THE BIG GAME

by Sandy Schofield

  “You!” he said, pointing at the girl and frowning as best he could under the circumstances. “One more remark like that and you’re fired! Now, go get my brother.”

  “You’re being very cooperative, Quark,” Odo said, his voice laced with suspicion.

  “What else can I do?” Quark growled. “You have my hands tied.”

  “That has never stopped you before.”

  “Maybe it hasn’t now,” Quark said. He scurried away from Odo and went back to the door. It hissed open. The back room was the same: too hot, smelling of overtaxed bodies and Meepod.

  Quark looked at the Nagus and smiled. Quark’s ringer would lose anyway, system or no system. But the Nagus had been doing well with the cheating system. He had been gathering way too many chips.

  Quark wanted to see how well the Nagus would do on his own.

  That was the problem of using other people’s cheating systems. A person had no control over them when they shut down.

  That thought made Quark the happiest he had been all day.

  CHAPTER 31

  IT HAD TAKEN way too long to repair life support. O’Brien wiped a grimy hand across his hot forehead. His uniform felt as if it had been glued on. Someday he might be allowed to sleep again, but he wasn’t sure when that would be.

  He did another quick check to make sure the power core was still holding steady. Thank God it was. At least for the moment.

  He had gotten life support, lights, and environmental controls working for what seemed like the thousandth time. The replicators were his next chore no matter what Sisko said. O’Brien had learned on the Enterprise that when he couldn’t sleep, he had to eat. If he failed to do both, he would collapse.

  Ops was bustling with activity. Jake had left Ops to return to the family quarters and now Sisko seemed less distracted. He had called extra staff to help with the repairs, fearing a Cardassian reprisal when they got their ships working again. But communications were still down, so they had no way of knowing if the Cardassians had called for reinforcements.

  And to make matters worse, Kira had not reappeared.

  That fact had been nagging at O’Brien for the last hour. She should have gone out of phase, negotiated with the Ghost Riders and then come back. Even if the negotiations had been hard, they must have been over by now. Nothing had happened here to indicate that the Riders were still chasing their quarry.

  Most of the low conversation was about repairs. Carter was double-checking the weapons instrumentation. Ensign Xiao was reinforcing the shields. Sisko passed O’Brien on the way to the operations table and O’Brien touched his arm.

  “I hate to throw a fly into the mix, sir,” O’Brien said, “but Kira should have been back by now.”

  “I’ve thought of that,” Sisko said. “Let’s just hope she’s having trouble finding the Riders.”

  He kept going toward Dax. She was bent over the communications console. She had just brought the system back on-line, but whether it worked or not was another matter. O’Brien hadn’t had the time to find out.

  “Any way to contact the Cardassians yet, Dax?” Sisko asked.

  “I had a channel open for a moment, Benjamin,” she said, “but then I lost it. I’m sorry.”

  O’Brien glanced up at the main viewing screen. Two of the Cardassian ships had righted themselves and appeared to have power in the bridge area, although the rest of both ships remained dark. For the moment, they appeared to be concentrating their efforts on stabilizing the other ships. Since the station had been unable to communicate with the Cardassians for nearly three hours, the Cardassians would never believe an offer of assistance that came from Deep Space Nine.

  “I have an idea,” O’Brien said. “Those Cardassians are going to blame us for this whole mess, especially after Major Kira’s little stunt. I don’t believe we can talk our way out of this one, sir, no matter what we say.”

  “I have been worrying about the same thing, Chief,” Sisko said. “And I’ve been hoping that the major gets back before the Cardassians regain control of their ships.”

  O’Brien hadn’t thought of that. Neither had most of the others. He could feel the tension level rising in the room. Everyone suddenly seemed wider awake. “My idea is this, sir,” O’Brien said. “The only thing that will convince the Cardassians that we haven’t caused all these problems are the Ghost Riders themselves. Given what we know about them, they won’t come to our space voluntarily.”

