ON DEFIANT'S COOL BRIDGE, a slim woman pressed her elbows to the panel in front of her, tightened her lips in frustration, and punched the comm. "Jadzia, this is Kira, do you read?"
The system crackled, then, "Dax here, Kira. Are you on board?"
"Yes, and I've got the High Gul on board. He'll be off the station. We're ready to launch. Release the docking clamps, please."
"Kira … you know I need command authorization to do that. Where's Sisko?"
"I left him in the docking pylon with Odo," she said dispiritedly, with meaning. "It's my call now, Jadzia."
There was a pause.
"Understood. Releasing docking clamps."
With a heavy, sonorous chachunk, the docking clamps receded and the ship's hull was free of its umbilical hookup to Deep Space Nine. Kira felt as if she had just listened to the sounds of her own legs breaking.
"Station umbilicals are in. You're clear for launch," Dax said. "I'll keep the station's shields around you as long as possible. Good luck."
"Thanks, but protect the station. We'll take care of ourselves. Defiant out."
The ship moaned, the engines warmed, the ventilators breathed fresh warm air, and the wide forward viewscreen blended to life, showing a disjointed view of the other two lower pylons, giant claws descending beneath the station in graceful curves.
"Alert status," the High Gul said from behind her. He was in the command chair.
Pressing her lips flat, she touched the red-alert control. The bridge fell to eye-forgiving red lights, which made everything on the control board show up more clearly.
"We've got to keep away from Fransu for a few minutes," Kira said, "until I can energize the shields."
"Do as you must. Departure angle."
Still nauseated by the twisted logic of what the High Gul had said to her, Kira complied. Before them the main screen wobbled and changed.
She pressed her hands to the helm. Beneath her scraped and tingling palms, the hard strong vessel angled down and away from the pylon, until they could see the vast underside of the station turning over them.
"There it is," he murmured. "The bespangled spool of Terok Nor. Deep Space Nine. Have you ever looked sincerely upon the thing you defend? Look how the grizzled prism turns in space. Ah, it's a tribute to science that it floats here, so similar to the spacedocks of my time. But in my time we had trouble living on them for very long. Look at the shadows upon her, like spilled wine. . . ."
"I always hated the place," Kira said, willingly crass.
"Then why do you defend it?"
"Because it's mine now."
"And as it is yours, so is the guardianship it provides to your fragile planet. I understand. How is the ship feeling beneath you?"
"Undermanned," Kira said. "We can fight, but as systems go down, there won't be any way to bring them back up."
The High Gul straightened and faced the main screen, the picture of the station's gunmetal rim with its pearl-string of lights, at the broken windows and shattered hull, parts only creased, some sliced right out like forkfuls of pie.
"I will order them to cease," he said. "I am the High Gul. Now I have this strong ship. I'll fight him and I'll win. In respect for Captain Sisko, I will leave your station intact. In respect for you, sentinel, I shall leave Bajor alone for now. Then I shall do as I promised—put all the factions of the galaxy up against each other until they mutually shred. They will play like puppets for me, and I will rename this sector Little Chaos."
"Hold very still … one more moment … now slowly begin to withdraw—slowly, Odo, slowly! I'll get each bleeder one by one as you release them … good … oh—look out! … all right, I'm sorry about that … almost done …"
They were both sprayed with blood, sweating and working in intolerable conditions. The pylon was cold, and now dust-clogged and stuffy.
"He's not dead, is he?" Odo asked, exhausted. Plugging off Sisko's bleeding from the inside had been grueling.
Julian Bashir appreciated the ability, however, and had already commented several times on its effectiveness. "You did a remarkable thing here, Odo. Just another moment or two …"
Below them, a low voice croaked, "No, I'm not dead yet."
"Captain," Bashir chuckled, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were conscious. Are you in pain?"
"Hell, yes, I'm in pain, Doctor."
"You'll be stable in just one moment. Odo managed to retard the bleeding until I could get here."
