THE END OF the Promenade was deserted. The noise from Quark's had died down long ago, and Nog had sneaked out while his father was dealing with the last of the disgruntled customers. Jake had watched that from the stairs, hoping to catch Nog before he went to their rendezvous point.
But Nog's reaction to the proposed plan was not what Jake had hoped for.
"I don't care about some dumb panel," Nog had said, and Jake experienced a half second of déjà vu until he realized that Nog had just said the sentence for the hundredth time.
Jake's hands were covered with dirt. He had the tiny all-purpose tool that the chief had given him long ago and was removing the ancient bolts. It was mindnumbing, sweaty work—for Jake. Nog had to hold the bolts so that they wouldn't get lost, not exactly the toughest task he'd ever had.
"An Academy cadet should not be sitting in the dark, playing with the wall," Nog said.
"You're not a cadet yet," Jake said.
"I am, too."
"No." Jake untwisted another bolt and dropped it into Nog's full hand. "You're a candidate. You don't become a cadet until you actually arrive."
"Cadet. Candidate. What's the difference?"
Plenty, Jake wanted to say but didn't. He had made a point of supporting Nog's attendance at the Academy since his uncle was so opposed to it. "Four letters," Jake said.
"I thought jokes were supposed to be funny," Nog said.
"I thought friends were supposed to be helpful," Jake said, removing another bolt.
Nog sighed. "It's just that it's been a long day."
"The afternoon started out fun."
"Yeah, and then I went back to my uncle's bar just in time to watch the customers go nuts." Nog's voice was soft. "I wish he wouldn't blame my dad for everything."
So did Jake, but Jake also believed that Nog's dad could learn to stand up for himself better. Rom did stand up once in a while, like when he supported Nog's decision to attend the Academy. But those occasions were too rare to keep Quark's bluster from affecting Nog's day-to-day existence. And Jake's.
Once Jake complained to his father. His father had remained silent for a long moment afterward, something Jake learned meant that his father actually agreed with the things Jake said but couldn't express that agreement because of his leadership role. Finally, he had said, "The Ferengi are different from us, Jake. Their customs may seem wrong to us, but they have worked for the Ferengi for a long time." His dad's way of saying that he hated the way Nog was treated, too, but he could do nothing about it.
Maybe that was the hardest part of being a space brat and traveling from port to port with his dad. Jake saw a lot of things he didn't like and would never have the power to change. At least, not directly.
"What do you think we'll find back there?" Nog asked.
"Probably nothing," Jake said.
"Then why are we doing this?"
"Because." Jake grimaced as he worked the last bolt. "This is really close to the Promenade. And all kinds of stuff used to be for sale here. Some stuff was smuggled in. Some stuff was lost. Maybe this is one of those secret safes that the Cardassians made to hide things from each other."
"You mean we could be rich?"
"I doubt it," Jake said. "My father would probably make us try to find the original owners if we found something."
"But what if we couldn't find them?"
Jake shrugged. "Then maybe we'd get to keep it." He braced the panel with his shoulder, then dropped the last bolt into Nog's hand. "This is the part that the chief warned me about. We have to take this off carefully because they might have a charge around the opening."
"Oh, great," Nog said. "How do you propose to do that?"
"We need to let the panel fall toward us, then stick that wooden rod in before we go in."
Nog scowled at him.
Jake grinned. "You don't expect to find treasure without doing some work, do you?"
"A Ferengi always expects to find treasure without doing any work," Nog said. He carefully set the bolts down and heaped them into a pile so that they wouldn't scatter.
"What Rule of Acquisition is that one?" The panel was getting heavy against Jake's shoulder. He wished Nog would hurry.
"It's not a rule," Nog said, bracing his hands against the metal. "It's too obvious to be a rule. It's common sense."
Jake laughed as he moved away from the panel. He put his hands out, too, and the panel fell against them. It was heavier than he expected. Thicker, too, than most of the panels he had worked on around the station. That surprised him, given the hollow sound it made when the ball had hit it. There had to be an empty space behind it. There was no question in his mind now.
Together the boys eased the panel back and then leaned against the opposite side of the wall, away from the bolts. Jake shined a flashlight inside. Behind the plate was a dark, empty square area, barely big enough for Nog to stand upright and not much wider than Jake's shoulders. And it only went back in about two meters. It was just an empty space in the wall.
"Nothing," Nog said. "What a waste of time."
"You don't know it's nothing," Jake said. "The space has to be here for a reason."
"Yeah. A reason no one remembers any more." Nog reached toward the darkness, but Jake blocked him, remembering the chiefs warning.
"Use the stick."
"Or what?"
"Just do it," Jake said.
Nog picked up the stick and waved it through the hole as if he were stirring a bowl of punch in his uncle's bar. "See? Nothing."
He reached for the panel, but Jake grabbed his arm. "Not yet. I promised the chief we'd measure this."
"Great. All I need is more work."
Jake bit back his irritation. Clearly Nog wasn't as excited about this adventure as Jake was. "All right," Jake said. "I'll measure it."
He bent over and went inside the small opening. About a half meter of the ceiling was missing. Jake had to duck to reach the inside wall, but when he got there, he could stand, his head and shoulders up inside the opening in the ceiling.