  “True enough,” Sisko said. “Especially since they are wanted by the Federation.”

  O’Brien grinned. “I can rig a runabout’s phasers to release an anionic beam.”

  “I thought we discussed this before. We can’t shoot something we can’t see,” Sisko said.

  “I know, sir,” O’Brien said. “But if we can see them, we can shoot them.”

  Sisko brought his head back as the idea became clear to him. “We need to send someone else out of phase.”

  “Yes, sir,” O’Brien said. He pointed up at the screen and the Cardassian ships. “And maybe slow them down again at the same time.”

  “Benjamin, I have a channel open to the Cardassians.” Dax’s voice had triumph in it. O’Brien knew what that felt like—to struggle with a recalcitrant system. When it finally worked, the sense of victory was profound.

  “Hail them, Lieutenant.”

  All movement in Ops stopped except for Dax’s fingers flying over the console. A few ensigns looked at the screen as if any movement of the Cardassian ships would tell them something. Dax shook her head. “I’m sorry, Benjamin. They’re not responding.”

  “Let me try,” Sisko said. He moved to his favorite spot in front of the operations table. “Commander Benjamin Sisko to Gul Danar. Gul Danar? Respond please?”

  The ships remained in their position on the screen. Nothing else happened. “Nothing,” Dax repeated.

  “Have they received the message?” Sisko asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Carter said. “Their communications systems appear to be working.”

  “That’s not a good sign,” O’Brien said. He tugged at his shirt. “The Cardassians prefer silence before battle.”

  Sisko’s shoulders sagged. “Keep hailing them, Dax.

  We’ll talk if they’ll let us. In fact, send a repeating message that we would like to negotiate. Mr. O’Brien, it looks as if we’re going to have to make those Ghost Riders visible. What will it take?”

  “A few minutes to modify the phasers and about an hour to modify another runabout.”

  “Do it,” Sisko said. “And make it quick.”

  “Yes, sir.” O’Brien moved away from the engineering console. “When I’m through, sir, I would like to be the one to pilot the runabout. That way, if there are problems I can deal with them on the other side.”

  Sisko ran a hand over his growing beard, then shook his head. “Normally I would agree, Mr. O’Brien, but if we’re going to send another runabout out of phase, I need your expertise here. I would rather have you keeping that power core intact.”

  O’Brien knew he was right.

  “The Cardassians are going to be watching for any runabout that leaves the station,” Dax said.

  “Are their weapons systems on-line?” Sisko asked.

  “No, sir,” Carter replied.

  “If they were, sir, we would know it,” O’Brien said as he left the console.

  “Let me go with Chief O’Brien, Benjamin,” Dax said. “That way I can leave the minute the runabout is ready.”

  “I need you here too, Dax,” Sisko said. “You know almost as much about these systems as the chief does. And he’s going to need all the help he can get. I’m afraid I’m the logical choice for this mission.”

  “What about the Cardassians, sir?” O’Brien said.

  Sisko grinned. “I’m afraid they’ll be knocked around for the second time today.”

  O’Brien did not grin. If the Cardassians were going to get knocked around, so was the station. On his way to the doc
king ring, he would stop at the power core and see if he could give Teppo pointers and warning. And just maybe he could come up with something to give the station a little more protection. An idea tickled at the back of his mind.

  “An hour seems awfully long, Chief,” Sisko said.

  O’Brien nodded, getting on the turbolift. “I’ll do it in half that. I’ll call you when it’s time.”

  “I’ll be there, Mr. O’Brien,” Sisko said.

  CHAPTER 32

  THE FIRST high-stakes poker game I played in was about two hundred and twenty years ago on Titanias Three, just before the plague that wiped out half the population,” Berlinghoff Rasmussen said. “I was sitting across from a Klingon”—he nodded toward Lursa—”who claimed to be from the House of Duras, I believe, and if you remember, at that time humans and Klingons weren’t all that friendly. So—”

  “They won’t be friendly now if you don’t shut up,” Lursa said. She sat across from Odo. She had as many chips as he did, about ten times her original stake. For all his chatter, Rasmussen was doing well. He had the most chips on the table.