"Situation …"
As his mind fogged in and out, Odo forced himself to find the energy to speak. "Kira was taken hostage aboard the Defiant. I heard them launch about five minutes ago. The High Gul is down to four men, counting himself. The station is under heavy bombardment. I don't know the details."
"Have they moved out of the shield sphere yet?"
"I don't know that either."
"What about me?"
"You sustained a six-inch puncture wound to the upper left quadrant," Bashir said. "It went down at an angle and missed your heart, but punctured a lung. Odo kept you from bleeding to death and also from … well, exhaling yourself to death, for want of more technical terminology. All right, Odo, slowly withdraw and I'll close the wound."
"Patch me together."
"That's what I'm doing, sir."
"I mean right now."
"Now? Captain, your heart nearly stopped. You need a good twelve hours of recuperation time."
"Pump me full of whatever it takes."
"You already are full of anesthetics, antibiotics, and cordrazine. That's why you're talking to us and not screaming in agony."
Odo looked at Bashir. The doctor was overstepping. His young bronze face was tight with concern at this field-treatment business. He didn't like it. He wanted a nice clean infirmary around him, with support staff and sterile fields.
Understandable. The situation was intolerable to Odo, the lack of control, of order, the unpredictability. He grimaced with anticipation of disaster as he brought his physical matter back to his side and reintegrated it into a humanoid hand, but no bright light came to signal the end.
Before him, Sisko struggled to roll onto his elbow. The effort drained him as if he'd been climbing a cliff. "There are bullies on my playground, Doctor. Neither deserves to win. The High Gul is like the soldier left on an island who doesn't realize his war is long over with. If I don't stop him, he's going to keep fighting until it breaks all our backs. You shore me up and get me out there."
Irritated, sopped in blood to the elbows and speckled with it up to his neck, Bashir didn't argue. Staidly he prepared the right hypo.
As he waited, Sisko looked at Odo with concern that embarrassed the shapeshifter, then fingered his comm badge. Sweat poured down the sides of his dust-plastered face as he forced his legs under him. His complexion was ashy as a Cardassian's. "Sisko to Ops. Come in, Dax."
"Benjamin? You're alive? Kira said—"
"Mostly. "
"Fransu knows what he's doing. He's concentrating his firepower on our shield grid and he's broken it in several places. Overall shield power is down to one-third, structural integrity is ruptured in sixteen outer areas, and the lower core is uninhabitable. There are fires in at least ten sections. Weapons power is still up, but I don't know for how long. O'Brien's giving them priority. The docking ring is—"
"How are the transporters? Is Defiant still in range?"
"Impulse engines are just warming up. It's taking a while because of the complete maintenance shutdown. They're coming up around the station to meet Gul Fransu's ship."
"Have they moved out of the station's shield perimeter yet? And are their shields up?"
"No to both. In thirty seconds they'll be out of our shields and they'll have no choice but to put up their own."
"I want you to beam me over there, quick."
"Specifically—?"
"The bridge is transport-shielded. Send me to the engineering deck." He looked at Odo again. "You coming?"
"I want to," Odo offered automatically, and even the offer caused a reserve of strength to surge through him. He sat up straighter. "But I can't. If I could only relax completely for just ten minutes, I could hold this form again long enough to help you. But that's not possible. I'm coming to the end of it. I have to get off the station."
Sisko gritted his teeth and grimaced with pure effort as Bashir hoisted him to his feet. Then the doctor gave him the last hypo, the one that would mask his pain, clot his blood, sustain his strength, keep his heart hammering, and hold him upright for a few critical minutes longer.
"Don't use the transporter," the captain said, struggling for every thought. "We don't know what that would to you. The dissolution of particles might—"
He stopped. He didn't say it.
"Ignite me," Odo droned. "I understand. I'll find O'Brien. He'll get me into a runabout."
"Benjamin, you have ten seconds."
"Odo, I'm sorry," Sisko grated with clear sympathy "I'm ready, Dax."
"Are you armed?"
"A phaser, two fists, and a lot of teeth." Sisko stepped out of the clutter of bodies, and as Odo gazed up at him and wondered what he was thinking, he said, "Energize."
