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Star Trek Deep Space 9

CHAPTER 1



Station Log, Commander Benjamin Sisko, Stardate
46384.1:
    In hopes of reviving the Bajoran mining industry, left
devastated after the Cardassian Occupation, the Feder-
ation has arranged, in cooperation with private Bajoran
investors, to transport a family of Hortas to Bajor. In
theory, the Hortas will use their natural tunneling
abilities to find pockets of minerals and ore which the
Cardassians either missed or deemed too difficult to
extract.
    We are currently awaiting the arrival of the Federa-
tion cruiser Puyallup, en route from Janus VI. I have
dispatched a team of officers to welcome the Hortas to
Deep Space Nine ....

THE AIRLOCK DOOR rolled out of the way like a gear in
some enormous clockwork mechanism. In contrast to
the grim gray walls of the docking ring, the circular
door was the dull red color of drying human blood.
Damn Cardassian architecture, Major Kira Nerys
thought as she walked briskly through the airlock
toward Docking Port g; even after so much time on the
station, I sti# haven't grown accustomed to the ugliness
of it all. Cardassian aesthetics are on a par with their
ethics, she mused; that is, they don't exist.
    Kira suspected that Commander Sisko would not
approve of such sentiments, at least in public. His
Federation was annoyingly reluctant to criticize the
cultures of even their most loathsome enemies. Hell,
they had even made peace with the Klingons. Some-
times she thought it was a miracle that the entire
Federation hadn't been conquered centuries ago. But
then, Kira wasn't sure she believed in miracles any-
more.
    Another airlock door, its gearlike teeth crimson as a
Bajoran sea-tiger, opened before her and the Bajoran
major found herself in a small waiting area outside the
docking port. A triangular display, lit in shades of red
and blue, announced the arrivals and departures of
various spacecraft. An outdated map of the station,
mounted on the wall under a sheet of transparent
aluminum, waited to mislead newcomers to DS9. Two
of her fellow officers, Lieutenant Jadzia Dax and Dr.
Julian Bashir, glanced toward her as she approached
them. Although a stark metal bench, of Cardassian
design, was bolted to both the floor and the adjoining
wall, the pair of officers remained standing. Kira
didn't blame them; uncomfortable and uninviting,
the bench resembled a torture device better suited to a
dungeon than a space station.
    Dax gave Kira a friendly smile and nod, while
Bashir kept on babbling at the young woman, his
hands waving enthusiastically as he spoke. As usual,
Kira noted, Bashir was hovering around Dax's lithe,
attractive form just like a Ferengi would. Why Dax
had never told Bashir just where he could beam
himself Kira had never understood.
    "As a specialist in multispecies medicine," the
doctor was saying, "naturally I find the Hortas fasci-
nating. They were the first silicon-based life-form
humanity ever encountered. Not only that, they also
secrete a powerfully corrosive acid that allows them to
move through solid rock the same way humanoids
move through air. They actually digest raw iron and
other minerals!"
    What was Bashir most enthralled with, Kira won-
dered: Dax's bright blue eyes and gracefully spotted
neck--or the sound of his own voice? Please, Jadzia,
Kira thought silently. Don't encourage him.
    "Really, Julian?" Dax said indulgently. "That's
very interesting."
    Oh, no. Kira sighed and shook her head. There was
no shutting him up now. Sure enough, Bashir leaned
against the bulkhead wall, in what he doubtless con-
sidered a suave and dashing manner, and resumed his
lecture. A Starfleet medical pouch, strapped over his
shoulder, dangled next to his side. "Then, of course,"
he said casually, his eyes never once leaving Dax's
attentive face, "there's the Horta's very unusual re-
productive cycle .... "
    Oh, give me a break, Kira fumed. Typically, howev-
er, Dax stood by cahnly, with her hands clasped
loosely behind her back. Although Dax had a fun-
loving side that Kira had learned never to underesti-
mate, the Trill science officer often exuded a sense of
effortless serenity that was almost spiritual. Not for
the first time, Kira was secretly envious. Is Dax what
Bajoran women were like, she wondered, before dec-
ades of Cardassian oppression transformed us into
refugees and revolutionaries? CouM I have ever known
that kind of peace? Kira fingered the silver earring
dangling from her right ear. The Bajorans had been a
deeply religious people once. Kira liked to think she
still was, and yet her spirit was often troubled.
    She paced impatiently back and forth across the
waiting area. Her dark red boots rapped against the
bare, uncarpeted floor. According to the display, the
Puyallup was now a few minutes late. What the hell
could be taking them so long? She had more impor-
tant things to do than watch another of Bashir's futile
attempts to flirt with Dax.
    "I've heard," Dax said to Bashir, "that the Hortas
only breed once every fifty thousand years." Kira
groaned quietly and rolled her eyes. Sometimes she
suspected that Dax actually enjoyed playing these
games with Bashir. Kira wouldn't put it past her; after
all, the Trill genuinely enjoyed socializing with
Ferengi.
    "That's a common misconception," the doctor ex-
plained. "It's true that every five hundred centuries
the entire species dies out, except for one Horta who
cares for the thousands of eggs left behind, from
which, eventually, a brand-new race of Hortas is born.
But, prior to these epochal near-extinctions, there are
interim generations of Hortas who reprOduce regu-
larly."
    Frankly, Kira didn't care whether each individual
Horta emerged independently from some primordial
lava flow, just so they performed as advertised, and
found new treasures in Bajor's pillaged mines. She
almost said as much, but Jadzia, damn her, gave
Bashir another too-perfect smile. "How intriguing,
Julian. From a medical perspective, are there any
advantages to this cycle?"
    "That's a very perceptive question, Jadzia!" Bashir
gushed. Kira prayed to all the Prophets that the
Federation cruiser would arrive soon. She tapped her
foot impatiently against the floor, wishing it were
Bashir's larynx instead. "Of course, the study of
Horta biology is less than a hundred years old, but our
best theory is that the cycle is a form of population
control. Hortas are basically ageless, indestructible,
and have no natural predators. Thus, every fifty
millennia, one generation of Hortas disappears to
make room for their descendants while the primary
Mother Horta, selected through a process we still
don't entirely understand, provides a form of cultural
continuity." The young doctor leaned toward Dax,
caught up by the joys of science, or hormones, or some
combination thereof. "Think of it! To be the adopted
mother to an entire new generation of beings. Imagine
what the sense of responsibility..."
    "Well," Kira interrupted him, hoping to forestall
another dissertation. "I look forward to meeting the
Hortas." And soon, she prayed. Exhausted already by
Bashir's unending chatter, she found herself seriously
contemplating the Cardassian-built bench, unpadded
metal slats and all.
    "You might want to brace yourself, Major," Bashir
said. Although addressing Kira, he edged even nearer
to Dax. His dark eyes glowing, clearly convinced that
the lovely Trill was hanging on his every word, he
lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Just
between the three of us, a Horta is not the most
attractive of beings. In fact," he said, winking at Dax
and working very hard at being casually, shockingly,
endearingly irreverent, "a fully grown Horta resem-
bles nothing as much as an oversized slug made out of
molten rock!"
    Abruptly, the smile disappeared from Dax's lips.
The station's science officer remained poised and at
ease, but her voice as she spoke was markedly colder
than before. "Some of my closest acquaintances look
like slugs, Doctor, as you may recall." She turned her
back on Bashir and gracefully walked away, a three-
hundred-year-old symbiont sharing a fresh new
humanoid body.
    The crestfallen look that came over Bashir's face, as
he suddenly realized his faux pas, was absolutely
priceless, at least as far was Kira was concerned. Gone
was the confident lecturer and ladies' man of mere
moments ago. "Jadzia," he stammered breathlessly,
"I didn't mean... that is, I certainly never intended
to... you know I have nothing but the highest re-
spect for you and... well, if I can explain... !"
    From the other side of the room, and across as
much empty space as possible, Dax glanced back at
him over her shoulder. "By the way, Julian, I was
excavating planetary cores alongside dozens of Hortas
while you were still learning to crawl."
    In other words, you cocky young fool, Kira thought,
she's been humoring you all along. This was getting
more entertaining by the moment; she'd have to
remember to tell Odo about it later. For the moment,
Dax seemed to have rendered Bashir speechless. It
wouldn't last, of course, but Kira intended to enjoy
the spectacle while she could.
    A short chime from her comm badge broke the
momentary silence. Damn, Kira thought, just as
Bashir was digging his own grave, with Dax maybe
ready to throw in a few handfuls of dirt. The doctor had
been saved, quite literally, by the bell. She patted the
badge on her left collar. "Kira here."
 Commander Sisko's deep voice came over the
comm. "We may have a problem, Major. Our sensors
detect another ship on an intercept course with the
Puyallup. The new ship's not responding to our hails,
and it appears to have come from Cardassian space."
    Cardassian! Kira snapped into combat mode, all
thought of Bashir's infatuations and embarrassments
instantly forgotten. Her fists clenched automatically.
Glancing at the map on the wall, mentally adjusting
for its various inaccuracies, she swiftly deduced the
location of the nearest runabout. "On my way," she
told Sisko. "I'm taking Dax and Bashir on the new
runabout, what's it called, the Amazon."
  "Understood," Sisko replied. "Be careful."
    Kira jerked her head toward the exit and took off at
a steady run. She squeezed impatiently past the slowly
rolling door as soon as a thin crescent of empty space
opened up. Wordlessly, the two Starfleet officers fol-
lowed quickly behind her. Bashir clutched his medical
pouch as he ran after Dax and Kira. The Amazon
waited in a service bay in the habitat ring, on the other
side of the closest crossover bridge. Take the turbolift,
Kira thought; that wouM be faster than on foot. In her
mind, she was already at the helm of the runabout,
racing away from the station, ready to engage the
enemy once more.
    She had no problems with slugs--Horta, Trill, or
Terran. Cardassians, on the other hand, were the
closest thing to sentient slime she knew.
    Phasers fired in her imagination, blasting the slime
out of existence. She was ready. She was willing.
  If only she could get there in time.

    Titan's large, lumpish body made a grinding sound
as she tunneled toward the bridge of the Puyallup. The
latter half of the small cruiser had been packed with
lightweight synthetic concrete, the better to simulate
the Horta's usually solid environment, but Ttan
sensed empty air only inches away. She burned
through a narrow partition of concrete and slid down
the corridor toward the bridge. Behind her, traces of
vapor rose from the freshly created tunnel. As usual,
the Nothingness her Federation allies called "an at-
mosphere" tickled the nerves of her outer carapace
and made her feel uncomfortably exposed. Prime
Mother, she entreated silently, let the worldstuff of
Bajor be firm and hard.
    The doorway opened before her and she entered the
bridge. A metallic semicircle large enough to accom-
modate a three-person crew, the chamber reeked to
Ttan of tritanium and duranium. Good, solid con-
struction, if a bit too airily spacious for her tastes.
Captain Dawson rose from the command seat and
greeted Ttan as the Horta rustled forward, her lower
fringes brushing the cool, metallic floor. Dawson was
a tall, stocky Terran whose jawline was decorated with
a reddish fringe of its own. Ttan believed it was a
male, but wasn't quite sure. Humanoids were such
peculiar entities: all carbon softness and pointy ap-
pendages. If it weren't for their calcium framework,
and a smattering of iron and other minerals, they'd
bear no resemblance to life as she knew it.
    "Prospector Ttan," it (he?) greeted her enthusiasti-
cally. "Thank you for joining us. We should be
arriving at Deep Space Nine shortly."
    "Fine Faring to you, Captain." The Federation
translator affixed to Ttan's husk gave her a melodious
voice with a slight East Indian accent. "And Smooth
Voyaging to you as well, Navigator Shirar."
    Ttan sensed the presence of the Vulcan navigator
before Shirar stepped away from her console and into
view. The currents of copper flowing through the
navigator were unmistakable.
    "Greetings, Prospector," Shirar said. Dark strands
of protein fibers, neatly aligned in descending parallel
rows, framed the Vulcan's pale features. The points of
her auditory organs--"ears," Ttan recalled--were
sharp as stalagmites, Previous conversations had
made it clear to Ttan that Shirar was female. "I trust
your offspring are well."
    "Yes, very." Ttan thought proudly of the twenty
eggs tucked safely away in a small vault she had carved
herself out of the concrete Starfleet had provided.
"And many thanks once more for the extra shielding
you devised for my pilgrim infants."
    Shirar nodded her chin slightly. "Given the impor-
tance and relative fragility of your eggs, it was only
logical to preserve them in a stasis field independent
of regular ship systems."
    "Not, I hasten to add," Captain Dawson said, "that
we anticipate any danger to your children. Still, it
always pays to be careful, especially where little ones
are concerned. I have three of my own, you know."
    Three eggs? Ttan briefly reconsidered Dawson's
gender. Then the captain called her attention to the
large viewscreen at the opposite end of the bridge. The
visual display, which occupied nearly the entire for-
ward wall, revealed a vast and terrifying blackness in
which distant stars seemed to race past them like
sparks thrown off by struck flints.
    The Emptiness Beyond the Emptiness. Ttan had
experienced space before, but still that vast and
endless void, so different from the subterranean home
of her people, both thrilled and intimidated her. It
was so open. How could any Horta survive without
the reassuring, aU-surrounding press of rock about
her, and where, she wondered, had she found the
courage to cross this immense absence in order to
carve new tunnels on a distant world? Ttan felt a surge
of pride and anticipation. What an opportunity to
burn her mark into the Stone of Memory. And maybe,
just maybe, centuries hence, she or one of her children
might become the Prime Mother of the next Renewal?
Ttan would never be so immodest as to admit such an
ambition to any other living being, but if she truly
strived and succeeded at the great task before her...
well, she could always dream, couldn't she?
    "Approaching DS9," an eager young voice an-
nounced. A Benzite, Ttan realized, recognizing the
distinct odor of chlorine from the artificial breathing
apparatus affixed under the ensign's chin. Although he
was basically humanoid in shape, and clad in a
standard blue Starfleet uniform, the Benzite's face
and hands were protected by a pale blue chitinous
covering with glistening silver undertones. His ears,
located higher on his skull than either Dawson's or
Shirar's, were also deeply recessed and less ornate
than other humanoids'. Ttan was proud that she could
identify them at all. With his smooth, hairless shell,
the Benzite somehow seemed more convincingly alive
than the other humanoids on the Puyallup, although
of course Ttan was far too tactful to say so.
"Go to impulse, Ensign," Dawson instructed.
"Yes, sir!" the Benzite responded, expelling a gust
of carbon trichloride. Seconds later, the ever-present
dilithium aftertaste Ttan had learned to associate
with warp travel dissipated from the bridge. The
streaking stars before her slowed in their fiery trajec-
tories past the ship. They were almost there, she
thought in wonder. Bajor: her new home and her
children's future birthplace.
    The fibrous mineral filaments around her base
rustled with excitement as she edged nearer the
viewscreen. Captain Dawson stepped beside her. He
stroked the fringe under his own chin.
    "Let me show you one of the more interesting local
sights," he said cheerfully. "Ensign, lateral view,
medium magnification."
    "Yes, sir," the young Benzite responded from his
post. Instantly, the image on the viewer shifted,
revealing what appeared to be a moon or planetoid
much closer to the ship than the faraway stars. The
moon was large and irregularly shaped, marked by a
chaotic pattern of gray-brown peaks and shadowy
craters, divided by intersecting veins of some rough,
reddish material. Unlike most other moons, this ob-
ject could not be described as a globe; unknown forces
had deformed its mass, flattening its eastern hemi-
sphere and causing the other half to stretch and
protrude along random stress lines, like a human skull
that has been smashed against a hard surface, with its
shell distorted but barely holding together, and bits of
soft tissue jutting out through the cracks. The moon's
coarse and mottled exterior suggested eons of violent
volcanic activity, resulting in a cracked, scarred, and
pitted terrain that had obviously never known the
patient polishing of wind or water. In many ways,
Ttan noted, the huge floating rock bore a distinct
resemblance to a Horta. She wondered if that was why
Dawson had invited her to the bridge.
    If the captain had observed the similarity, he did
not comment on it. "What you're looking at," he said,
"is the most distant of Bajor's moons. They call it The
Prodigal, because it has an unusually wide and ellipti-
cal orbit which brings it within sight of Bajor only
once every five years. More importantly, from our
point of view, its orbit should bring it near Deep Space
Nine in a couple of days. If you're still on the station
then, the view should be spectacular. Something
about the moon's composition causes it to glow
whenever it comes into close proximity with what we
now know to be the entrance to the wormhole.
Tourists and sightseers from all over the Federation
are flocking to DS9 to witness firsthand 'The Illumi-
nation of The Prodigal.'"
    "Previously," Shirar noted, "the station was not
located so close to the moon's path, nor were the
Cardassians inclined to accommodate outside observ-
ers during the Occupation. A better opportunity to
view the spectacle has not been available for genera-
tions."
    A tempting prospect, Ttan thought, but she sus-
pected that she would prefer to travel on to Bajor itself
as soon as possible. Indeed, her stop at the station
seemed more of a Federation formality than anything
else. As DS9 was beyond transporter range of the
planer's surface, a Bajoran shuttle had been hired to
convey her eggs and herself on the final leg of their
long journey. Soon, she recalled eagerly, my children
and I will burrow into the comforting denseness of a
brand-new world. She wondered what Bajor would
taste like.
    Suddenly, the Benzite ensign sat up straight in his
seat. A puff of chlorine escaped his breathing tube.
"Captain! Unidentified vessel dead ahead and ap-
proaching fast." His hands moved briskly over the
face of his console. Ttan heard his chitinous fingers
click lightly against the controls. "They're powering
up their phaser banks."
    "Shields up!" Dawson ordered. "Red Alert!" He
hurriedly regained his seat at the center of the bridge.
Shirar resumed her post as well, to the left of the
Benzite's station. "Brace yourself, Ttan," the captain
said.
    Alarms blared liked screaming babies. Ttan fought
her instinctual response to tunnel to safety; she would
only destroy the delicate circuitry below the bridge.
Instead, she wedged herself into the space beneath an
unmanned computer station and the floor. Despite
her best intentions, a trickle of acid dripped from her
hide, scarring the surface of the floor. My eggs, she
thought desperately. My children!
    Dawson fired off commands to his crew. "Naviga-
tor, take over piloting. Ensign, hostile onscreen."
    The Benzite brought their attacker onto the moni-
tor. The onrushing ship had a hammerhead prow that
promised no peaceful intentions. The craft's muted,
reddish brown exterior made it difficult to spot
against the darkness of space--until a flash of phaser
fire lit up the screen.
    The first blast struck like an earthquake. The
Puyallup shook around her; she could feel the vibra-
tions as, even shielded, the ship's hull shuddered
under the blast's impact.
    "Shields down forty-three percent, Captain."
Shirar announced from her post. "Forty-three point
seven seven seven nine, to be precise."
    "Round numbers will suffice," Dawson said dryly,
his voice admirably cool. Beneath the crimson facial
filaments, however, his hide had gone pale. Ttan
sensed the iron coursing through his veins. "Weapons
systems?" he asked.
    "Inoperative," Shirar replied. "Executing evasive
maneuvers." Unlike Dawson, Ttan noted, the Vul-
can's internal fluids were not moving any faster than
before the attack.
    "Dammit," the captain swore, as the Puyallup took
a sharp turn away from their attacker. "We're hope-
lessly outgunned." His fist pounded the armrest of his
chair. "This was supposed to be a passenger run,
nothing more!"
    Another bolt struck the Federation cruiser, rocking
the floor from side to side. The illumination in the
bridge flickered. A shower of green sparks exploded
from the console in front of the young Benzite. He fell
from his seat and lay twitching only a few yards away
from Ttan. The thin blue shell covering his flesh was
splintered in several places. A thick orange liquid
leaked through the crevices. Mercury mixed with
platinum, Ttan realized. She regretted that she had
never learned the ensign's name.
    "Shields down one hundred percent," Shirar
warned. Her eyes did not leave her console display.
"Warp engines off-line."
    "Open hailing frequencies," Dawson ordered, star-
ing in horror at the fallen Benzite. "Find out what
they want."
  "No response, Captain," the Vulcan said.
    The main viewer remained locked on the hammer-
head ship. Its prow grew larger and nearer by the
second, until it seemed to fill the screen. "Send an
SOS to Deep Space Nine," Dawson said. "Tell them
we need assistance... now!"
    Crammed into her hiding place, Ttan felt an unusu-
al sensation suffuse her entire being, as though she
were instantly dissolving into vapor or lesS. White
static, loud and crackling, seemed to come between
her and the rest of the bridge. Still, just before the
Puyatlup faded completely away, she heard Shirar say,
"They're activating their transporter .... "
    My children, my children, Ttan's soul cried out as
she was snatched by the Void.

    "The unidentified vessel has fired upon the
Puyallup," Dax announced from the conn station
aboard the runabout. Seated beside her, Kira piloted
the Amazon, pushing the ship as fast as it would go on
impulse power, just short of warp speed. Behind Dax
and Kira, Dr. Bashir gripped the armrests of his seat
with white knuckles as the runabout banked sharply
to the right.
    "Unidentified vessel, my foot," Kira snarled. She
knew a Cardassian sneak attack when she saw one.
She glanced down at her monitors; they were only
seconds away from the battle. A small, tight smile
lifted the comers of her lips. She imagined strangling
the Cardassian attackers with their own ropy neck
tendons. It wasn't enough that they had repeatedly
robbed and pillaged this system during their long
occupation... no, they had to keep coming back for
the scraps as well!
    Not this time, she vowed, as they came within sight
of the conflict. In the distance, she saw the scarred and
blackened hull of the small FederatiOn cruiser, drift-
ing in space. The command saucer was still intact, she
noted with relief, but both warp nacelles bore the
marks of direct phaser strikes; the cruiser wasn't going
anywhere on its power. Beyond the Puyallup, her
attacker, of recognizably Cardassian design, hovered a
little short of striking distance. Not a full-size Galor-
class warship, Kira noted with relief, and only slightly
larger than the runabout itself. She increased the
magnification on the viewer. The Cardassian ship was
curiously unadorned, bearing no military insignia or
 markings. A rogue pirate, she speculated, or some sort
 of covert mission? Knowing the Cardassians, she
 suspected the latter.
     "I'm still detecting life signs on the Puyallup, "Dax
 informed her. Despite the runabout's wild flight,
 every strand of Jadzia's long brown hair remained
 tucked neatly in place. How does she manage that,
 Kira wondered, despite herself. "Humanoid, that is.
 I'd have to recalibrate for Hortas." Suddenly, Dax's
 violet eyes grew wide. "Major, the attackers beamed
 something away from the Puyallup."
    Thieves/ Kira thought, shifting course slightly to
bring the runabout above and away from the besieged
cruiser. The last thing she wanted was to put the
Puyallup in a cross fire. The bumpy flight smoothed
out quickly as she slowed to combat speed. "Lieuten-
ant Dax, activate shields and weapons systems. Pre-
pare to fire on command."
    Even as she spoke, a ray of crimson energy leaped
from the prow of the Cardassian ship to strike the
battered transport. For a second, Kira's heart stopped
as she feared she was too late, that the Federation ship
would fly apart, killing everyone aboard, an instant
before she could try to defend them. Those bastards,
she cursed the Cardassians; clearly, they intended to
leave no witnesses behind. If they've destroyed the
Hortas, she thought angrily, I'll see them reduced to
interstellar ash.
    Plasma flames, green and incandescent, rippled
across the surface of the Puyallup, and the entire ship
turned cartwheels in space, but the cruiser held to-
gether, if only for a few moments more. Kira breathed
a sigh of relief. The Prophets had given her another
chance.
 To hell with warning shots. "Microtorpedo. Now!"
she ordered. Dax's fingers flew across her control pad.
Kira watched with grim satisfaction as the torpedo
darted straight for the enemy's bridge. A photon blast
exploded against the Cardassian's shields, rocking the
raider's ship. "The other torpedo. Now." That was the
end of her torpedoes, but Kira wasn't going to let up
now. The Puyallup probably wouldn't survive another
blast, so she didn't want to give the Cardassians a
moment's rest. Besides, she still had her phasers.
    The second torpedo detonated against the under-
side of the Cardassian vessel. Their shields held once
more, but the force of the explosion caused the enemy
ship to lurch and dip momentarily, like a fixed buoy
riding out a sudden wave. And was that the
Cardassians' emergency lighting blinking off, then on?
Kira couldn't tell for sure, but she hoped as much.
Seconds later, the ship lifted away from the Puyallup.
Was it going to take the battle to the Amazon? Kira
held her breath. "Enemy's shields at eight-five per-
cent," Dax said calmly. "Energizing our phaser
banks."
    Then, to Kira's surprise and disappointment, the
Cardassian raider rotated horizontally until the rear
of the ship faced the runabout. Warp engines flashed
like prismatic lightning before her eyes and the
Cardassians took off in retreat. "Heading?" she asked
Dax quickly.
"The Cardassian border. Away from DS9."
Everything in Kira's blood urged her to pursue the
Cardassian ship, to hunt them down and make them
pay for this unforgivable attack, to recover what they
had stolen from the Federation and Bajor. She con-
templated the wounded cruiser, its once gleaming hull
now burned and twisted. The Puyallup floated out of
control, at an angle almost 360 degrees away from its
original orientation; she hoped, for the survivors'
sake, that the artificial gravity had not been shorted
out by the Cardassians' blasts so that everyone would
stay rightside-up aboard the ship, regardless of its
shifting position in space. But were there any survi-
vors? Even as she wondered, the Cardassians were
getting farther and farther away.
    "Damn," she muttered under her breath. Then,
more firmly: "Hail the Puyallup. Find out if they
require medical assistance." She swiveled her seat
around to address Bashir. The young physician met
her gaze steadily. "Get ready, Doctor. I think you're
going to be busy." Kira turned toward Dax. "Lock a
tractor beam on the cruiser. We'll tow it back to DS9
later; for now, hold it in place."
    Dax had already established a corem link with the
Puyallup's captain. Kira was relieved to hear that,
apparently, someone was still alive over there. Still,
she stared with cold fury toward the sector into which
the Cardassians had warped away. This isn't over yet,
she promised herself. Nobody invades the Bajoran
system and escapes with impunity, not while I'm alive.
Especially not the Cardassians.
    "Major?" Dax interrupted Kira's vengeful musings.
"Bad news. The Mother Horta was beamed off the
Puyallup. She's been kidnapped."

CHAPTER
      2

SISKO'S OFFICE had once belonged to Gul Dukat, the
former Cardassian commander of Deep Space Nine,
who obviously hadn't been interested in making his
visitors comfortable. Seated behind an imposing
black desk, his head and shoulders framed by a
cat's-eye-shaped window that looked out on the sur-
rounding stars, Benjamin Sisko observed his staff
standing at attention before him. Not for the first
time, he reminded himself to get some more chairs.
    Dr. Bashir, flanked by Dax and Kira, continued to
debrief the commander on the crisis involving the
Puyallup. "To our knowledge, there are no casualties
so far. Ensign Muluck was severely injured, but his
situation seems to have stabilized. Nurse Kabo is
looking after him now; I've given her detailed instruc-
tions on the care and treatment of Benzites." Sisko
noted orange stains on the sleeves of Bashir's uniform:
Muluck's blood? He wondered how much emergency,
hands-on care the Benzite had required, and if
Muluck would still be alive if not for the young
doctor's efforts. "Captain Dawson and Lieutenant
Shirar received only concussions and minor fractures.
They've been released from the infirmary." Bashir
hesitated before continuing. "Captain Dawson wants
to take part in any rescue mission, but, as medical
officer, I don't think that's a good idea."
    Sisko agreed. While he sympathized with Dawson's
desire to fulfill his responsibilities toward Ttan, nei-
ther he nor Lieutenant Shirar sounded like they were
in any shape to take on the raiders. Better they should
supervise repairs on the Puyallup, which, no doubt,
had other vital missions scheduled.
    "What about the Horta eggs?" Sisko asked. As a
father himself, he felt a pang at the thought of the
unborn Hortas being destroyed or orphaned.
    "All twenty eggs are unbroken and appear to be
unharmed," Bashir said. "I must admit, though, that
prenatal examination of Hortas is something new for
me. Horta eggs look like smooth silicon nodules; they
cantoand have--been mistaken for lifeless mineral
deposits."
    Those nodules are going to hatch, Sisko thought.
What then? Twenty newborn Hortas separated from
their mother? That couM be a problem. Still, there were
more pressing issues to deal with now, like the fate of
the Mother Horta .... He made a mental note to have
Chief O'Brien secure the eggs in an unused cargo bay.
    On second thought, he corrected himself, these eggs
are guests, not freight. Better make that an empty
suite on the habitat ring.
    Dax stepped forward, a data padd in her right hand.
"The eggs were protected by a contained stasis field,
Benjamin. I suspect that this field shielded the eggs
from the brunt of the attack, and may have prevented
the raiders from beaming away the eggs as well."
    "Raiders?" Kira said. "Cardassians, you mean."
Placing her palms firmly on the surface of Sisko's
desk, she leaned toward him. He recognized the fiery
look in her eyes; Kira was out for blood. "Command-
er, this is a shameless Cardassian incursion against
Bajor and the Federation. We have to retaliate."
    Sisko spoke slowly, choosing his words with care.
"I've spoken with Gul Dukat. He insists that the
Cardassian military government knows nothing about
the attack on the Puyallup--or the present where-
abouts of the abducted Horta." Kira snorted, and
Sisko waved a hand to head off her objections. "Yes,
yes, I know. I don't believe it either. Without proof,
however, I can hardly launch a full-scale armada
against the Cardassians, even if I had the ships, which
I don't."
"But we have to do something!" Kira insisted.
"And we will, Major," Sisko said firmly. "The
Horta, Ttan, was under Starfleet protection. A rescue
mission is our top priority, but first we have to figure
out where she's been taken." He rested his chin on his
clasped hands. "So, assuming the Cardassians are
responsible, why would they kidnap Ttan?"
    "To sabotage the Bajoran economy?" Bashir specu-
lated.
    "Unlikely," Dax said. She consulted her padd. "The
Horta mining project was an experimental affair,
confined to one site on the southern continent. Al-
though promising in theory, it wasn't yet a proven
success, let alone essential to the Bajoran recovery."
    Kira pulled back from Sisko's desk, but her entire
body still shook with indignation. "Since when did
Cardassians need a reason to rob and kill?"
    "Point taken," Sisko said diplomatically. "Still, it's
clear that this attack had a purpose, and that purpose
was specifically to snatch Ttan. So, again, why does
someone steal a Horta?"
    "Mining," Dax said. "That must be it. The Hortas
are the greatest natural miners in the known galaxy.
The human-Horta mining alliance on Janus VI is the
most productive--and profitable--source of raw ore
and rare elements in the entire Federation."
    Yes, Sisko thought. That made sense. Slave labor
and greed; even Kira had to agree that those were
plausible motives for a Cardassian operation. "What
we're looking for then is a Cardassian mining installa-
tion. That's where we'll find Ttan." Sisko rose from
his chair, his decision made. "Dax, check the station's
computer. Find out the coordinates of the five nearest
Cardassian mining operations, in order of proximity
to DS9. Kira, rearm the Amazon and assemble a
security team." Sisko paused for a second before
continuing. "Take Wilkens, Muckerheide, Parks,
Jonsson, and Aponte." He saw Kira's eyes widen as he
named his choices, all Starfleet personnel, but she said
nothing, for now, and he chose to ignore her expres-
sion.
    Later, he thought. He was not fool enough to think
that the confrontation had been permanently post-
poned. "The goal here is to rescue Ttan and, hopeful-
ly, return her unharmed. Fast in and fast out."
    "Commander," Bashir began. "Request permission
to accompany the rescue party. Ttan may already be
injured, and I've been reading up on Horta first aid."
    "What about Ensign Muluck?" Sisko asked. He
glanced again at the bloodstains on Bashir's wrists.
    "Nurse Kabo can care for him now. My presence is
not required."
    "I think I should go along too, Benjamin," Dax
added. "I've probably had more experience with
Hortas than anyone else on the station. In fact, one of
my granddaughters lives on Janus VI."
    Sisko nodded. He wondered briefly whether Dax
was that woman's grandmother or grandfather.
"Kira," he said, "Bashir and Dax are with your team.
Prepare to depart within the hour." He looked them
over. "Be careful, all of you. That will be all."
    The office doors slid shut behind Dax and Bashir as
they exited. Not surprisingly, Kira lingered behind.
Okay, Sisko thought, slowly stepping out from behind
his desk, let's get this over with. "Is there something
else, Major?" he asked flatly, his voice giving nothing
away.
    "Permission to speak frankly, Commander?" Kira
asked.
    "Go ahead," he replied, surprised and impressed
that she had actually requested permission.
    "The security team you assigned, they're all
Starfleet. No Bajorans, aside from me. What's the
story?"
 "Does there have to be a story?" Sisko said.
    "The majority of the station's security forces are
Bajoran. The Horta had been invited by Bajorans for
a Bajoran project. The attack on the cruiser occurred
in Bajoran space." Kira's voice grew more forceful
with each point she recited. "And yet, there are almost
no Bajorans involved in the rescue mission. Oh, I
think there's a story, Commander, and I'd like to
know what it is."
    She is my first officer, he thought. She deserves an
honest answer. "I don't want this situation to escalate,
Kira. Because of your history, Bajorans and Car-
dassians are a volatile combination. For that reason,
I'm reluctant to send a team of armed Bajorans into
Cardassian territory."
"You don't trust us to behave?" Kira asked sarcasti-
cally.
    "I trust you, "Sisko emphasized. "But your mission
is to bring back Ttan, not start a war or avenge old
wrongs. We have many fine Bajoran security officers,
but I'd rather use Starfleet personnel on this particular
mission. Sorry."
    Kira's eyes blazed, but she kept her voice even. "I
disagree strongly. Bajorans have a large stake in this
mission, and we shouldn't be treated like trigger-
happy children."
    "Fine," Sisko said. "Your objections are noted. But
we'll do this my way."
    "Understood," Kira said. She turned and walked
out the door, her spine straight as a spear. "I'11 be
under way shortly." The double doors closed behind
her with a whish of air.
    "Good luck," Sisko said. He took a deep breath and
settled back into his chair. After a moment's thought,
he tapped his comm badge. "Chief O'Brien. Report to
Ops in about fifteen minutes. I want to talk to you
about some eggs."