  The final table. Only eight players remained.

  Odo sighed. Not only was the game excruciatingly simple, so were the players. He hadn’t had such mindless conversations since the Cardassians left.

  “Lursa,” Garak said. “Let the boy alone. He’s allowed to chatter in his nervousness.”

  “You see this as nervousness?” Rasmussen asked. He waved a hand over his outrageous pile of chips. “I just thought you might be interested in the story. After all, poker is supposed to be a friendly game.”

  “Who taught you that idiocy?” Lursa asked.

  Rasmussen smiled. “It seems your ancestor made the same remark—”

  Lursa leaned toward Rasmussen, placing her face only an inch from his. “You have no right to discuss my ancestors.”

  “Oh, please,” Cynthia Jones said. “Fighting at this late stage serves no purpose at all.”

  She moved an arm and sent off the faint scent of roses. Her perfume was the most pleasant smell in the place. Next to Lursa sat the injured Meepod, whose wounds had festered. She sent off a stink that Odo thought he would never get out of his clothing. Bashir had offered to take care of her, but all she had allowed him to do was sterilize and bandage the wound. That had been the day before, and now, even the bandages were turning green. Since they had been competitors, she wouldn’t let him near her.

  Odo thought of ordering her out of the game, but suspected the other players wouldn’t like that.

  Cynthia seemed remarkably calm since she barely had half her original stake remaining. But she seemed to have lost interest in the game and instead found interest in Odo’s knee. He had been pushing her hands away for the last half hour, trying to keep an expression of distaste off his face. He had seen her make passes at Bashir earlier, and then when he left, she had turned her attention to Pera, the Bajoran. Now that Pera was gone, Odo had somehow become the most desirable man at the table.

  Once the game was over, he would make sure he stayed out of her way.

  He had a lot to attend to anyway. Every break he had checked on L’sthwan in the brig to make sure Primmon was doing his job. To say L’sthwan was angry was an understatement. He kept accusing the commander of cheating him. Odo had just shrugged it off.

  He was more concerned about what the miscreants who had lost their stakes were doing. Most had returned to ships on the docking ring, awaiting approval from Ops so that they could leave.

  But, apparently, Ops was giving no one approval to go into space. And after that last shake-up, Odo understood why.

  “Yes, the fighting bores me as well,” said Etana, a slight woman with a sphinxlike face. “The game should be the most important thing.”

  Odo shot her a glance. He had been keeping his eye on her. During one of the breaks, he had checked the computer and discovered her file. It seemed that she had known Lieutenant Will Riker from the Enterprise and had gifted him with an odd game, which he brought back to the Enterprise. Odo had thought of that maneuver as typical Starfleet inefficiency—if someone brought a foreign game onto the station—a game that had everyone staring into space—Odo would have confiscated it. He probably would have confiscated it upon arrival, assuming it was some sort of weapon, and of course, he would have been right. The game had been a weapon designed by Ktarans for mind control.

  Upon discovering that, he had almost banished Etana from the station, but her file claimed that she was one of the best cardplayers in the quadrant. There were no warrants for her, no technicalities he could catch her on. So he just watched.

  The Nagus started to chuckle. Odo gritted his teeth. The sound grated. “Oh, let them fight,” the Nagus said. “Then there will be more for the rest of us.”

  “I think you’ve shuffled the cards enough,” Odo said to the dealer. “Can we get on with the hand?” The quicker this game ended, the quicker he would be out of Quark’s. Staying had seemed like a good idea, but he hadn’t expected the game to be so easy. One would think that a game with such a long history would have a challenge to it.

  She set the deck in front of him. He cut the cards and she stacked them together. Then she dealt, her fingers moving so rapidly that he could barely see them. When both his cards rested in front of him, he picked them up. A four and queen of hearts. A possible heart flush. Quark would have been very excited.