"Hurry up," Nog said, but his words sounded hollow and seemed to echo off into a distance.
"Hand me a light," Jake said. He could hardly contain his excitement. So far they had found nothing, but he had a feeling there was more. Much more.
"The tricorder can measure in the dark," Nog said.
"I don't want to measure. There's a passage in here." Jake's voice echoed upward, reverberating around him, throwing his words back at him until they faded.
"A passage?" Nog finally sounded interested. Jake could hear the rustle of fabric against metal as Nog climbed inside. Then a flashlight appeared beside Jake, the beam pointing upward. A shaft about a meter high led into a much larger area that disappeared deeper into the wall. Jake could barely reach the edge above with his outstretched arm.
Nog was under him, looking up. "Is there treasure?"
"There's just dirt," Jake said. On a starship the lack of dust would be normal, even in a closed-off tunnel like this. But here, Jake always expected things to be dirty. His first image of DS9 always stuck in his mind: the mess of fallen ceiling beams and debris left in the Cardassian evacuation. Cleanliness on DS9, while the norm, still felt odd to him two and a half years later.
"Do you think there's treasure?" Nog asked.
"Look, Nog," Jake said, finally letting his irritation show. "If you don't want to come, just say so. I'm going to go exploring whether you come or not."
"I didn't say I wouldn't come," Nog said in his I'm about-to-pick-a-fight voice. He often got into this mood after he'd had a bad day.
"Good," Jake said. He handed Nog the flashlight. "If you change your mind, just tell me."
Then Jake used both hands to reach up, grab onto the edge, and pull himself up the metal chute into the dark area above. Once there, he turned around and looked back down into the beam of the light Nog was shining upward into his face.
"Hand me the light before you blind me," Jake said, and Nog did as he was told.
"You're not going to leave me here in the dark, are you?" Nog asked. He wouldn't be able to lever himself up as easily as Jake did.
But Jake didn't want to dwell on that problem at the moment. He shined the light at the area around him. It felt like a hall of some sort. By stretching out his arms in both directions he could almost touch the walls. The ceiling was an arm's length above his head. The passage went off into the distance before it turned.
"It's huge!" Jake said, and his voice played back to him.
Huge … huge … huge … huge …
"Is there any treasure?" Nog asked, but this time his voice had a smile in it, as if he knew that the question was dumb.
"Piles of it. Gold press latinum as far as the eye can see!"
"Really?" Nog asked.
Jake got down on his hands and knees, set the flashlight to one side, and peered over the edge. Nog was looking up at him with a mixture of greed and disbelief on his face.
"Really," Jake said. "And a big fat dragon to guard it all."
"You're making fun of me," Nog said.
Jake nodded. "There isn't any treasure, but there's a lot more passage than the station schematics have room for. Want to go on an adventure?"
"Sure beats working in my uncle's bar," Nog said and raised his hands like a child wanting to be picked up.
It took less than two hours at warp five for the Defiant to reach the red-star system in which the Caxtonian said he had found the wreck. Sisko spent most of that time in the commander's chair, issuing terse orders, and staring through the viewscreen at the vastness of space.
He had taken a small maintenance crew with some of his best people, most trusted people. If there was any hint that this crashed ship was the Nibix—and Sisko believed in a small corner of his heart that it was—then only those he trusted could know. The six ensigns he picked were all known for their attention to duty and their closed-mouthedness. They had few close friends and were not known as gossips. He rounded out the rest of the Defiant's crew with Dax because she knew more about the Nibix than he did, O'Brien because he was a whiz with not only Federation technology, but any other technology Sisko had seen, and Dr. Bashir because … well, Sisko didn't want to examine that because.
The red-star system they were heading to was nothing but a number on the star charts. The system had been lightly surveyed eighty years earlier and was noted only for its large concentration of asteroids in four wide belts around the star. There were no known habitable planets. The system was near the Cardassian border but still clearly in Federation space, a fact for which Sisko was greatly relieved. If this ship really was the Nibix, he would have more than enough on his hands with the Jibetians and the Federation. He didn't need to be dealing with the Cardassians at the same time.
Throughout the voyage, Sisko kept his right hand clenched. It was the only physical sign of his tension. Occasionally Dax would glance at him. Her normal unshakable calm had a giddy edge beneath it. For most of the ensigns, this was their first official mission on the Defiant. They concentrated on their stations, pretending that Sisko's presence didn't make them nervous.
Only O'Brien and Dr. Bashir were acting normal. They were standing to one side on the bridge, watching the viewscreen and arguing over a game of darts they had played earlier in the afternoon. They had no idea what they were about to walk into.
Sisko did. And he was having trouble thinking about it. Every commander he had ever met and certainly every starship captain knew the space legends about lost ships. Most captains also knew the legends about lost seagoing vessels on various worlds, from the disappointing treasure vaults on Earth's Titanic to the immense wealth discovered on Seleda Five's G. Menst. Sisko's favorite seagoing legend showed his Earth roots. The Marie Celeste haunted his dreams and his nightmares in more ways than he imagined: a ship that was found with its stoves still on, a meal half eaten, and a missing crew in the middle of the ocean.