    Dax returned to Sisko's office before O'Brien ar-
rived. A black equipment pouch was at her side, held
on by a strap over her shoulder. Her blue eyes
observed Sisko with warmth and concern. "You
wanted to see me, Benjamin?"
    "Yes." He glanced at the intricate Saltah'na clock
resting on his desk. "Find any likely coordinates?"
    Dax sat down on one corner of his desk. They'd
known each other too long to worry about Starfleet
protocol, at least in private. "The closest Cardassian
mining colony is an L-class planet in the Xoxa system,
about twelve hours away at warp three. There are
other possibilities, but they're much more distant. Of
course, they could have taken Ttan to a new mine we
know nothing about, or maybe even an archaeological
dig."
    "I've thought of that," he said. He'd even consid-
ered the possibility that the Cardassians might have
some insane idea of using the Horta in a military
operation; after all, one Horta had managed to kill
several armed humans during the Federation's first
encounter with their species. Fortunately, that initial
misunderstanding had been straightened out quickly,
close to a century ago.
    "The Xoxa colony sounds like our best bet,
though," he continued. "We'll have to try there--and
hope for the best." He looked again at the bronze
Saltah'na clock he'd constructed some time ago, while
under the influence of an alien matrix; almost three
hours had passed since the Horta had vanished from
the bridge of the Puyallup. Thank goodness her chil-
dren were safe, at least. "Jadzia, do we have any idea
when those eggs are likely to hatch?"
    "According to the immigration files in the
Puyallup's data banks, not for a week or two," she
said. "Horta births are no more predictable than
human delivery dates, of course, but I think you've
some breathing space before the children emerge. And
don't forget, the eggs are also confined in a stasis field,
which should keep them dormant for the time being."
    A mental image came to his mind, of over a dozen
baby Hortas, like huge corrosive earthworms, awak-
ing without their mother. If they were to hatch, what
was he supposed to feed them? Raw rhodinium in-
gots? Kira, he thought, get Ttan back soon. "Is the
away team ready?" he asked Dax.
  "Almost. The runabout's being refitted with a larger
passenger module, as well as additional torpedoes.
Julian's getting together some special medical sup-
plies. The security team is armed and ready. Kira will
page me when she's ready; it should be soon." She
gave Sisko a searching look. "Benjamin, what did you
really want to talk about? I haven't got much time."
    "It's Kira," he said. "You know how hot-blooded
she can be, especially where Cardassians are con-
cerned."
    "That's to be expected," Dax responded. "She's
fought the Cardassians her whole life, seen friends
and allies victimized by them time after time."
    "Of course," he agreed. "Frankly, there's no love
lost between me and Gul Dukat. But I don't want this
hostage situation to erupt into a shooting war, not
with DS9 so close to the border and Starfleet so far
away." Sisko paused. The polished gears of the
Saltah'na timepiece rotated notch by notch. "I just
want you to keep an eye on things, and a cool head
about you. Kira and Bashir are good officers, but
they can both be impetuous, Julian because of his
youth and Kira because, well, she's Kira. Together,
on a risky search-and-rescue beyond the Cardassian
border..." Sisko permitted himself a pained expres-
sion. "Without stepping on Kira's authority, do what
you can to keep this mission from getting more
complicated. I've known you longer than anyone else
on this station, so I know I can count on you."
    "Even in this new body?" she asked. Sisko smiled.
Sometimes he still visualized her as the rascally,
silver-haired man she'd been when they first met.
"Even if your next host is a Ferengi," he declared.
Dax grimaced, as if imagining a particularly unap-
petizing meal. "Please, Benjamin, let's not get carried
away." Then she grinned at him mischievously. "I
mean they're a nice species to visit, but I wouldn't
want to be one."
    A chime from her badge interrupted them abruptly.
"Kira to Dax," the major's voice said. "Meet me at
Landing Pad Two."
    Dax tapped her chest. "On my way. Dax out." She
hopped off the desk and checked the tricorder in her
pouch. "Don't worry, Benjamin. It won't do us any
good."
    Sisko watched her hurry out of his office, through
Ops to the nearest turbolift. "Take care of yourself,
old man," he said as the lift carried her away.
 And take care of Kira and the others.




CHAPTER
      3

IN THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT aboard the Amazon,
Major Kira strode up and down before the assembled
rescue team, looking each member over with a critical
eye. If Sisko had any sense, she thought angrily, this
wouM have been an all-Bajoran mission. She would
have made a bigger fight for it if time hadn't been so
pressing. She couldn't risk delaying any further; rescu-
ing Ttan had to come first.
    The five Federation security officers, three male and
two female, all human, kept their backs straight and
their eyes focused on the bulkhead in front of them.
    Kira hid a private smile. My reputation precedes me,
she thought with a trace of pride. If I said "boo" I
think they'd die of heart attacks.
    She prided herself on maintaining a reputation as a
tough-as-nails Bajoran officer. She did her best to
reinforce that impression every chance she had, and
this was no exception. If they came under fire; these
men and women had to be ready to follow her orders
without question or hesitation.
    She began to relate the events leading up to the
Horta's capture. As she did, her mind raced ahead to
thoughts of actual combat against the Cardassians.
She still had a lot of old scores to settle--even if she
had to take an all-human security team to do it.
    At least Sisko had made some sensible choices in
assigning members to the team. Ensigns Duane
Wilkens and Ian Muckerheide had hair the color of
copper. The pair made a good security team; Kira had
seen them help Odo break up the brawls that invaria-
bly started at Quark's Place. Ensign Delia Parks was
blond, with her hair pulled in a tight bun behind her
head. Another good choice, Kira thought. Parks was
bright, ambitious, and could double as pilot or naviga-
tion officer, if necessary. Tall, pale Ensign Sven
Jonsson had the creamy color of kaafa milk. He was
all rippling sinew and speed: Kira had once seen him
drag a pair of drunken Klingons off to the brig. Last
but not least came Ensign Natalia Aponte, with her
space-black hair and dark good looks. Ensign Aponte
had always been something of an enigma to Kira. She
always seemed to be watching everyone and every-
thing around her, almost as though she expected
something strange and out-of-place to happen. Some-
times it made Kira uneasy, but now she welcomed
such watchfulness. Nobody would sneak up on them
with Aponte on watch.
  Kira finished the briefing with, "Any questions?"
  "Sir," Ensign Jonsson said.
  "What is it, Ensign?"
  "Shouldn't we have environment suits?"
    Good question, Kira thought. "Dax?" she called.
"I'11 let you answer that."
    "No," Dax called from the conn station, where she
was running the last of the diagnostics. "Cardassian
mining plants are almost always in M-class environ-
ments. Otherwise, they're not cost-effective."
    "What if they dropped Ttan off somewhere only a
Horta could live?" Jonsson persisted.
    "Not bloody likely," Kira said. "Cardassians are
control freaks. To them, a Horta will be merely a new
tool. Believe me, they'll find a way to put her to use in
one of their mines. Any other questions?"
 Nobody spoke up. Good; they were wasting time.
    "Strap yourselves in," Kira said. She watched as
they scrambled to do so.
    Turning, Kira stalked forward to where Dax, at the
corm, had been running diagnostic tests. To make a
bad situation worse, Kira thought, Bashir was watch-
ing over Dax's shoulder and chattering about the
excitement that lay ahead. If she had Bashir breathing
down her neck the whole trip, she'd go crazy.
    "Major," Dr. Bashir said. "Do you think we'll face
any real fighting?"
    "Don't worry, I'll keep you out of it," Kira said. She
turned to Dax and asked, "What's our status?"
    "Everything checks," Dax said. "Ops just cleared us
for takeoff."
    "Doctor?" Kira glanced at Bashir. "Are you
ready?"
    He grinned and pointed to a small black bag on the
floor beside him. "All I could possibly need. Thanks
to Dr. Leonard McCoy's pioneering medical research
on the Hortas, I'm even prepared in case Ttan has
been injured."
    "Very well," Kira said. "Take your seat with the
others in the back. We lift off in one minute."
    Kira cut Bashir off when he opened his mouth to
protest. "That's an order, Doctor." The last thing she
needed was him bouncing around the cabin while they
left DS9.
    "It may be a bumpy flight again," Dax added.
"We'll need you to keep an eye on the crew."
    "Right!" Bashir said, brightening. He picked up his
bag and headed aft.
    Dax said, "All humanoids have their foibles, Ma-
jor."
    For a second Kira wondered if Dax was telepathic,
too. "Am I that obvious?" she asked. If so, I'm going
to have to work on my professional look, she thought.
    "You hide it well. But yes." Dax gave her a little
smile.
 "Why do you... you know... encourage him?"
     "I must admit there is a part of my host that does
find him... attractive." "Attractive? That?"
"Perhaps, if you got to know him better..."
Kira snorted as several dull thuds reverberated
through the runabout. It had to be the docking clamps
being released, she thought. Leaning forward, she
scanned the readouts before her. Engines were pow-
ered up; artificial gravity engaged; weapons systems
active. Hopefully it wouldn't come to ship-to-ship
fighting; a Cardassian battle cruiser would blow them
to atoms. No, they'd have to be fast in and fast out,
she thought, like Sisko had said. She allowed herself a
tight smile. And just like the old days, when she left
there would be a few less slime-devil Cardassians to
worry about.
    Kira activated the thrusters, nosing the runabout up
and away from DS9 in a series of gentle surges that the
artificial gravity couldn't quite mask.
  "Docking ring cleared," Dax said.
    Kira said, "Going to impulse power." She watched
the viewscreen as the runabout turned smartly and
accelerated away from the space station. DS9 dwin-
dled to a speck, then vanished. Still she accelerated.
There was no telling what tortures they were putting
Ttan through.
    "Heading one-nine-eight degrees, mark four," Dax
said.
    That's where the Cardassians attacked the Puyal-
lup, Kira realized after a second of mental calcula-
tions. "Why aren't you setting a course for Xoxa?" she
demanded.
    "Chief O'Brien had a better idea," Dax said. "I
didn't have time to tell you. He recalibrated the
Amazon's sensors to pick up ionized particles caused
by subspace distortion."
    "You know the wormhole plays havoc with sub-
space--"
    "True. But I think we can get there quickly enough
to pick up some residual traces. And the farther we get
from the wormhole, the cleaner the trace we'll find."
    "It's worth a shot, I suppose," Kira said slowly. But
I'd prefer it if you'd tell roe first next time, she mentally
added.
    "If it doesn't work, we've only wasted half an hour.
If it does..."
    "If it does," Kira finished for her, "we've saved
ourselves a lot of unnecessary worry... and possibly
a huge mistake." That's what counts in the end, she
thought.

    Ttan felt a great nothingness all around. Her cilia
spun helplessly; her sensory organs registered only the
faintest traces of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon diox-
ide; she felt as though she were falling into a bottom-
less void. There were no familiar tastes of minerals,
no comforting surfaces to burrow into.
    She tried to fight it, but the same panic that had
overwhelmed her the first time she'd seen the sky over
Janus VI struck her. She began to scream in terror, a
high-pitched keening sound that went on and on and
on. Her cilia whirled helplessly. Acid squirted uncon-
trolled from her glands. "Stop that, Horta!"
    With the voice came light, and the light revealed a
huge cavern. Ttan found herself suspended halfway
between floor and ceiling, spinning slowly in a coun-
terclockwise direction. The walls of the cavern con-
sisted of thick metal girders. The floor underfoot
looked like sheet-metal plating... like the floors in
the Federation ship that had been taking her to Bajor.
    Ttan managed to regain control of herself. Acids
from her body had already begun to etch designs into
the floor and wall plates, she saw with some embar-
rassment. Prime Mother, had she really lost control of
herself like some day-old hatchling?
    She realized she had to be in another ship, this one
without the concrete hold specifically designed to
accommodate her. She was suspended in midair by
some sort of tractor beam. That explained the sensa-
tion of falling, the lack of comforting surfaces into
which she might burrow.
 "Creature!" the voice bellowed.
    Ttan managed to focus on the room's other inhab-
itant: a humanoid wearing shiny black clothing with
only its head, neck, and hands exposed. It stood in an
open hatch regarding her. Its pale skin had a strangely
corded look, as though thick ropes of muscle con-
nected its small head to its body.
  "Creature!" it bellowed again. "Answer me!"
    "I am called Ttan," Ttan said. The Universal Trans-
lator attached to her back spoke for her, adding an
almost imperceptible tremble to her voice.
    "Ttan," the humanoid said more softly. "You will
listen to my instructions and obey them. I am Gul
Mavek, and you are now a guest aboard my ship, the
Dagger."
    "Why have you done this?" Ttan demanded.
"Where are you taking me? What has happened to my
children?"
    "No questions, Ttan. We have some tasks for you to
perform--very special tasks. If you do them well, you
will be rewarded. If you cooperate, you may even gain
your freedom... and the freedom of your children."
  "Please, I must know--!" Ttan began.
    But the humanoid had already stepped back. As the
hatch rolled shut, darkness fell.
 Once more Ttan began to scream.

CHAPTER
      4

BMORANS, Sisko had privately concluded, could be
distinguished from other humanoid races by the
creases on their noses--and the chips on their shoul-
ders. The deputy secretary for the Council on Ecologi-
cal Controls, currently on the main viewer in Ops, was
giving him no reason to change that opinion.
    "No! Absolutely not," the deputy secretary de-
clared, only his head and shoulders visible on the oval
screen. A blond young man with perfectly groomed
hair and blindingly white teeth, Pova had the self-
righteous air of someone suddenly thrust into a posi-
tion of power--and enjoying it far too much. "Under
no circumstances are you to transfer the Horta eggs
onto Bajoran soil."
    "But, Secretary Pova," Sisko said diplomatically,
"it was my understanding that the Hortas had been
invited to Bajor for the express purpose of mining
below the planet's surface."
    "That enterprise," Pova began, "was the work of a
consortium of private individuals, who irresponsibly
launched their reckless endeavor without securing the
approval of the provisional government. Now that
this unfortunate abduction has called the entire proj-
ect to our attention, we cannot in good conscience
stand by and allow alien life-forms to be introduced to
our planet's delicate ecology."
    Sisko suppressed a weary sigh. He kept his back
straight, his posture confident, despite this frustrating
turn of events. He did not know whether the Bajoran
officials had truly been unaware of the Horta mining
project, but obviously the political tides had shifted
for the time being, with the more conservative ele-
ments gaining power. This was not uncommon; the
provisional government, established hastily after the
Cardassians abandoned the planet, was a loose coali-
tion of competing factions that seemed to change its
policies every time there was a full moon. And Bajor
had several moons ....
    That political instability, he reminded himself, was
one of the main reasons Starfleet was here in the first
place. He considered calling Vedek Bareil, who was
probably the Federation's most influential friend on
Bajor. But, unlike the departed Kai Opaka, Bareil's
power was limited--and his spiritual authority hardly
granted him jurisdiction over mining policies.
     Sisko took a deep breath and tried again to reason
 with the secretary. "Perhaps the correct procedures
 have not been observed," he conceded, "but the fact
 remains that I have twenty eggs, each containing a
 sentient being, that will surely hatch long before they
 can be taken back to Janus VI. They may be orphans,
 Pova, and, biologically, they're not suited to life on a
 space station." Again, Sisko visualized an entire
 brood of baby Hortas, burrowing out of control. Who
 would be worse off in such a situation, the Hortas or
Deep Space Nine? "They belong on a planet, deep
underground, not stuck out in space."
    Clearly, Secretary Pova was not a sucker for or-
phans. "That is a problem for the Federation," he
declared. "My first priority must be the environmen-
tal sanctity of Bajor. The eggs stay where they are."
    "If we send them by shuttle to Bajor now," Sisko
argued, "it doesn't have to be a permanent solution."
    "No." Behind Pova, the deputy secretary's office
looked impeccably clean and perhaps newly painted.
If only Bajor were within transporter range of DS9,
Sisko mused grumpily; I'd beam the eggs directly onto
Pova's desk.
    "They may have lost their mother, Pova." Just like
Jake lost Jennifer, Sisko thought, feeling a pang of
sympathy for the unborn Hortas. He wondered if
Ttan had a mate or family back on Janus VI, and
hoped he wouldn't have to send them word of her
death.
    "You are wasting my time, Commander," Pova
said. "Our decision is final. The Hortas will not be
allowed on Bajor."
    Until the coalition government changes its mind
again, Sisko thought, but how long will that take? This
isn't over yet, Pova, he vowed, while calmly stating, "I
suspect that we will discuss this matter again, Secre-
tary. For now, I'll let you get back to your work. Sisko
out."
    Pova's image vanished from the screen, replaced by
a view of the surrounding space. At Sisko's orders, the
main viewer was to be directed toward the Cardassian
border until Kira's return, except when needed for
other purposes. The wormhole, unexplored at the
moment, could not be seen. Sisko relaxed his shoul-
ders and leaned forward, bracing himself on a guard-
rail upon the upper tier of Ops. He glanced around the
operations center. A relief crew manned all important
stations, including four officers at the operations table
alone, but Ops still seemed empty without Dax or
Kira. On Sisko's left, Miles O'Brien fussed with a
trapezoidal display grid at the engineering station;
Deep Space Nine never seemed to run out of minor
malfunctions for O'Brien to fix.
    O'Brien looked up from his repairs to give Sisko a
sympathetic look. "Not being terribly cooperative,
was he?" O'Brien said, with a nod toward the screen.
    "No. I think we're on our own for the duration.
Have the eggs been secured?"
    "Yes, sir. An unfurnished suite on level fifteen.
About all that was available, what with the crowds
coming in for that Illumination business." O'Brien
strolled over to where Sisko was standing. "If you
don't mind me asking, any word from Major Kira and
the others?"
    Sisko shook his head. "While they're in Cardassian
space, they have to maintain strict communications
silence." His knuckles tightened around the guardrail.
"It's a sensible precaution. All we can do is wait--and
take care of those eggs."
    "Well, you know what they say anyway: Don't count
your Hortas until they're hatched." O'Brien's broad
grin faded as Sisko stared at him with a blank expres-
sion. "Er, that was meant as a joke, sir."
    "I know, Chief. Carry on." Sisko marched into his
office and let the doors slide shut behind him. Damn
Deputy Secretary Pova, he fumed, and his whole
Council on Ecological Controls/ Quark wouM have
been easier to deal with; at least you can bribe a
Ferengi. The thought of those twenty young Hortas
being rejected by the very planet their mother might
have sacrificed her life to salvage infuriated him, and
raised uncomfortable associations with his own moth-
erless son. Suppose, he couldn't help speculating,
Jennifer and I had both died in that battle at Wolf359,
and .lake~ fate had ended up in the hands of some
selJ:important bureaucrat? Sisko promised himself
that he would do everything in his power to protect
Ttan's children until Kira brought the mother Horta
safely home.
    Thank goodness, he thought, that Jake at least was
safe and far from trouble.

    "You must be crazy!" Jake Sisko whispered emphat-
ically. "Odo will catch us for sure!"
    Nog brushed away Jake's objections with a wave of
his hand. "You're paranoid about Odo, you know
that? He can't be everywhere."
"Yes," Jake replied, "but he could be anything."
The two teenagers crouched behind a gray rhodi-
nium support beam outside Suite 959. It was early in
the day and this section of the habitat ring was
sparsely populated; only a few tired traders, staggering
back to their ships after a long night of gambling and
carousing at Quark's, had passed by Jake and Nog in
the last half hour. A Bajoran security officer swung by
the suite periodically for a routine check. According
to Nog's calculations, she wouldn't be due back for at
least twenty minutes. Jake wasn't sure he trusted
Nog's calculations. He'd seen some of Nog's home-
work assignments ....
    "Look," Jake argued, "what's the big deal with a
bunch of eggs anyway?" Even with both of them
kneeling, Jake was a head taller than the young
Ferengi. To blend with the shadows, Jake had put on
his darkest blue jumpsuit. Nog, shameless, wore a
bright orange shirt with purple trousers. The wrap
behind his ears glittered with metallic fibers.
    "Ah, but these are Horta eggs!" Nog's eyes gleamed
with the same excitement he usually displayed for
gold-pressed latinum--or anything recognizably fe-
male.
  "So?" Jake asked.
    "Well, er, that is..." Nog seemed reluctant to
abandon his dreams of profit merely for lack of any
solid justification. "The Cardassians wanted them,
right? So they must be worth something!"
    "But it's stealing," Jake objected. He hated having
to be the wet blanket all the time, and certainly
amusements on DS9 were few and far between, but it
felt like he and Nog were crossing some sort of line
with this particular caper. His conscience nagged at
him, with a voice that suspiciously resembled his
father's.
    Of course, stealing was no big deal to a Ferengi.
Even now Jake could see Nog blinking his eyes at his
friend's objection, and struggling to wrap his brain
around the idea that "So what?" was not a workable
response.
    "We're only going to borrow it," Nog said instead.
"Besides, it's only a bunch of eggs, no one is going to
miss one."
    "I thought these were the extra-special Horta eggs,"
Jake said, mimicking Nog's greedy fervor with pin-
point accuracy. Hah, he thought. Got you there.
    Nog was unimpressed by logic. "Consistency is a
hu-man virtue," he said, drawing out the first syllable
in "human" so that it sounded vaguely obscene.
"C'mon, are you with me or not?"
    Jake briefly considered rapping his head against the
girder. How did he get sucked into these messes? But
he knew why. A) he was bored. B) Nog was his only
real friend. Despite the combined efforts of his con-
science and common sense, he couldn't convince
himself that some weird alien egg was more important
than either A or B. "Okay, I'm in. Let's get this over
with."
    "Yes, yes, yes!" Nog muttered gleefully. The boys
rose quickly to their feet, bolted out from behind the
girder, and nearly collided with a large Bajoran securi-
ty officer.
    She was at least six feet tall, with firm muscles (and
an impressive figure) visible beneath her brown uni-
form. A stern expression seemed to have frozen on her
face. "Shouldn't you boys be in school?" she said. It
sounded more like a statement than a question.
    Nog's jaw dropped. His mouth quivered soundless-
ly, making him look like a trout caught on a hook. Was
he speechless with fear, Jake wondered, or simply
overwhelmed by his close proximity to the woman's
imposing curves? Probably a bit of both: I'm going to
kill him, Jake thought, assuming we get out of this
alive.
    "School doesn't start for another hour," Jake ex-
plained hurriedly. "We were pacing out the circumfer-
ence of the habitat ring... for geometry class. Extra
credit." Actually, Nog hadn't attended Mrs. O'Brien's
school for days, but Jake saw no reason to go into that.
"We were at five hundred and fifty steps so far, right,
Nog?" He elbowed his friend, none too gently.
"Right?"
    "Oh yes," Nog sputtered. "Five hundred and sixty
for sure!"
    The security officer eyed them skeptically. The
wrinkles on her nose seemed to deepen. "You were
rushing pretty fast to be doing such careful counting."
    "We count better when we run!" Nog volunteered.
Jake groaned inside.
    "Like you said, we don't want to be late for class,"
he added. Please, he thought, don't call my dad. I still
haven't lived down that business with Odo g bucket and
the oatmeal.
    The officer stared at them in silence for what
seemed the length of a transgalactic voyage--on
impulse power. A thin layer of sweat glued Jake's shirt
to his back. Nog's hands nervously protected the lobes
of his enormous ears.
"Very well," she said finally. "Be on your way."
"Yes, sir, officer, ma'am!" Jake said, almost burst-
ing with relief. He grabbed Nog roughly by the arm,
and, taking long careful strides, tried to pace away
from Suite 959 as rapidly as he could. "Five hundred
and fifty-one, five hundred and fifty-two, five hundred
and fifty-three..."
    "Five hundred and sixty-four," Nog said beside
him, "five hundred and sixty-five..."
    Oh, leaking radioactive wormholes, Jake cursed si-
lently. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the
officer watching them depart, her hands on her hips, a
suspicious scowl on her face. "Human steps equal
one-point-five Ferengi steps," he called back by way of
explanation. He hoped he didn't sound nearly as
stupid as he felt.
    Finally, they rounded a corner and left the security
woman behind. Jake collapsed against the corridor
wall. His heart was pounding. The sweat on his back
cooled to a chilly film. If this was a bad holo, he
thought, I'd be fainting now.
    Nog, on the other hand, seemed positively invigor-
ated now that they were safe. "Eluding prosecution!"
he crowed, bouncing off the floor in an impromptu
victory dance. "There's no greater thrill? He grinned
at his reluctant accomplice. "A school project! Extra
credit! That was sheer brilliance... almost as good
as what I was going to say. As you sure you aren't part
Ferengi?"
    "Positive," Jake replied, forcing himself to remem-
ber that Nog meant that as a compliment. Slowly, his
heartbeat returned to normal.
    Nog pointed his ears in the direction they had
come. "Okay," he said enthusiastically. "I can hear
her bootsteps. She's going the opposite way." Without
even asking Jake's opinion, he dashed back toward the
suite. Halfway there, he paused only long enough to
look back at Jake. "What's keeping you?" he asked,
appearing genuinely puzzled. "Hurry!"
    I don't believe this, Jake thought. I don't believe me.
Breaking into a jog, he caught up with NOg outside the
suite door. The Ferengi was busy affixing a white
crystalline patch to the lock beside the door. Jake
didn't need to ask where the patch came from; like
most Ferengi, Nog wore his pockets on the inside of
his clothes. "Something you 'borrowed' from your
uncle?" Jake asked.
    "Actually, I got it from a cat burglar in exchange
for some Eeiauoan pornography." He shrugged dis-
missively. "I'm not into felines."
    The crystal patch sparkled as it swiftly flashed
through the entire spectrum from white to black,
trying every intermediate shade in between. It oper-
ated completely silently, which made sense, Jake
realized, given the sort of jobs it had probably been
designed for; that this device had once belonged to a
professional thief did not make Jake feel any more
comfortable about this whole stunt. "Look, NOg," he
started to protest.
    Too late. On its third cycle through the spectrum,
the patch halted on a hue somewhere between rose
and pink. It blinked three times; then the two halves
of the sturdy door slid back into the adjoining walls.
Nog rubbed his palms together and scooted inside the
bay. With a sigh of resignation, Jake followed him.
    Low-level illumination activated automatically
upon their entrance, and Jake found himself in a
vaultlike chamber about half the size of his and his
father's personal quarters. Alien graffiti defaced the
walls, and the floor was scratched and in need of
repair. No wonder, Jake thought, the suite was empty
except for the eggs, which he spotted right away.
    They were lined up like bowling balls on top of a
black, triangular platform about three feet tall. "Care-
ful," Nog said, "there's some type of stasis field." To
demonstrate, he brought his hands near the eggs; a
sudden burst of crackling blue energy repelled his
grasping fingers. Nog seemed more amused than
concerned by the shielding, Jake noted as he drew
closer to their target. Keeping at least a foot away from
the invisible field, he stared at the eggs while Nog,
scurrying around on his knees, inspected the field
generator. The eggs all looked identical: completely
spherical, slightly smaller than an old-fashioned bas-
ketball, with a glossy metallic sheen. He had trouble
placing the exact the color of the eggs in the dim light;
they were somewhere between violet and copper,
depending on what angle he looked at them from. Was
there actually some sort of organism growing inside?
It was hard to believe; the spheres looked more like
geological curiosities than something alive.
    Then again, he'd bumped into some very unusual
life-forms during his travels with his father. Human-
oid races were most common, but Jake had no illu-
sions that all beings fit the Terran mode. The universe
meven just the Federation--was full of strange and
exotic entities, like those "nonlinear" intelligences his
dad had discovered in the wormhole. Or Q, who
looked human, but sure wasn't. Or whatever they were
that had impersonated Buck Bokai, Lieutenant Dax,
and that troll during their first year on the station. Or,
for that matter, Constable Odo.
    Thinking about the station's security chief re-
minded Jake of how much trouble they could get into
if they were caught. He glanced nervously around the
empty suite; thank goodness it was so barren, he
thought. There were no stray objects that could be
the shapeshifter in disguise--unless he was one of the
eggs themselves!
    "C'mon," he whispered to Nog. "What's the prob-
lem?"
    "No problem," Nog replied. He ran his stubby
fingers over a control pad located under the rim of the
platform. "There! Try it now."
    Half expecting an energy shock, Jake reached hesi-
tantly for an egg. Nothing happened. He met no
resistance. His hand stroked the smooth, metallic
shell; it was surprisingly cool. He grinned despite
himself. This was too easy! Obviously, the field was
intended to shield the eggs from shocks, not...
borrowing.
    Nog sprang to his feet and scampered, his freckled
face beaming, around the unprotected eggs. "Take
that one!" he suggested. "No, no, that one! Wait a
nano, maybe this one here... !"
    "Nog," Jake said patiently. "They're all the same."
He realized, with a jolt of recognition, that he
sounded a lot like his father talking to Dr. Bashir.
"Choose one and let's go."
    "But which one?" Nog whined, torn by greed
and indecision. "Maybe we should take a couple
more... ?"
 "No way!" Jake said.
    "But..." Nog's eyes darted back and forth be-
tween his friend and the eggs.
    "No," Jake said firmly. He removed a piece of
toweling that he'd tucked into his boot earlier. There
was only so far he could be pushed, even by Nog. He
had to draw the line somewhere. Picking one at
random, he carefully lifted an egg from the platform
and wrapped it in the soft white towel. For a second,
he thought he felt something move within the egg, as
though its center of gravity had suddenly shifted, but
he chalked it up to nerves. That Bajoran woman could
be back at any minute!
    The stolen egg left an empty, circular recess in the
top of the platform, an incriminating gap that caught
Jake's eye like a silent accusation. He looked away
from the depression. "We're out of here," he told Nog.
"Now!"
    The Ferengi hesitated for a moment, staring at the
remaining eggs as if he could absorb the entire haul
into his eyes. He ran his tongue over his rough, uneven
front teeth.  "Nog!"
    With a pained expression on his face, Nog turned
from the eggs and ran with Jake back into the corridor
outside. Jake looked up and down the hall while Nog
hastily removed the crystal patch from the locking
mechanism. There was no one in sight, thankfully. By
the time the suite doors slid shut again, the boys were
already several meters away. Clutching the swaddled
Horta egg close to his chest, Jake walked quickly
toward the nearest turbolift, with Nog struggling to
keep up with him.
    You know, Jake thought, maybe human steps do
equal one-point-five Ferengi ones.

    Nog was nearly out of breath by the time they
reached the turbolift. He snarled under his breath.
Why did humans have to have such long legs anyway?
It seemed an unfair advantage, and unfair advantages
by rights belonged to the Ferengi. Then again, he
didn't really mind that human females had those
astoundingly endless legs. Too bad they felt obliged to
cover them up. Take that Lieutenant Dax, for in-
stance. Thinking about her, out of uniform (and not
into anything in particular), made his lobes tingle.
Suppose she and he were marooned on...
    "Say, Nog," Jake said, knocking him out of a
promising fantasy, "I thought of something. Did you
reactivate the stasis field around the eggs?"
    Deficits, Nog cursed silently. He'd forgotten all
about that field. "I thought you'd done that," he said
hastily, embarrassed. To err was Ferengi, he reminded
himself; the trick was to shift blame fast enough.
    To his surprise, Jake didn't argue the point. "I
guess," his friend said with shrug, "it was going to be
pretty obvious that an egg was gone, even if we'd put
the field back the way we found it. And it's not like
we're expecting an earthquake or something anytime
soon. The eggs will be perfectly safe, right?"
    "Right!" Nog said automatically. Jake was obvious-
ly indulging in that odd human habit of "rationaliz-
ing" his actions in order to "appease his conscience."
Nog didn't really understand this, but he recognized it
when he saw it. Sometimes humans just had to be
talked into pursuing their own best interests. Good
thing, he thought, that Jake has a partner like me to set
him straight.
    The turbolift deposited them on the Promenade. As
Nog had planned, there wasn't much traffic among the
shops and stalls at this hour. Although night and day
were, naturally, abstract concepts on DS9, most peo-
ple stuck to Starfleet time for convenience's sake. It
was handy, especially on the Promenade, to have
regular hours for business--and pleasure. This early
in the morning, most establishments were, depending
on their bill of fare, closed, shutting down, or just
setting up shop.
    Technically, Quark's was open twenty-four hours a
day, but the bar was nearly deserted when they
arrived. Only a handful of diehards and new arrivals
occupied the tables, consuming replicated meals or
trying unsuccessfully to get drunk on heavily diluted
synthehol. (The strong stuff, Nog knew, wasn't served
until serious gambling got under way.) A skinny,
lime-green Asominian, whose species required sleep
only once every twenty years, was flirting shamelessly
with a Dabo girl.
    Quark himself was nowhere to be seen. Nog wasn't
surprised. His uncle seldom woke before noon, and
then spent an hour or two in a holosuite. A distant
cousin, Chram, manned the bar during the morning
shift. Tufts of gray hair sprouted from the bartender's
large ears. When I'm that age, Nog promised himself,
I'm not going to be working for my richer relations. He
gave Chram a wave as he led Jake back into the
storerooms. Chram glowered at him in return; the
older Ferengi was not a morning person.
    In contrast to the glitz and glamour of the public
Quark's, the rear of the bar was a maze of boxes,
compartments, and closets, generously equipped with
odd nooks and crannies. After all, as Nog had been
taught several times, you never knew when you might
need a private meeting place for... whatever. He
guided Jake to a broken-down refrigeration unit stuck
between a crate of bootleg Cardassian wine and a
stack of anti-Bajoran propaganda disks. Several gallon
bottles of kamoy syrup, all covered in dust, rested on
top of the crates.
    "Since the Cardassians left," he explained, "there
hasn't been much call for any of this stuff. My uncle's
waiting for a good time to dump it--at a decent
profit." He tapped the controls on the freezer, then
gave it a slap on the side. The lid sprang open with a
noisy pop. "The egg will be safe in here. Hand it
over." Inwardly, he congratulated himself on maneu-
vering Jake into carrying the stolen egg on his person
this whole time. Puzzling as it could sometimes be,
this human tendency to trust came in very handy.
    "Here," Jake said, slowly unwrapping the egg.
"Boy, am I glad to get rid of this."
And am I ever glad to take it, Nog thought.
Layers of toweling came away, revealing the gleam
of the Horta egg underneath. For the first time, Nog
started to wonder what exactly a Horta was, and what
he was supposed to do with the egg. He stroked his
right ear thoughtfully. No matter. There was profit
here somehow; he knew it.
    His fingers itched for the egg. What was taking Jake
so long? He wanted that egg now!
    Instead of handing it over right away, his human
friend gazed quizzically at the semiexposed sphere.
"Funny," Jake said. "It seems warmer than before."
He peeled away the last layer of cloth and his palm
came into direct contact with the shiny metal shell.
"Oww! Damn! Oww!" Jake blurted suddenly, yanking
his hands away from the egg. With horror, Nog
watched his prize drop onto the hard molybdenite
floor.
    "You... you hu-man!" he cried out angrily. The
egg crashed down with a ringing clang that made
Nog's lobes shrivel. It rolled away toward the back of
the storeroom. Jake waved his fingers wildly about,
then started blowing on his palm.
    "It burned me!" Jake said, showing him the red-
dened flesh on his hand. Nog gave the burn, which
didn't seem that serious, only a second's look before
chasing after the egg. Please, he thought, don't let it be
broken. The egg came to a stop against a cask of
Klingon war games. Nog reached out for it anxiously.
"Wait!" Jake yelled from behind him. "Be careful!"
    At the last minute, Nog yanked his hands away. He
disliked pain almost as much as he craved profit.
Bending over the egg, he searched its surface with his
beady blue eyes for any crack or disfigurement.
    At first, the sphere seemed unharmed. Praise the
bottom line, Nog thought gratefully. Then the egg
began to shake. Nog's eyes widened. "Jake, get over
here. Something's happening!" A high-pitched grind-
ing noise emerged from inside the egg. As the two
boys looked on in amazement, one side of the sphere
began to glow with a faint red radiance. Thin trails of
vapor rose from the glowing portion of the shell. "It's
going to explode!" Nog exclaimed, backing away
frantically on all fours. "Run!"
    Jake grabbed onto Nog's foot, halting his escape.
"No, Nog, no! Don't you see? It's hatching!"
    What? Of course! "I knew that," Nog said defen-
sively. "Can't you hu-mans recognize a joke when you
hear one?"
 "Sssh!" Jake said. "Here he comes!"
    The egg did not crack. Instead, something burned
its way out of the sphere, leaving a steaming hole in
the shell. The creature looked like a huge, scarlet
worm, about half a meter long. Its hide was red and
pulpy, like raw meat, except for tiny flecks of mineral
matter embedded here and there over its surface. A
fringe of tiny tendrils or cilia ran along the bottom of
the creature on all sides; it seemed to use the fringe to
pull itself slowly across the floor, leaving a trail of
scorched grillework behind it. So this was a Horta,
Nog mused. He wondered what it was worth. And
how much more he could charge for it.
    Before he could calculate a price, however, the
newborn Horta crawled (oozed?) back toward the
now-empty egg. Jake and he watched as it burned a
new hole through the shell and disappeared inside the
egg. "What... ?" he started to ask, but then the
entire egg glowed with the red light as before, and
proceeded to dissolve before their eyes. White fumes
rose and evaporated as the hard metal shell melted
into the baby Horta itself, which seemed to absorb
every bit of matter that wasn't boiled away. In a
second or two, there was no shell left, only a wriggling
red thing that emitted a teeth-jarring vibration from
no orifice Nog could detect.
    "What's the matter with it?" he asked Jake desper-
ately. "What do we do now?" And how, he agonized
silently, was he supposed to hide this burning little
monster from his uncle?
    Jake didn't look as confident as Nog would have
liked. "I think it's hungry," he said.