  Odo calculated the odds. A heart flush was more likely than a straight flush, of course, but still the odds were not good. He would do as he had done before—put enough in to continue playing, but not raise any bets.

  The system had worked well for him, and he had found, at times, that the other players assumed he was bluffing. He had just discovered that if he stayed in the game through at least the fourth down card no matter what his hand (unless he knew he had no chance), his opportunity to win went up. Etana had explained to him, in her own sideways manner, that the players didn’t know how to respond to him, so that they altered their betting strategies to cover.

  In keeping with his nonstrategy, he checked the first bet and waited for the flop.

  The conversation had stopped once the cards were out, as Odo thought it would, except for murmured instruction about betting. If only they could keep cards in front of Rasmussen all the time.

  The dealer turned over the flop cards: the eight of hearts, the six of hearts, and the four of diamonds. The heart flush still looked promising.

  Garak sighed loudly. Odo glanced over to him. Garak’s gaze met his, and he widened his eyes slightly. Interesting that Garak would try to communicate with him. Garak had proven useful in the past—especially against Lursa and B’Etor the last time they were on the station. For a Cardassian, he was a good sort. Garak smiled and shrugged, then folded his cards on the table.

  Odd. Very odd.

  The Meepod raised the stakes—she was bluffing. All the years he’d spent facing Quark had made him an expert on humanoid liars, and in this game a bluff was a lie. Odo tossed his chips into the center, as did all the remaining players. Leave it to Humanoids to make a game of deception, Odo thought. They were paying to see the sixth card.

  The dealer turned over the ace of spades.

  The Meepod checked, but Lursa raised the bet. Etana called, and so did Cynthia. Garak had pushed his chair back from the table and was staring at the ceiling, not even interested in the hand. How strange. On the previous hands Garak had followed the cards with intense interest.

  Something wasn’t right. Odo’s cards were excellent. He was one card short of a flush, and number theory told him to call the bet as well, maybe even raise it. Judging from the cards on the table, Lursa could have at best a straight, and at worst, three aces.

  Not that it mattered.

  Unlike the other players, Odo had no emotional stake in this game. He certainly had no financial stake either. If he lost all the money, it would hurt Quark, not him. Better to get out and watch. Garak had seen someth
ing and tried to warn him. He needed to know what that something was.

  He folded.

  Garak shot him a surprised glance. Lursa glowered. She looked like she would jump across the table and kill him.

  So she was up to something.

  The Nagus glanced at Odo, frowned at Lursa, and folded as well. Then he motioned to Quark. Quark scurried over, although his manner with the Nagus didn’t seem as obsequious as usual. They whispered for a few minutes, then Quark swore quite audibly, and stood back to watch.

  During the Nagus’s discussion, the remaining players called the bet. The dealer turned over the final card. The seven of hearts.

  Odo frowned. If he had stayed in he would have had a heart flush, queen high. A very good hand.

  Then Lursa bumped the pot with enough chips to equal eighty bars of gold-pressed latinum. Odo glanced at Garak, who was still staring into space. Odo had learned much about the interactions involved in this game since the tournament started, and Lursa’s action made no sense. No one committed that much money without a sure thing. He glanced at the cards. The seven, eight, and six of hearts. No one bet that much on a straight.

  Quark crossed his arms in front of his chest. All the laughter had fled the Nagus’s face. Garak was finally leaning forward, but he was not watching the other players. He was watching Quark.

  Odo’s instinct had been right. Garak had warned him. The Klingons had their own cheating system.

  Cynthia Jones folded, and placed her hand on Odo’s thigh. He pushed it away absently, too interested in the action to even be annoyed. The Meepod called Lursa’s bet, and raised her another twenty bars. Odo had not seen a pot this rich during the entire tournament. Rasmussen called also, and so did Etana. What were they thinking? How many possible combinations of really good hands were there with those cards? Obviously they didn’t play using number theory. They played on a system of luck and lies.