful. I have you working on my equipment.”
“Maybe you should see if you can figure out what is wrong with it,” Rom said.
“And maybe you should find the Grand Nagus and order him back into the room! Idiot. I can’t leave this. Go. See what you can do. Make sure the equipment works at least part of the time.”
Rom hurried away from the bar as if he expected Quark to box his ears again. Quark folded his arms and leaned forward on the bar’s smooth surface. Sabotage. It had to be sabotage. He had never had luck this bad before. The murder. The Nagus. Odo. And now this. All the lovely profits, disappearing as if they never had been.
Odo came around the side of the bar. Quark jumped. “I told that Dabo girl not to let anyone out of the room.”
“She couldn’t very well order me around, now could she?” Odo asked.
“I suppose not,” Quark said.
Odo stared at Quark for a moment, as if he were trying to assess the situation. “Your players would like the game to start. They’re getting quite restless.”
“I’m waiting for the Nagus,” Quark said.
“Ah,” Odo said. “The joys of politics.”
“Yeah,” Quark said. “Joy. I forgot what that feels like.”
“Is something wrong?” Odo asked. “You don’t look like you’re having any fun.”
Quark slowly stood, feeling old and very tired. “Fun? Making money is fun. I wouldn’t call this fun.”
CHAPTER 16
THE NIGHT HAD BEEN one of the longest and most frustrating in O’Brien’s career. Usually he had someone else to lean on—Geordi La Forge on the Enterprise for instance—someone else to take the constant questions, the constant demands, the constant pressure. What O’Brien wouldn’t do to have Geordi here right now. Geordi would figure out what was causing all these problems. Geordi would have figured it out hours ago.
But of course, O’Brien was not Geordi. And Geordi had never had to deal with Cardassian technology. Sometimes O’Brien was surprised the Cardassians had ever invented the wheel, let alone their so-called advanced technology. Right now he would give anything for a top of the line Federation made warp core, instead of the Cardassian power core. Its power configuration had fluctuated all night. He was afraid that if things continued, the core would be breached—or it would cease functioning altogether.
O’Brien wiped his sweaty hands on the side of his uniform. An hour ago he had had the environmental controls working in Ops. The turbolift was functional too. Then he had gone back to his quarters for a meal and a much-needed shower. When he got out, dripping wet, the lights quit for nearly a minute. And the door from the bathroom to the bedroom stuck—half-open, fortunately. He slid through, got dressed, and came back to Ops to find the turbolift acting up and the replicator out. Now it felt as if the environmental controls were down again.
None of this counted the three hours he had spent shoring up the power core. He had just built power levels back up to 95 percent when another wave struck. While the station rattled, O’Brien fought to keep the core’s integrity. When the rattling ended, all the work he had done on the core had disappeared. It had lost 15 percent of its full power capability.
Losing power core capability wasn’t bad. It was the fluctuations. During the worst of the wave, power levels went to 120 percent of normal. Much higher and the core would blow. O’Brien had his best staff near the core so that he could contact them in any emergency
. He was doing what he could from Ops.
It wasn’t enough.
Maybe this was a recurring loop nightmare. Maybe if he tried hard enough he would wake up and everything would be fine. Maybe if he wished hard enough he would be back on the Enterprise and all this would become someone else’s problem.
O’Brien slid under the engineering controls unit and opened a panel revealing the schematics inside. That last little bouncy rumble had knocked his entire console off-line. He found the problem—simple, really—and fixed it, then got on his feet again.
“Chief,” Kira said, “I’m getting reports that all the turbolifts in the habitat ring are out.”
“Let them use the stairs,” O’Brien snapped.
“Not funny, Chief. At least one has passengers.”
He punched the information onto his now functioning engineering center. “I’ll send someone there right away.” Never mind that it took staff away from other emergencies. People stuck in turbolifts sometimes made the situation worse by trying to get themselves out.
“We’re getting hot up here,” Sisko said as he walked behind O’Brien.
“I know that, sir.”
“We shouldn’t be. This Operations Center already feels like the middle of a Pletanion summer cycle.”
“Yes, sir,” O’Brien said. He ignored the implied command while concentrating on the turbolifts. Ops would have to wait to be comfortable.
“Another disturbance—” Dax said as the lights went out in Ops. The station rumbled as badly as it had the first time. O’Brien had to hold the console to keep from slipping. This bouncing around was not natural. Space stations did not experience turbulence.
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