CHAPTER
      5

"WHEN CAN WE EXPECT some excitement, ladies?"
    Feeling bored, Julian Bashir leaned both arms on
the back of Major Kira's chair and peered over her
head at the console. As near as he could tell, Kira and
Dax appeared to be running a series of sensor sweeps
of the space around the ship, but he couldn't swear to
it. Kira's hands danced across the controls almost
more quickly than he could follow, and she wasn't
taking time to explain each step as she went along the
way Chief O'Brien usually did. It didn't surprise him,
considering the time-critical nature of their mission.
  Kira said, "You're crowding me, Doctor."
    "Oh, sorry." She's on edge, he told himself, straight-
ening quickly. The Bajoran equivalent of adrenaline
must be surging through her veins, priming her body
for battle-readiness... and making her a little irrita-
ble. Doubtless he could find plenty of information on
the effects of Bajoran adrenaline back on DS9. He'd
have to look the subject up when they got back. There
might be a paper in it--especially if the Bajorans
made it into the Federation and began serving on
Starfleet ships. He grinned a litte. There was a certain
fame to be had by being the first to file a new medical
paper--just look at the way Leonard McCoy's name
was plastered all over the Horta reports as the "pio-
neering surgeon" who first operated on a Horta.
    "No problem," Kira said curtly. "Bajorans just
have a very definite sense of personal space."
    "You can look over my shoulder, Julian," Dax said.
"It doesn't bother me."
    "Why, thank you, Jadzia!" She must have forgotten
my slug remark, he thought, or at least put it from her
mind in the tumult following Ttan ~ kidnapping. He
felt his heart skip a beat. Something about her excited
him more than any other female he'd ever been
around, He'd heard Chief O'Brien muttering about
"crushes" and "puppy love" under his breath more
than once, but Julian knew it was more than that. This
was the real thing. If only he could get her to notice
him... and if only he could manage to not say
something stupid.
    Leaning on the back of Dax's chair, he moved his
head down until he caught a faint whiff of scent from
her hair, a subtle perfume mingling what smelled like
Andorian wildflowers and flowering plankton from
Cilas XII. Beautiful, like she was, he thought. He
breathed more deeply.
    Kira brought the runabout around and accelerated
again. Julian toppled forward and barely caught him-
self in time to keep from hitting the back of Dax's
head. Accidentally insulting her was bad enough, he
thought. He didn't need to fall on her when she wasn't
looking.
    He shot a quick glance at Kira, but she seemed
completely occupied at the controls. Julian frowned.
She appeared a little too occupied, he decided. She
should have at least taken a quick glance when he
almost fell; she must have caught his sudden wild
movement from the comer of her eye.
    Julian felt the engines' vibrations deepen through
the deck underfoot. Glancing at the monitor, he
watched the runabout speeding forward. He couldn't
tell if the course change had been necessary. If he
didn't know better, though, he would have said Kira
made the ship lurch forward on purpose... or was he
being too paranoid?
    Then the truth hit him and he had a hard time
keeping from laughing. Kira was jealous of Dax! Why
hadn't he seen it before? Clearly she didn't want him
leaning on the back of her seat because she couldn't
concentrate with him so near. Women had told him he
was handsome before--indeed, he'd been something
of a ladies' man at the Academy--but he'd had no
idea he could so thoroughly penetrate even Kira's
mask of icy professionalism. After the mission was
over, he'd have to find a way to let her down gently.
Much as he admired her command talents, Kira
wasn't exactly his idea of a perfect date.
    "Where are we now?" he asked. It would be best to
try to keep Kira's mind on the work at hand.
    "On the last known course the Cardassian raider
took," Dax replied instead. "We're at half impulse
power. I'm running a sensor sweep for subspace
distortion."
    A small light began to flash across Kira's monitor.
Julian found himself leaning forward to see, and when
Kira shot him a glance, he gave her what he consid-
ered his most reassuring bedside smile. Don't break
her heart now, he thought. Let it wait till the end of the
mission. That's the professional thing to do.
    "I have it," Dax said, pointing at what looked to
Julian like a smear of pale gray on her monitor. "This
pattern has to be bled from a warp coil generator.
Major?"
 "It's very diffuse," Kira said slowly.
    "The wormhole might account for it," Julian ven-
tured, though he didn't feel at all sure of himself. This
stuff was way out of his league.
    "No," Dax said, "there's definitely something there.
Let me try a few computer enhancements .... "
    Julian watched as the three-dimensional represen-
tation of space around the runabout blanked on
Dax's monitor, then redrew several times in what he
found a dizzyingly quick succession. Each enhance-
ment showed more detail in the diffused ion cloud.
    "Allowing for normal drift and distortion from
the wormhole," Dax said, "let's run a backward
simulation .... "
    After another dizzying sequence of images, the
diffuse spray of ions suddenly drew together into what
Julian recognized as a distinct trail of ionized parti-
cles. Dax had been right, he saw now. There couldn't
be any mistaking it. A starship had been through here,
and not that long ago.
  "Bingo," Dax said.
  "What?" Kira demanded.
    "An old Earth expression," Julian said, a little
proud that he had recognized such an archaic word.
Forsooth, his classic Earth poetry classes were paying
off at last. "It means we've found it."
    "I can see that!" Kira snapped. "Strap yourself in,
Doctor. We're going to warp speed in ten seconds."
  Ten seconds?Julian thought. Turning, he darted into
the rear of the runabout. The five members of the
security team hadn't yet ventured from their seats. He
scanned their faces and noticed looks ranging from
amusement to fascination. They must have been
listening to every word they said up front, he realized-
. . . and watching his every move. He swallowed. I
hope they didn't see me smelling Dax2 hair. Then he
gave a mental shrug. Well, he thought, this was my day
for putting my foot in it. Hopefully there wouldn't be
too many hot rumors surrounding Dax and him when
they got back home.
    He dropped into his seat and buckled himself in. He
knew they were in a hurry, but ten seconds was cutting
it awfully close for comfort.
    He watched as the stars on the forward monitor
over Dax's head turned to streaks; then suddenly they
were moving faster than light. He started to unbuckle
himself, but Kira called, "Better stay seated back
there, guys. We may have a few more sudden course
shifts coming up."
    "Right," Julian muttered unhappily. He looked
back and found the five members of the security team
all watching him. Ensigns Aponte and Wilkens defi-
nitely seemed to be smirking. He had to find some-
thing to occupy them or they'd all end up grinning
behind his back through the entire mission.
    "Well," he said slowly, his thoughts racing to find
something to do. "I looks like we're stuck back here
for a while. Anybody bring a deck of cards?"

    Kira risked a quick glance over her shoulder, found
Bashir talking animatedly to the five ensigns, and
chuckled softly to herself. They were undoubtedly the
largest audience the doctor had had for quite a while.
They should keep him busy for the time being, she
thought. At least until he ran out of those boring
Starfleet Academy stories of his.
    "Don't you think that was a little cruel?" Dax said
in a low voice. "He could have come back up here."
     "Cruel, but entirely justifiable," Kira replied. "The
way he was smelling your hair made my skin crawl."
  "He smelled yours first."
    Kira found herself speechless. The thought of that
--that--that pedantic fovian worm smelling her hair
--it made her sick to her stomach. She'd have to find
a way to tell him, in no uncertain terms, to stay well
away from her when they got back after this mission.
     "The ship made a turn," Dax announced. "Coming
up. Log course change in five seconds." "I see it," Kira said.
    "They must have thought the wormhole would hide
their new course," Dax went on. "Our new destina-
tion is... the Davon system? Computer confirms.
The Davon system. Estimated time of arrival: twenty-
two hours."
    "The Davon system," Kira mused. There weren't
any Cardassian mining camps there. Or none that she
knew about, anyway.
  "I don't think I'm familiar with it," Dax said.
    "I am," Kira said. "It has a total of six planets, four
gas giants and two sun-scorched rocks in tight orbits
around the sun. It was disputed territory until twenty-
two years ago, when Starfleet ceded it to the Cardas-
sians in a border treaty."
    "I think I did hear something about that," Dax said.
"There weren't any desirable planets, so it was easier
to give it up than make a fuss over it."
  "Just like Bajor," Kira said. She tried to keep the
bitterness from her voice and knew she didn't quite
succeed. "Just like Bajor."

    Ttan heard it as much as felt it when a series of jolts
shook the Dagger. She began to struggle again, trying
to get free, but the tractor beam seemed to work
against her every movement, pinning her in midair.
She would have given anything to be free just about
then. She had to find her eggs.
    The jolts stopped as suddenly as they'd begun. Ttan
strained to hear, but no new sounds reached her. The
hold remained as eerily silent as a mined-out pocket
of duranium ore. Will I never be .free? she mentally
cried out. Will I never see my children hatch? She
began to despair.
    What seemed hours later--she had lost all sense of
time and had no idea how long it had actually
been--a new series of jolts ran through the Dagger.
This time the far wall began to fold down into a ramp,
admitting a flood of brilliant white light.
    Ttan was still spinning very slowly. As she came
around to face the ramp, she peered into the bright-
ness. Several dozen figures moved out there. As she
watched, half a dozen humanoids sprinted into the
hold and took equidistant positions around her. They
all held massive energy weapons of some kind, which
they pointed at her body.
    "What do you want?" she demanded. "Where are
my children?" The Universal Translator repeated her
message. None of the humanoids replied.
    As she continued to spin, Ttan studied their faces.
She wasn't certain, but though they dressed in black
like Gul Mavek and had the same corded necks, she
didn't think any of them were him. If she'd be~n free,
she would have gladly melted him alive for what he'd
done to her.
    "What do you want?" she demanded again. "Tell
me! Tell me/"
    "Ttan," she heard Gul Mavek say, "I am the only
one who can help you." He climbed the ramp and
stood looking at her, his hands on his hips. "You are
my guest. You will follow all instructions with preci-
sion and care. Do you understand?"
    She shot a stream of acid at him. He leaped
backward in time to avoid it, and the acid began to
smoke and hiss as it ate away the metal plating.
    A whining noise filled the air, and a dull, unpleasant
itch hit Ttan from all sides at once. The humanoids
were shooting their weapons at her, Ttan realized.
  "Stop, stop!" Gul Mavek cried. "Cease fire!"
    The phaser rifles grew silent. Ttan continued to spin
in midair, a little faster now, facing first the back of
the hold, then the side, then the front ramp again. If
the weapons had done any serious damage, she didn't
feel it yet. Luckily her people were resistant to phaser
fire.
    She watched Gul Mavek's head twitch and his
hands clench into fists, signs she knew represented
great anger or frustration. However, the humanoid's
voice remained a calm, studied neutral when he spoke
again.
    "Ttan," he said, "that was a mistake. I am your only
friend here."
  "You are not a friend? she cried.
    "I am," he said. "I am the only one who will talk
with you as an equal. I am the only one who can
release you from the tractor beam. And I am the only
one who can let you see your children."
  "My eggsw" Ttan said.
    "Yes, your eggs. They, too, are on board my ship,
Ttan. We haven't counted them yet, but we have them
all. All of the unbroken ones, anyway."
    "What?" Ttan shrieked, her insides suddenly twist-
ing up with fear. "My eggsw" She began to struggle
frantically against the tractor beam. "My eggs--"
    "There were plenty of eggs left," Gul Mavek said. "I
don't believe we counted all the whole ones. I can find
out how many are still intact, if you want. How many
were there supposed to be?"
    "Twenty," Ttan sobbed. She went limp. "Twenty
beautiful children. Oh, my poor, poor young ones--"
    "Wait," Gul Mavek said. "I will be back with the
exact count." He turned and strolled down the ramp
at a leisurely pace, as though he had all the time in the
world.
    Spinning, Ttan felt a confused jumble of anger,
hurt, and despair. Her cilia quivered. She felt numb in
all of her extremities. How many dead? she wondered.
How many still alive?
    How could they have allowed harm to come to her
eggs? How could they let her children perish so
casually, so callously? When humans first came to
Janus VI, thousands had been destroyed, but that had
been an accident. The Federation hadn't realized the
silicon nodules were eggs. As soon as they found out,
they had moved to protect the young Hortas, to help
the Prime Mother feed and care for them. And in
return the Hortas had helped the Federation. It was
unthinkable that a sentient being could let harm come
to children... any children.
    Ttan twitched when Gul Mavek appeared at the
head of the ramp again. He folded his arms behind his
back and watched her silently.
 "Yes?" Ttan cried. "Yes?"
 "Your eggs..."
 "Tell mew
    "I had them removed from the ship for safekeeping.
It seems that nineteen of the twenty are still intact--"
    Ttan felt a keen pang of hurt at the one loss, but
then relief flooded through her when she realized how
many more were still alive and whole. It almost
caused her to miss Gul Mavek's next words.
  "~for the moment," he finished.
    "What do you mean?" Ttan demanded. "If you
harm my children--"
    "You are in no position to make threats," Gul
Mavek said. "If you threaten me or any of my men
again, I will have another egg destroyed."
Ttan all but gasped in horror. "You can't~"
"And," Gul Mavek continued, "after that I will
have another destroyed, and another, and another,
until they are all dead. Every last one of them, Ttan.
Unless..."
"Unless?" Ttan said, a small hope rising within her.
"Unless you cooperate," he said. "If you perform
one small task for me today--one small, almost
insignificant task--I will let you see your eggs for a
few moments this evening."
    Despairing, Ttan could only say, "Anything you
ask, I will do."

    Aboard the Amazon, Julian Bashir tried to concen-
trate on the mess that his tricorder had become. It
hates me, he thought, though he knew that was
irrational. Machines didn't hate anybody. Only this
one certainly seemed to have it in for him. He'd spent
twenty minutes taking it apart and now, an hour and a
half later, it wasn't any closer to being fixed.
     His vision began to blur, and he rubbed his eyes
 with the back of his hand. What he wouldn't have
 given to have ChiefO'Brien's skills right now. He took
 a sip of replicated coffee and grimaced at the bitter
 taste.
     Enough stalling. He forced himself to concentrate
 on the tiny computer screen set into the wall. A trickle
 of sweat ran down this back, and suddenly he began to
 get a neck ache. He knew it was from staring up at the
 monitor too much. The colorful schematic of the
 tricorder's inner mechanism the monitor displayed
 started to blur again.
    "Blast," he said, and slammed down his electron
probe. This wasn't the simple recalibration he had
expected. "Blast it all!" He rubbed his eyes again. It
didn't look like he'd ever get the tricorder working
again.
    He glanced a little wistfully over his shoulder at the
other pull-out table, where the five ensigns were busily
playing poker with cards and chips the onboard
replicator had made. Not that he gambled much; he
simply hadn't realized how little there was to actually
do aboard the Amazon until now. With a little over
warp four as the runabout's greatest speed and anoth-
er sixteen hours of travel still ahead, he would have
welcomed a decent science library, a holedeck, or
even a visit to Quark's infamous holesuites to pass the
time. Without them, poker would have to do.
    He watched as Ensign Aponte dropped three blue
chips into the pot. Everyone else folded, and Aponte
raked in her win with a gleeful laugh.
    Julian hated that sound. He'd lost steadily through
the hour he'd played, and Aponte's laugh had started
to get to him. On impulse, he'd decided to take a
break from the game, have a snack, and try his hand at
recalibrating his tricorder to pick up silicon life-
forms. He'd thought it might change his luck.
    Instead, things had rapidly gotten worse. He turned
back to his pull-out table and stared helplessly down
at the circuits in front of him.
    Bad as they were, what remained of his snack--half
of a replicated ham sandwich and a rapidly chilling
cup of the worst replicated coffee he'd ever hadm
looked more inviting than the tricorder, so he stalled
by taking a couple of bites and sips. It shouM be easy,
he told himself. You're a surgeon. You fix biological
machines every day. How can one tricorder be so hard?
    Finally he couldn't put it off any longer. He set his
sandwich down, selected a probe, and tried to push a
primary connector back in place. Instead, he touched
a scanner trip circuit by mistake. Blue sparks hissed
and spat into the air, and he jerked his hand back to
avoid being burned.  "Blast!" he said.
    "Having a problem, Julian?" Dax asked. Julian
jumped. He'd been so wrapped up in the tricorder
problem, he hadn't seen her wander back into the
passenger section. He had to get his act together, he
thought, or she'd never respect him.
    "A problem, urn, yes," he said, then winced inward-
ly at how pathetic that sounded. "I was trying to
recalibrate my tricorder to pick up silicon-based life-
forms. The changes I need to make are all listed in the
 manual, but somehow I've got them all muddled."
   "So that's what you call it."
     Julian felt himself growing flustered. Somehow, that
 seemed to happen rather frequently when he was
 around Jadzia Dax.
  "I can do yours next, if you want," he offered.
  "I'm afraid mine is already done," Dax said. She
 unclipped it from her belt and set it on the table. "I
 cleaned and recalibrated it two hours ago; then I did
 Kira's."
    "Then do you think you might--" He gestured
helplessly at the tangled mess of wires and data chips
before him. He didn't have the nerve to meet her gaze.
    Dax laughed lightly. "Of course I'll help put it back
together." She slid into the seat opposite him, took the
probe gently from his hand--her touch was cool as
silk and sent a shiver down his spine--and began
snapping pieces of the tricorder together. "It will give
me something to do for the next few minutes."
  "Are you bored, too, then?"
  "A little."
    Julian felt some of his confidence return. "Would
you care to join the poker game with me? I'd be glad to
give you some pointers, if you've never played be-
fore."
    "Actually, one of my previous hosts was a mathe-
matician and an inveterate gambler. He enjoyed play-
ing the odds so much, I'm afraid that--with very few
exceptions--I've grown tired of all games of mathe-
matical probability. Except for Ferengi, it's hard to
find real competition. There's something not quite
fair, I feel, about always being the winner. It puts a
strain on relationships."
    "Ah," Julian said, biting his lip. He'd walked right
into it again. "That's very thoughtful of you, Jadzia."
    He watched her smooth, feminine hands fit piece
after piece of the tricorder together. Every now and
then she made a small adjustment with the probe.
Almost before he could blink, the tricorder was back
together.
 "That's it?" he asked, amazed.
"That's it," Dax said. "You might want to try it out,
of course, to make sure."
    He flipped it open and saw the display panel come
to life. The readout now matched the manual's--right
down to the split screen for carbon-based and silicon-
based life-forms. It worked perfectly. He met her gaze.
"Thank you," he said, sincerely meaning it.
    Dax rose. "Any time, Julian." She paused. "I'm
going to get some sleep. I strongly suggest you do the
same."
    "Yes," he said. "Right away. I just want a few more
hands of cards first." Only sixteen hours, he thought,
and we're there. He wondered if he was going to make
it.

    As Ttan moved down the ramp from the Dagger,
she felt strangely giddy, as though she weighed next to
nothing. They were in some kind of underground
chamber, with crude stone walls far to either side and
a smooth stone floor beneath her. Light came from
brilliant glowing panels set overhead, to either side of
what looked like a glowing forcefield of some kind.
Through the forcefield she could see distant stars.
    She gave an experimental hop, pushing off the floor
with her cilia, and to her surprise soared several
meters forward, almost striking Gul Mavek's back.
The guards bellowed warnings to their leader, snap-
ping up their weapons. Ttan paused, hardly daring to
move. She had noticed that they had increased the
power settings on their weapons.
    Gul Mavek, though, merely paused and regarded
her with a strangely serene expression. "The gravity
here is roughly a third of what you are used to," he
told her. "You will adapt quickly, as have we all." He
 turned his back and led the way down the ramp to a
 stone floor.
     As oddly light as Ttan felt, it was good to have a
 planet around her. Already she tasted traces of ferrous
 oxide, calcium, and other minerals through her cilia.
 If not for her eggs, she would have burrowed deep into
 the rock underfoot in seconds. Not even the phasers
 could have stopped her.
     As long as Gul Mavek held her eggs, though, she
 knew she would do whatever he asked. Nineteen
 children still alive, she thought. Nineteen chances for
 immortality. I must not fail them.
    They crossed an underground docking bay to a large
cargo lift--little more than a rhodinium box with
antigrav units underneath it.
    Gul Mavek boarded first, then Ttan, then the
guards. After one guard rolled a gate across the front
of the lift, they started down.
    Through the gate Ttan watched as they descended
past level after level. The first ten looked identical:
square and white, with doors opening to either side. A
few humanoids in uniforms that matched the guards'
moved through them on errands. The eleventh
through twentieth hadn't been finished, with walls
and floors of a gray-green stone that glistened as
though wet. Ttan knew that look: these tunnels had
been carved out with heavy-duty phasers.
      At the twentieth level the lift came to a halt and the
gate opened. Gul Mavek stepped out.  "This way," he said.
    Ttan emerged more slowly. Here, this far under-
ground, she felt at ease for the first time since she'd
left Janus VI. The rock walls around her, the comfort-
ing closeness, the cool touch of stone--she had come
home.
    Gul Mavek turned left without a second's hesita-
tion. Ttan followed, and the guards brought up the
rear. They traveled in silence for several minutes
before Ttan began to feel vibrations in the stone under
her. She wasn't certain, but it felt like it came from
heavy machinery somewhere ahead.
    At last they rounded a corner and entered another
large cavern. Some kind of large mining and smelting
operation was under way here. On the far side of the
cavern, a seemingly endless line of dust-covered cargo
bins easily ten meters long and five meters wide
floated in on antigray lifts, dumped tons of gravel into
a pile, then floated back out. Huge robot-driven
bulldozers shoveled the gravel onto a conveyor belt,
which carried it into an immense box that radiated
heat in waves--probably a smelting furnace, Ttan
thought. She'd never seen one quite like this before,
but she knew the general principle. Inside, the gravel
was reduced to its composite minerals, then put back
together into ingots of pure latinurn or rhodinium or
carbonire or whatever else it had been programmed
for. She couldn't see where the ingots came out of this
one, though.
     "As you may have already guessed," Gul Mavek
 said, "Davonia is a working moon. We have found
 traces of latinum on this level. I want you to find the
 main deposit for us."
     Moon? Ttan wondered. Where in the Great Plan
 had they brought her?
     "As you command," she said through the transla-
 tor.
     "And Ttan--you have twenty minutes to find it and
 report back. Either that or you won't see your children
 again tonight."
  "But--" she began.
    "Nineteen minutes and fifty seconds," Gul Mavek
said.
    Ttan whirled and hit the rock wall. It melted before
her, surrounding her, filling her body with the deli-
cious tastes of iron, nickel, and three billion years of
water seepage and geologic stability. Latinum,
latinurn, she thought, searching frantically for the
right taste. She had to see her eggs, had to know her
children were safe. Where is the latinurn--

CHAPTER
      6

As USUAL, Quark was claiming to be the injured party.
Odo didn't believe it for a seconO.
    The security chief sat in Quark's bar, his table
conspicuously free of drinks or refreshments, while
Quark himself paced and scurried around him, wav-
ing his hands in the air and putting on a fine display of
Ferengi indignation. "I don't believe this!" he barked,
spraying saliva past his rodenttike teeth. Quark wore a
lime-green jacket over a garish, multicolored blouse
that looked like it had been decorated by a mob of
hyperactive, crayon-wielding two-year-olds. "I come
to you as a law-abiding citizen, a community leader,
victimized by crime, and you won't even lift one
gelatinous finger to do your duty! It's an outrage, a
scandal. Just what do you think your job is anyway?"
    "To keep an eye on you," Odo answered, gazing
impassively over the bar. He declined to look in
Quark's direction. The more agitated Quark became,
the less interested Odo seemed.
  The bar grew more crowded as lunchtime ap-
proached. Odo spotted an unusual number of strang-
ers amid the regular customers. A large family of
Tetlarites stuffed their porcine faces on Quark's over-
priced buffet. The eldest Tellarite, typically near-
sighted, squinted at a plate of Vegan truffles before
snorting his approval and tipping the entire plate
above his waiting mouth. At another table, a pair of
hairless Deltan women glibly fended off the attentions
of over a dozen Argelian men. A small party of
Betazoids sat at the bar, carrying on a silent telepathic
conversation, much to the annoyance of Morn, the
hefty alien who usually occupied one or more of those
seats. Scanning the room, Odo also spotted Klingons,
Caitians, Tiburons, P'alblaakis, and many other new
arrivals, all presumably drawn to DS9 by the immi-
nent flyby of The Prodigal. Odo allowed himself a
moment of nostalgia for the bad old days of the
Occupation; the Cardassians might have been tyran-
nical butchers, but at least they never turned the
station into a tourist trap.
    You'd think, he thought, Quark's greedy little heart
would be filled with glee at this boom in business.
Instead, the Ferengi kept on ranting about some
alleged inconvenience.
    "Contrary to your deranged opinion," Quark de-
clared, "I do not steal from myself."
"You would if you could," Odo snorted in disgust.
Quark ignored the gibe. "In the last two hours, three
plates, five mugs, and one entire chair have disap-
peared from the premises. Do you think they simply
evaporated?"
    "I believe the Ferengi still practice an archaic scam
known as 'insurance.' Are you insured, Quark?"
    "Look," Quark said, lowering his voice. "You and I
both know that if I were after insurance money, I'd
lose more than a few plates. This is petty theft, and
not worth my effort."
    True enough, Odo thought. Although he hated to
admit it, Quark had a point. "I suppose," he said
slowly, making eye contact with Quark for the first
time this encounter, "there's no reason why a major
criminal cannot be afflicted by a minor one."
    "Exactly!" Quark crowed. "Hypothetically speak-
ing, of course. You'll find the thief, then?"
    "Actually," Odo said. "I'm wishing that this robber
were more ambitious. It would appeal to my sense of
justice."
    The Ferengi started to protest, but was interrupted
by the beep of Odo's comm badge. Rising to answer
the call, Odo immediately recognized the urgent tone
in Sisko's voice and turned his back on Quark so he
could listen to Sisko in privacy; then he realized that
Quark's enormous, eavesdropping ears were still too
close for comfort. Very well...
    Odo's bottom half, from his waist to his feet,
dissolved into a translucent orange goo that flowed
upward, forming a soundproof cone over Odo's head
and upper torso. Glancing over his shoulder, through
the glassy sheen of the cone, he saw Quark chewing his
bottom lip in frustration. Odo permitted himself a
thin smile, but his expression turned grim as Sisko
quickly informed him about Ttan's abduction. An
unfortunate matter, he concluded, that could pose a
threat to the station's security should the raiders
return for the other Hortas.
     "Understood," he signed off. Regaining humanoid
 form, he rose from his seat and strode out into the
 Promenade. He had to organize his security team,
 prepare them for the possibility of an imminent
 Cardassian assault. This would have to happen, he
groused, when the population of the Promenade was
already swollen beyond reason. Quark hollered at him
from the doorway of his bar: "Wait! What about my
plates?"
    "Look after them yourself," Odo said brusquely. "I
have more important things to do."

    "I have another chair," Nog whispered. Beneath his
protruding brow, Nog's eyes darted furtively about
the storeroom as he wrestled the chair past stacks of
(mostly contraband) supplies. Crouching on the floor,
his knees resting on the scorched metal grillework,
Jake watched his friend approach.
    "I don't think chairs are going to cut it much
longer," he said glumly. Quark's broken freezer had
been absorbed by the Horta in a matter of minutes.
"We're going to need tables next."
    In fact, all that was left of the first chair was one
shining blue leg that was even now dissolving beneath
the Horta's tendrils. The stolen alien was growing at
an alarming rate, and so was its appetite. Twice as
large as before, it no longer looked so raw and
newborn. A layer of dark, stony armor had formed
over its crimson hide, spreading outward from the
mineral flecks it had been born with. Only veins and
fissures in the armor revealed the redness underneath,
like rivers of molten lava breaking up through faults in
a planet's surface.
    "Tables!" Nog exclaimed. "How am I supposed to
sneak tables out of the bar? My uncle is already
looking suspicious. If he wasn't so busy with all those
moon watchers, he'd be onto us for sure!" He handed
the new chair over to Jake, who shoved it toward the
voracious Horta. He was careful not to get his hands
too close; so far, the little monster seemed more
interested in metal than flesh, but Jake didn't feel like
taking chances. His palm still stung where the egg had
burned him.
    "Nog, I think maybe it's time to tell my dad about
this."
    "No!" Nog said. "My uncle will kill me. Besides,
it's ours. We borrowed it fair and square." Feigning
confidence, and failing miserably, he tried to reassure
Jake. "Look, as long as we keep feeding it, it's not
going anywhere. You stay here and I'll... I'll go find
a buyer right away."
    "Hey, wait a sec!" Jake complained, as Nog backed
away, then turned and ran out of sight. No way is he
sticking me with this, Jake thought, leaping to his feet
and chasing after his friend. The Horta had another
chair to eat. That would keep it busy for a while, he
told himself. Or so he hoped.

    Suddenly, the food stopped coming. The Horta
finished off another sumptuous scrap of chair and
waited for something new to eat. But nothing ap-
peared, and even the carbon-smelling creatures who
had been caring for her disappeared abruptly.
    She let out a grinding cry, but received no response.
She was alone and hungry. The chairs and cups and
other morsels, while delicious, had not satisfied her
hunger. She felt, on the very fringes of her senses,
something else, a promise of food and fulfillment that
was exactly what she craved. And it was nearby.
    Snuffiing along the storeroom floor, she came at last
to a solid rhodinium wall and proceeded to burn a
path straight through it. The lights in the storeroom
winked on and off as severed circuits were replaced by
backup systems.
  The Horta left a steaming tunnel behind her as she
left the storeroom for unknown territory. The food
she wanted called to her. If only she could find it.
 Maybe this way...

    Clad only in a diaphanous white gown that barely
veiled the tantalizing feminine body underneath, the
Vulcan priestess slipped quietly into the young
crewman's quarters. Ensign Marc Tomson sat upright
in his bunk, his heart pounding, as the beautiful
Vulcan drew nearer. Only the small reading light over
his head illuminated the room, penetrating the filmy
gauze stretched tautly over the woman's breasts. Marc
shifted uncomfortably upon his bunk, naked beneath
a single thin sheet.
    "T'Leena?" he asked breathlessly. "Why are you
doing here... I mean, what are you coming..."
    Damn, he thought. I sound like an idiot. "Comput-
er, freeze program."
    Her arms outstretched toward him, her lips glisten-
ing moistly, the figure of T'Leena suddenly became as
motionless as a marble statue. Not breathing, not
blinking, she froze in place as though trapped in a
single instant of time. Marc took a deep breath and
wiped the sweat from his forehead.
    Oh well, he consoled himself. The great thing about
holosuites was you could keep rerunning a fantasy
until you got it right. And he had been fine-tuning this
particular scenario ever since his last term of duty on
Vulcan, several months back. All those irresistible,
unapproachable Vulcan women... ! Still, DS9 had
its attractions as well, including Quark's holosuites.
    Anxious to begin again, he leaned back on the bunk
and rested his head on the pillow. "Computer, resume
program from beginning."
 T'Leena disappeared, then rematerialized at the
entrance of his quarters. The door slid silently shut
behind her, leaving them alone together. She crept
through the shadows toward him, into the revealing
glare of the reading light.
    Marc swallowed and cleared his throat. "T'Leena,"
he tried again. "What are you doing here?" (That's
better, he decided. His voice sounded deeper, more
confident.)
    "! do not know. I do not understand." She knelt
beside the bunk and placed a warm palm upon Marc's
cheek. Her hair, blacker than space and more lustrous,
fell about her bare shoulders. "It is not logical. It is
not Vulcan."
 "But..." Marc prompted her.
    "You make my cool green blood burn like a stream
of fiery emeralds, Marc Tomson. My time is years
away, but when I look on you I feel the passion of the
pon farr." With total Vulcan honesty, she stared at
him, puzzled but unashamed by her strange desires.
God, she was gorgeous, Marc thought. Even though he
had carefully scripted all her dialogue, he was still
overwhelmed by the experience of hearing it from her
own lips.
    "Wha... what do you want from me?" (Take it
easy, he thought. Don't rush things. We're almost
there.)
    T'Leena rose to her feet and reached behind her
neck to untie the straps of her robe. The sheer,
translucent fabric fell away from her body, drifting
with agonizing slowness to the floor. "I want to meM
with you, Marc Tomson. I want to explore infinite
pleasures in infinite combinations. I want to teach you
the ancient secrets of Vulcan love .... "
    "Yes!" Marc blurted. He couldn't stand it anymore.
Sweat streamed down his back. The bunk itself
seemed to be growing hotter by the second. He
grabbed the hem of his blanket and tossed it aside,
exposing...
    A steaming, wriggling mass of brown-and-red rock
burning its way up through the mattress and between
his legs.
    Marc screamed in panic. He half-jumped, half-
tumbled out of the bunk, colliding with T'Leena.
They fell in a jumble of naked limbs onto the hard tile
floor. Forced to improvise, the holographic Vulcan
tried to embrace Marc while continuing her prepro-
grammed declaration of love.
    "... Every seven years is not enough, not for
you ....
    Marc barely heard her. All fantasies and fervor had
been driven out of his head by the sudden, shocking
appearance of the thing in the bed, replaced by an
instinctive urge to escape. Ohmigod, he thought. I'm
completely defenseless. His uniform and communica-
tor lay in a heap on the other side of the floor. His
phaser was back in his real quarters; Constable Odo
didn't allow weapons on the Promenade.
    Frantically, he tried to disengage himself from the
amorous Vulcan priestess. Acidic fumes seared his
nostrils, and he struggled to look over his shoulder to
see what the alien creature was doing, but T'Leena's
teeth held on to his ear. An awkward thunk behind
him suggested that the thing had dropped off the bunk
onto the floor. Maybe it was oozing toward him this
very minute.
    "Computer," he shouted, "end program!" He bare-
ly got the words out before T'Leena thrust her tongue
into his mouth.
    Tongue, T'Leena, and darkened room vanished
instantly, and Marc found himself sprawled on the
floor of the holosuite. Blinking against the sudden,
brighter lighting, he heard a heavy, thrashing sound
nearby. He sprang to his feet and scrambled away
from the sound. Only when he was at least a yard away
did he turn around and look toward the empty space
where the simulated bunk had existed heartbeats ago.
    His fantasy might have dematerialized, but the
monster remained. Tentatively, like a puppy learning
to walk, it zigzagged across the floor, leaving a trail of
charred and sizzling tile behind it. A high-pitched
screeching, like plates of rusty metal being scraped
against each other, emerged from the creature, hurt-
ing Marc's ears. The creature's hunger, and corrosive
nature, were all too obvious.
    He glanced quickly in the direction of his clothing,
wondering if maybe he could make a run for them.
Then the alien, perhaps agitated by the sudden change
in the holosuite's appearance, lurched toward the only
remaining object in the room: Marc.
    The young ensign raced out of the suite as fast as his
feet would carry him. Oh god, he thought, how am I
ever going to explain this to the Commander?

    Shrieks and laughter broke out in the lounge. Be-
hind the bar, Quark looked up in time to see a human
male, quite naked, stumble down the stairs from
Quark's upper floors. Blushing redder than an
Dumesite man-lobster, the human navigated through
the bar and ran out into the Promenade. Despite the
young male's haste, Quark recognized him as the
ensign who had rented Holosuite #5.
    Humans! Quark shook his head. Sometimes he
thought he'd never figure out the sexual customs of
Homo sapiens. No Ferengi would ever flee from a
holosuite unless in pursuit of something more profit-
able. Still, this incident only confirmed his faith in one
of the oldest and most sacred of the Rules of Acquisi-
tion:
 Always get payment in advance.

    The baby Horta was quite confused. This chamber
had appeared very interesting at first. There had been
more of the carbon beings, like the two smaller ones
who had first fed her, as well as solid structures that
looked and smelled as if they were real. But then the
snacks disappeared and so did the creature who
smelled like copper. And the other carbon person, the
one that secreted sodium chloride in an aqueous
solution, had run away, just like her feeders.
    The Horta howled in frustration and hunger. Where
was Mother? Where was the food she craved?
    Despite her cries, she felt no trace of her mother's
presence. She could sense the food, however, sorne-
where in this strange, unsettling world she had awak-
ened into. Below, she realized; it was still farther
below.
    Sinking into the floor, she left the empty holosuite
behind.