"Fransu! Fransu … Fransu … so it's you."
On the main screen, the picture of Gul Fransu was incongruously clear, considering the sector whiteout and the bombardment that had rattled down through the station to the Defiant until a few minutes ago.
The High Gul stared and stared at the man he obviously knew.
Kira Nerys paused and watched them. What did they look like to each other? To Fransu, the High Gul must look not so different from the last time they'd seen each other, eighty-some years ago. But Fransu was an old soldier now, hammered and wizened, only an echo of what his youth must have looked like.
The High Gul glanced at her in an accusing way, then dropped the fact that she hadn't told him the identity of their attackers. As she returned his glare with her own, he seemed to accept that it hadn't been her job to tell him. The opposite, rather.
He looked again at the Cardassian man on the screen.
"Fransu …" he murmured again. "I had hoped it would not be you."
On the screen, Fransu glanced to his side at one of his crewmen, then rubbed a sweaty hand across the front of his silver-gray uniform.
"Excellency," he began. "Central Command is thrilled that you are alive."
"Oh, yes," the High Gul drawled. "Yes … I certainly would be, to see an anchor of the past resurrected."
Kira held her breath. What was the relationship here? Had Sisko been wrong about these two?
"Fransu," the High Gul began, dwelling for some unspoken reason on the name, "patch me into the Central Command. I wish to speak to them."
"Excellency … I cannot do that. The sector is blanked out."
"Unblanket it."
"I can't do that without collecting the string of drones manually."
"I see. Fransu … I want you to cease firing on the outpost of Terok Nor."
"Very well."
Kira squinted. Too easy. Way, way too damned easy.
"Where are my Elites, Fransu?" the High Gul asked. His voice had a terrible one-dimensionality about it. "Where are my loyal two thousand?"
"During the conquest of Tal Demica, in the later years when it was almost won, I sent the revive signal. They arose, but you did not. You were gone. Someone had moved you. The two thousand went on to fight as ordered, to conquer Tal Demica as planned. Your name is revered through the Empire."
Before Kira, the High Gul smiled a deep sentimental smile, but also one of warm amusement. He strode to the other side of the deck, pulling his hand along the helm as if drawing a line, gazing first at the deck, then back up at Fransu.
"I would like, when this is over, to go back to Tal Demica and see what really transpired and what has developed there as a result."
Fransu paused, struggled for control over his expression, glanced to his side again. "If you will beam aboard," he said evenhandedly, "I will take you there."
"Thank you, Fransu. Thank you most deeply. Now I know without a doubt what to do. I'm glad we had this moment of deception between us. I've enjoyed this," he said to the face on the large screen. "Unfortunately, all things end."
"Deception?" Fransu returned, but he knew.
The High Gul nodded. "Didn't you learn anything from me in those early days? I don't think you allowed my two thousand to survive their hibernation. You've not only become a coward, but a butcher as well."
"Why do you say these things, sir?"
"Because you're preparing to release the outpost only in order to engage this ship in battle."
Fransu sighed, glanced to his right again, then asked, "How do you deduce this?"
"Because you've brought only one ship. Central Command has no idea you've come here, have they? Otherwise there would be either celebrations and a welcoming fleet, or a fleet of blatant attack, depending upon how things have really played out. But there is only you. You were ambitious enough to betray me, but too cowardly to kill me. You try to act in secret, to protect yourself from your past actions, but you've learned nothing in these years. The truth always leaks out, Fransu. There is no perfect silence. Whatever you do here will find its way back home. Cardassia has nothing to gain from the destruction of these people."
"No," Fransu finally admitted. "But I do. I should have killed you when I had the chance, but in those days I could not raise my hand so high. Fortunately, my awe for you has faded with my youth."
"How do you intend to explain the slaughter of this outpost?"
"There will be nothing but a smoldering wreck. I learned long ago not to explain wreckage."
"I'm glad you learned something," the High Gul said. "Now, my bold student, let me ask you this and watch the shade of the decades fall from your eyes … do you remember what you're up against?"