He half imagined he would find that here.
But his favorite spacefaring legend, his favorite what-if, had always been the Nibix. From the moment he had heard about the ship at the Academy, he had studied every book about it, every article ever written, listened to every theory. He still had a capture file in his personal computer on DS9, so that any time a new theory was discussed on the Nibix, his file would download it, translate it if necessary, and notify him it had arrived. He had several other capture files for several other interests, including baseball, and he had been so busy with the station in recent months that he let material accumulate.
Now he wished he hadn't.
As they neared the system, Sisko stood. He couldn't contain his excitement or his nervousness any longer.
"Dropping out of warp," said Ensign Dodds. She was a soft-spoken human woman whose small stature belied her physical strength. Sisko had sent her on two other missions, one to Bajor, and her competence had impressed him.
"Chief, I need you in position now," Sisko said.
O'Brien nodded and moved to one of the empty stations. Dax sat before the science station, her long fingers playing on the panel. Sisko resisted the urge to do the same. He would not give in to his romantic fantasies. He would command this mission like any other.
"I want full scans of the entire system," he said. "Ensigns Kathé and Coleman, you will help Lieutenant Dax and Chief O'Brien in their search."
"Aye-aye, Commander," the ensigns said in unison. Ensign Kathé bent her head over the board. She was a long, slender Yominan whose most arresting feature was her long mane of rainbow hair.
Ensign Coleman, who had been on DS9 less than six months along with his wife and two children, glanced at Kathé before beginning his own scan. Sisko both liked and disliked the boy's caution. In a situation that required quick thinking, it would get him killed. In a situation like this, his thoroughness might help them all.
"Start with the bigger asteroids first," Sisko said. He had spoken to the Caxtonian before the Defiant left, asking for more details than Odo had received. The Caxtonian said the ship was on a large asteroid in the outer band. He said he had discovered it while doing repairs on a broken warp drive. He had only gone into the ship a short distance, grabbed two items that looked like they had value, and then got out. He had no idea the name of the ship. He just said it frightened him because of the bodies.
The Caxtonian's cargo bay showed that he lied about how many items he took. But the fifteen tiny pieces that Sisko found there did show that the pilot had been spooked. If he had found the Nibix, fifteen pieces were less than a handful.
Bodies.
Sisko had seen a lot of bodies in his day, but space death was never pretty. He knew, deep down, that the bodies alone would probably remove the last traces of romance about the Nibix from his memory forever.
But for the moment, he would hang on to the excitement. Trapped in his clenched fist was the feeling he was trying to reign in, the feeling he wouldn't admit to anyone but Dax, and then he would do so only after several drinks many months from now.
He felt like a kid. A kid on an adventure. A kid about to discover all the secrets of the universe.
Nothing like the commander of a space station on the Cardassian border or the commander of a ship on a mission, however short, that might change the future of the Federation.
"Commander," Dax said, startling him.
He focused on her, ignoring the jump of excitement in his stomach.
"I have a reading. It appears to be the hull of a ship on the largest asteroid this side of the red star." She paused and met his gaze. "There are no life signs."
Something inside him relaxed. He had been afraid, very afraid, that the tales of the Jibetian religion were true, that their religious leader was indestructible.
"The coordinates?" Sisko reminded her.
"Seventy-eight mark two," she said.
"Take us there," Sisko said to Ensign T'plak, the quiet Vulcan in the navigator's chair. T'plak nodded and plotted their course. Ensigns Kathé and Coleman were still scanning, as was O'Brien. Sisko was relieved he didn't have to tell them the drill. In an asteroid field this big, several ships could have crashed. Dax might not have found the correct spot right away.
"I'm finding nothing else, sir," O'Brien said.
"Keep scanning," Sisko said.
"Benjamin." Dax's voice was soft, showing the depth of her shock. She always followed protocol in a professional situation—except when she was rattled. "My preliminary scan shows the ship matches the reported size and configuration of the Nibix."
Sisko's heartbeat increased. He tightened his fist, holding his excitement back as best he could. "Let's get a closer look, Ensign."
"One moment, Commander," T'Plak said. Then, in what seemed like seconds, the Defiant was in a stationary orbit over the asteroid.
Sisko took a deep breath. Protocol demanded that he remain on the Defiant.
Protocol be damned. He didn't want the ensigns down there, playing in the dark. He would take Dax for her knowledge and O'Brien for his trustworthiness.
"Doctor," Sisko said, "you have the comm. Dax, Chief, let's see what we've got down there."
Dax stood before Sisko finished speaking. Dr. Bashir looked flustered, and O'Brien frowned. The ensigns huddled over the stations, trying not to be noticed.
Sisko was standing, too, although he didn't remember getting out of his chair. His stomach felt like it had tied itself into a knot. He'd been on other destroyed ships before. This was just another.
But he couldn't convince himself of that. The ship on that asteroid held the body of the religious leader for an entire culture. Not to mention the priceless artwork from generations of Jibetian culture.
Or the future relationship between the Jibetian Confederacy and the Federation.
The Nibix was a myth. People didn't just beam into a myth. Yet he was about to.