CHAPTER
      7

Jadzia Dax made a point of being awake and at the
conn when the Amazon entered the Davon system. If
they came across any other vessels, she would be at the
controls. She could still hear Benjamin warning her to
keep things from getting any more complicated than
they had to be--and she had no intention of letting
him down.
    She felt the thrum of the engines change as she
brought the ship out of warp at the very edge of the
system. Hopefully they were beyond the range of any
sensors the Cardassians had set up. She put a receiver
to her ear to scan privately for subspace radio trans-
missions, but instead of the usual whir and crackle of
static and the mumble of distant voices, she heard a
loud hiss... a hiss that grew louder by the second.
When it became painful, she yanked the receiver from
her ear, wincing. It had to be a Van Luden radiation
belt. Nothing else made that sort of sound.
    "You should have awakened me," Kira asked, drop-
ping into the seat beside her. "What's our status?"
    "There's a Van Luden radiation belt nearby," she
said. An uncomfortable ringing tone sounded in the
back of her head.
    "Where? I don't see..." Kira began, bending over
the sensors. "Got it! Fifty thousand klicks ahead and
closing."
    "That's precisely the cover we need," Dax said. "If
we can't hear them, they can't hear us... including
the noise from our warp coils."
    Against her better judgment, she had to let Kira
take control of the ship. The ringing sound had begun
to throw off her sense of balance. There was no sense
in jeopardizing everyone if her ability to pilot the
runabout was impaired. She shook her head slowly,
trying to clear the sound away. If it didn't stop soon,
she'd have to call Julian.
    "That's fine as long as we're out here," Kira said.
"But it doesn't help us find that Horta. See if you can
spot any Cardassian ships."
    "I told you," Dax said, "there's too much white
noise from the radiation belt." Wasn't Kira listening
to her? "We're going to have to get farther away from
it if we're going to pick anything up." She shook her
head again. Finally the ringing sound began to fade.
    "I didn't mean for you to take a sensor scan, I
meant for you to physically go look using your eyes."
    "What?" The idea sounded crazy, but Kira didn't
look like she was kidding. For a second Dax wondered
if the static had affected her hearing. "You want me to
go and look out the ports?"
    "That's right," Kira said. "Eyeball space around us.
You Federation types are too used to technology.
What would you do if the sensors were down? So you
don't see more than a few thousand kticks in any
direction. Sometimes that's all you need."
    Dax found herself nodding. It could work. "A very
insightful, if primitive, answer. I'll see what I can
spot."
    Rising, she headed astern. At each viewport on the
starboard side she paused and gazed out for a few
seconds, studying the darkness of the void around
them. Slowly her hearing returned to normal, and she
relaxed a bit. That was one less thing for her to worry
about.
    The Van Luden radiation belt hung tantalizingly
near, a shimmering yellow veil of light across the
horizon that she found curiously appealing. There
wasn't anything quite so beautiful as the wonders of
deep space, she thought. Perhaps that's what had
drawn her to the sciences--and ultimately to the
fringe of the known universe.
    As she continued around the runabout, she passed
the spot where the card table had been folded into the
wall for the night. Julian and the others had sacked
out on the floor, on sleeping pads taken from ship's
stores. Gingerly, she stepped around them. Julian, she
thought, looked positively charming in his sleep, with
his perpetually furrowed brow now smooth and re-
laxed. She smiled almost maternally at him. He was
such an endearing child in so many ways.
    She hadn't spotted anything when she reached the
rearmost viewport, so she started back along the port
side, repeating the process. Once more the Van Luden
radiation belt stretched seemingly to infinity ahead of
her, drawing her eye like a moth to its flame. She
found a curious hollow feeling in her chest looking at
it, and she knew when she got back to DS9 that she'd
have to look up whatever studies Starfleet had done on
it during the time this system had been in Federation
space.
    Two viewports from the front of the ship, a subtle
movement caught her eye. She squinted, straining to
see. Yes, there it was... a small black circle moving
across the glow of the radiation belt.
    "Kira," she said. "There's something coming slowly
at us from port side."
  "Where?" Kira demanded.
    Putting the radiation belt from her thoughts, Dax
hurried back to her seat. She leaned forward, located
the speck on her monitor, and pointed. "There. See
it?"
    "I'm bringing us closer," Kira said. "Moving to an
intercept course."
    Dax felt a faint tremor run through the runabout's
deck plates as the Amazon came about. She leaned
forward, watching closely as the black shape grew
from the size of a pinhead to the size of a dinner plate
to the size of a small ship--
    No, not a ship, she decided with relief. "It's an
asteroid," she said. "The radiation belt isn't as clean
as you thought, Kira."
 "Hang on!" Kira said.
    "What are you doing?" Dax demanded. They were
still on a collision course with the asteroid, she
realized.
"One second more..." Kira whispered.
"Decelerate! Kira!" Dax cried, her alarm growing.
"Pull up--you're going to hit it!" The crater-scarred
surface of the asteroid now loomed like an immense
pockmarked wall ahead of her, filling the wide view-
screen.
    "Relax, I know what I'm doing," Kira said. She
fired docking thrusters at the last possible moment.
"I've done this a thousand times."
    Dax braced herself for collision. Kira was certifi-
ably insane. Dax knew it now. Nobody flew on
manual this close to an asteroid.
    Kira fired the thrusters once more, easing them to a
crawl. Finally, with a jarring bump, the runabout's
nose touched the asteroid's surface. Slowly Kira ap-
plied the thrusters again.
    "You're going to push it," Dax said in awe. She'd
never seen such a move before, and the sheer daring of
it amazed her more than she would admit.
 "Very good," Kira said. "Hold on!"
    A heavy thrumming noise filled the cabin as the
runabout's engines strained against the asteroid's
mass, but Dax had the distinct impression they were
making progress. She glanced down at the ship's
relative-velocity gauge. It showed an almost exponen-
tial increase in speed. When Kira switched from
thrusters to impulse engines, they were positively
racing.
    They rapidly cleared the Van Luden radiation belt.
When Kira cut the engines and used the thrusters to
move back fifteen meters from the asteroid's surface,
Dax breathed easily for the first time. Now at least
they had a little room to maneuver. She didn't like
cutting it so close.
    Kira began flicking switches. The interior lights
went out, along with most of the instruments. "We
don't want them to pick up our energy bleed," she
said. She leaned back and looked at Dax. "We should
be clear of the radiation belt's interference. Try the
sensors again."
    Dax blinked. "You continue to amaze me, Kira,"
she said.
 "Like I said, it's an old trick. There are a lot of
asteroids around Bajor. We used to sneak whole strike
forces into orbit this way. Are you picking anything
up?"
    "Not yet." Dax finished the readouts from the first
two planets and moved on to the third. For a gas giant,
it had a suspiciously high energy reading. She took a
more detailed scan, but found nothing unusual. If not
the planet, she thought, perhaps the moons...
There, on the innermost moon--that had to be 'a
forcefield. Smiling triumphantly, she brought up a
subspace scan. They were definitely broadcasting, and
the transmission was being beamed back toward
Cardassia.
     "I've found them," she announced. "There's a
 small base on the third planet's innermost moon. And
 I'm picking up a Cardassian transmission." She
 looked at Kira. "The computer can't read it. That
 transmission is security scrambled."
     Kira smiled wolfishly. "Bingo, as you might say.
 Too bad Cardassian codes are such a devil to crack; I'd
 give a lot to know what they're saying right now."
     "So would I," Dax said. "Let's see what our records
 have to say about that moon. I loaded the Starfleet
 survey of all the local systems before we set out, just in
 case we needed them."
     She called up a readout on the Davon system and
 skipped ahead to the proper planetary body. "The gas
 giant is fourteen AUs from the sun," she read aloud.
 "Its innermost moon showed real promise for mining
 exploitation. The preliminary survey team found
 traces of phlaginum, uranium, and several other
 heavy metals--and latinum. They didn't find any
 large deposits, but the Davon system was handed over
 to the Cardassians before a real survey could be
 done."
    "Latinum," Kira mused. "The Cardassians use it as
much as the Federation does. This has to be the place
they've taken Ttan."
    "It's a good possibility," Dax agreed. The mathe-
matician part of her symbiont would have wagered
heavily on it, she knew.
 "Anything else?" Kira asked.
    "Not in the report." She made a second sensor
sweep of the moon. Knowing how paranoid Car-
dassians tended to be, she suspected a few traps lay in
store for them. This time she spotted an orbiting
security satellite. It had been on the far side of the
moon during her first scan. They would have to stay
out of its reach--doubtless it had quite a few nasty
weapons at its command. Now it was just a matter of
calculating their approach.
    She brought up the survey again. "The innermost
moon has a seven-hour orbit around the planet," she
said. "The third moon is much faster... one point
seven seven hours. It laps the first moon every two
hours, give or take a few minutes."
    "I know what you're thinking," Kira said. "As soon
as the moon with the Cardassian base is behind the
planet, we head for the third moon."
    "That's in roughly twenty minutes," Dax said,
rising. She could already feel the start of an adrenaline
rush. "I'11 wake the others."

    Ttan burrowed frantically through the rock wall,
searching for the elusive taste of latinum. The trace
elements she associated with the crystal were present
everywhere she went. She hit a vein of quartz that
seemed to run deep into Davonia's core and veered
away; it wouldn't be here, she thought. It would be
surrounded by nickel and iron, by perglum and co-
balt.
    Perhaps it lay deeper, she thought, tunneling down-
ward. The rock surrounding her felt cool against her
skin, like a healing salve after the endless hours of
falling she'd felt aboard the Dagger. Fifty meters
below the level where Gul Mavek and his soldiers
waited, she found a pocket of perglum. Latinum
crystals--some as big around as a human hand--
lined the node.
    Success! she thought. At once she turned and
headed for the spot she had left Gul Mavek.
    She burst through the wall behind Mavek's men.
They scrambled out of her way, keeping their weapons
trained on her. She ignored them and surged forward
to stand before Gul Mavek.
    "Well?" he asked mildly. "What did you find,
Ttan?"
 "Latinum, as you requested."
 "Where?"
  She told him. "Now, let me see my children!"
    "I think not," Gul Mavek said. "You took longer
than you were supposed to. Perhaps tomorrow, if you
prove more... cooperative."
    Ttan shrieked in rage, in betrayal. She barely man-
aged to contain her anger. She wanted to leap on
Mavek, to burn him with her rock-chewing acids until
he let her have her children back.
    He seemed to sense her reaction. His lips turned up
in what Ttan had come to know was a humanoid
gesture of amusement.
    "You realize, of course," he said, "that if anything
happened to me, all of your eggs would be destroyed
at once."
Ttan said nothing for a long moment. At last she
said, "Yes."
    "Go with these guards," he told her. "They will take
you to a place where you can rest. Remain there until I
send for you. If you cooperate, perhaps I will even let
you see your children tomorrow."
    He turned and strode up the tunnel, leaving her
there alone. Ttan felt the same hollow helpless rage
that the last Prime Mother must have felt when
humans first burst into the sacred Vault of the Ages
and destroyed hundreds of eggs.
    Only these are my eggs, she thought. These are my
children.
    If anything happened to them, she swore she would
see Gul Mavek dead, even if it meant the loss of her
own poor life.

    Kira leaned forward, trying to quell the anxious
fluttering in her stomach. This was the first place
where something could go wrong, she knew. Her
palms had begun to sweat.
    As she watched, the inner moon disappeared com-
pletely behind the gas giant. Now the window of
opportunity opened for them. She exchanged a quick
glance with Dax, who nodded with more cool self-
assurance than Kira felt.
    "Here we go," she muttered. She activated the
thrusters and moved them out from behind the as-
teroid.
    An alarm light began to flash on Dax's console.
"What is it?" Kira demanded, a thousand possibili-
ties-all bad--flashing through her thoughts.
  "We're being scanned!" Dax said.
 "Get me the coordinates!" Kira snapped. A strange
calm descended over her. It was just like the old days,
back in the Resistance, dodging and burning through
Cardassian traps.
    "There is a small device sheathed in duranium
about fifty thousand kilometers away. Twenty degrees,
mark four."
    "Got it!" Kira said. She altered course. It had to be
a bullet-probe, she thought. The Cardassians used
them around Bajor--each one activated when it
sensed the runabout's power emissions.
    "I'11 see if I can beam it aboard," Dax said. "Per-
haps I can deactivate its--"
    "No!" Kira said. She armed and fired the run-
about's first torpedo. "It's mine!"
    She braced herself. On her monitor, she watched a
glowing white ball of plasma energy home in on the
bullet-probe. When the torpedo detonated, throwing
off ring after ring of brilliant energy, the resulting
force waves rocked the runabout like a leaf on a
Bajoran ocean. It felt glorious. Kira had almost for-
gotten how alive you felt during a battle.  She turned proudly. "Got it!"
    Dax sank back in her seat. "I'm not sure that was
such a good idea, Kira," she said. "As soon as the
Cardassians discover their probe is missing, they'll
know something is wrong."
    "It's not a problem," Kira said. 'Tll change the
asteroid's course so they think it caused the damage."
She nosed the runabout toward the asteroid once
more. That should take care of everything, she
thought.
  "And you've lost one of our torpedoes."
    "They're meant to be used," Kira said, a little
annoyed. She was getting tired of having to justify her
every move to Dax. "That's why we brought them,
remember? Besides," she said, "if you'd brought that
thing aboard, it would have destroyed the ship. Bullet-
probes blow up if you tamper with them. Believe me, I
know. I've lost several friends that way."
"Ah," Dax said. "In that case, thank you, Kira."
"No problem," she lied. "No problem at all." She
fired the thrusters again, and the runabout touched
the asteroid with a soft thud. Slowly she applied
thrusters once more, shifting its course toward the
wreckage of the bullet-probe.
    "I only want a little more teamwork, okay?" Dax
said. "This is supposed to be a rescue team."
    Kira took a deep breath. Sometimes the three-
hundred-year-old symbiont in Dax made Kira feel
like an unruly child being gently lectured by her
grandmother. "All right, I'm sorry. I acted instinc-
tively."
    Dax smiled. "Those may well be the instincts we'll
need to keep us alive."
    "They've worked for me all these years," Kira
muttered.
    With the asteroid now on its new course, she pulled
the runabout away and steered for the third moon.
She had no intention of wasting time now. If Dax
wanted teamwork, she'd give it to her by the book--
whatever book Starfleet used.
    Dax said, "I estimate our arrival in thirty-two
minutes at this speed. That will give us forty minutes
before the moon with the Cardassian base clears its
primary, and fifty-two minutes before it's in trans-
porter range." "Good."
    Kira's thoughts raced ahead. Teamwork. If that's
what they wanted, that's what she'd give them. At
times Dax--and for that matter Sisko--seemed to
think all Bajorans were gun-crazed loners out for
personal glory. If she played things close to her chest,
what of it? The fewer people in a command chain, the
fewer links that could break. All Bajorans had learned
that lesson in the Resistance.
    Let them think what they wanted, she finally de-
cided. She knew exactly what she was doing and called
it taking responsibility. That's what came with rank
on Bajor. And if some Cardassian bastard happened
to come between her and Ttan... well, a team could
kill just as well as an individual.

CHAPTER
      8

HABITAT SUITE 959:
    The little Horta had no name as yet, but she was
growing restless. For months, her world had been
dark, snug, and sustaining. Now that snugness seemed
cramped and confining, and the remains of the hard
shell around her no longer satisfied her appetite. She
yearned for more, and somehow she knew that what
she wanted lay beyond.
    Acid seeping from her pores, she flexed and pushed
against the boundaries of her world. Suddenly, the
barrier dissolved away and, to her amazement, every-
thing was bigger and more open than before. She
wriggled forward, drawn by instinct and the lure of
this strange new universe. Already she sensed exciting,
different tastes and sensations on the air; the high
black plateau that supported her tantalized her ten-
drils with intriguing mineral flavors that only height-
ened her hunger. Her secretions freed the flavors from
the floor, melting and loosening them so that her avid
tendrils could suck them up.
     There was motion all around her, too. Other beings
 --beings like her--emerged from their own eggs. The
 dark and open space surrounding her was filled with
 the crimson glow, and smoky fumes, of burning shells.
 But above the odor of the fumes, and the delicious
 taste of the platform, she sensed something even
 better, something irresistible, something distant but
 enticingly nearby.
    With her brothers and sisters joining her, the new-
born Horta began to burrow downward into the
platform itself. Beyond the exterior casing, she found
other delicacies inside the pedestal: crystalline lattices
and minute, often microscopic appetizers made of
various combinations of different elements and al-
loys. Though intriguing, these intricate confections
were, she quickly discovered, more frustrating than
fulfilling; her hunger was such that she wanted to feast
on something rich and substantial, not nibble on
tidbits that she digested almost as soon as she detected
them.
    Her hatchmates tumbled past her, jostling her on all
sides, their cries echoing her own hunger and excite-
ment. By the time she reached the floor of the suite,
less than ten minutes after escaping the confines of her
egg, the entire platform had been devoured by the
Hortas. Only a smoking triangle of blackened residue
marked the former location of the eggs' resting place.
    But where to go now? The little Horta found herself
distracted and disoriented by a bewildering array of
tastes and sensations. Where to dig next? What to
consume? On the tip of her tendrils she still felt the
lure of a nectar more savory than anything she had
sampled so far, but her senses were confused by her
alien surroundings and she could not locate her treat
so easily. Gravity itself seemed somehow unnatural in
this place. And she was so hungry, and there were so
many other things to eat... !
    All around her, the Horta's siblings sounded just as
confused. They spread out in every direction, shun-
ning the open air to burrow instead into the walls and
floor. The heat of their various passages released still
more tangy odors into the environment, stimulating
the Horta's appetite and masking, almost but not
entirely, the diffuse traces of the food she craved most.
She smelled polymers and plastics, processed metals
and compounds, isotopes and rare earths. It was more
stimuli than any newborn Horta could hope to cope
with; it was both too much and, strangely, not enough.
    All at once, the Horta felt an absence, and a
yearning, that had nothing to do with the hunger of
her body. Someone should have been here for her, she
realized, to guide her and care for her and protect her.
A sense of loss came over her then, as if she'd been
hatched with it: Mother. Where was Mother?
    The floor beneath her vibrated as the Horta howled
for her Mother, a desperate cry that sounded like an
emergency siren blaring. But no one answered, and
after a seemingly endless minute the little Horta felt
the feeding urge rise up again within her, so she
trusted her instincts and did what any Horta would do
when puzzled and provoked and left to her own
devices. She dug deep into the substance of Deep
Space Nine, devouring everything she encountered.
    She tunneled beneath the floor, adding to the cra-
ters left behind by her departing hatchmates. She
burned through open conduits and solid apparatus.
Strange energies tickled her hide as she interrupted
the directed flow of electrons and ionized particles.
The Horta barely noticed the radiation; she was only
interested in solids, and there were so many new
flavors to relish, one after another. She couldn't
tunnel fast enough.

    Keiko O'Brien's classroom was crowded that morn-
ing. She suspected that many of the tourists now
visiting DS9 had decided to use her school as a free
day-care center. Students from over a dozen different
species sat at their desks, behind their tray-sized
personal computers. A hubbub of speech, growls,
squeaks, and chirps filled the room, as the kids
exchanged jokes and gossip in the last few minutes
before the class commenced. (Homework and notes,
Keiko knew, had been exchanged earlier, out on the
Promenade.) Jake Sisko was absent, she noted. Proba-
bly off hanging around with that Ferengi pal of his.
She wondered if she should mention this no-show to
Jake's father. She'd hate to bother him about it;
certainly, Commander Sisko had enough things to
worry about without her bringing up his son's poor
choice of friends. Maybe Miles would have some idea
about how to broach the subject. She resolved to
discuss the matter with her husband as soon as he
came home.
    In the meantime, she had a class to teach. She
squinted at the padd in her hand to check on today's
lesson plan. "Good morning," she said cheerfully,
giving her students a friendly smile that also served to
silence the general chatter. "Yesterday we discussed
the moon that will be passing by DS9 in a day or so.
Does anyone remember what that moon is called?"
    Seated at a desk in the front row, little Molly raised
her hand. Keiko wasn't surprised; her daughter always
raised her hand, whether she knew the answer or not.
Only three years old, Molly was technically too young
to be attending school already, or even to understand
most of what went on in the class, but she enjoyed
sitting in on her mother's lessons, and reliable baby-
sitters were, like so many other amenities, in short
supply on the station. Thankfully, Molly usually
behaved herself, playing games and drawing pictures
on her computer.
    Keiko grinned at Molly, but called on a ten-year-old
Bajoran girl in the third row. "The Prodigal," Yelsi
answered proudly. A ceremonial earring peeked out
from behind the girl's dark brown pigtails.
    "Good," Keiko said. She addressed the rest of the
class. "Now, can someone tell me why it's called
that?" A fuzzy-faced Tellarite youth, his bristly yellow
mane indicating the approach of puberty, raised a
three-fingered hand. "Yes, Gann?"
    "It's from an old Bajoran fairy tale," he said with a
smirk. Keiko saw Yelsi, and the other Bajoran chil-
dren, fix venomous stares upon Oann.
    Oh, no, Keiko thought. Ever since Bajoran funda-
mentalists bombed her classroom, supposedly for
offending their religious sensibilities, she had become
cautious whenever the subject of Bajoran culture and
beliefs came up; worse, she hated feeling that way.
True, that particular incident had turned out to be
merely a cover for an assassination plot against a rival
religious leader, but Keiko was all too aware that the
underlying issue, of Bajoran spiritualism versus Fed-
eration science, remained unresolved, and liable to
explode again at any moment. Still, despite her con-
cern, she tried not to censor herself---and hoped she
was succeeding.
    "Now, Gann, you must know that's an unnecessari-
ly disrespectful way to describe Bajoran... religion."
She started to say "mythology," but caught herself in
time. I'm speaking from the heart, she assured her
conscience, and not trying to appease the Bajorans.
"This moon is named after a figure from ancient
writings that many Bajorans hold sacred. How would
you like it if one of the other students made fun of the
Tellarite Scroll of Eternal Feasting?" Gann looked
uncomfortable; he stamped his hooves in embarrass-
ment. "We have to remember, the wormhole is a
wonderful opportunity to bring together people from
different civilizations all over the galaxy. But if we're
to take full advantage of this opportunity, we must be
open-minded about people who look or think differ-
ently than we do. Tolerance and understanding are
what Deep Space Nine is really all about.
    "The Vulcans have a saying," she started to say;
then, without warning, the floor beneath her rippled.
    Keiko had put on sandals that morning, ones with
heavy rubber soles. Yet she felt a sudden surge of heat
beneath her feet, intense enough and sudden enough
that she jumped backward, dropping her padd in
surprise. The padd crashed with a bang on the class-
room floor, only centimeters away from where the
floor began to glow red like a burning ember. Keiko
watched in horror as the padd sizzled and melted
away. The smell of burning plastic and crystals stung
her nostrils. Smoky white fumes rose from the floor.
    Some sort of plasma leak, she guessed. A momen-
tary flare of anger almost burned away her fear. She
had always hated Deep Space Nine. This place is a
death trap, she thought; I knew this was going to
happen someday. Miles, her brain screamed. Where
are you? You promised me we'd be safe.
    The padd crumbled into smoking ashes. The floor
dissolved before her eyes, and a writhing, shapeless
mass of rocklike tissue lurched upward into the room.
It had no head, no limbs, no features that Keiko could
identify, but the front half of the thing lifted up off the
floor, stringy fibers dangling from its exposed under-
side, and it swayed back and forth, as if questing for
something.
    Gann squealed like a Terran hog. Yelsi shrieked in
fright, her cries quickly joined by several other kids,
male and female and none of the above. The children
leaped from the seats, sometimes overturning their
desks in the process, and ran for the exit, pushing and
shoving and crawling over each other in their wild
flight from the monster that had burst into their
presence. A froglike Wollowan boy, propelled by his
powerful hind legs, bounded over the heads of his
classmates, nearly colliding with the ceiling. "Wait!
Don't panic. Remember our drills," Keiko shouted
after them, but it was a futile effort. Her students
could not, or would not, hear her over their shouts and
storeping feet. A harsh metallic keening came from
the invader, adding to the cacophony.
    So much for interspecies tolerance, Keiko thought
bitterly. She couldn't blame them, though. She was
terrified, too. She looked frantically for Molly. To her
surprise, her child was still sitting at her desk, eyeing
the creature with undisguised fascination. Molly
seemed to regard the lumpy monstrosity as no more
terrifying than a caged slime-devil at the zoo. Well,
Keiko thought with dark humor, at least I know
someone was listening to my high-minded lecture.
    The creature wriggled hesitantly toward the almost-
abandoned rows of desks, toward Molly. Every mus-
cle in Keiko's body wanted to dash forward, grab her
baby, and run, but the alien, its craggy hide pulsating
to some internal rhythm, moved directly between her
and Molly. So far, it wasn't making any obviously
threatening movements; in fact, as nearly as she could
tell with such an inhuman entity, it seemed disori-
ented, possibly confused by its surroundings. Keiko
forced herself to stay still. She didn't want to provoke
the thing by making any sudden moves.
    Overcoming her initial shock, and perhaps inspired
by Molly's fearless example, Keiko tried to analyze
the situation rationally. This must be one of the
Hortas that Miles told me about, she realized. They
were supposed to be peaceful, she knew, but this one
appeared out of control. "Keep calm," she whispered.
Odo should be here in a few minutes. And Miles too,
she hoped.
    The Horta slid closer to Molly's desk. Keiko's heart
seemed to climb up her windpipe. "Don't move,
honey," she said hoarsely, praying her voice would
not upset the Horta. "It won't hurt you, I promise."
Please let me be telling her the truth, she thought. They
had survived so much, endured so many dangers both
here and on the Enterprise. She couldn't bear it if she
lost her daughter now.
     Unlike her mother, Molly acted totally unafraid. As
 Keiko gasped and clutched her throat, the toddler
 hopped off her chair, her small computer clutched in
 her tiny little hands, and trotted to meet the Horta.
 It's sentient, Keiko thought over and over like a
 mantra. It's not going to eat her. But the still-smoking
 hole in the floor, and the charred remains of the padd,
 did nothing to allay her fears.
     Molly stopped only a few steps away from the
 Horta. Its corrosive hide had left a trail of scorched
 rhodinium flooring. The Horta also paused, apparent-
 ly contemplating the small, fragile humanoid in its
 path. Keiko found herself unable to breathe.
     "H is for Horta," Molly said sagely. Keiko recog-
 nized the line from one of Molly's favorite story chips.
She held out her computer and dropped the light-
weight metal construct onto the floor in front of the
Horta. It rattled lightly against the metal tiles. "H is
for Hungry."
    A sound that might have been a mew escaped the
Horta, and it instantly fell upon the computer, melt-
ing it into a mineral gruel that its tendrils eagerly
sucked up.
    Understanding, and an overwhelming sense of re-
lief, flooded over Keiko. Of course! Miles had said
that the only Hortas left on the station hadn't hatched
yet. This must be a baby. And how do you handle an
upset newborn? You feed it.
    Molly's computer had already been devoured en-
tirely, and the young Horta was flailing its "head" and
making that keening sound again. Keiko hurried to
join Molly, and together they proceeded to offer the
voracious creature computer after computer. Keiko
winced inwardly as she watched her precious teaching
supplies disappear into the nonexistent maw of the
Horta. First the bombing, now this. Starfleet's budget
office was not going to like this.
    Still, if it kept the Horta happy, and Molly safe,
Keiko was willing to feed it the entire classroom,
desks, chairs, and all. She hoped Odo got here while
there was still a shred of a school left.
    "B is for Breakfast," Molly supplied happily. Keiko
nodded and handed her another computer.

    Odo thought he was ready for anything. Then
everything happened at once.
    One minute, he was sitting in his office, a forbidding
expression on his waxlike face, staring at the screen on
his desk as it gave him a quick, condensed education
on the subject of Hortas. Odo grimaced when he read
about the murders committed by the first Mother
Horta over eight decades ago, then conceded that
there had been extenuating circumstances in that
case. Ever since, he discovered, the Hortas had proven
a remarkably law-abiding people.
    Aside from the Starfleet officers who had accompa-
nied Kira on her mission, Odo had deployed his
security forco all over the habitat ring. No one was
off-duty. Many were working extra shifts. Odo alone
manned the security office at present; fortunately,
only a few drunks and pickpockets occupied the
adjoining cells, and the drunks were still sleeping off
the effects of Quark's noxious potions.
    A color illustration of an adult Horta appeared on
the screen. He rotated the image, observing it from
several angles and directions. He rather admired the
Hortas' lack of bilateral symmetry; it struck him as a
much more comfortable shape than the humanoid
form he'd been forced to assume for most of his life.
He looked longingly at the shining steel bucket sitting
unobtrusively in one corner of his office. He had
remained solid for well over twelve hours now, and it
would be relaxing to let go for a few minutes, but, no,
not with a potential emergency in the offing. He took
comfort, however, in knowing that DS9 couldn't be
more prepared in the event the raiders returned.
    Then, preceded by hoots and hollers from the
Promenade, a naked human male came running into
the office. Odo recognized him as one of Sisko's men,
assigned to the wormhole research team. "And just
what do you think you're doing?" Odo snarled, stand-
ing up behind his desk. His right arm stretched across
the room and snatched up a blanket from the nearest
empty cell. "Here, put this on. You look ridiculous."
Wonderful, he thought sarcastically. On top of
everything else, a case of indecent exposure. Humans!
Sometimes he thought they deserved whatever Quark
pulled on them. Justice was still justice, though,
regardless of the victim. And Quark was Quark.
    The ensign looked pathetically grateful for the
covering. "There's a monster," he stammered. "I
mean, an alien intruder aboard, sir. Nonhumanoid
and... hot! It burned through the wall at Quark's!"
    Odo's eyes glanced back at the illustration on his
screen. A Horta? Sisko had said that none of the
Hortas had hatched yet. Still, this couldn't be a
coincidence; something was not right. His muscles
molded themselves into a state of maximum alert-
ness. He fine-tuned his reflexes.
    "When? Where?" he demanded. "Give me the
details." His hand hovered over his comm badge,
ready to open a line to Sisko in Ops.
    The ensign appeared inexplicably reluctant to elab-
orate. "I was off-duty, you see. And, well, there was
this woman on Vulcan .... "
    Odo grabbed hold of the young man's shoulders,
sorely tempted to shake a quick and concise answer
out of this chattering human. Before the youth could
say another word, however, Odo heard screams from
the Promenade. Screams of terror.
    "Stay right here," he ordered the ensign. "Don't
move an inch." Leaving the man standing there,
clutching haplessly onto the blanket wrapped around
his absurd human body, Odo rushed into the wide
corridor outside his office--and found himself faced
with a scene of utter pandemonium.
    Everything indeed seemed to be happening at once.
A pack of hysterical children ran shrieking down the
Promenade. The overhead lights flickered off and on.
Sparks erupted from panels on the floor and walls.
Odo wished he had a sense of smell, so he could detect
smoke if a fire broke out. Merchants and souvenir
seekers poured out of shops and doorways, unsure
what was going on, but adding to the tumult and
chaos. Extending his torso to see above the crowd,
Odo scanned the Promenade. At first, he couldn't spot
the root of the panic, only confused and frightened
people. Then, as if seeing one opened your eyes to the
rest, he saw Hortas everywhere he looked.
    They dropped from the ceiling, smashing through
awnings and flashing outdoor signs, only to land
apparently unharmed. The spray from a falling Horta,
the acid trailing behind it like the tail of a comet, set a
cloth banner ablaze. They emerged from the walls,
leaving gaping cavities in the skeleton of DS9. They
burst from the floor, sending bystanders sprawling
and crashing into each other. Odo heard yells and
shouted obscenities and even the unmistakable sound
of angry fists ramming into flesh and bone. An avian
trader flapped her wings helplessly, her talons stuck in
the gooey protoplasm of a hysterical Gelloid. His
security officers tried to reach the Hortas, but found
themselves hampered by a mob of allegedly rational
beings fighting to get away from the madness that had
exploded in their midst.
    "Get these people out of here!" he ordered his team,
shouting to be heard above the roar. "Clear the
Promenade!" Damn, he cursed. Where was he sup-
posed to put all these people? Was there any place on
DS9 the Hortas couldn't reach?

    The maze was made of gold-pressed latinum. Sheets
and sheets of the precious material, stacked up like
bricks to form gleaming walls that stretched at least a
meter above Jake's head. Latinum as far as the eye
could see, he marveled; this had to be one of Quark's
personal simulations.
    "Computer, halt program," Jake said, but the trans-
formed holosuite did not respond. No doubt Nog
knew how to turn off the labyrinth, but finding Nog
was the problem. Three possible pathways lay before
Jake, and he could not see more than a couple of
meters down any of them. "C'mon, Nog!" he shouted.
"You can't hide from me forever!"
    "Ferengi invented hiding!" Nog's voice called out
from somewhere in the depths of the maze. Guessing
at his friend's location, Jake ran down the right-side
corridor, between two looming latinum partitions.
The overhead lights, reflected off the gold plating,
made Jake's eyes water, forcing him to remember that
Ferengi eyes were much less sensitive than a human's.
He zigzagged through the maze, turning left, then
right, then left again. Rounding another corner, he
found himself confronting a dead end. sucI~R!
screamed the graffiti phaser-burned into the wall that
blocked him. Cursing under his breath, Jake was in no
mood to appreciate Quark's attention to detail.
    God only knows what that Horta's up to, he
thought, while I'm wasting my time in this stupid
maze. He tried to retrace his steps back to the maze's
entrance, but soon realized he was hopelessly lost. All
this latinum looked the same to him.
    "Nog!" Jake yelled angrily. "I'm already going to
kill you. But, if you don't show your greedy face in the
next five minutes, I'm going to kill you even worse...
starting with your ears!"
    An involuntary gasp of horror, sounding surprising-
ly nearby, came from a turnoff just ahead of Jake. He
sprinted toward the noise and caught a glimpse of a
stunted figure darting around another curve in the
maze. Forget it, Jake thought; you're not getting away
from me this time. He chased Nog through a twisting,
S-shaped path, undistracted by the sight of enough
gold-pressed latinum to buy DS9 several times over--
if only it were real.
    Nog ran as if pursued by the entire Romulan
Empire. Not for the first time, however, long human
legs triumphed over the Ferengi's natural talent for
fast getaways. Jake grabbed on to the neck of Nog's
jacket and yanked him back hard. Pulled off his feet,
Nog flew backward into Jake. Both boys crashed onto
the floor of the maze, smacking their flailing knees
and elbows into the hard latinum wall.
    Ouch, Jake thought, smarting from the pain. Why
couldn't Ferengi build mazes out of shrubs or foam
like everybody else? Holding tightly on to Nog, he
placed the Ferengi in a firm headlock and refused to
let go. "I thought you were looking for a merchant to
sell the Horta to," he challenged.
  "I lied, of course. What did you think?"
    Caught off-guard by the utter candor of his friend's
dishonesty, Jake wasn't sure how to respond. His grip
on Nog loosened a little. "Well, what are we going to
do about the Horta then?" he asked eventually.
    Nog did not reply. He seemed mesmerized by the
stacks of latinurn directly across from them. "Hey,
snap out it!" Jake said. He stood up slowly, hauling
Nog onto his feet as well. "Let's go. We have to find
that Horta."
    "Uh, Jake," Nog said nervously, still staring at the
wall of the maze. "I don't think that's going to be a
problem."
    "What?" Jake followed the path of Nog's gaze and
Saw that the white light shining off the holographic
latinum seemed even brighter than before. This was
more than a reflection, he realized; the wall was
actually glowing. Before his eyes, the wall flashed
white, then red, until the light faded to reveal a lumpy,
pulsating mass of steaming rock lurching toward
them.
    "Let me go! Let me go!" Nog shrieked, tugging on
Jake's arms with desperate fingers. Shocked by the
sudden appearance of the Horta, Jake released Nog
from the headlock. His arms dropped limply to his
sides. Nog ran around behind Jake, placing his human
friend between himself and the Horta.
    "How did it find us?" Jake asked aloud. And now
what was he supposed to do?
    The Horta inched closer. Jake guessed it was con-
fused by the holographic walls. Probably not as tasty
as the real thing, he thought. "Down, boy," he said in
what he hoped were soothing tones. "Back off. Play
dead."
    The Horta came within a few centimeters of Jake's
boots, and Jake jumped backward, bumping into Nog.
The newborn Horta had obviously never attended
obedience school.
    Cowering behind him, Nog let out an alarmed
scream. Turning around quickly, Jake saw another
Horta burning its way through the maze. He couldn't
believe it. How could there be two of them? Could
their stolen Horta have reproduced already? There
was no other explanation. Unless...
    We never reactivated the stasis field around the other
eggs.
A sudden chill rushed over his body as the full
implications of what he and Nog had done sunk in.
Maybe there were more than two Hortas loose. Per-
haps neither of the Hortas in the holosuite was the one
they'd left downstairs in Quark's storeroom. If that
was true, then all the eggs must have hatched--and it
was all their fault.
 "Nog, get us out of here now."
     "Huh?" Nog's terrified gaze jumped back and forth
between the two approaching Hortas. "Shut off the stupid maze, Nog!"
    This time he got through. Nog stopped trembling
and pulled himself together. "Computer," he said
loudly. "Program code: Midas. Stop and save."
    The labyrinth vanished, replaced by an empty blue
chamber marked by a gridlike arrangement of lighted
yellow strips. The Hortas howled in protest, sounding
like overloaded phasers about to explode. Jake and
Nog took advantage of their puzzlement to run
through what was now clear and open space to the
closest exit. The minute the door slid open, Jake heard
the shouts and confusion below.
    He knew what they meant, too. "The Hortas," he
groaned at Nog. "They're loose, all of them, and
they're eating the station!" An awful sense of guilt
suffused his thoughts; despite the screams from the
Promenade, he felt more ashamed than frightened.
"We have to do something!"
    "Hide?" Nog suggested helpfully. "Steal a runabout
and escape?" They stepped out onto an empty walk-
way. Jake breathed a sigh of relief as the door to the
holosuite shut behind them, cutting them off, if only
for the moment, from the pair of Hortas within.
    "No," he said. "We have to help somehow, do what
we can to make up for this disaster!"
     Nog shook his head. "I don't like that idea. It
 sounds too... hu-man." His expression brightened
 for a minute. "Do you think there's any looting going
 on?"
  "It's our fault," Jake insisted.
    "So," Nog replied. "Nobody knows that... do
they?" He looked around apprehensively, ending with
a wary glance at the entrance to the holosuite.
    Clenching his fists in frustration, Jake took a deep
breath and tried again. "It's matter of responsibility,
Nog."
  "You mean, survival," his friend corrected him.
  "Responsibility."
  "Survival."
    This is getting us nowhere, Jake concluded. "Look,"
he said, "I'll make you a deal." Nog stopped peering
around and gave Jake his full attention. Jake wasn't
surprised. There wasn't a Ferengi in the galaxy, he
knew, who could resist bargaining. "If you help me fix
this mess, I won't insist we confess to starting it."
    Nog's jaw dropped at the very prospect of admitting
their guilt. "You wouldn't!"
    "Try me," Jake said. He fixed his face in as grim and
Odo-like an expression as he could muster. Nog's
jagged overbite gnawed on his lower lip as he consid-
ered his options. The Ferengi's eyes narrowed to a
squint, as if searching for microscopic loopholes in
the bargain.
    "You won't tell anyone?" Nog said finally. "Not
even your father?"
 "Not even your uncle," Jake assured him.
 Nog held out his hand. "Deal!"
    From the Promenade came the sound of breaking
glass and the smell of smoke. Grabbing his friend's
outstretched hand, Jake pulled him toward the stair-
way. Maybe Odo needs volunteers, he thought hopeful-
ly, or Chief O'Brien.
 He'd find some way to make things right. He had to.

    "Commander!" O'Brien announced in Ops. "I have
power outages all over the station. Something is
disrupting the microwave junction nodes."
    Now what, Sisko wondered. He sat on a stool by the
operations table, analyzing a map of Bajor and trying,
unsuccessfully, to find a safe haven for the Hortas
when they hatched. He wanted to find a site so
isolated, or environmentally secure, that Pova's coun-
cil couldn't conceivably object. So far, he hadn't
found one. "Is this the usual brand of DS9 malfunc-
tion," he asked, "or anything more serious?"
    "It looks bad, sir." O'Brien scowled, clearly puzzled
by the incoming data. "I can't be sure, but it's almost
like there's something, maybe more than one some-
thing, chewing their way through the hull, and mess.
ing up everything in their path." He looked over at
Sisko. "You don't think the Cardies left us with mice,
do you?"
    "The Hortas," Sisko realized instantly. But how?
They weren't supposed to hatch for weeks. And what
about the stasis field? Never mind, he told himself.
That wasn't important now. "We have twenty Horta
babies on the loose, Chief. Frisky, hungry, Horta
babies."
 "Bloody hell," O'Brien muttered.
 "Can you track them?" Sisko asked.
    O'Brien looked embarrassed. "I'm trying, sir, but
it's not easy. These accursed Cardie sensors aren't
equipped to deal with beasties made out of silicon. I
can reconfigure the parameters--over the central
computer's dead circuits if I have tombut the Hortas
are already eating away at the station's internal moni-
tors. God knows what sensors will be left by the time I
get them on the right track."
    Sisko scowled. He shoved himself off the stool and
onto his feet. This sounded like a disaster in the
making. He knew he had to take action immediately.
"Can you give me any sense of their progress, Chief?."
    "Judging from the damage reports," O'Brien told
him, "they're spreading out from Habitat Suite Nine-
five-nine and making pretty good time." He examined
every screen at the engineering station. "Hmmm.
Nothing in the docking ring yet." He stared at Sisko
with an anxious expression on his ruddy features.
"Commander, I think some of them have already
reached the Promenade."
    In other words, Sisko translated, DS9 is facing a
full-scale Horta invasion.
    "Seal off all the turbolifts and walkways between
the Promenade and Ops," he ordered. "See if you can
contain them--without harming them." O'Brien had
a small child of his own; Sisko knew he could count on
Miles to keep the safety of the baby Hortas in mind.
    Now, he thought, all I have to do is keep the rest of us
intact as well.
    Sisko tapped his comm badge. "Odo. Sisko here.
We have a problem .... "

    "Tell me about it, Commander," Odo replied sar-
castically before informing Sisko of the rioting on the
Promenade. He didn't waste words either; he had
work to do. Signing off, he observed with satisfaction
that his team was managing to impose a semblance of
order on the frantic exodus from the scene. Bajorans,
Ferengi, humans, and the rest cleared out of the
Promenade, without actually killing each other.
Good, he thought. Let the deputies handle crowd
control. He'd deal with the Hortas personally.
    The Hortas looked like they were having a grand
time. At least three Hortas were ransacking the miner-
al assay office, knocking over the shelves and consum-
ing the rare ores and gems. "Like kids in a candy
store," Odo grumbled, before turning his gaze else-
where.
    A single Horta, tendrils vibrating with excitement,
attacked a snack kiosk. It ignored the mouthwatering
display of glopsicles, preferring to consume the kiosk
itself. Despite himself, he thought the Horta showed
surprisingly good taste.
    Two more Hortas dined sloppily at the Replimat,
dissolving the small dining tables of the outdoor caf~.
A Bajoran priest fled from his temple, the hem of his
scarlet robe smoking around his ankles. "The altar!"
he shouted, torn between fear and fury. "A devil is
eating the altar!"
    Yet another Horta wriggled out of the doorway of
the schoolroom. Remembering the screaming chil-
dren, Odo began to move in that direction. Lieutenant
Morn, his second-in-command, got there first; Od0
watched the tail Bajoran woman, a veteran of numer-
ous battles and emergencies, escort Chief O'Brien's
wife and daughter out of the building and away from
the Promenade. From where he was standing, they
appeared unharmed. Satisfied that Ms. O'Brien and
the child were in good hands, he twisted his head in
the opposite direction, rapidly assessing the disaster.
    So far, Garak's clothing shop had escaped the
Hortas' appetite. The Cardassian himself lurked in
the shadows of his doorway, a thin smile on his pallid
lips. No doubt he was mentally taking notes for the
report he intended to send to... whomever. Odo
directed his attention toward the haberdasher/spy.
"They don't seem to like your wares, Garak," he said
suspiciously.
    Garak threw out his hands, all bemused innocence.
"I deal only in the finest natural fibers. Nothing
inorganic or synthetic."
 "Convenient," Odo observed.
    Garak shrugged, then adjusted the shoulders of his
well-cut tan suit. "Perhaps I can interest you in an 'I
Saw The Prodigal' T-shirt?" he said with a smirk.
 "Get out now or I'll have you dragged away."
 "Don't trouble yourself, Constable," the Cardas-
 sian said unctuously. "I know when I'm not needed."
 He crept slowly toward an exit.
    Odo snorted in disgust. Someday he'd deal with
that viper, but not now. Especially since he saw a pair
of Hortas burning their way toward Dr. Bashir's
infirmary. Odo nodded, his decision made; that was
where to begin. Glopsicles and mineral samples were
one thing. Medical supplies took priority.
    As for Quark's Place... well, he'd check on that
eventually, in his own good time.

    Rom stood, his knees shaking, atop the bar counter.
Quark sat on Rom's shoulders, and wished he had a
stronger and taller brother.
    Below, a rampaging young Horta sampled the furni-
ture of Quark's establishment. Right now, it was
nibbling away at the gaming wheel in the casino
section. Mostly plastic and cheap Bajoran timber, the
wheel quickly bored the Horta, who turned its corro-
sive attention to an automated chip dispenser that,
ordinarily, cashed all manner of currency for a mere
thirty percent service charge. Quark had based the
technology on the Federation's Universal Translator
--with modifications.
    Heavy money bags filled with sheets of gold-pressed
latinurn were slung over both Quark's shoulders. A
belt packed with precious jewels and rare, antique
coins was wrapped around his waist. Quark felt Rom
shudder under the weight. "Careful, you dolt!" he
snapped. "And don't step on those cocktail napkins,
and watch out for that puddle of spilled bubble juice!"
    "Yes, brother," Rom huffed. Except for the Horta,
he and Quark were alone in the bar. The rest of the
staff and customers had fled upon the creature's first
appearance. Even Morn had deserted his customary
place at the bar to escape the monster. Too bad, Quark
thought; the massive barfly could have lifted me
higher and longer than Rom. Quark briefly considered
firing his Dabo girls for running out on their jobs.
Then again, he scolded himself privately, that's what l
get for hiring reptiles. He'd dock their pay instead.
    Quark's beady eyes tracked the Horta's progress
across his bar. He'd identified the creature at once, of
course; very little occurred at DS9 that he didn't find
out about. Still, he thought Ttan's offspring had been
safely stored in stasis. Watching the hungry infant
make a meal of a sturdy circular table, he was re.
minded of the eternal wisdom of an old Ferengi adage:
Children should be worked and not seen.
    "How much longer must we stay like this?" Rom
whined.
    "Until the beast is sated or absent," Quark said
harshly. He wanted to keep his profits as out of reach
of the Horta as possible. Although it pained him to
watch the damage to his business, the loss of his
furnishings was of minor concern; most of his supplies
had, after all, "fallen offa cruiser" and would be easy
enough to replace. But if the Horta developed a taste
for latinurn... By the treasure of the Nagus, it made
his ears ache just thinking about it.
    Before his eyes, an entire case of commemorative
"Prodigal" medallions (manufactured on the sly in
Dr. Bashir's personal replicator) disappeared into the
Horta's unrecognizable maw. Frustrated, Quark dug
his heels into Rom's ribs.
    Quark didn't trust banks, having managed more
than one shady savings institution in his youth, but
right now he wished he had socked more of his
earnings away in an unlisted account in the Orion
system.
    A brown-suited security officer rushed in from the
Promenade. One of Odo's men. His eyes gaped as he
spotted the Horta on the loose, and the tower of
Ferengi balancing on the bar. Maintaining a safe
distance from the Horta, he shouted over the bubbling
sound of melting barstools. "All civilians are to leave
this area immediately. Constable Odo's orders."
    "Whatever you say," Rom blurted far too readily.
Quark smacked Rom's bulging cranium. He had no
intention of abandoning his business to the Horta, or
carrying all his precious commodities into an unruly
mob of refugees. Why, there might be thieves and
pickpockets at work, including a few he hadn't em-
ployed yet.
    "Leave us alone, Vu Kuzas, or I'll tell your wife--
and your entire temple--about your visits to my
holosuites. Not to mention your gambling debts." The
Bajoran turned visibly pale, and backed toward the
exit.
     "Uh, you have been officially warned," he said.
 "My responsibility is discharged." With that, he
 slipped out of sight, looking a good deal more a
shaken than before. The nice thing about religious
cultures, Quark gloated, was the endless opportunities
for blackmail they gave you.
    Such pleasant thoughts were interrupted by a shak-
ing underneath him. Peering down, Quark saw that
the Horta had begun to consume the very bar they
were standing on. Clutching on to Quark's knees,
Rom edged away toward the far end of the counter.
Quark felt a rush of alarm as well; he tried to calm
himself by mentally filling out insurance claims, but
his lobes felt as if they were filled with ice water.
    Odo, he thought angrily. Where in recessionary hell
are you?

    "Intruder alert," the computer announced. "Hos-
tile life-forms attacking station functions. Initiating
elimination procedures .... "
    "Computer, halt all defensive procedures on my
command," O'Brien snapped. The sleeves of his
black-and-yellow uniform were rolled up past his
elbows. Hunched over his station in Ops, he waited
for the inevitable argument from the station's stub-
born main computer, and just when he'd finally gotten
a sort of lock on the runaway Hortas. "Bloody-
minded Cardassian programming," he muttered;
O'Brien wasn't sure exactly what the computer had in
mind, but he knew he wasn't going to like it. DS9 itself
hadn't got used to doing things the Federation way,
which made its computer the bane of O'Brien's exis-
tence, and the last thing he needed to deal with right
now, especially with Hortas rampaging through the
Promenade. O'Brien was only too aware where his
wife and child would be this time of day: right in the
middle of the disaster.
 Molly, Keiko, he thought. Be careful.
    He glanced over his shoulder at the commander's
office. The door was shut, but he thought he could
hear Sisko arguing loudly with someone. O'Brien
guessed that some Bajoran politician was still refusing
to take responsibility for the now hatched and on-the-
loose Hortas. Which dumped the problem back in
O'Brien's lap, and the computer's.
    "Warning," its artificial voice insisted, "station
under attack. Safety protocols require that unautho-
rized life-forms be terminated immediately. Activat-
ing transporter now .... "
    "No!" O'Brien barked· My God, the thing actually
wanted to beam the Hortas into space. Forget it, he
thought. No one was throwing those little snappers
out into the vacuum while he had anything to say
about it. "Computer, listen to me. Those are not
invaders. They are, er, unruly guests. You will not take
any potentially lethal action against them, under-
stood?"
    The computer fell silent for a heartbeat or two.
O'Brien imagined he could almost hear the machine
riffling through its files, looking for a loophole. His
face grew red. "Understood?" he repeated.
                        · "     r
  "Warning," the computer stud. Dange ous parasit-
ic infection aboard station. Health and quarantine
regulations require immediate sterilization. Activat-
ing transporter .... "
    "Damn it," O'Brien cursed. He pounded the con-
sole with his fist. "Cease sterilization procedures this
minute!"
    "Authorization of station's medical officer required
to override public health regulations."
  "What?" he sputtered. For a second, he was taken
aback. What was he supposed to do now? Dr. Bashir
was light-years away, and probably knee-deep in
Cardassian soldiers by now.
    "Resuming sterilization procedures," the computer
declared--with what O'Brien could have sworn was a
trace of smugness in its tone. "Activating trans-
porter .... "
    "Computer, stop at once," O'Brien ordered. His
ruddy face began to turn pale. His heart pounded.
"Attempting to lock on to sources of infection .... "
Oh, Lord, O'Brien thought. He never thought he'd
be praying for Julian Bashir, of all people, to suddenly
reappear. Those poor baby Hortas... ! O'Brien felt
terrible, and the worst part, he guiltily acknowledged,
was that, deep down at the bottom of his soul, one
selfish part of him felt relief at solving the Horta crisis
so easily. They were more than unruly guests, after all.
For all he knew, they were threatening his family at
this very minute.
But they didn't deserve to die in space.
"Computer," another voice suddenly interrupted.
"This is Commander Benjamin Sisko. ~op transport-
er. Halt sterilization. This is a High Command Execu-
tive Override." O'Brien looked up and saw Sisko
standing outside his office. He had been so caught up
in his battle with the Cardies' merciless software that
he hadn't even heard the commander emerge.
    "Acknowledged," the computer said curtly. "Warn-
ing: Infestation continues to spread."
    "Oh, shut up," O'Brien said. That had been too
close for comfort; he'd been only minutes away from
becoming an accomplice to automated infanticide. He
got shaky thinking about it. His bones felt like gelatin,
and he wanted desperately to slump into a chair
somewhere, but not while the commander was watch-
ing.
    "Problems?" Sisko asked. He walked toward
O'Brien's station. From the look on Sisko's face,
O'Brien could tell his debate with the Bajorans had
gone badly.
    "Nothing I can't handle," he said briskly. "With a
little bit of help, that is. Thanks, sir."
    "Any time," Sisko replied. He peered at a screen on
O'Brien's station. Raw data, etched in shades of
scarlet and turquoise, streamed across the monitor,
Cardassian and Federation symbols mixing to form a
technical pidgin unique to DS9. "How are we doing
with our main problem, the Hortas themselves?"
    O'Brien hastily moved his meaty fingers across the
screen, trying to make up for the time he lost fighting
the computer. Unfortunately, the situation had not
miraculously improved during the debate. "I'm sorry,
sir. A few are spreading through the habitat ring, but
the rest are tearing up the core. They're difficult to
track in the first place, what with their silicon-based
biology and many of the internal sensors burning out.
I'm not ashamed to say I wish Lieutenant Dax were
here; she might be able to make better sense of these
readings then I can."
    That's putting it lightly, O'Brien thought silently.
I'm an engineer, not a science officer, let alone a
specialist on strange alien babies. Hell, I can barely
figure out my own tyke sometimes. Give me something
I can handle, like a defective warp coil or an unstable
transporter pattern.
    "Just do your best, Chief," Sisko said. "Can't we
confine them somehow?"
"I'm trying, Commander, but they're worse than
termites. They get everywhere. I've set up shields in
all the connecting tunnels, but they're burning into
the cargo aisles and the turboshafts and who knows
what else. They don't even need to use any of our
passageways; they can make their own. And I'm not
sure the forcefields even stop them." O'Brien
shrugged wearily. "To be honest, the best way to track
them is to look for the trail of damage they leave
behind."
    As if to second O'Brien's report, the screen sudden-
ly indicated a loss of temperature controls in Cross-
over Bridge 2. O'Brien quickly rerouted the heating
units to a backup system on Level 17. "Any luck with
the Bajorans, sir."
    Sisko shook his head. "Not yet. Pova is adamant.
No Hortas on Bajor. I've tried to go over his head,
but, so far, the director herself isn't returning my
calls."
    "Too bad Kai Opaka isn't there for us anymore,"
O'Brien commented.
    "Yes." Sisko's gaze momentarily turned inward,
and O'Brien recalled how close the commander and
Bajor's departed religious leader had been. Maybe I
shouldn't have brought her up, he thought. Then Sisko
shook off his reverie and looked directly at O'Brien.
    "Hopefully, Odo and his people can protect the
Promenade--and prevent them from climbing to
Ops. Frankly, I'm more worried tight now about the
Hortas left on the habitat ting, where the weapons
towers are. If the Cardassians stage another raid,
those are our primary means of defense. Take a team
of security people and engineers and protect the
towers. I'll hold down the fort here."
    O'Brien nodded and headed for the turbolift. He
paused and looked over Ops. The command center
was fully staffed, and O'Brien recognized most of the
personnel on duty: Sanger, Eddon, N'Heydor. All
good people, but he couldn't help wishing that Kira
and the others were on hand during this mess. Assum-
ing they were still alive...
    "Computer," Sisko said behind O'Brien. "Esti-
mated location of alien life-forms."
    "Infestation spreading throughout Promenade,"
the computer answered. It didn't actually say "I told
you so," but O'Brien thought he could hear the words
in its cool electronic voice.
    "On my way," he said loudly, picking up his pace.
Thoughts of his wife and daughter haunted him. He
wanted to beam to the Promenade as fast as he could;
instead, he headed for the weapons towers.
  Watch out for them, Odo, he thought. Please.

    Contracting his elongated torso to normal human-
oid proportions, Odo jogged toward the infirmary.
Unlike the two Hortas, who dawdled along the way,
continually veering off to check out the colorful sights
and smells of the Promenade, Odo was not so easily
distracted from his goal. He reached the entrance of
the infirmary ahead of the Hortas, and faced the
oncoming creatures. Despite their short attention
spans, they definitely wanted to explore the medical
center. Odo wondered what sort of vitamins or radio-
active isotopes Bashir had in there that were so damn
attractive to Hortas.
    He watched the Hortas as they headed toward him,
their rough carapaces quivering like miniature moun-
tain ranges shook by tremors, their fringes of brown-
ish filaments rustling against the floor. They were
smaller than the adult Horta showr, on his screen,
looking less than a meter across. Younger, less mature.
 If their mother were here, Odo thought, I wouldn't be
 in this fix.
Then again, there was no reason she couldn't be.
He let his substance loosen, abandoning his face
and arms and legs. He became a large pile of golden
jelly, glistening and translucent. Then the jelly dark-
ened, solidifying, and a reasonable approximation of
a Mother Horta appeared under the flickering lights of
the Promenade. The shape, Odo decided, was every
bit as comfortable as he had imagined.
    The baby Hortas seemed to approve as well. High-
pitched screeching, like tuning forks gone mad, pene-
trated the noise generated by many Hortas running
amok. Odo had no idea what, if anything, they were
trying to say. This couM be trouble, he thought, if they
expect me to answer them.
    Instead, however, the twin Hortas' delighted cries
were echoed by similar screeches from all around.
That's right, Odo thought, call the others. With any
luck, the Hortas could communicate with each other
across the entire length and depth of DS9. If so,
maybe he could take care of them all with one trick.
He slithered away from the infirmary, hoping to make
himself more visible to the rest of the Hortas. His two
squealing converts followed like ducklings behind
him.
    Other Hortas joined them. They poured out of the
shops and vaults, shattering the air with earsplitting
sirens. Thankfully, Odo no longer had ears, but he
could feel the vibrations even through his imitation
shell. Well, he thought, they certainly sounded loud
enough to be heard from one end of the station to the
other. Smaller Hortas soon surrounded him. It was
difficult to count them all, especially in this unfamili-
ar body, but Odo realized with disappointment that
he had attracted less than a dozen... so far.
    Probably all that had invaded the Promenade, he
concluded. Which meant that there were still more
Hortas loose elsewhere on the station. It was a start, though.
    Like the an inhuman Pied Piper, or the legendary
Marching Goddess of Daffodon IX, Odo led the
Hortas back toward the habitat ring. He didn't have
enough cells in the security office to hold them all, but
there was a stretch of living quarters, on Level 16, that
should have been evacuated by now. Once I stow them
there, Odo thought, Chief O'Brien can figure out a way
to cage them indefinitelyaif I pull off this impersona-
tion long enough.
    Odo descended an inclined emergency ramp toward
Crossover Bridge 3. Fluorescent guide lights mounted
in the floor marked the way to the closest escape
routes. Odo ignored them; he knew his way around
DS9 before it was even called DS9. Behind him, a
seething mass of Hortas screeched enthusiastically,
attracting new additions every few meters. Odo
wished like hell he knew what they were saying.

    Several levels below the Promenade, in a dark and
uninhabited turboshaft, having left Quark's holo-
suites far behind, the firstborn Horta heard her sib-
lings' cries of delight. The wild choir tugged at her
instincts, tempting her to tunnel upward to join the
rest of her family. Mother, she wondered; could it
really be Mother at last?
    Another compulsion called to her, however, touch-
ing her on a level even more primal. She sensed food.
The food. The tantalizing repast that had drawn her
on ever since the two small carbon-beings had aban-
doned her. It was close now, she could tell. The smell
and taste and feel of the food seemed to radiate from
some nearby point, penetrating her shell and filling
her with an irresistible hunger. She was almost there,
and the roar of her aroused appetite came close to
drowning out the urgent invitation of the other
Hortas.
    Crawling down the side of the vertical shaft, grip-
ping the polished tracks with her tendrils, the Horta
paused, uncertain which way to turn. Mother, she
thought, starting to reverse her descent. Then another
wave of hunger passed over her, driving all thought of
anything but the waiting food from out of her mind.
Yes, yes, she enthused. Digestive juices dripped from
her hide, falling like acid rain down the long shaft. It
was as if she could already feel the food seeping into
her, hot and savory and invigorating.
    Creeping as quickly as she could, struggling to hold
on to the almost frictionless interior of the turboshaft,
the Horta hurried down through the core of DS9.
  Almost there...

CHAPTER
      9

JULIAN ROSE and moved forward when the runabout
decelerated. He made certain he stood well back this
time--no sense getting in the way. Kira seemed even
more on edge than before, if that was possible, and he
had no great wish to distract her from her work.
    As he watched, she brought the runabout down
inside a deep, shadowy crater on the third moon.
Velvetlike darkness covered them. Directly overhead,
the gas giant filled half the sky like a painter's night-
mare, its atmosphere a turbulent mass of swirling
reds, fiery oranges, and dazzling whites. Five lumi-
nous gold rings circled it. Several moons hung to
either side. In happier times, Julian thought, it would
have been a spectacular sight.
    He forced his attention back to the runabout. Major
Kira shut down the runabout's engines, then started
flicking switches. First the overhead lights went out,
then the control panels, then the emergency lights.
The walls suddenly began to close in, and Julian
swallowed. The runabout felt like a coffin. Just a touch
of claustrophobia, he told himselfi Turning, he went
back to his seat, picked up his medical bag, and sat
with it on his knees. He hugged the bag to his chest.
This could well be the worst part of the mission, he
told himself.

     Kira finished shutting down the runabout's primary
 systems, leaving only low-level life support, sensors,
 and the transporter functioning. Her anger had
 cooled; everything seemed to be going smoothly for
 once. She knew Dax would shut down the transporter
 after they had beamed onto the moon. After that, it
 would be nearly impossible for the Cardassians to find
 the runabout with any sort of routine scan.
    She rose and hurried aft. The runabout seemed
unnaturally quiet. She heard every cough, every rustle
of clothing, every movement around her. At least
Bashir had enough sense for once to sit down and shut
up.
  "Double-check your equipment," she called.
    The five ensigns pulled out their weapons and
checked them over. Only Dr. Bashir, futtering around
with his small black medical bag, looked out of step.
As if to apologize, he grinned at her in that annoyingly
cheerful way of his.
  "Everyone ready?" she demanded.
  "Yes, Major!" the ensigns chorused.
  "Uh, yes, right," Bashir said a second late.
    "Excellent," Kira said. "If there are any last-minute
questions, now is the time to ask them."
 "How long till we can beam across?" Bashir asked.
    "Twelve minutes," Dax called from the conn. "We
will overtake the innermost moon in eight minutes,
but I need at least four minutes more to find a safe
place to beam you."
    "From our first preliminary scan," Kira went on,
"we believe there is an underground mining complex.
If they're following standard Cardassian mining tech-
niques, the labor will all be done by heavy automated
equipment since there isn't a native population to
enslave. That will work to our advantage. They won't
be watching machinery as closely as they would
people."
    Dax added, "I will set you down as close to the
main mining operations as I can. You will have to use
a modified tricorder to find the Horta."
    "Any more questions?" Major Kira asked. Nobody
said anything, not even Bashir, so she nodded. They
were as ready as they'd ever be.
    "The moon is in range," Dax called. "Scanning
now...
    Kira drew the phaser at her right hip and checked
the setting. One of the Resistance's many slogans--
The only good Cardassian is a dead Cardassian--
came back to her.
"Best to set our phasers on stun," Bashir advised.
Kira glared at him and noticed that he was staring
at her weapon. Then he met her gaze and his eyes
narrowed ever so slightly. This was a more capable
side of him, she realized, one that she seldom saw--or
perhaps seldom took the time to see.
    "Just in case," he said, "we need to question a
prisoner. The stun setting is just as effective against
Cardassians as humans and Bajorans, after all. I
mean, uh, you can always shoot them later--I mean
--if they still pose a threat--"
  "I know what you mean, Doctor," Kira said.
Though she hated to admit it, he was right. Silently
she adjusted her phaser's setting. "Set weapons to
maximum stun, as the doctor suggests," she told the
rest of the team. "We may want to question prison-
ers."
    "I've found a safe location," Dax called back.
"You're going to Level Thirty-five. Remember, signal
me when you're ready to beam back up. We have a
twelve-minute transporter window every one point
nine seven hours from this mark."
    "Ready!" Major Kira barked. Taking a series of
deep breaths, she raised her phaser and prepared
herself mentally for battle.
     Around her, the cabin of the runabout began to
 disappear in a twinkle of brightly colored lights as she
 beamed deep below the moon's surface.

    Ttan paced uneasily in the cell the Cardassians had
brought her to. It had clearly been designed for
humanoid prisoners: three walls, the floor, and the
ceiling had been carved from solid rock. The fourth
wall consisted of reinforced tritanium plating. The
single doorway, in the middle of the tritanium wall,
had force beams running across it.
    Ttan could have tunneled out with no trouble, of
course. Gul Mavek and the others must have known
she could escape whenever she wanted to. Clearly that
wasn't the point: they also knew she couldn't leave.
She feared for the safety of her children.
     Suppose they've begun to hatch by now, she fretted.
 Without me there to watch them, to coo for them, to
 make them sleep in their shells, they will be unhappy.
 They will crime looking. Will they find me, or has Gul
 Mavek suspended them in midair as he did with me?
 Will he leave them in the dark? Will he talk to them?
    For a second she let her acids etch into the floor,
carving out a meter-deep hollow, and she sank into it.
She found little comfort in the surrounding rock,
however.
 She wept tears of acid.

    Julian materialized behind Kira and next to Ensign
Parks. He felt a moment's dizziness as he grew used to
the lessened gravity and almost fell when he tried to
turn too quickly. Parks caught his elbow for a second,
and he exchanged a quick glance with her as he caught
his balance.
    "Thanks," Julian whispered, meaning it. He didn't
want to look like a clumsy cadet in front of Major
Kira.
    "You're welcome." She released him and trotted up
the tunnel, her phaser drawn. Kira, Julian saw now,
faced the other way with her own phaser out. She
seemed to be standing watch, which made perfect
sense, since they didn't want Cardassians sneaking up
on them.
    Julian didn't see any immediate signs of danger, so
he took a moment to survey everything around him.
He stood in a long, high tunnel that curved gently out
of sight thirty meters in each direction. Light came
from glowing cylinders jutting down from the ceiling
every few paces. The tunnel walls had a wet, oily look,
and they gleamed a dull green-gold.
    Best get to business, he thought. Kira would have
his head on a platter if he didn't have Ttan located by
the time the rest of the team made it down. As if on
cue, the hum of a transporter beam sounded again
behind him.
    He raised his tricorder and began scanning for
Ttan's readings. Odd, he thought. Rather than a single
 silicon creature, he seemed to be picking up hundreds,
 if not thousands of them. Could there be a colony of
 Hortas here? The walls all but crawled with silicon
 life. No, he finally decided, the tricorder had to be
 wrong. He shook it. Surely Dax hadn't made a mis-
 take-
  "Doctor?" Kira called. "Where is she?"
      Julian didn't glance up. "Still scanning, Major."
Perhaps it needs some minor adjustments, he thought.
  "How long?"
    "I can't tell. I'm finding it difficult to pick up Ttan's
readings. Something is causing interference." His
fingers darted across the tricorder's controls, trying
one setting after another. Come on, come on, he
thought frantically.
    The transporter beam hummed again. Julian looked
up to find ensigns Muckerheide, Wilkens, and Jonsson
standing there. The whole team had beamed down.
They were all staring at him. He swallowed, not liking
the attention.
    "I'11 assume it's going to take a while, then." Kira
turned to the others with her usual brisk military
efficiency. "We need to secure this passage. You and
you, you and you." She gestured Ensign Aponte and
Ensign Wilkens to the left, then Ensign Jonsson and
Ensign Muckerheide to the right. "Find any cross
tunnels for a hundred meters each way. Check them
out, then report back. You have five minutes."
    Julian took another try at finding Ttan, but again
picked up thousands of silicon life-forms. Think, he
told himself. You're doing something wrong. What
wouM Dax do? What wouM O'Brien adjust?
    He looked up again, still pondering the problem, as
both teams left. The four ensigns moved in long, low
leaps covering four or five meters at a step, almost like
ballet dancers. Though the drawn phasers in their
hands somewhat marred the image, he thought.
    He ran a quick diagnostic and discovered nothing
wrong with the tricorder. It should have worked. He
should have been able to spot Ttan from a thousand
meters away. Maybe the machine really did hate him.
    What could he possibly be doing wrong? He moved
to the exact middle of the tunnel. The silicon readings
lessened a little. Perhaps he could decrease the sensi-
tivity, he thought, adjusting the settings with one
thumb while continuing to scan.
    Julian turned once more, and suddenly he wasn't
picking up any silicon at all. Then it hit him.
    "What a fool I am!" he said. He glanced up and
found Major Kira frowning at him. "These tunnels,"
he continued, taking them in with a grand gesture,
"were carved out with high-powered phasers. The
glassy look to the walls is glass. Slag, to be precise."
 "What does that mean?" Kira demanded.
    "Slag. Glass. Silicon, just like Ttan. The tunnel
walls are causing the interference with my tricorder.
That's why I'm having trouble spotting her."
    "Great," Kira said sarcastically. "We're here, but
we can't find her."
    "I didn't say that," Julian said with a modest little
cough. Of course he could find her; it was just a matter
of time. He took another step down the tunnel. "Just
that it's difficult. Give me a few more... aha!" he
said. A blip had appeared on his tricorder. He ad-
justed the settings, trying to get a better reading.
  "You have her?" Kira asked eagerly.
      "I think so." He studied the display. The mass was
~ correct, and it seemed to be moving back and forth,
 like a caged animal. "Yes, definitely a silicon-based
 life-form. It must be her."
  "Where?"
     "Five hundred meters east and down fifty meters.
 Fourteen levels above us." He met her gaze again.
 "Everything is calibrated properly now, Major. 1
 won't lose her."
  "Good," Kira said.
    Then, over Kira's shoulder, sudden movement
caught his eye. It was Ensign Wilkens almost flying
down the tunnel in long, low bounds behind Major
Kira. Something had gone wrong, he realized.
  "Major!" he said, "I think we have trouble."
    Kira whirled. "What's wrong?" she demanded of
Wilkens.
    Wilkens tried to stop, but couldn't in the low
gravity. Julian braced himself and grabbed the man's
arm. Kira grabbed his other arm, and together they
managed to stop him.
    "The mine ahead's in use--" Wilkens gasped.
"There's a big cavern--slave labor--lots of people in
chains--"
  The news stunned Julian. So much for Dax's auto-
mated mine, he thought grimly. He had a strange !
feeling things had just become complicated. It posed a i
certain moral dilemma, too--how could they leave
those people here? They'd have to inform the Federa- '
tion when they got back to DS9. Perhaps a rescue ~
mission could be mounted in time to save them.
 "How far away are they?" Kira asked Wilkens.
    "Two hundred meters, around the corner then
straight."
 "Did they spot you?"
    "No." He stood straighter, his breathing slowing to
normal. "Ensign Aponte stayed to watch them."
 "I'll take a look," Kira said. She turned to Ensign
Parks. "Wait for Jonsson and Muckerheide, then fill
them in. We'll be back as soon as possible."
    "What about me, Major?" Julian asked. If there was
going to be any action he wanted to be part of it.
"What if you need a doctor?"
    "Keep an eye on that Horta!" she said. "Ttan is our
first concern. I don't want the Cardassians moving her
without my hearing about it first."
    "Major," Wilkens said. "There's one other thing.
Those prisonersmthey're all Bajorans!"
    Great, Julian thought. Just when he thought things
couldn't get more complicated, they took a horrible
turn for the worse.
 "What?" Kira exclaimed. "Show me!"
    "This way." Together, they sprinted up the tunnel
like terrestrial gazelles. In seconds they vanished
around the curve of the tunnel.
    Julian could only shake his head. Why did things
have to be so difficult?

    Swallowing nervously, Major Kira crept forward on
her hands and knees. She had a bad feeling inside.
Bajoran slave labor. The Cardassians were cruel in the
best of times. They had no respect for prisoners' rights
and only showed mercy and compassion when it
suited some greater plan. Prisoners here would have
the worst of all possible worlds.
    The tunnel ended in midair roughly ten meters
above the floor of a large cavern. As she neared the
edge, she dropped down on her belly and inched
forward until she could see everything below without
being seen herselfi
    Her breath caught in her throat. Below, literally
dozens of Bajoran men and women moved about
what would have been backbreaking tasks in normal
gravity. Some swung picks; others broke rocks with
sledgehammers; still more shoveled gravel into a train
of huge six-wheeled carts. All of the prisoners wore
metal shackles around their wrists and ankles. All of
them looked half-starved and badly abused. Most had
blue-black bruises on their faces, and many had
half-healed whip marks across their backs and arms. It
was one of the most heart-wrenching sights she'd ever
seen, as bad as any of the Cardassian prison camps on
Bajor had been. The only difference was with the
prisoners. They had no hope. She could see it in the
emptiness of their gazes, the stoop of their backs, the
shuffle of their steps. These people had been utterly
crushed by the Cardassians. She could have been
watching the walking dead.
    As she watched, one woman in a tattered gray
jumpsuit collapsed. Her shovel fell to the ground with
a loud ringing noise, attracting an overseer's atten-
tion. As the Cardassian strode purposefully toward
her, his whip raised to strike, another Bajoran
dropped his pick and dashed over to help the woman.
That made Kira feel a little better--they hadn't
managed to kill the spirit in all of these people. The
man pulled the fallen woman back to her feet and got
her shoveling again before the overseer could beat her.
    Kira drew in her breath. That Bajoran--she knew
his face. It took a minute to place it because of the
dirt, bruises, and stubble of a beard, but when she did,
she knew with certainty who it was: Anten Lapyn.
They'd fought together in the Resistance. If she re-
membered correctly, he'd been reported dead several
years before the Cardassians pulled out. If he was a
Resistance fighter, that probably meant the others had
been, too. This whole camp must be some sort of
special punishment for Bajoran prisoners of war. Just
like the Cardassians, she thought bitterly, to single out
the best and the bravest for special humiliation.
    She began counting the overseers. Two of them
lounged behind a high curtain, drinking what looked
like Soonian ale from large tankards--probably off
duty or on a break, she decided. Four more swaggered
among the Bajoran workers. They didn't seem to have
much trouble keeping to their feet. Probably wearing
gravity boots, she decided. They also had stunguns of
some sort at their belts--nothing more lethal than
that, she thought, so the prisoners wouldn't be any
threat if they seized weapons and attempted a rebel-
lion. No doubt real soldiers somewhere deeper in the
complex had more lethal weapons close at hand.
    Every few minutes, as if to make a point, one or
another of the overseers snapped his whip--usually
across a Bajoran's back. It happened twice while Kira
watched, the second time to the woman who'd col-
lapsed. She screamed and fell, clawing at her back.
The overseer laughed.
    Kira curled her fingers into a fist. We can take them~
she thought, I know we can. There's only six. We'll
have surprise on our side.
    She itched to draw her phaser, but managed to
restrain herself. She had a responsibility to the others
under her command. It would have to be a team
effortaas Dax had so succinctly put it--when they
acted.
     She pushed back from the ledge, then rejoined the
 others where they waited. Aponte was scowling angri-
 ly, her cheeks flushed a bright red. Wilkens looked
 sick. Kira didn't blame him.
"What do we do?" Aponte asked in a strangled
voice.
    "I don't know," Kira said. To her surprise, she
discovered she really didn't know. A year ago, she
knew, she would have had the three of them charge in
to save the prisoners with their phasers blasting. Was
she getting old and slow, or had Benjamin Sisko's
careful planning and measured responses begun to
wear off on her?
    "Major, they're killing people in there!" Aponte
protested. "I saw one of those Cardie pigs whip a man
till he couldn't walk, then drag him away like so much
garbage!"
    "They're my people," Kira said hotly. She had felt
more for that one felled woman than Aponte ever
would. "But we're not going to get anywhere by
rushing in. Things have to be done carefully. Plans
have to be made--" She broke off. Now I'm sounding
like Dax andSisko, she thought. "Come on," she said.
"Back to the others."
    Turning, she loped purposefully down the middle of
the tunnel. She made a special point of not looking
back, but felt relieved when she heard Aponte and
Wilkens fall in behind. She couldn't get the image of
the screaming woman out of her mind.
    Bashix, Parks, Muckerheide, and Jonsson were talk-
ing in a little knot when she bounded around the curve
in the tunnel. They looked as surprised and anxious as
she felt.
    "Why isn't anyone on guard?" Kira demanded,
slowing. It was a serious breach of security. Not that
she didn't understand it; she would have been just as
anxious if someone else had gone off to investigate the
report of prisoners.
 "I--" Muckerheide began.
    She waved him to silence. "Just don't let it happen
again," she said. From his expression, she knew it
wouldn't.
    Dr. Bashir's brow was furrowed with concern. "Are
you all right, Major?" he asked. "You look--"
    "Doctor," she interrupted, "I have just seen fifty
Bajoran prisoners being worked to death. Many of
them are badly in need of medical attention. Some
will probably die without it." She quickly filled in the
rest of the details, leaving nothing out, not even the
woman who'd fallen. From his expression, she knew
he was as shocked and appalled as she was. "There's
more," she went on. "I recognized one of them. He
served in the freedom fighters with me. He was
reported dead several years before the Cardassians
pulled out from Bajor. They have to be political
prisoners."
    "It's like something out of a twentieth-century
Earth history tape," Ensign Aponte added. "If I
hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed intelligent
beings capable of inflicting such pain in this day and
age. They've actually got those Bajorans using picks
and sledgehammers to break rocks!"
    Kira gazed coolly at her. "The Cardassians had
work camps almost exactly like that one all over Bajor
for decades."
    Aponte swallowed, but grew silent. Kira sighed
inwardly. These people were her allies here; making
them feel guilt over the Federation's failure to liberate
Bajor wouldn't help.
    Dr. Bashir cleared his throat. "I know what you're
thinking, Major," he said. "Our mission is to rescue
Ttan, not lost Bajoran nationals--not even friends."
    Kira looked at him. "Would you leave them here?"
she asked. "CouM you? You heard how they are being
treated, Doctor."
    "We can't help everybody," he said. "There are
only seven of us, Major. This is a bigger matter than
we can handle, one that calls for diplomacy. The
Federation can make a formal protest on behalf of
Bajorw"
    Kira snorted. "You've seen how Cardassians oper-
ate," she said. "They would deny all knowledge of this
place. By the time a diplomatic mission got here to
investigate, there wouldn't be a shred of evidence
leftwlet alone Bajoran prisoners of war."
  "But--" Bashir began.
     "These are my people," Kira said, "and at least one
 of them is a friend. I can't leave them here. I intend to
 free them--or die trying."
     "Major," Ensign Jonsson said. "With all due re-
 spect, I agree with your sentiments, but Dr. Bashir is
 right. A rescue is impossible. For one thing, the
 runabout won't hold us all. If there are fifty Bajorans
 working in there, who knows how many more are
 scattered throughout the moon? The runabout will
 only hold twenty. And that's not leaving any room for
 Than."
     "You didn't see them," Ensign Aponte said, her
 eyes dark with anger. "If you did, you'd know we can't
 abandon them!"
     "Major," Bashir said. "Perhaps we can come back
 for them."
     "That's not an option," Kira said firmly. "As so0a
 as the Cardassians know their security is breached,
 they'll pack their prisoners up... if they don't kill
 them." She looked at each of her team in turn. 'Tm
 not asking you to do anything I won't do myself. You
knew this mission would be dangerous when you
accepted it. Nothing has changed; the project has just
gotten larger. Somehow we'll find a way to take them
all with us--or we'll leave them in charge while we go
back for help. If anyone wants to back out now, speak
up. You can wait here while the rest of us proceed.
Well?"
    Aponte and Wilkens met her gaze and nodded.
Muckerheide studied the ground, but nodded too,
Parks and Jonsson agreed more slowly. That only left
Bashir.
    When she looked at him, he drew his phaser. "I'11 be
at your side, Major," he said to her surprise, "whatev-
er the outcome."



CHAPTER
     lO

VIEWED FROM SPACE, the weapon sail towers resembled
fangs arching outward from three locations on the
habitat ring. Each tower, which extended both above
and below the ring, covered a 120-degree segment of
the surrounding void. Smaller and less impressive
than the huge docking pylons, they nevertheless car-
ried a lot more punch; the sails could direct either
phasers or photon torpedoes at any vessel or entity
that dared to threaten Deep Space Nine.
    From within, O'Brien mused, they were the usual
mishmash of sinister Cardassian designs and unrelia-
ble, jury-rigged equipment. He waited, one hand on
his phaser, in the stark gray hall outside the phaser
monitoring room, flanked by two Bajoran security
men in matching brown uniforms. Otherwise the
passage was silent and empty; this level was off-limits
to all but authorized personnel.
    More security stood on guard at the other two
weapons towers. O'Brien wasn't sure why he'd chosen
Tower 2 to defend personally, but he'd learned, after
many years in Starfleet, to trust his hunches. Or
"educated guesses," as he called them in official
Starfleet reports.
    One of the Bajorans, Gaysd Tel, stared nervously at
his phaser. He seemed uncomfortable handling it.
Must be used to working the Promenade, O'Brien
figured; Odo didn't allow weapons of any sort in that
area. "Chief?." the Bajoran said. He was a young man,
in his mid-twenties probably, with slicked-back black
hair.
    "Yes?" O'Brien asked. He kept his eyes on the walls
and floor before him. He almost hoped every single
Horta would converge here. That would mean Keiko
and Molly were out of immediate danger. The sooner
he heard they were safe, the better he'd feel.
    "It's about Hortas, sir," Gaysd said. "I've heard
that they're completely impervious to phasers."
    "Not exactly," O'Brien reassured him. He noticed
that Battes Ang, the other Bajoran, was listening
closely to the conversation, while trying hard not to be
too obvious about it. Battes was an older, harder
character whose grizzled face still bore the scars of
years fighting in the Bajoran Resistance. "They're
tough, but they're not invulnerable. According to the
computer, high-intensity phaser fire at close range can
knock a real chunk out of them. Maybe even kill
them." His words appeared to bolster the Bajorans'
spirit. Maybe too much so, he worried.
    "Listen," he said firmly. "That's not why we're
here. Besides, that's an adult Horta I was talking
about. These are youngsters; their shells may not have
hardened completely. We don't know how much
phaser fire they can take. The last thing we want to do
is kill them, or even injure one severely. So set your
phasers on stun, and hope that's enough to turn them
back."
  "But what if it's not?" Gaysd asked.
    "You got kids, mister?" O'Brien snapped. His tem-
per felt strained to the breaking point. First that
miserable computer, now this wrinkly-nosed stooge
had to give him flak. I should be with Keiko and the
baby, he thought.
  "Uh, a niece, sir."
    "Well, pretend this is your niece you're gunning
for." Easier said than done, O'Brien realized, but
hopefully both men got the point. He surveyed the
corridor, detecting no signs of life, humanoid or
otherwise. Quiet for the moment, he concluded. Time
enough to check in with Ops. He patted his comm
badge. "O'Brien here. Status report?"
    To his surprise, Sisko himself replied, curtly voicing
the words O'Brien had been dreading: "More trouble
on the Promenade, Chief. Odo's gone into action; I
can't talk now. Hold your position."
    Sisko broke the connection, leaving O'Brien alone
with his fears for his family. Despite himself, every
moment of Molly's short existence replayed itself on
the monitor of his memories, from her birth on the
Enterprise (assisted by Worf, of all people!) to his
kissing her goodbye this morning before he headed for
Ops. The possibility that he may have seen her for the
last time was too terrible to imagine. I shouM have
spent more time with her, he thought, torturing him-
self. I shouM have made sure she knew how much I
loved her.
    His grip tightened on his phaser. At that instant he
agreed totally with the Cardassian computer; he
wanted to eliminate all the Hortas as fast as possible.
"Chief O'Brien?" Battes asked hesitantly. "Are you
all right?"
    "Yes," he lied. Taking a deep breath to calm hirn,~
self, he opened his mouth to further reassure the
Bajorans. Before he could say anything, however, a
rumbling noise came from the end of the corridor.
The security team snapped to attention and held out
their phasers. The rumbling grew louder by the sec-
ond, as if drawing nearer, but O'Brien could see
nothing in the empty hall. He sniffed the air, and
thought he detected the smell of melting plastic. The
lights dimmed overhead. Glancing upward, he saw the
ceiling sag, if only by a centimeter or so. Instinctively
he placed a palm against the wall--and felt a growing
vibration rattle the bones of his hand.
    "They're in the ceiling!" he said as the realization
hit him. Estimating that the Hortas were only a few
yards in front of him, he took one step backward,
upped the setting on his phaser, and fired directly
overhead. The red-hot beam cut through the
rhodinium sheeting and the kelinide foundation
above. O'Brien adjusted the phaser to emit a wide-
angle beam less than a centimeter thick, hoping to set
up a "firewall" between the Hortas and the weapons
tower. He tried not to think about the damage he was
doing to station itself. Time enough for repairs later,
he thought.
    Shrill, grating cries greeted O'Brien's action. Winc-
ing at the sharp, painful sounds, he smiled grimly.
Well, he thought, at least I'm getting a response. Then,
abruptly, the ceiling ahead of him erupted in a spray
of steam and molten metal. A tiny globule of white-
hot steel splashed against his leg, raising a blister
underneath his uniform. Ignoring the stinging pain,
he threw himself backward, hard against the sealed
door to the phaser monitoring room. The Bajoran
officers backed away as well, a second before the
frustrated Hortas dropped into sight. They landed
heavily upon the floor, crashing like thunder.
    There were two of them: shapeless brown masses,
spotted with orange and yellow warts, that quivered
with anger or hunger. As the lead Horta edged toward
him, O'Brien had to fight an urge to vaporize it with
the phaser's full power. Instead he shouted at the two
Bajorans: "Phasers on stun! Drive them back if you
can!"
    Gaysd stepped forward and hit the oncoming Horta
with a direct blast from his phaser. On the opposite
side of O'Brien, Battes targeted the other Horta. The
creatures' wails made O'Brien's teeth ache, but they
showed no sign of retreating. They seemed more
annoyed than stunned; O'Brien wasn't sure whether
to be relieved or distressed. "Keep pouring it on," he
commanded. He aimed his own phaser at the floor,
ready to keep the Hortas from tunneling under them.
    The Bajorans held their posts. Unbroken streams of
scarlet energy washed over the Hortas, breaking apart
in flashes of faint blue light wherever the phaser
beams intersected with the Hortas' armored plating.
The Hortas' cries diminished in volume, as if, having
been startled at first by the phaser fire, they were now
growing used to it. If boulders could shrug, O'Brien
thought unhappily, eyeing the Hortas, this is what
they'd look like. Overcoming the phasers' force, the
Hortas pushed forward against the beams.
    "Up settings," O'Brien ordered. "One notch only."
The red glow of the beams grew brighter, and he had
to squint to shield his eyes, but the Hortas, unafraid
now, pressed on. The closest Horta was now only a
yard away. Lifting his arm, O'Brien added his own
phaser to the assault on the Hortas. Indigo flashes
burst and crackled over the creatures' shells. The hum
of active phasers competed with the muted grinding of
the Hortas. Slowly but surely, though, the unstoppa-
ble little juggernauts kept inching forward. "Hell," he
muttered under his breath. Gradually, by fractional
degrees, he upped the power on his phaser--to no
noticeable effect.
    How much was too much? He had already set his
phaser for just short of what would have been a killing
blast for humans, yet the Hortas treated the beam like
a heavy wind and kept right on going. The faces of
Keiko and Molly, possibly already dead because of
monsters just like these ones, flashed through his
mind. He seized that anger, tried to use it to strength-
en his will enough to set the phaser on its maximum
setting. His arm trembled. His fingers tightened
around the weapon until his knuckles turned white.
The Hortas came toward him, only a few feet away
now.
    Suddenly, he remembered the massacre on Setlik.
The children--the babies--murdered by the Cardas-
sians. And the first time he had been forced to kill.
 Not again, he thought.
    Switching off his phaser, he let his arm drop to his
side. "Back off," he told the Bajorans. He'd seen what
the Hortas' acid could do to solid rhodinium; he had
no desire to watch it go to work on Bajoran flesh and
bone. O'Brien stepped aside and let the Hortas pro-
ceed. They trundled toward the tower door, passing
within a few feet of O'Brien. He could feel the heat
radiating off their rocky bodies. Instinctively, he
backed farther away, as if he'd been standing too close
to a blazing fire. He activated his comm. "Tower
personnel, evacuate Tower Two. Do not, repeat, do
not engage alien life-forms. This is Chief O'Brien.
Out."
    Gaysd and Battes ceased their fire, and joined
O'Brien behind the Hortas. They watched in silence
as the creatures burned through the heavy metal door
protecting the phaser station. There go our defenses,
O'Brien thought. He prayed he had made the right
decision, and hoped that the other two weapons
towers were still safe.
 Frankly, he doubted it.
    "Careful," he told the two security men. "Watch the
holes up there. Something else might fall on our
heads."

    "The towers are under attack, Commander," Lieu-
tenant Eddon reported. An Andorian recently as-
signed to DS9, her blue antennae twitched nervously
as she spoke. "All weapons systems reported inopera-
tive."
    Damn, Sisko thought. He paced back and forth on
the causeway overlooking Ops. And less than twenty-
four hours after an attack on a Federation vessel.
Aside from the weapons built into the remaining two
runabouts, DS9 was a sitting duck for any other
raiders who wanted to try their luck against the
station.
 "Shall I notify Starfleet?" Eddon asked.
    "No," Sisko told her. "Gul Dukat may be monitor-
ing our communications, and I don't want to tempt
our Cardassian neighbors." He paused to consider
all possibilities before issuing new instructions. He
didn't wait long, however; half the trick of good
 leadership, he'd decided long ago, was making deci-
 sions, right or wrong, and sticking to them. Then you
 hoped for the best.
    "Order maintenance teams to the towers are soon
as security reports them safe. I want at least one tower
up and working as soon as possible. Priority on Tower
Three." That was the one, Sisko knew, that faced
Cardassian territory--and the direction into which
Kira and the others had headed.
    "Second," he said. "I want both runabouts manned
and ready to depart on a moment's notice."
    "For evacuation purposes?" Sanger asked. He was a
young human, fresh from the Academy, who usually
assisted Dax in her research. He'd clearly realized that
a runabout could only transport an insignificant per-
centage of DS9's total population.
    "For battle," Sisko explained. If the Cardassians, or
anyone else, attacked the station while the towers were
down, the runabouts would have to carry the fight to
the enemy. As warships, they were nowhere near the
class of an Enterprise-model starship, but, for now,
they were the only game in town.
 "What about the Puyallup?" Sanger asked.
    Sisko shook his head. "No time," he said regretful-
ly. "Divert all repair crews currently working on the
Puyallup to the weapons towers as well." In an ideal
world he would have liked to have had a Starfleet
cruiser at his disposal in this crisis, but his first
priority had to be the station itself. As usual, DS9 was
on its own.
    "Warning," the computer blared suddenly, inter-
rupting Sisko's musings. "Direct sabotage of military
facilities. Regulations call for immediate execution of
alien saboteurs. Recommend death by teleportation."
    Some programs never give up, Sisko thought.
"Computer," he said harshly. "Bite your tongue."

    "They're leaving, Chief," Gaysd told O'Brien. The
Bajoran officer stood outside the tower doors, direct-
ing his tricorder toward the smooth, circular hole the
Hortas had left behind.
    "What?" O'Brien said. Preoccupied with his con-
cerns for his family, as well as his failure to protect the
towers, O'Brien was caught off guard by the Bajoran's
remark. Had he heard what he thought he heard?
"Report," he ordered, snapping to attention.
    "The Hortas," Gaysd explained. "They're leaving,
both of them. Motion sensors detect two large moving
objects tunneling away from the weapons station."
    "Where are they heading?" O'Brien asked. "The
Promenade?" His fist tightened around his phaser. I
shouM have disintegrated them when I had the chance,
he thought.
    "No, sir," Gaysd said, and O'Brien breathed a sigh
of relief. "They're staying on the habitat ring, heading
toward Level Sixteen."
    O'Brien nodded to Gays& "Report to Ops. Update
them on the situation, if they aren't already aware of
these Hortas' movements. Tell them we need a repair
team here immediately." O'Brien didn't know yet
how much damage the Hortas had done to DS9's
defensive capabilities, but he knew Sisko would want
the towers functioning again as soon as possible, if not
before. He turned away from the two Bajorans, and
rested his back against the wall of the corridor. Level
16, he thought, scratching his curly red hair in puzzle-
ment. What were the Hortas up to now; surely they
couldn't have consumed all the inorganic goodies in
the towers so quickly? This tower's supply of photon
torpedoes alone would constitute a banquet by Horta
standards. Something must have lured them away
from their feast.
 But what?

    He needed a mouth, Odo realized, to communicate
with his security team. Still disguised as a Mother
Horta, he formed a tongue, a larynx, and a pair of
human lips on the underside of his shell, conveniently
near his comm badge. The flock of smaller Hortas
trailing faithfully behind him did not notice or react
to the extra orifice their "mother" had suddenly
developed. Good, Odo thought. Speaking in low
tones, he whispered terse instructions to security.
    So far everything had proceeded even better than
he'd planned. He had led the Hortas all the way from
the Promenade out to the habitat ring, accumulating
more and more Hortas as he drew nearer to his
destination. The noisy parade following him seemed
to be attracting the destructive creatures from all over
the station, or so he hoped. And, almost as good, this
sector of the habitat ring was blissfully devoid of
civilians, who were presumably crowded like Terran
cattle elsewhere. He glided down the empty hall,
listening to the hungry babies chirp and scrape in his
wake. A ghastly idea forced its way into his thoughts:
What if Hortas nurse their young? He should have
checked that point with the computer earlier. Fortu-
nately, he recalled, they were an egg-laying species, so
he'd probably escape that embarrassment. Thank
goodness for the consistencies of parallel evolution!
Still, the Hortas were bound to catch on to his
imposture eventually.
Damn it, he cursed silently. I'm a security chief not
a baby-sitter.
    On Odo's orders, a large suite had been cleared out
and prepared for the Hortas. A Bajoran woman stood
at attention outside the suite, ready to open and close
the doors that Odo could not easily operate in his
present form; he recognized Lieutenant Moru, the
same officer who had led O'Brien's family to safety.
Fine, Odo concluded; if he'd had a head, he would
have nodded it in approval.
    Moru unsealed the door as Odo approached. His
tendrils wiggling in what he hoped was a convincing
manner, Odo rumbled into the luxury-sized accom-
modation. A window on the opposite wall displayed a
view of the Bajoran system. A large Cardassian bed
had been removed to make room for the growing
Hortas; in theory, Odo mused, we should be able to
contain all twenty here. Then Sisko, not to mention
the Bajoran government, could figure out what to do
with them until Kira returned. IfKira returned.
    Odo didn't like to think about the latter possibility.
Curiously, despite her past as an outlaw and terrorist,
Kira was possibly his closest acquaintance on DS9.
(Well, he admitted grudgingly, I spend more time
trading barbs with Quark, but that is strictly business.~
He respected Kira and understood her, as much as he
understood any humanoid. For that reason, however,
he refused to waste too much time worrying about
her; like him, she was a professional and she knew the
risks. Odo also knew that Kira could take care of
herself when the going got rough.
    Bashir was another story altogether, although Odo
had to concede the young doctor was more than
competent within the narrow parameters of his medi-
cal practice. Too bad the fool had to keep sticking his
eager nose where it didn't belong, in pursuit of some
ridiculous, romantic notion of "adventure."
    And Dax? The Trill scientist remained something of
an enigma to Odo. At times she seemed admirably
mature for a humanoid. On other occasions, she
struck him as alarmingly frivolous, even going so far
as to willingly fraternize with Quark and his kin. It
was puzzling, but he had reserved judgment on her.
Sisko thought highly of Dax, which counted for some-
thing. Odo had come to respect Sisko, even if he often
disagreed with the naive Starfleet policies Sisko felt
obliged to promote. That~ one more thing, Odo
acknowledged, Kira and I have in common. Maybe the
most important thing ....
    Gradually, the baby Hortas entered the suite, jos-
tling and crowding against each other in their deter-
mination to follow their mother. They would have all
made it inside already, Odo noted, except for their
tendency to bunch up in the doorway, locking their
bumpy hides together so tightly that they were, mo-
mentarily, unable to pass through the entrance. With
much squeaking, and the occasional playful spray of
acid, they managed to work their way into the suite,
one by one. They were, he had to admit, significantly
curer than the average humanoid infant; was this what
his own people's offspring looked like?
    In all, Odo counted about twenty real Hortas,
although it was hard to keep an accurate tally with
their constant milling around; like a litter of newborn
razorcats, the baby Hortas tended to crawl over and
under each other. They scraped together like minia-
ture tectonic plates in a museum diorama until it was
hard to tell where one Horta ended and another
began. Assembled in one place, they made an impres-
sive pile.
Got them all, Odo concluded smugly. That wasn't so
hard after all.
    As soon as the last Horta wriggled its entire body
into the chamber, the door slid shut at once. A

turquoise light flashed over the door, indicating that
the door had been locked from the outside. Lieuten-
ant Moru at work, as instructed. Besides the door
itself, force fields should be in place throughout this
sector. Mission almost accomplished, Odo thought
with satisfaction. He'd make sure the Hortas were
settled, then have Ops beam him back to the Prome-
nade. With any luck, the rest of the station had not
gone completely to hell while he'd been occupied with
the Hortas.
    Maybe he'd even look into Quark's missing furni-
ture, but not before he rewarded himself with a
much-needed nap in his bucket.
    Screeching like rusty buzz saws, the baby Hortas
crowded around Odo, surrounding him and almost
smothering him in their desperate need for attention
or whatever. I wish I knew what they needed J?om me,
Odo thought, as his inundation in Hortas became
increasing oppressive. Time to get out of here, he
decided.
    Then he heard a sizzling, slurping sound directly
behind him, from the far end of the suite where the
window looked out on the stars. Turning his senses in
the direction of the noise, Odo saw a single Horta,
apparently too hungry to even look to its mother,
melting away the several layers of wall that separated
the suite from the deadly vaccum of space. A warning
siren pierced the room, drowning out the cries of the
Hortas. Already, the Horta's voracious appetite had
excavated a terrifying hole in the structure. Micro-
wave nodes and life-support systems flared briefly,
then fell dark, the sparks and energy surges almost lost
amid the incandescent red glow generated by the
tunneling Horta. Odo's Horta-like body stiflened in
alarm. From the look of the damage, they were only
seconds away from a blowout.
    "Emergency," a computerized voice announced
overhead. "Hull breach imminent. Isolating endan-
gered sector now. Emergency..." The voice dis-
solved into a hail of static as another bank of circuitry
vanished, fueling the glow and the rising steam.
    Odo tried to shake off the Hortas clambering over
him, every one of them clearly panicked by the siren
and the static, but they seemed to be everywhere,
hampering his movements and obscuring his vision.
Swiftly, he abandoned his pose, dissolving into a thick
viscous liquid and oozing around the mass of Hortas,
who collapsed upon each other, shrieking in fear and
confusion. Like a cascading wave of golden mucus, he
flowed after the renegade Horta, unsure how to stop
it, but knowing he had try something, for all the
Hortas' sake, not to mention his own.
    But it was already too late. A sudden wind of
hurricane strength tugged fiercely at him, alerting him
that the outer hull had been penetrated, as all the air
in the suite rushed toward open space. He saw a
glimpse of stars directly ahead of him, and watched
helplessly as the baby Horta was sucked into the void.
The wind grabbed his liquid substance, almost shred-
ding him into a splatter of drips and flying streaks of
gold. He felt the temperature dropping by the instant.
He found himself flying helplessly toward the deadly
hole that had already consumed the careless young
Horta. Instinctively, he struggled to maintain cohe-
sion. If he could solidify fast enough, add enough
mass to weigh him down... ! But the icy torrent of
air carried him onward, tumbling toward the black-
ness of space.
    Somehow, he could still hear the rest of the Hortas
screaming.

CHAPTER
     11

"Do WE ATTACK in one wave or two?" Julian asked
softly. He felt his pulse quicken at the thought of
combat. "What about setting up a cross fire--"
    "Slow down, Doctor," Major Kira said. "I have no
intention of rushing in and attacking blindly. First
we're going to need a plan. This is a team mission. I
need a map of the tunnels on this level and the level
below. Wilkens--"
    "Let me take care of the map," Julian said quickly.
That was one thing he could do quickly and easily.
    "I hardly think you're qualified to scout--" Kira
began.
    He raised his tricorder. "I can find the walls faster
and more accurately with this. Remember the inter-
ference? The walls are fused silicon. My tricorder is
already calibrated to pick it up."
    "Good idea. Sketch a big map on the floor," Kira
said. "Something easy to see."
    "Right." He opened his bag and rummaged around,
looking for a marker of some kind. Silicon plaster,
 neurostimulator, there had to be something he could
 use q

     "Major," Ensign Parks said. "I'm picking up an
 internal communication." Julian glanced up at her.
 She had her tricorder out and had plugged in some
 kind of earpiece. Her gaze grew distant as she listened
 to whatever they were talking about. "Something
 called 'Central' is talking about ore quotas," she
 reported slowly. "They have Cardassian freighters
 due sometime today."
  "How many freighters?" K_ira asked.
  "They didn't say."
    "Great." Kira turned and gazed up the tunnel.
Julian could see a range of emotions playing across her
face. "Hurry with that map, Doctor," she said. "I
think we may be running out of time."
    He bent back to his bag. The tube of antiradiation
jelly would probably do best for a marker, he finally
decided. It had a thick, oily texture. Squeezing a little
onto his index finger, he took an experimental swipe
at the floor. It left a greasy black line.
    Nodding, he adjusted the sensitivity on his
tricorder again. The reflections from silicon in the
walls showed plainly now that he knew what he was
looking at. Bending, he quickly sketched the level they
were on, then the one under it. According to his
tricorder, there were eight entrances to the cavern on
the ground level, plus six on their current level. It
should be possible, he thought, to completely sur-
round the overseers.
    Major Kira and the others ringed him as he worked.
When he finished, he stood and offered the radiation
jelly to Kira. "You might want to add details of the
cavern," he told her.
  "Right," she said. She squeezed out a bit of the
jelly. "This is the supervisor's area, curtained off," she
said, adding a small square against the far wall. "This
is the work area. Six-wheeled carts here. Tools here.
Workers pounding boulders to gravel here."
    Julian asked, "Where were the guards?" They
would be the biggest problem, he knew. They had to
hit them before they could raise any sort of alarm.
    "Two were behind the curtain. The others were
walking among the prisoners." She looked up. "We'll
split into three groups," she said. "Jonsson, you're
coming with me. We'll take the entrance behind the
gravel dump. Aponte, you take the entrance by the
carts with Parks. Muckerheide, Wilkens, and Bashir
can take the entrance we already saw. As soon as
everyone is in position, I'll give the order to attack.
Shoot the Cardassians nearest the doors first. We can't
afford any sort of warning to the rest of the complex--
at least not until we know how many soldiers are
stationed here."
    "Let's go," Julian said to Muckerheide and
Wilkens, rising. Well, he thought, I did want adven-
ture. He took a deep breath, then started up the tunnel
in long gliding steps, with Muckerheide and Wilkens
at his heels.

    Ten minutes later everyone was in position. Julian
had only taken the barest glance at the cavern below,
but what he had seen sickened him. That sentient
beings should be worked so hard, so savagely, and for
such a purposeless task as breaking larger stones into
smaller ones loaned new depth to his understanding
of Kira and her hatred for the Cardassians. When he
tried to imagine growing up in a society not only used
to, but expecting such treatment from their rulers--
he could scarcely imagine the long-term psychological
 effects. Perhaps it was a miracle Kira had turned out
 as well as she had.
     His communicator chirped, and though he'd been
 expecting it, he almost dropped his phaser. Get a hold
 of yourself he mentally ordered.
    He tapped his badge communicator. "Ready, Ma-
jor!" he whispered.
     "On the count of three," Kira said over the commu-
 nicator. "One... two... three!"
     And on the count of three Julian gave a war-whoop
 and leaped forward, phaser ready. His heart was
 pounding like a sledgehammer. He reached the end of
 the tunnel and leaped out into the cavern, a ten-meter
 drop suddenly yawning below him.
    The world seemed to be slowing down. He scanned
the crowds below for Cardassian overseers and spot-
ted one gaping up at him, whip in hand. Julian fired
and saw the Cardassian stumble. Around him other
phaser shots rang out.
    He scanned the crowds below. All the Bajoran
workers had paused to stare in confusion. The remain-
ing overseers were dropping their whips and grabbing
at their stunguns. Someone began to scream.
    Julian's forward momentum only carried him so
far. He started to fall toward the ground. He fired
again, but the Cardassian he had targeted ducked
behind an ore wagon just in time. Two more bright
phaser beams hit the Cardassian where he cowered,
and Julian was pleased to see the fellow collapse, arms
and legs jerking spasmodically.
    More Bajoran prisoners had begun screaming. Oth-
ers ran frantically this way and that, adding to the
confusion. More phasers fired. Another Cardassian
fell. The last two Cardassians had their stunguns out
and were firing back. A bright green bolt zipped past
Julian's nose and struck Ensign Aponte behind him.
He turned as she tumbled from the tunnel mouth
where she'd been standing. She probably wouldn't be
hurt in the low gravity, he thought in a moment of
strange, almost clinical clarity.
    He had almost reached the ground by then--and
when he hit, tucking into a roll, he came up fast on his
feet. The low gravity made him a natural acrobat here,
he realized; he never could have done that on Earth.
    He glimpsed movement to his left and saw a
Cardassian with a stunner pushing through a clump of
Bajorans. The Cardassian was firing blindly at anyone
and everyone around him.
    "Get down!" Julian shouted, then he gave another
war-whoop and charged straight at the overseer. "He's
mine! Everyone down/"
    Bajorans dove toward the floor, covering their
heads. The Cardassian whirled, stunner ready, but
before he could take fire, a phaser shot caught him
from behind.
 Julian looked up. Kira gave him a quick wave.
 "Thanks!" he called.
    But Kira had already turned and fired at another
target. Julian followed her shot. The phaser beam
struck an overseer in the foot. The Cardassian stum-
bled and fell, but limped through the cavern into a
tunnel.
    Julian fired, but his shot went wide. The Cardassian
vanished from sight.
"Bashir!" he heard Kira shout. "Go after him!"
Julian didn't hesitate. He plunged after the
Cardassian, using his momentum to swing through
the doorway and down the tunnel after him.
    The Cardassian hadn't gotten far. His right leg
dragged, and he seemed to be struggling to stay
conscious. Loping forward, Julian calmly aimed,
fired, and brought him down with a shot to the center
of the back. Which brought the attack to a successful
close, exactly as planned, he thought a little proudly.
    He caught up to the fallen Cardassian. When he
bent to pick the fellow up, he found his hands were
shaking. His heart was pounding and his head sud-
denly ached. Get a hoM of yourself Doctor, he thought.
It had to be post-combat-induced stress fatigue; he
recognized the signs, though he'd never experienced it
before. But then he'd never been in an organized
attack quite like this one, either--and that stun beam
had almost hit him in the face back there.
    There was only one thing to domwait it out. He
folded his legs under him and sat, his phaser in his lap
in case any more Cardassians wandered past.
    Five minutes later, feeling drained but strangely
exhilarated, he rose, slung the overseer over one
shoulder, and headed back for the cavern. His legs felt
weak and only the low gravity kept him going--that
and the fact that he had work to do. From the glimpse
he'd had, he knew many of those Bajoran prisoners
needed of medical treatment.
    He entered the cavern with his burden and stopped
in surprise. The Bajoran prisoners seemed to have
found new life. They had already queued up to have
their shackles removed. Parks, Wilkens, Aponte, and
Muckerheide were burning through the rhodinium
chains with their phasers.
 "Over here, Doctor!" Kira called. "Hurry!"
    Her voice came from a knot of Bajorans. A lump
came to Julian's throat. Unceremoniously, he dumped
his prisoner on the floor and hurried over. If the
Cardies had shot her--
    The crowd parted for him. He was strangely re-
lieved to find Kira kneeling on the floor cradling a
Bajoran woman's head in her lap. The woman had a
nasty gash across her cheek, nose, and forehead, and
blood streamed from her lips.
    "She's not breathing!" Kira said. She looked up.
"Come on, Doctor! Do something!"
    "My bag--" he began, looking around frantically.
He'd had it just before the attack.
"Here." Ensign Jonsson pressed it into his hand.
Julian tore it open and pulled out a portable medi-
cal scanner. He ran the scanner over the woman's
head and torso, then checked the readings. All her
vital signs were at zero. The body had already begun
to cool; she'd been dead for ten, perhaps fifteen
minutes. He might have been able to revive her
aboard a starship, but even there her chances wouldn't
have been good. She probably would have suffered
irreversible brain damage.
    "I'm sorry," he said in a half-choked voice.
"There's nothing I can do." When he looked up, to his
amazement he saw tears in Major Kira's eyes.
    Kira let the woman go. "Thanks anyway," she said.
Turning, she strode off toward the overseers' curtain.
    Something's wrong, Julian thought. He took a few
quick steps and caught up with her. "Major," he said,
"did you know her?"
    "No," Kira said bitterly, not looking at him. "I
didn't know her. She's one more statistic in the
Cardassians' record of butchery."
"Then why... ?" He left the sentence unfinished.
"Why am I so upset?" She glared at him. He could
see tears glistening in her eyes. "Why? Because it's my
fault she's dead! I should have been faster. I shouldn't
 have waited. If I'd followed my instincts and taken the
 cavern with Aponte and Wilkens--"
 "Major," Julian said softly. "One casualty--not
 even caused by our attack--is not a bad statistic."
 "You don't understand, do you, Doctor?" Kira's
 voice had a razor's edge. "If I hadn't waited to bring
 everyone in on the plan, if I hadn't tried to play team
 leader by your damn Federation rules, that woman
 wouldn't be dead now."
 "But you might be," Julian said.
 "I'm a soldier--"
 "So are they? he pointed out. She couldn't blame
 herself for this woman's death. He couldn't let her do
 that.
 "Well--" she finally said. "That's not the point!"
 "Come on, Major," he said softly. "You know
 better than that."
 "You're not a soldier. You can't understand."
 "I may not be a soldier, but I've trained as a
 psychotherapist. I know you can't allow yourself to
 get lost in what-ifs. These people are depending on us
 now. They're alive, they're free, and if we don't get
 moving soon, all that could change."
 Kira didn't meet his gaze. "Give Parks and the
 others a hand with the shackles," she said.
 He grinned. "You don't have to say thanks. That's
 what doctors are for."
 "Hey!" Kira's eyes suddenly widened, focusing on
 something over Julian's shoulder. "Stop right there!"
 she shouted.
 Julian whirled. A Bajoran woman sat astride the
 chest of the Cardassian he'd stunned in the tunnel
 outside. She held a large rock high over her head,
Iready to bring it down on his skull.
(Kira pushed around him and walked slowly toward
the woman, her inner conflict seemingly forgotten.
"Put that rock down!" Kira said again.
    Julian followed, adding, "Please, I know what
you've gone through, but violence isn't--"
    With all her strength, the woman slammed the rock
onto the Cardassian's forehead. Bone shattered.
Blood and a gray-green glop that had once been brains
sprayed out in all directions.
 "It's down," the woman said.
    Julian ran forward, seized the woman by the arms,
and shook her. "What in the name of heaven is the
matter with you?" he demanded.
    "He liked to rape me," she said, staring up into his
face. "I can't tell you how long I've waited for this
day."
    "Leave her alone," Kira said. She touched Julian on
the arm. 'Tll take care of this."
    "But--" Julian began. He still couldn't believe
what he'd seen the woman do.
 "I said I'd take care of it!" Kira insisted.
    Julian took a deep, calming breath. They don't view
it as murder, he thought. They view it as war. All
they've known is combat and suffering. It's going to
take years for them to learn compassion again.
    Against his will, he forced himself to say, "Yes,
Major," and watched Kira lead the woman toward the
curtained area.

    Aboard the Amazon, Dax monitored the rapidly
increasing number of coded communications beamed
back toward Cardassia from the moon. Suddenly
voices came in on a low-band subspace frequency...
two Cardassians talking privately.
    This could be important, Dax thought. She acti-
vated the runabout's Universal Translator as she
 called the transmission up on a split screen on her
 monitor. For a second, bursts of white noise oblit-
 erated the images, but when she hit the side of the
 control panel with her fist as she'd seen Kira do with
 equipment on many occasions, the image jumped,
 then steadied. Possibly some feedback left over from
 the Van Luden radiation belt, she thought. Hopefully
 it hadn't done any permanent damage to any of the
 runabout's systems.
     A Cardassian man and a Cardassian woman, each
 dressed in standard issue gray uniforms, were talking
 in quiet voices. She could see them, but they couldn't
 see her.
    "--ready when you arrive," the man was saying
from the moon. "I've been waiting for our duty shifts
to overlap for days!"
    "Oh, Yakkan," the woman said. "I've brought some
body oils. I'm looking forward to rubbing them into
your scales this evening." She leaned forward and
gave him a seductive smile. "They're extracted from
arboreal slugs on Malvestia IV."
  "That sounds wonderful!" Yakkan said.
    Dax tried not to gag. She considered herself open.
minded and certainly experienced, but the thought of
slug oils hit a nerve somehow.
    "Better news, lover," the Cardassian woman went
on with a seductive smile. "Our convoy has fifty new
guards for permanent assignment at your base. You'll
be able to take your leave this cycle after all."
    As the conversation degenerated into sickening
Cardassian verbal foreplay, Dax--feeling partly ill
and partly embarrassed--muted the sound. It didn't
look as though she'd learn much more from these
Cardassian lovebirds anyway. But she had learned all
she needed to know: a convoy of Cardassian starships
was due to arrive any time now.
    She had to warn Kira and the others. Dax calculated
the orbits of the two moons and realized they would
be in communication range again in less than an hour.
She'd have to risk a transmission.

    During the occupation of Bajor, K_ira thought she'd
seen everything bad that a Cardassian could do. They
had murdered not just individuals, but whole fami-
lies. They had raped countless thousands of Bajoran
women. They had elevated physical and psychological
torture to a perverse form of art.
    The woman, who said her name was Corporal Naka
Tormak, managed to add a few new vices to the list.
The stories she told of the murdered overseer's "love-
making" made Kira's skin crawl.
    If she hadn't killed him, Kira would have done it
herself. She felt violated--as a woman, as a soldier, as
a Bajoran--just from hearing about what he'd done.
    Corporal Naka had been tough, though. She'd en-
dured, and her chance for revenge finally came. Kira
hoped she would be able to sleep at night now that this
particular demon had been exorcised.
    "Rest for now," Kira told her. The overseers had a
couple of cots set up, and she helped Tormak lie down
on one. In seconds the woman was asleep, the corners
of her mouth tucked ever so slightly upward as though
satisfied in a job well done.
"Nerys," a man's voice said. "I thought it was you."
Major Kira glanced up to find Anten Lapyn stand-
ing by the edge of the curtain. Her old friend smiled,
the weathered lines of his face breaking into unex-
pected planes and angles beneath a week's growth of
 beard and dozens of blue-black bruises. It was still a
 pleasant smile, but sad, marred only a little by two
 missing front teeth.
     "Lapyn." She gave him a brief hug. "I was about to
 call you over."
    Lapyn emptied out a tankard of pale green ale and
refilled it with cool water from a jug; it seemed the
Cardassians hadn't provided replicators for the over.
seers, let alone the prisoners. He drank long and deep,
and she took the chance to study him. He looked forty
pounds lighter and twenty years older than when she
last saw him--how long had it been, perhaps six years
before?
    "You have no idea how good it is to see you," he
said slowly. "I thought we'd spend the rest of our lives
on this godforsaken rock."
    "We don't have time for that now," Kira said. "This
rescue has taken too long as it is. I need information
fast. How many more prisoners are there?"
      "You mean the whole moon isn't being liberated
even while we speak?"  "No. We're it."
He paled. "By the prophets, Kira! Are you insane?"
"This was supposed to be a quick raid," she said.
"We had no idea what we were getting into. How
many others are here?"
  "As far as I know," he said, "we're it."
  "Do you know the layout of the mining complex?"
    "Just from here to the slave pens and back again.
The Cardassians did not reward curiosity."
    "What about the Horta--Ttan? Have you seen
her?"
    "A Horta? Here?" He gave a quick bark of a laugh.
"That's what this is about, isn't it? You're not here to
rescue us at all."
 "If we'd known you were here--" she began.
    "I know, I know." He made a reassuring gesture.
"We weren't expecting rescue. Davonia is a death
camp. The Cardassians took great pleasure in telling
us they'd listed us as dead when they sent us here, and
that we'd spend the rest of our lives breaking rocks for
their amusement."
"Davonia? Is that what they call this place?"
"Yes," he said. "One of the worst hellholes in space.
There's pergium, latinum, nickel, iron, cadmium,
uranium--you name it, it's buried here somewhere.
They let heavy equipment dig for the good stuff and
use us to break rocks into gravel." He laughed bitterly.
"That's the price of being a troublemaker in a
prisoner-of-war camp. I escaped one time too many."
    Kira leaned forward. "How many Cardassians are
on Davonia?" Much as his story interested her, she
had to get back to the problem at hand.
    "I've counted seventeen overseers," he said, "on
rotating shifts. We have another four or five hours
before this lot will be relieved. I've also seen a handful
of real Cardassian soldiers, right down to the battle
armor and heavy-duty assault weapons, and several
oflScers." He shrugged. "And there's probably a small
support staff. I'd say no more than fifty or sixty total.
Now, what's this about a Horta?"
    "They kidnapped her from a cruiser en route to
Deep Space Nine. We trailed their ship here."
    "What's Deep Space Nine?" the prisoner asked,
looking puzzled.
    Kira blinked in surprise. "Don't you know?" she
said. "The war's over. The Cardassians withdrew
from Bajor. DS9 is what we now call the old
Cardassian space station. It's run by Bajorans...
with a little assistance from the Federation."
     He stared at her; then a huge grin split his face.
 "Well, I'll be damned. The bastards never bothered to
 let us know." He stood, cupped his hands to his
 mouth, and shouted, "The war is over! The
 Cardassians have withdrawn from Bajor!"
     Cheers rang out from all sides of the cavern. Naka
 Tormak stirred happily on her cot.
     Kira sprang to her feet and ripped the curtain aside.
 "Quiet!" she cried. "Yes, they withdrewwbut that
 doesn't mean a thing here! Davonia isn't secured!
 They'll kill us all if they catch us! Now keep quiet!"
    A hush fell over the crowd, but nothing could hide
the jubilant expression on every Bajoran's face. The
news seemed to give them new life, new hope. Per-
haps, Kira thought, it would be enough to carry them
even further beyond their normal breaking point.
Most looked on the verge of collapse.
      "What sort of transport do you have for us?" Lapyn
asked. "How soon can we beam up?"  "You don't want to know."
    He pursed his lips, then nodded. "I should have
figured. Since you weren't looking for us, you didn't
come equipped to carry us away. There isn't enough
room on your ship, is there?"  "We'll make do somehow."
    "Don't be foolish. We'll have to take Cardassian
transport."
Kira paused. "You know, I hadn't thought of that."
"It won't be easy," Lapyn said, a far-off look in his
eyes. "We're going to need real weapons, and a lot of
them, plus twice as much luck as you've already had."
  "You said there were sixty of them."
  "There's that many of us, now, too."
 Kira tried not to laugh, though she didn't think he'd
  be insulted. "I hardly think you're up to it. And we
  0nly have seven phasers."
      "Plus the guards' stunners," he said. "Plus picks,
  sledgehammers, and our bare fists, if it comes down to
  that."
   "It won't," Kira promised.
I. "We're already dead," he told her. "We'll be fighting
   for a chance to live again. We will fight with whatever
   we have. Just like the old days."
      "Just like the old days," she agreed. Perhaps they
  really could do it, she thought. Perhaps they really
  could take the whole damn moon. Wouldn't that put
  the Cardassians in their place. "What about guard
  stations?" she asked.
       "I know of one," he said. "They marched us past it
  once to show us off to some visiting officials."
   "Where is it?" Kira asked.
   "Three levels up."
      "We'll start there," she said, the decision coming
  easily. It was their best hope for now. "You'll have to
  come with us as a guide. The others can wait down
  here and gather their strength while Dr. Bashir treats
  their injuries. We'll be back with weapons... or we
  won't be back. Tell them while I brief my team."



CHAPTER
     12

AS THE VACUUM OF SPACE sucked Odo toward the
breach in the hull, the beckoning black cavity seemed
to widen like the expanding pupil of an enormous eye.
The lost Horta's passage had left a cylindrical tunnel
with smooth, rounded edges, but Odo, hurled help-
lessly forward by the explosive decompression, was in
no position to appreciate the clean, cauterized nature
of the wound. In fact, he would have preferred some-
thing jagged to grab on to.
    Behind him, he heard the remaining Hortas tum-
bling after him, bouncing and crashing against the
tunnel wall. His mind coolly assessed the danger at
something close to warp speed. Hopefully, he thought,
the Hortas would obstruct each other's progress, just
like they had when they'd first crammed into the suite.
At best, however, that gave him an extra second or
two; unless he acted immediately, they would all be
blown into space before Ops even knew they were
gone. Odo knew he could survive outside the station
for short periods of time. He doubted the newborn
Hortas could.
    It was a race, then, between the gale-force wind and
his own shapeshifting abilities. He stretched urgently
in all directions, while hardening his substance from
the inside out. The hole filled his vision now, growing
larger and closer as he flew to meet it. Beyond it, he
glimpsed distant stars amid the icy blackness of space.
He tried to match the hole's shape and size. The gap
rushed toward him; he felt as though he were falling
horizontally into a bottomless pit. This is it, he
thought. Ready or not, here I come.
    Odo currently resembled a huge pancake, black as
carbon at the center but still moist and yellow around
the edges. The tunnel ended abruptly, and his wet,
sticky tendrils seized onto the rim of the hole and
refused to let go. The cold became an advantage now;
it helped him freeze himself solid over the entire
breach, forming a patch in the ruptured hull. His grip
started to slip, but Odo strained to hang on.
    Then the first Horta collided against him, jarring
him with the sudden impact. Another rocklike body
slammed into his midsection, followed by several
more blows. He'd heard of an old human punishment
called "stoning." Now he knew what it felt like. The
Hortas almost knocked him loose, but Odo focused
on his current form, concentrating as hard as he
could, until his entire body grew as stiff and unyield-
ing as the strongest tritanium alloy. He fit over the
breach like a dense, disklike, darkly colored scab.
Only after he had anchored himself securely, however,
did a horrific image blaze to life in his imagination:
What if the Hortas burned right through him? He
waited anxiously for the searing pain to begin.
    Nothing. Odo counted to ten, but nothing hap-
pened, no acid came to eat away at him. With the
breach sealed, the sucking wind had ceased, and
the baby Hortas began crawling back to the remem-
bered security of the suite. Doubtless they won-
dered where their adopted mother was, Odo guessed,
but perhaps they'd learned a hard lesson from
their sibling's demise: Don't burrow away from
the station! He wondered if enough air remained
in the chamber to keep the Hortas alive; then he
remembered that the atmosphere on Janus VI had
been artificially created by its human colonists. Pre-
sumably, the subterranean Hortas did not require
oxygen.
    Now if the automatic safety mechanisms operated
the way they were supposed to and sealed the breach,
he could slip out of this awkward position and get the
hell away from here. Of course, he grumbled silently,
that was probably too much to ask.

    "Hull breach in the habitat ring," Lieutenant
Eddon announced abruptly. "We're losing atmos-
phere."
    "Get it closed, Lieutenant," Sisko ordered. He
hoped desperately that the weapons towers had not
been affected, and that Jake was nowhere near the
rupture.
    "I'm trying, sir," the Andorian said, "but the auto-
matic safety mechanisms are refusing to activate...
wait!" She looked up from her monitor in surprise.
"Something has sealed the breach, but it's not one of
the backup mechanisms." Slender blue fingers scram-
bled over the controls. Eddon's eyes widened as they
absorbed the flowing streams of data. "Commander,
sensors indicate that the seal is organic. Or something
close to it."
    Odo, Sisko realized, just as Sanger called out more
information. "The breach is--was--in an evacuated
sector. Security reports, though, that Constable Odo,
and several of the Hortas, may have been caught in the
area."
    "Thank you, Ensign, but I already figured that out."
Sisko leaned against the guardrail. If this was a
starship, he thought, I'd have a command chair to sit
in. "Eddon, reroute the sealing mechanisms through
the adjacent levels. We have to assume the Hortas
have consumed the circuits in the immediate level. As
soon as the breach is closed, lock on to that 'organic'
seal and beam him directly to Ops. I assume the
transporters are working?"
 "So far," she said grimly.
    "Launch the runabouts," Sisko told her. Both ships
had limited transporter capabilities; he wanted them
out of range of the Hortas' appetite. Those shipboard
transporters may be all I have soon, he thought, unless
I can figure out some way to get Ttan's children under
control. "Instruct the pilots to stay within beaming
range of DS9." He took a deep breath, then continued
to plan for the worst.
    "N'Heydor," he instructed the Centaurian techni-
cian, "order DS9 evacuated of nonpermanent person-
nel. I want all visitors back on their ships, and those
ships away from the station, in forty-five minutes. If
the Hortas block anyone's passage, have them beamed
directly to their vessels."
    "Yes, sir," N'Heydor said. Like all Centaurians, he
looked like he'd been born and raised on Earth,
perhaps somewhere around Greece or Italy. He was a
dependable and reliable officer who had been assigned
to DS9 from the moment Starfleet took possession of
the station.
    "The Cardassians are bound to notice any emer-
gency evacuation," Sanger pointed out. He'll make a
good first ojficer someday, Sisko mused, if he doesn't
annoy the wrong admiral. He wondered whether Kira
had been giving the young man lessons in second-
guessing his superiors.
    "I think the Horta is out of the bag at this point,"
Sisko said wryly.
    "Safety seals in place," Eddon stated. "Beaming the
organic patch--I mean, Constable Odo--now."
    Sisko looked toward his right. The small transporter
pad hummed with energy. He squinted his eyes
against the sudden glare as a column of white light
appeared above the base of the transporter. Then the
light vanished, leaving a black, metallic disk flopping
awkwardly on the pad like a beached jellyfish. The
disk oozed upward into the more familiar form of
Odo. The security chief glanced quickly around him,
taking in his new surroundings. "About time," he said
gruffly. "I assume the suite is secure?"
    "We're relieved to see you, too," Sisko replied.
"Did the Hortas survive as well?"
    "All but one," Odo told him. "A single Horta was
sucked out into space before I was able to close the
breach." His scowl softened into a look of genuine
regret. "I should have reacted faster."
    "I'm sure you did the best you could," Sisko said
softly. He knew how seriously Odo took his responsi-
bilities. Then, in a louder tone, he gave an order to the
Andorian lieutenant. "Eddon, see if you can lock on
to the missing Horta. It should be drifting somewhere
in the immediate vicinity of DS9. Beam it directly to
the infirmary. Notify Nurse Kabo she may be getting
another patient."
    "Do you think there's really a chance the Horta
might have survived?" Sanger asked.
    "With a Horta, who knows?" Sisko said. "Nothing
else seems to hurt them." He joined Odo by the
transporter. The shapeshifter looked none the worse
for his unplanned excursion outside the station. Then
again, Sisko reminded himself, Odo could smooth
over any cuts, scrapes, bruises, or even torn clothing
with a moment's thought. Presumably, he didn't even
need to comb his hair. "Constable, what about the
other Hortas?"
    "They're confined in an unoccupied suite. I believe
I rounded up all of them, although I can't guarantee
that. My circumstances were not ideal for counting
heads."
    "Understood," Sisko said. He started to tell Odo
about the damage to the weapons towers, but Sanger
spoke first.
    "I'm afraid they're not confined at all," he blurted,
then blanched in the face of Odo's fierce, disapprov-
ing glare. "The Hortas are on the move again."
 "But the shields... ?" Odo began.
    Sanger shrugged nervously. "They don't seem to be
stopping them, sir."
    Sisko clenched his fists, but maintained a con-
trolled, masklike expression. "Where are they now?"
    N'Heydor answered first. The Centaurian kept his
gaze glued to the screen before him. "All the remain-
ing Hortas are heading straight from the habitat ring
to Crossover Bridge Three. Commander, I believe
they're coming back to the core. En masse."
 I've never been face-to-face with a hungry Horta
before, Sisko thought. Looks like I'll get my chance
sooner than I planned.
 Damn.

    Miles O'Brien hated jogging, but he rushed back
toward Ops at something between a walk and a run.
Huffing roughly, his broad face red from exertion, he
felt a pain growing in his side. Still, with the Hortas
wreaking havoc on DS9's already none-too-reliable
innards, he didn't feel like trusting his molecules to
the station's transporters. The problem in working so
closely with transporters, as he had on the Enterprise,
was that you learned too well what can go wrong.
Doctors must feel the same way about major surgery,
he figured.
    Caught up in his gloomy ruminations, interrupted
by spikes of hot agony under his ribs, he didn't see
Keiko and Molly until he nearly collided with them.
    "Miles!" Keiko cried out. Wearing her favorite tan
jacket over a tasteful violet jumpsuit, with a thin belt
cinching the jacket around her waist, she clutched
little Molly to her chest. Despite the anxious look on
her face, O'Brien thought she'd never looked more
beautiful. Suddenly, he forgot all about the ache in his
side. He enveloped his family in an immense bear hug
that nothing short of a disruptor blast could have torn
apart.
    "Thank God," he gasped, still short of breath.
"When I heard that the Promenade had been at-
tacked... l"
    "We're fine," Keiko assured him, stroking her
baby's hair. "Molly saved the day, actually. She kept a
Horta at bay by feeding him everything in sight."
 O'Brien laughed out loud, feeling, for the moment,
an astronomical quantity of tension slip away. "I told
you she needed a dog," he joked lamely.
    A tiny smile lifted the corners of Keiko's lips. Then,
reluctantly, her expression grew grave. "Oh, Miles,
what now? Where should we go?"
    "Just stay in our quarters until you hear otherwise."
He tried to look more relaxed than he felt. "I'm sure
Commander Sisko has the situation well in hand."
    His badge beeped, and O'Brien forced himself to
release his grip on his wife. He took a few steps
backward. "O'Brien here."
    Sisko's voice seemed to fill the corridor with fore-
boding. The commander did not sound happy. "Time
to make our last stand, Chief. Report to the core
entrance of Crossover Bridge Three. Odo will meet
you there."
    "Right away, Commander," O'Brien said, signing
off. He gave Keiko a pained, apologetic look, while
automatically unbuckling his phaser.
    "Your last stand?" she asked anxiously. In her arms,
Molly slept soundly, apparently untroubled by
dreams of rampaging Hortas.
    You shouldn't have heard that, he thought. Sisko
didn't know you were standing by. "Stay in our quar-
ters," he said. "Everything will be fine. I promise."
    Bridge 3 was not far away. He jogged away and, for
his own sake, didn't look back.

    "Onscreen," Sisko ordered. A horizontal cross sec-
tion of DS9 flashed onto the viewer, appearing as a
sequence of concentric circles with the core at its
center. A single cluster of red triangles, indicating the
current locations of the baby Hortas, stood out sharp-
ly against the pale blue schematic. Sure enough, Sisko
noted, the triangles were heading for one of the radial
tunnels connecting the habitat ring to the core.
    Why were they all moving toward the center of the
station, as though something was drawing them on?
Their current trajectory seemed too consistent, al-
most coordinated; he would have expected a more
random pattern from a litter of unsupervised infants.
Sisko wished he knew more about growth and devel-
opment of Hortas. Was it possible they were commu-
nicating with each other? And, if so, to what end?
    Sisko stared at the viewer, tracking the Hortas'
relentless approach. "I only count eighteen Hortas,"
he observed aloud. "Allowing for the one casualty we
know about, that still leaves us one short. Are we sure
we have them all onscreen?" He wondered briefly if
the missing Horta was somehow directing the others.
    N'Heydor shrugged apologetically. "Maybe. Maybe
not," he admitted. "We have systems failures all over
the station, including the sensors. Entire levels are
flooded with microwaves from damaged energy recep-
tors. I can't guarantee we have a solid lock on every
Horta."
    "Understood," Sisko said. It was also possible, he
thought, that one of the eggs hadn't hatched yet, or
that the missing Horta had been stillborn. "Have
someone check out Habitat Suite Nine-five-nine. I
want an inventory on those eggswor what's left of
them."
    "All security personnel are currently defending the
core," Sanger pointed out.
    "Then send a technician," Sisko said impatiently.
"I assume we have one that can count to twenty."
    "Absolutely!" the young man said hastily. Gulping
nervously, he opened a comm line hurriedly. Sisko
had more important things to worry about, however,
than one green officer's embarrassment. He contem-
plated the determined onrush of Hortas apparent on
the viewer. Even if there is one more Horta on the
loose, he theorized, the overall pattern is clear. The
extra Horta is almost surely zeroing in on the core as
well.
 But why?
    Lieutenant Eddon interrupted his thoughts. "I lo-
cated the Horta that Constable Odo saw sucked
outside," she said. "It's still within range of our
transporters. I'm beaming it to the infirmary now."
    "Very good," Sisko said. He contacted Bashir's
nurse immediately. "Do you have the Horta?" he
asked her.
    The voice of the Bajoran woman emerged from his
badge. "It just arrived, but, Commander, I think it's
dead."
    Sisko's heart sank. First the mother, now the child.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
    "Well, it's hard to tell," Kabo conceded. "But it's
not moving, and I'm not detecting any life signs." She
paused. "By the Prophets, if I didn't know better, I'd
swear this was just a stray meteor and not a living
thing at all."
    "Thank you, Nurse Kabo," Sisko said. "Please
continue to monitor the... the body. Report any
changes in its condition. Sisko out."
    A terrible feeling of weariness came over Sisko as he
stood in Ops. He refused to slump in front of his crew,
but, at the moment, he felt as old as an admiral. He
ran a hand over his scalp, unconsciously checking to
see if he still had all his hair. Twenty Hortas, he
thought. And now one was missing, and another
probably gone forever. Up on the screen, scarlet
triangles worked their way across the bridge, where his
people, including Odo and O'Brien, waited to stop
them once and for all.
    How many of Ttan ~ children will I have to kill to
save DS9, he thought grimly, assuming I can even hurt
them at all?

CHAPTER
     13

KmA CREPT FORWARD to where the tunnel ended and a
normal-looking hallway began. This, she thought, had
to be the way to the crew quarters and administrative
sector--what the Cardassians called Central. She
found she was holding her breath and forced herself to
exhale. Treat it like a training exercise, she told
herself. Keep moving. Don't hesitate. If you see any-
one, shoot because you know they're going to be hostile.
    She glanced back. Lapyn nodded once. The rest of
her team--minus only Dr. Bashir and Ensign
Wilkens, who had stayed behind to help with the
liberated Bajorans--gripped their phasers and tensed
for action.
    "In groups of two," Kira called softly. "Wait for my
signal."
    Bending almost double, she sprinted from cover. In
low gravity it was almost comical--she bounded five
meters at a step and almost overshot the adjoining
corridor.
  Take it easy, she told herself. She scrambled back
 into position, then pressed herself flat against the
 tunnel wall. For a second she strained to listen, but
 didn't hear anything beyond the pounding of her
 heart. Phaser ready to fire, she swung out and stared
 down the long gray corridor.
     It was deserted, as she'd expected. Gray walls,
 glowing white ceiling panels, and a smooth gray floor
 stretched far ahead of her. She could see closed doors
 to either side. Any of them might hold hostiles, and
 what appeared to be a second corridor intersected the
 one she stood in about forty meters farther down.
     She signaled the others forward, and when they had
 all joined her, she stepped up onto the floor tiles.
    For a second the universe swam drunkenly. She
reeled to one side and leaned against the wall, gasping.
Something's wrong, she thought, fighting panic. She
weighed a ton. She was going to fall--
"Major?" she heard Ensign Aponte say. "Major!"
The dizziness began to pass. Kira forced herself
upright, staggering a bit. Her center of balance was off,
she realized, but it rapidly returned.
    Then she called herself a fool for not realizing what
was going on. "They're using artificial gravity in this
section," she said over her shoulder. "Watch your
step. I moved too quickly and the blood rushed from
my head."
    She hefted her suddenly leaden phaser and moved
forward as stealthily as possible. She felt huge and
clumsy, and her footsteps seemed to echo unnaturally
loudly. A trickle of sweat ran down her neck.
    She touched the first room's handpad, and the door
sprang aside. Its lights flickered on. It was a storage
room--food concentrates, according to the 'boxes.
She motioned the others forward.
 "That's what they feed us," Lapyn said softly,
looking over her shoulder. He made a face. "Awful
stuff, but supposedly balanced for a Bajoran's mini-
mum nutritional needs."
    "I imagine the rest of the rooms along here are for
storage too," Kira said, "but check the others just in
case." She motioned Parks and Wilkens forward, and
they began opening door after door with similar
results.
    Leaving them to that task, she advanced to where
the next corridor intersected theirs. The guard station,
according to Lapyn, lay just around the corner. She
paused and listened intently for a moment, but didn't
hear anything, not a voice, not a footfall, not a sigh or
a snore. She had no way of telling what lay around the
corner.
    She wished she could use a tricorder, but couldn't
risk it. There might be security monitors that would
pick it up. It was down to old-fashioned tactics. She
stuck her head out and took a quick glance up and
down the corridor.
    This corridor ended to her right in some kind of
control room, with a series of two-meter-tall glass
windows that looked out onto the corridor. Lapyn
must have taken it for the guard station, she thought.
Several Cardassians in gray uniforms sat inside watch-
ing monitors. At least one was speaking into an
intercom.
    Kira eased back out of sight. Luckily none of them
had seen her. Motioning for Lapyn and the others to
follow, she led the way back to one of the storage
rooms, ushered everyone inside, and shut the door.
Quickly she told them what she'd seen.
    "I think we can take them," she said, "but I wonder
if we should. It wouldn't gain us any more weapons.
Any thoughts?" I started out trying to make this a
 team effort, Kira told herself, and I'm damned well
 going to finish it that way.
     "They'll know where the weapons are kept," Lapyn
 said.
     "We'll need to keep at least one prisoner awake,"
 Muckerheide offered. "And persuade him to talk."
     "Or use their computer," Aponte said. "There are
 bound to be complete maps for the complex." Every-
 one else seemed to agree with that. Kira nodded; it
 seemed like a sensible plan.
     "They might not be able to see us if we crawl there,"
 she said. "They're all seated, and their attention
 seems occupied with whatever they're monitoring.
 We'll try it that way. Let's move!"
    She opened the storage room's door cautiously,
peered out, then led the way back to the intersection.
Dropping to her hands and knees, she peered around
the corner. In the control room, she could see the back
of one Cardassian's head, but the rest were out of
sight.
We can do this, she thought. We can take them.
Cautiously, careful to make no more sounds than
the barest shuffling noise on the floor tiles, she moved
forward. The others followed. She reached the room's
door and crouched to its left, below the window.
Aponte took the other side of the door, with
Muckerheide behind her. Lapyn and Jonsson sta-
tioned themselves behind Kira.
    Kira reached for the door's handpad, but before she
could touch it, the door whisked open on its own and
a Cardassian in a gray uniform sauntered out.
    Kira stunned him before he could react, then
scrambled over his unconscious body and into the
room. Her timing was off, but she had to make do, she
knew. She couldn't let an alarm go up.
    The Cardassians gaped at her. "Hands up or I'll
shoot!" she cried. She motioned with her phaser. "Up.
NOW."
    The Cardassians stood slowly, raising their hands
over their heads. There were five of them, Kira
counted, plus the one in the doorway.
    She let the others file in before speaking again.
"What is this station?" she demanded.
    "Tell the Bajoran slime nothing!" the tall Car-
dassian on the left snarled.
    "Wrong answer." Kira calmly stunned him. He
collapsed, arms twitching.
    None of them would talk, she knew, if they believed
she wouldn't do more than stun them. She had to put
some real fear into them. She turned to Aponte.
 "Take the bodies out," she said, "and kill them."
 Ensign Aponte paled. "Major, you can't mean--"
    "That's an order, Ensign. We'll do it just like Sisko
would do."
    When Aponte smiled and gave a quick nod, Kira
knew she understood. Ensign Aponte dragged first
one, then the other out. A second later Kira heard two
phaser blasts--doubtless her firing harmlessly into
the wall or floor, she thought.
    Kira smiled and turned back to the other prisoners.
"I do so hate the sight of blood," she said. Then she
hardened her voice. "Now, you!" she demanded of
the next Cardassian in line. "What is this station?"
 "I--uh--can't--" he whimpered.
    "Wrong answer," she said, and she calmly shot him,
too.
  Aponte appeared in the doorway. "Another one?"
    "Yes. But he almost cooperated... just maim this
one."
  "Yes, Major."
    Kira swept her gaze down the line of Cardassians to
the one who looked the youngest and, therefore, most
gullible. His face had turned a very pale green.
"Well?" she demanded. "You know the question."
    "We're just technicians. We're in charge of the
mining equipment on the twenty lowest levels. We
don't know anything, really--"
    "Too bad," she said. "I guess you've outlived your
usefulness." She raised her phaser.
    "Wait!" he cried. "Please! I have a wife and
child--"
  "Traitor!" the Cardassian next to him hissed.
     "I'm trying to save all our lives," he snapped back.
 "Do you want to die here like the others?"
     Kira stunned the fourth Cardassian, then the fifth
 one for good measure. The young technician backed
 up against a control panel, a look of fear on his face.
 Softly he began to whimper.
     "Shut up!" Kira barked. "Pay attention, do what
 you're told, and answer promptly. If you do, you'll
 live through this to see your wife and child again.
 Understand?"  "Y-yes!"
     She pushed him down into one of the seats. "Call
 up a schematic of this whole mining complex," she
 said. "I want to see where we are in relation to
 Central."
     The technician turned and punched a few com-
 mands into his console. Kira leaned close to see the!
 monitor. Rather than a detailed schematic, though,
 another Cardassian's face filled the screen. Kira~
 pulled back, startled and confused. She'd been
 tricked. She should have known no Cardassian soldieri
 would betray his station so easily.
   The Cardassian on the screen appeared to be an

officer of some kind. "What's going on there--" he
began.
    "We're under attack!" the technician blurted out.
"Help us!"
    Kira shot the computer before he could say another
word. Even as she did, she knew the damage was
done; the Cardassians had been warned.
    Sparks jumped as circuits shorted and couplings
fried. She had to leap back and cover her face to avoid
being burned. In the confusion, the technician tried to
run for the door.
    Aponte grabbed for him and missed, but Kira had
been half expecting his break. She stepped forward
and shot him in the back of the head. He slumped to
the floor, unconscious.
    Damn him, she thought. Feeling a helpless, frus-
trated rage, she kicked him in the ribs as hard as she
could. It didn't help.
 So much for having surprise on their side.
 A moment later, a loud, shrill alarm began to blare.

    The runabout's chronometer chimed softly, signal-
ing Dax. The Trill rose from her meditations and
hurried to the pilot's seat. At last, she thought, it was
time to call Kira,
    When she opened the communication channel,
however, a surge of white noise almost deafened her.
She pounded the side of the console again.  The screen went black. Dead.
    She stared for a second, horrified, then hit the
control panel once more. So much for Major Kira's
technique, she thought grimly.
     Quickly she called up a computer diagnostic. The
 program ran through a quick series of tests and, for
 once, came up with an immediate answer: the phase
 inverter crystal had burned out. No doubt the Van
 Luden radiation belt had overloaded it, Dax thought.
 She'd been lucky it hadn't gone dead the first time she
 tried to use it.
    A quick check of the Amazon's onboard stores
revealed a spare. All she had to do was install it and
she'd be set. Now, where was the emergency tool kit?
It wasn't clipped in place on the rear bulkhead where
it should have been.
    Then she remembered that Julian had been using it
to recalibrate his tricorder. She'd left him to clean up
and put the tools away after she finished the job for
him. Everything had been secured after the card game
endedmwhere the hell had he put it?
    She turned slowly. The tool kit wasn't anywhere in
sight. With a sinking feeling inside, she realized she'd
have to tear the runabout apart to find it. She started
with the sleeping mats, then the table--

    Julian had studied battle injuries in school and
treated hundreds of patients during his tenure on
DS9, but had never run into anything on the scale of
what these Bajorans had suffered on Davonia. He
mentally compared it to the first doctors rushing into
the Nazi death camps on Earth or the dilithium mines
on Konnoria V. There was so much to do, you
scarcely knew where to begin. Between malnutrition,
broken bones, bruises, cuts, gouges, scrapes, and
general ill health and their mental state, he was
amazed so many of them seemed capable of function-
ing at any level at all.
    While Ensign Wilkens, under Kira's orders, posted
lookouts in the tunnels and organized the two dozen
able-bodied Bajorans into fighting teams, Julian
worked on the injured. He set half a dozen broken
bones, dispensed vitamin shots until his limited sup-
plies ran out, and sealed literally dozens of cuts,
gouges, scrapes, and sores. None of the Bajoran men
and women were in a life-threatening state, but none
were fit for any sort of strenuous activity, either. To a
great degree each of them suffered from years of
malnutrition, neglect, and in a number of cases,
outright abuse.
    He finished treating a woman with severe whip-
scars across her back as Wilkens ran in from the
tunnel.
    "Sir," Wilkens gasped, "there's an alarm being
raised outside."
    Julian paused and strained to hear. "I can't hear
anything--" he began.
    Wilkens shook his head. "It's very faint and coming
from the upper levels."
    Julian wondered briefly whether they should wait
where they were or try to find a safer place. That was
the sort of decision Kira made best. Still, he was in
charge now, and he couldn't very well waffle until
Cardassians found him. And this would be the first
place they looked.
     "We'd better move," he said. "Get the squads
 together. They can help the sick or injured. We'll
 retreat into the tunnels."
     "No," said one of the Bajorans whom Julian had
 just treated. He stood, flexing his arm. The patch of
 synthetic skin Julian had applied to a bone-deep cut
 seemed to be holding. "We'll fight," the man said. "I
 won't hide in this hole another day!"
  "You're not in any shape--" Julian began.
  "Hah? He seized a pick that had been lying on the
floor. "Just show me a Cardassian! We'll see who's in
shape!"
    The others around him echoed his words. In sec-
onds the whole cavern was stirring. Julian looked
from one determined face to another. Six Bajorans
held the guards' stunners over their heads. The others
took up sledgehammers, picks, shovelsmeverything
at hand that could serve as a weapon.
    Perhaps we can help Kira, Julian thought. If there
were alarms ringing, they must have been detected,
but not caught. If they'd been caught, there wouldn't
be any need for alarms.
    "Very well," he said. "We fight. Get the carts. We're
moving out of here right now."
    The six-wheeled carts might prove invaluable if
they ran into Cardassians, he thought. And they'd
provide transport for the wounded.
 He just hoped he wasn't making an awful mistake.

    "So much for secrecy," Kira said, glancing around
at the various control panels. "Everyone out of here.
Move!"
    When everyone had cleared the room, she turned
her phaser up to maximum power and raked its beam
across the equipment. Flames leaped and more sparks
flew as delicate machinery melted. She hesitated a
moment, looking at the six stunned Cardassians, but
decided she didn't have the will to kill them where
they lay--she wasn't a Cardassian. Besides, she
thought, the Cardassians would stop to rescue their
own kind, gaining more time for her and her team.
    The others were waiting in the corridor. "This
way," she called, darting straight ahead. She passed
the first corridor, turned left at a second, and right at a
third. The alarm continued to blare. Finally she came
to a lift of some kind. She pushed the call button.
    "Get ready!" she called, lowering the setting on the
phaser to stun once more. "As soon as you see them,
start firing!"
    The others spread out in a semicircle, weapons
raised. Kira kept one eye on the lift's readout. Almost
here, she thought, tensing.
    Even before the lift's huge double doors had
whisked open, she started firing. Five blue phaser
beams strafed across the lift's occupants. The uni-
formed Cardassian soldiers inside didn't have a
chance to move, let alone fire back. They fell in a
tangle of limbs, assault phasers, and drab gray uni-
forms.
    Kira braced the door open with her shoulder. "Get
their weapons," she said, "and their communicators."
    One communicator in particular was already
squawking, its tinny little voice all but lost beneath
the mass of bodies. Aponte and Lapyn dragged the
Cardassians out one at a time while the others
stripped them of weapons. The ambush yielded a
surprising number of knives, stun grenades, paralysis
darts, and small energy weapons. In all, they now held
ten Cardassian prisoners with full battle gear.
    Lapyn used one of their shirts to tie up most of the
weapons. Kira kept the twenty stun grenades for her
own use.
     "Get these back to Bashir and the other Bajorans,"
 she said. "They're going to need them soon, I expect."
     "Right," Lapyn said, and he headed back at a trot
 the way they'd come.
     Kira picked up the communicator that was still
 squawking. She activated it. "Hello," she said.
     "Who is this?" the Cardassian on the other end
 demanded.
     "Major Bata Huri of the Bajoran Liberation Front.
 Do I have the pleasure of addressing the base com-
 mander?"
  "This is Gul Mavek, yes," he snarled.
     "Listen to me very carefully, Gul Mavek," Kira
 said. "My assault team is currently sweeping through
 the lower levels of your base, placing dilithium bombs
 with timers for later detonation. We will be beaming
 our fellow freedom-fighters back to our fleet very
 shortly. I strongly recommend your immediate evacu-
 ation of this base, unless you want a bad case of
 radiation poisoning. Bata out."
    Kira smashed the communicator, then tossed the
bits into the lift. Its doors were trying to close;
Muckerheide and Aponte had to brace themselves to
hold them open.
    "A second more..." Kira said, examining two of
the stun grenades. They had timers, exactly as she'd
hoped. She adjusted them for thirty-second delays,
activated them, and set them in the front comers of
the lift. Now they couldn't be seen until you were
actually inside.
    Dancing back, she motioned for the two ensigns to
release the doors. They did so, and the lift closed with
an almost audible snap. It headed up.
"They'll send more soldiers down," Aponte said.
"I know," Kira said, her thoughts racing, "but I
think they're going to be moving very, very slowly,
especially if they think we've been booby-trapping the
tunnels. It should buy us more time."

    Ttan felt herself go rigid. That high-pitched vibrat-
ing noise that made her cilia tremble and set her
silicon blood surging--she'd only heard similar
sounds twice before.
    Once had been on Janus VI, when a reactor had
overloaded, flooding a sector of the mines with
human-killing radiation. The humans had used that
sound as an alarm.
    The second time had been aboard the Puyallup,
when the Cardassian ship had attacked. It had sent all
of the Federation officers scrambling to their stations.
    Ttan guessed this sound--so similar in many
respects--also meant something had gone wrong.
Had the Cardassians lost their reactor, too? Were they
even now dying at their stations as they tried to stop
radiation from flooding through their little under-
ground complex?
    For a half-second Ttan began to tunnel deeper into
the rock, but then one of the Cardassian guards
appeared in front of her cell.  "Creature," he called.
  "What do you want of me?" Ttan answered.
    "Gul Mavek orders you to remain here, in your cell.
There is a minor security problem on another level.
Do not let the alarms concern you. He reminds you
that your children will suffer if you fail to obey his
commands. Do you understand?"
  "Yes," Ttan said bitterly. "I understand."

    A beam of crimson energy blasted the wall above
Julian's head, showering him with jagged bits of stone.
One stung his cheek, and he jerked back. Raising a
hand to his face, he felt blood.
"Just a small cut, Doctor," Wilkens assured him.
"Get those carts up here!" Julian called. He stuck
his hand around the corner and fired a quick salvo
from his phaser, trying to keep the Cardassians back a
 little longer. Six Cardassian soldiers in battle armor
 had been advancing steadily up the tunnel for the last
 five minutes. Their superior weapons coupled with
 armor gave them a decided edge, Julian thought. He'd
 already retreated half a dozen times. He didn't know
 how much longer his men would be able to hold them
 off.
     Five of the six-wheeled carts rolled up. Bajorans
 with control boxes arrived right behind them. The
 carts were his last hope.
     "I want you to line them up across the tunnel," he
 said. A blockade might well slow down the Cardas-
 sians, he thought.
  "Right away, Doctor," they assured him.
    As Julian watched, first one, then another rolled
around the comer and lined up facing the attacking
Cardassians. Phaser beam after phaser beam struck
their cargo bins, punching through the rhodinium like
knives through paper. The Cardassians were firing at
people they assumed were hiding in the carts. There
weren't any--he had known better than to leave them
inside.
    Suddenly inspiration struck. "Advance them!" he
said. "Keep the line of carts even. Push the Cardas-
sians back!"
    He didn't know if it would work, but it was worth a
try. He eased forward to see what happened as the
carts began to roll down the corridor, gaining speed.
Side by side, the five of them took up the entire
passageway. Nobody could get by them... or shoot
around them, which was what he'd originally had in
mind when he'd ordered them brought forward.
    As he watched, Cardassian phaser fire continued to
strafe the carts from the other side. The soldiers
seemed to be holding their positions, firing blast after
useless blast. Julian sucked in a sudden horrified
breath when he realized they had no intention of
retreating--that they'd be killed.
    He winced as startled screams and several yelps of
pain came from the six unseen Cardassians. Two carts
veered to the side as bodies jammed under their
wheels. Still the line continued to roll forward. When
they cleared the spot where the Cardassian troops had
stood, Julian noticed the rather unpleasant mess
they'd left behind. Not only had the carts run down
the six Cardassians, the treads on their wheels had
done a pretty good job of chewing them up into so
much mulch.
    Cheering, the Bajorans stormed out to search the
remains. Perhaps something was still useable, Julian
thought. He suddenly felt a little dizzy and had to sit
down. I shouM be getting used to battles, he told
himself.
    "Doctor, you're losing blood," Wilkens said. "I
think you might want to let me treat that cut on your
cheek."
    Julian glanced up at him. "You said it was just a
scratch."
    "I, uh, may have underreported it, sir. It didn't
seem like the right time--"
    "Yes, quite right," Julian assured him. He under-
stood entirely. You don't tell the commander he has a
bad cut in the middle of a battle.
     He pressed one hand to the wound to try to stanch
the flow of blood. "Get my medical bag, will you?"
  "Right, sir." He hurried to get it
    "Captain Dyoran!" Julian called. The tall, gaunt
man stalked over, looking strangely satisfied. Like
 many Bajorans, Julian thought, Dyoran seemed to
 have a thirst for Cardassian blood that bordered on
 mania.
    Dyoran snapped to attention and gave him a
Bajoran salute. "Two working phaser rifles, six
vibroknives, and fifteen stun grenades recovered, sir,"
he said. "And Lapyn just showed up with still more
weapons. He's currently handing them out to the most
able-bodied. About half of us are going to be fighting-
fit."
  "Great," Julian said.
    "May 1 add, sir," Dyoran continued, "that was a
brilliant move."
    "Routine Federation training," Julian said with a
self-deprecating little shrug. When in doubt, impro-
vise. He'd seen Sisko do that more times than he liked
to think about.
  Dyoran still looked awed.
    "Now," Julian told him. "I have a feeling Major
Kira is stretching their security forces rather thin up
above. I don't think we have anything to worry about
for the time being. Send out scouting parties. I want to
find a way onto the upper levels... an unguarded
way."
    "Yes, sir!" Dyoran saluted, then turned and
sprinted back to the others. Minute by minute, second
by second, the Bajorans seemed to be gathering their
strength, Julian thought, like professional athletes
gaining a second wind. In seconds, Dyoran had teams
out to explore neighboring tunnels.
    For a moment Julian considered trying to contact
Kira, but ultimately he decided against it. She'd given
him strict orders to maintain communicator silence
so the Cardassians wouldn't be able to pinpoint their
locations. Still, he couldn't help but wonder what was
happening with her up there.
    Alarmis were still ringing; he could hear them in the
distance. If nothing else, he knew it meant Kira was
still alive and fighting. That, or the Cardassians were
about to focus their complete attention on rounding
up their escaped prisoners.

    "A one-second delay," Kira told her team, "can be
more effective than anything else, if you do it right."
    She ran a trip wire across the corridor, with one end
tied to the pin of a stun grenade. What I wouldn't give
for a couple of plasma bombs right now, she thought.
The next Cardassian who came down this corridor
would get far more than he had bargained for, but
he'd live through it. A plasma bomb, on the other
hand, offered a far more permanent solution.
    Rising, she checked the trip wire for proper tension,
then set off up the corridor. She'd instructed Ensign
Aponte to take tricorder readings for Ttan. Now that
the Cardassians knew they were there, it didn't make
sense for them not to use the tricorder. A Horta, Kira
thought, might be more than enough to equal the
odds.
    "She's two levels up and a hundred and forty meters
ahead," Aponte said.
  "What's above us?"
  "A room... no occupants, Major."
    "Stand back." Kira raised her phaser, adjusted its
setting, and began cutting into the wall. The wall-
board came off easily, revealing rock. She quickly cut
handholds into it. When she reached the corridor's
ceiling, she sliced a very neat hole through it.
  Then she holstered her phaser, tested the handholds
 she'd cut for temperature, and when she decided they
 wouldn't burn her, began to climb. She popped up
 into a Cardassian's rather spartan living quarters. It
 had a bed, a closet, a small table, a single chair, and a
 replicator. The weapons rack next to the door held a
 phaser rifle and a pair of hand weapons.
     She climbed out and helped Muckerheide and
 Aponte up. Muckerheide appropriated the weapons
 while Aponte took a quick tricorder scan of the area
 around them. "Two Cardassians running in the corri-
 dor outside," the ensign said. "Wait... they're pass-
 ing us."
     Kira relaxed a bit. She didn't want to fight the
 Cardassians on two sides at once. Having them close
 on her tail was bad enough.
     A dull whump of sound echoed from the opening in
 the floor. Someone had just set off the first of the
 booby traps she'd left behind, she realized with some
 satisfaction. The others would be coming more slowly
 now. Perhaps she'd gained them a few more minutes.
   "How is the corridor outside?" she asked.
   "Empty," Aponte said.
    Kira opened the door. "Out," she said. "Keep
watch. I want to set another booby trap here." She
pulled out two more stun grenades and set to work.
    One more level to go, she thought, and we'll have you
free, Ttan. HoM on a few more minutes.

    "Sir," Captain Dyoran said to Dr. Bashir, "we've
found a freight lift. Apparently they use it to transport
raw materials to the surface. It's currently in use, but
the whole process appears to be automated. I think we
can override its positronic controls and have it take us
to any level we choose."
    "Excellent," Julian said. He patted the plastic patch
on his cheek; it had been an easy matter to seal the cut,
but he'd taped it anyway to make sure it stayed clean.
He had a feeling he'd be doing a lot more jumping
around before they escaped from the Cardassian base.
"We'll move everyone up higher. There must be
plenty of places to hide. When we get everyone settled,
we'll find Major Kira and the others."
    "Right." Captain Dyoran moved off, calling orders,
and to Julian's eyes a rather motley procession soon
assembled. He took his place at the head of the line of
Bajorans, with Dyoran at his side, and when he
judged everyone ready, he started for the freight lift.
When everyone was moving, he stepped to the side to
watch, lending a hand here, keeping the Bajorans'
spirits up, keeping everyone to a steady pace. He
wanted no stragglers. The lookouts watching the side
tunnels would report it if more Cardassians appeared.
In the meantime, they had to find a more secure place
to hide.
    Dyoran had the freight lift's doors open by the time
he got there. Inside, huge cargo containers of raw ore
had been stacked nearly to the ceiling.
    There wasn't enough room for a single person, he
saw, let alone the fifty-two now assembled. There were
disappointed .moans from everyone around him.
Clearly they couldn't get on... and they didn't have
hours to unload the lift. Its hijacking would be noticed
fairly quickly.
    "Close the doors," Julian finally said. That was the
only logical decision he could make. "Send it up to the
surface."
     "What?" Captain Dyoran demanded. "Are you
 crazy?"
    "I'm not up to shifting all that ore, and you're not,
either," Julian said. "They'll send the lift back down
when it's empty, We'll take it then."
    "Right!" Dyoran said, grinning. He motioned to his
men, and reluctantly it seemed to Julian they let the
huge doors close with a boom that shook the tunnel.
    Julian took out his tricorder and wandered a few
meters up the tunnel. When he had cleared the others,
he took a quick reading, searching for Ttan. He
spotted her easily this time, twelve levels up and two
hundred and eighty meters to the right. Thatk the
level we'll try for, he decided. If nothing else, he might
be able to help Kira rescue the Horta.

CHAPTER
     14

SIDE BY SIDE, the Hortas resembled a range of craggy,
stone hills mysteriously given the power of indepen-
dent movement. Three Hortas led the pack; the width
of the corridor forced the others to follow closely
behind. From several yards away, the Hortas looked to
be almost full grown now, about the length and width
of Ops transporter pad. Any larger, O'Brien thought,
and the mountains would indeed be coming to Mo-
hammed. "What are they after?" he asked.
    "How shotfid I know?" Odo replied brusquely. The
shapeshifter stood directly in front of O'Brien,
flanked by a team of security men and women.
Looking over Odo's shoulder, O'Brien saw the lead
Hortas moving hesitantly, but irrevocably, onto the
bridge and toward the core. Unlike his failed defense
of the weapons tower, the site of which he had selected
more or less arbitrarily, this time he knew he was at
the crucial battlefield. Even still, skeleton forces were
posted at the other two bridges in case the Hortas,
despite appearances, scattered and attacked the other
 bridges as well. All three locations awaited his instruc-
 tions. As long as their communications held out, any
 success here could be mimicked immediately by
 teams elsewhere on the core. O'Brien hoped a solution
 existed.
     "They're moving slower than before," Odo volun-
 teered. "I think perhaps they learned something from
 the disaster in the habitat ring. They don't want to end
 up in space, so they're more cautious in their tunnel:
 ing."
 "But not scared enough to stay put?" O'Brien said.
 "No," Odo said. "Unfortunately, they're like hu-
 manoids in that respect. They don't know when to
 stay home."
    And where is your home, Odo? O'Brien resisted the
temptation to respond aloud. "Constable," he asked
instead, "are you ready to play the 'mama' trick
again?"
    Odo grimaced through flattened features. "If I have
to," he said. "Prior experience, however, indicates
that my influence over them has its limits; even
disguised as their mother, I could not keep that one
Horta from tunneling to his death--and nearly killing
the rest of them. Frankly, the situation calls for a
better, less personal strategy." His stern blue eyes
challenged O'Brien. "I thought you Starfleet types
specialized in pulling technological fixes out of the
air."
    "If I have to," O'Brien said, bristling a bit at the
sarcastic tone of Odo's comment. Okay, he thought,
l'll throw the first ball then. "Shields in place," he
ordered. "Maximum strength."
    The oncoming phalanx of Hortas intersected with.
the first shield right away. Blinding flashes of tur-
quoise energy erupted wherever the Hortas' rocky
exterior came into contact with the invisible barrier.
The Hortas rumbled in protest, but did not retreat.
Before O'Brien's disbelieving gaze, they pushed for-
ward against the field. Acrid white vapors rose from
the Hortas' lumps and crevices. The bursts of blue
light escaping the violated force field became diffused
in a thick, roiling fog. Even from a safe distance away,
the acidic fumes stung O'Brien's eyes and nose. He
blinked the tears away, wiping his cheek with his
sleeve. "More power," he demanded. "Divert every-
thing to the forward shield."
    A Bajoran technician raised her hands helplessly.
"That's all we've got, Chief. Half the power conduits
on this level are fused, melted, or otherwise inopera-
tive."
    "Steal some juice from Quark's Place if you have
to," O'Brien told her. "I don't care if every holograph-
ic floozie on this entire station goes to her eternal
reward, give me more power!"
    'Tin trying, Chief," she said. A silver-haired wom-
an in a gray uniform, she had pried open a control pad
in the wall. Now her fingers raced through a series of
operations, approaching the problem from one ave-
nue after another. O'Brien glanced nervously at the
Hortas. They were less than a third of the way across
the bridge, but they were making progress. God, he
thought, horrified, there seemed to be dozens of them.
    "There!" the Bajoran said triumphantly, looking.
eagerly toward the bridge to witness the fruits of her
efforts~
    For a second, her exuberance seemed justified. The
coruscating sparks of blue flared brighter while, simul-
taneously, the Hortas' low rumbling gave way to a
angry, crystalline squeal that made O'Brien's ears
ache. One of the aliens even appeared to bounce back
a few feet, repelled forcibly by the unexpected surge in
the field's strength. Hah, O'Brien thought, maybe we'll
put these snappers in a playpen yet.
    Then the Hortas regrouped and confronted the
shield again. The crimson veins running irregularly
over their armored shells pulsed with exertion, glow-
ing redder by the moment as the Hortas visibly
strained to force their way through. And, inch by inch,
as O'Brien's heart pounded and his mouth grew dry as
dust, the Hortas came closer. "They're not babies," he
protested loudly, "they're bulldozers!"
    A cry from the Bajoran woman tore his attention
away from the advancing Hortas. She jerked back her
hands in time as the control pad exploded in a spray of
glittering electrical fire. With a quick command into
his badge, O'Brien ordered the display off-line. "Are
you okay?" he asked the woman.
    She nodded affirmatively. There were carbon burns
on her sleeves and collar. "I'm sorry, Chief. Feedback
from the field caused an overload."
 "Is the shielding still in place?"
    "Barely," she said. She rubbed at the burns on her
uniform, but only succeeded in smudging the ashy
black marks.
    That was all O'Brien needed to hear. Damn it, he
cursed silently. This hellhole barely works at the best of
times, let alone when it's being nibbled to death by
Hortas. "Odo," he called out. "Your turn."
    To O'Brien's relief, the security chief refrained from
any caustic remark. He saw Odo roll his eyes, then
watched as those eyes, the face they were lodged in,
and every other part of Odo disappeared into the flux
of his transformation. A breath later, a full-sized
simulacrum of a Mother Horta glided down the
bridge to meet its "children." If only, O'Brien
thought, the real Hortas find Odo's disguise as convinc-
ing as I do ....
    "Deactivate the shield," he said, as Odo ap-
proached the midsection of the bridge. "Or what's left
of it, that is."

    Odo encountered no obstruction between himself
and the Hortas. Chief O'Brien's work, he wondered,
or a simple power failure? The Horta's shape was as
cozy as he recalled; still, he wasn't sure how long he'd
be able to maintain this form. The sixteen hours
allowed his solid form was running out. Furthermore,
too many transformations in too few hours, plus his
recent battle against explosive decompression, had
left him more fatigued than he cared to let on. Odo
thought longingly of the comfort of his pail, wishing
for a few minutes of untroubled rest, but settled down
instead on the floor of the bridge, immediately in the
path of the real Hortas. A motherg work, he thought
bitterly, is never done.
    The Hortas did not react to his presence as enthusi-
astically as they had before, although the lead Horta
halted less than a foot away from Odo and greeted him
with the harsh, abrasive sounds of stone against stone.
As before, Odo did not know how to respond so he
remained silent, noting how much larger all the
Hortas were now. The one nearest him was almost as
massive as Odo's current form, about the size of a
snack kiosk on the Promenade. He hoped that he was
still dealing with infants, and not a gang of rebellious
adolescents.
    The nearby Horta brushed against Odo. Its voice,
loud and scraping, rose slightly, then died away. It
backed away from Odo while, on both sides of him,
rows of pitted, pulsating Hortas eased past the dis-
guised constable and continued their trek toward the
core. Their sibling was not really retreating either; it
was preparing to circle around Odo, who briefly
considered falling back and turning himself into a
wall. But no, he realized, that would be suicide. He'd
seen what a determined Horta could do to a wall.
    Instead he abandoned the impersonation. Like a
swiftly flowing river of gold, he streamed back to the
core-side entrance, swirling around and past the more
slowly moving Hortas, until he rose up on humanoid
legs at O'Brien's side. Fortunately, the Starfleet man
had witnessed Odo's shapeshifts too often to be taken
aback by the security chief's rapid re-formation.
  "No luck?" O'Brien asked, all business.
    "Either they know I'm not Ttan or they don't care."
Odo shook his head wearily. "Kids these days..."

    Odo looked like he was ready to drop, or melt, or
whatever, O'Brien thought. Despite the constable's
gruff attitude, his face and hands had taken on the
slick, moist sheen of a candle held too close to a flame.
A slight, but perceptible, ripple seemed to run under
the surface of his beige uniform. O'Brien hoped he
wouldn't have to mop Odo off the floor anytime soon.
    Looking away from Odo, he watched the Hortas
draw nearer. The first two had nearly reached the end
of the tunnel, with the others trailing after them.
Memories of his failure at the weapons towers came
back to him. He didn't bother to reach for his phaser.
The Hortas looked larger now, and even more impen-
etrable, and they were getting closer by the second.
    The ball is definitely in my court, he concluded.
Good enough. If nothing else, Odo's latest effort bought
me time to set up one more trick. With any luck, it will
be the last one I need.
"Shields at both ends of the bridge," he demanded.
Odo shook his head; it swayed unnervingly at the
end of an increasingly fluid neck. "They burn through
shields faster than Quark slips through loopholes."
Even his voice seemed less solid. He gurgled instead
of barked.
    "Trust me," O'Brien replied. "The shields are for
our sake." He tapped his comm, establishing a link
with the central computer. "Deactivate artificial grav-
ity in all bridges to the core."
    For once, the computer didn't argue with O'Brien.
Perhaps, he speculated, the damn program was as
anxious to yank the rug out from under the Hortas as
he was. After all, a small army of Hortas was only
minutes away from invading the heart of Deep Space
Nine. And if the Hortas started to devour the core,
how long would it be before Ops itself was on the
menu?
    "Gravity canceled," the computer announced.
O'Brien watched with satisfaction as, one after anoth-
er, the Hortas floated upward, away from the floor of
the bridge. They hovered helplessly, suspended in a
contained zero-gravity cell. The rustling filaments
along their undersides whipped about uselessly, un-
able to achieve more than glancing contact with any
other surface. A pair of drifting Hortas bumped into
each other, then ricocheted away gently in opposite
directions, where one of the Hortas knocked into a
third, sending it spinning down the corridor back the
way it had come while tumbling over and over in the
air. Within seconds, all the Hortas were colliding in
midair, bouncing back and forth along the corridor. It
was like viewing a game of zero-g billiards played in
slow motion.
  Perfect, O'Brien thought. Nonlethal, but effective.
He'd guessed that the Hortas, adapted by centuries of
evolution to life within the dense interior of a planet,
would be ill-equipped to cope with a gravity-free
environment. And the truly beautiful part of the trap
was that it actually took less energy to cut out the
artificial gravity than to maintain it. From an engi-
neering standpoint, he couldn't help but appreciate
the economy of his stratagem, especially considering
the ravaged state of all the station's systems. Maybe
they could manage without Dax's scientific expertise
after all.
    Then the Hortas began screaming: wild, ear-
piercing screams that sounded like sirens blaring, or,
O'Brien acknowledged reluctantly, like baby Molly in
the grip of a nightmare. "They're panicking," he
whispered to Odo.
    "Yes," Odo agreed. Even across the massive species
boundaries separating humans from Hortas, the
sound of pure fear was unmistakable.
    The keening tore at O'Brien's heart, but he could
have lived with the screams if necessary. Better to
terrify the poor babes than to annihilate them, or to
let them take apart Deep Space Nine, bite by bite. The
frightened Hortas did more than scream, though; they
were spraying acid frantically in all directions. Jets of
caustic liquid, orange as fire, spurted from every crack
in the Hortas' lumpy bodies. Globules of acid pooled
in the air, forming glowing puddles of death levitating
throughout the bridge, but for every burst that fell
short of the surrounding surfaces, another spray splat-
tered against the walls and flooring, turning solid
metal into a bubbling, dripping mess that quickly
evaporated to form gaping holes in the structure of the
bridge. The drifting globs of acid soon found the walls
as well, digging beneath the gray plating to the delicate
mechanisms underneath. White-hot sparks leaped
from damaged circuits. Flames and dark black smoke
merged with the white steam of the Hortas' corrosive
secretions.
    Through the sparking and the screaming, O'Brien
could barely hear the desperate reports coming over
his comm, but he got the gist of it right away. The acid
storm created by the Hortas in their frenzy to escape
their zero-g prison was wreaking havoc on systems on
every level of the bridge.
    O'Brien stared at the chaos and destruction. Not far
away, one of the Hortas spun end over end as it
sprayed blazing orange streamers all around it, like an
antique pinwheel firework. But the desperate Hortas
were much more dangerous, he knew, than any crude
pyrotechnic device:
    "Chief O'Brien," the silver-haired technician called
out. She pointed her Starfleet-issue tricorder at the
sealed bridge. "Microwaves are flooding the bridge.
The acid must have consumed the transmission
nodes. Radiation levels are rising."
    Thank heaven the shields are still in place, O'Brien
thought, but for how long? Smoking fissures and
gaping scars marred the interior of the bridge, while
the shrieking Hortas caromed through a sea of smoke,
sparks, and flying acid. Forget the radiation, he
thought. What about the structural integrity of the
bridge itselff.
    "Computer," he said. "Restore gravity to all cross-
over bridges immediately."
    The Cardassian program did not want to let the
Hortas off so easily. "Requesting confirmation from
commanding officer .... "
    "Bring that gravity back now," O'Brien barked
angrily, "while we still can!" As an afterthought, he
added, "And, computer, locate and deactivate all
damaged energy junctions." Damn it, he thought, why
couldn't the Cardies have built a safe, reasonable EPS
system into the station instead of their usual, cheap
microwave array?
    "Acknowledged," the computer replied, surrender-
ing to his authority. O'Brien felt a sudden humming
vibration under his feet, and gravity returned to the
corridor with a bang and splash. Eighteen Hortas
crashed to the floor at once, while blobs of drifting
acid fell like rain all along the bridge. The acid doused
the Hortas, but left no marks upon their invulnerable
shells. O'Brien watched, scowling, as the acid ran
down the Hortas' sides to wreak terrible damage on
the bridge floor. How many levels, he wondered,
would the falling acid burn through? He took comfort
in knowing that the entire bridge had already been
evacuated.
    The nearest Horta, who moments before had spun
like an acid-spewing top, landed upside down. Its
tendrils flapped ineffectually in the air and, for a
moment, O'Brien let himself hope that the Horta, like
an overturned tortoise, would be unable to right itself.
In that case, he'd simply grab a stick and give them all
a good flip over onto their backs.
    This simple plan died almost before he finished
conceiving it. Before his eyes, the inverted Horta sunk
into the floor, disappearing from sight. A second later,
and a few yards away, it reemerged rightside up.
Obviously, all the beastie needed was an instant
surrounded by solids to orient itself again. "I don't
believe this!" O'Brien muttered. "Can't anything stop
these things?"
    "On Janus VI," Odo said with obvious difficulty,
"they have no predators or crime. I checked."
    O'Brien glanced at his companion, trying hard not
to stare too obviously. It looked like Odo had put all
his effort into keeping his face, and especially his
mouth, more or less intact. By contrast, gravity had
pulled his hands and fingers down, elongating them so
that his digits were thin, attenuated things with drop-
shaped bulbs at the ends. The ripple beneath his
uniform was now a surging current; Odo's substance
sloshed about audibly, driven by strange biological
tides, barely contained by the anthropomorphic water
balloon his body had become. Tiny beads of moisture
dotted his imitation flesh; if O'Brien hadn't known
better, he might have mistaken them for perspiration.
    "For God's sake, man," he said softly, conscious of
Odo's carefully maintained dignity. "There's nothing
more you can do here. Take care of yourself before,
well, you know."
    Odo stared at O'Brien. His face no longer had
definition enough to express any emotion. The look in
his eyes might have been anger, or gratitude, or
feelings O'Brien could not even guess at. Odo lifted
one hand and watched it stretch like taffy toward the
floor.
    "You're right," he said quickly, then turned away.
With his peripheral vision, O'Brien caught a glimpse
of something gold and wet flowing away from the
scene, in the direction of the Promenade. He hoped
Odo would reach his office--and his pail--in time.
But was any place on the Promenade safe, with the
Hortas so close to the core? Deep inside, O'Brien
doubted it.
    "Eyes on the bridge," he ordered the assembled
team, and not just to let Odo make a clean escape. The
Hortas had shaken off the trauma of their adventure
in zero gravity. A mixed blessing, to be sure: the
screaming had stopped, but the Hortas were on the
move again.
  And O'Brien had run out of tricks.
    Frustrated, he slammed his fist into a bulkhead.
This was the weapons towers all over again. You're an
idiot and a failure, he cursed himself. Even little Molly
had handled the Hortas better than he had so far.
  Molly...
    With a start, O'Brien realized he still had one more
card to play: Molly's solution. "Feed them," he said,
softly at first, then louder and as an order. "Feed
them," he commanded. "Bulkheads, struts, spare
parts... I want everything that isn't nailed down
brought to the Hortas pronto!" To demonstrate, he
grabbed hold of the open cover of the fused control
pad and wrenched it violently free from its hinges. He
flung the thin sheet of metal in the path of the closest
Horta. Bent and battered from O'Brien's attack, the
cover clanged loudly when it struck the floor of the
bridge. The noise, or perhaps some tantalizing miner-
al odor the humans could not detect, attracted the
Horta's attention. It edged up to the cover, snuffling at
it with its tendrils. Apparently the sheet was just what
the doctor ordered; with an enthusiastic rumble, the
rocky creature pounced upon O'Brien's offering, haul-
ing its entire body over and atop the cover. O'Brien
heard the hiss of boiling metal and glimpsed a flash of
glowing red through the fringe of filaments along the
bottom of the Horta.
    The sheet was a mere tidbit, however, which the
Horta consumed almost instantly. Fortunately,
Starfleet and Bajoran officers came scurrying from all
directions, carrying fresh food for the Horta and its
siblings: guardrails, cabinet doors, beakers, desktops,
data clips, scanners, fire extinguishers, consoles,
padds, microscopes, mugs, stepladders, carrying
cases, trioorders, stools, suits of security armor, deco-
rative kelinide-alloy molding, metal charts and public
notices, even a large obsidian bust of Gul Dukat that
must have been tossed unceremoniously in a closet
shortly after the Bajorans laid claim to the station.
O'Brien saw two hefty Bajorans carrying an entire
airlock door between them. The large, gear-shaped
object surely weighed a couple hundred pounds. Be-
hind them, a Tiburonian lieutenant, the scalloped
lobes of her ears flushed with exertion, clutched an
engraved map of DS9; someone had painted the
phrase YOU ARE HERE over the original Cardassian char-
acters.
    All spare or inessential material, or so O'Brien
hoped. Still it seemed to do the job. The Hortas fell
upon this bounty with an avidity that reassured him
that his scheme was working, but that also distressed
him owing to the sheer speed and energy with which
the Hortas devoured all that was brought before them.
All along the bridge, DS9 personnel stepped warily
around acid-formed pits and crevices while Hortas
feasted eagerly on quickly assembled piles of supplies
and debris. For the present, a state of equilibrium
existed, with his people adding to the piles about as
quickly as the Hortas ate away at them, but how long
could they keep up with the Hortas' seemingly insatia-
ble hunger? Staring at the creatures as they burned
and burrowed into the heaps of junk, O'Brien felt like
the manager of an all-you-can-eat flea market, and one
that was rapidly running out of stock.
    To his surprise, he saw Jake and Nog among the
workers ferrying material to the Hortas. The com-
mander's son had an armful of genuine aluminum
baseball bats, while Quark's nephew struggled under
the weight of what looked like a cheap cast-iron
treasure chest. O'Brien worked his way through the
busy line of Starfleet and Bajoran officers until he
caught up with the boys only a few yards away from
the great Horta barbecue. He dropped one meaty
hand apiece on the boys' shoulders. Nog squealed in
fright, dropping the treasure chest onto the floor. The
latch holding the chest's lid shut snapped open upon
impact, and the contents of the box spilled out before
Nog's feet. Glancing down, O'Brien saw a pile of
jointed toy figurines, representing various sentient
races: Vulcans, humans, Klingons, and many other
types of males and females. Every figure was nude, he
spotted instantly, and anatomically correct.
    "Erotic action figures," Nog explained, shrugging.
"Kid stuff." O'Brien realized with a start that chest
had to be Nog's old toy box. Nog looked embarrassed,
but only slightly, like a teenager forced to show
someone his baby pictures.
    Ferengi, O'Brien thought. He shook his head to
clear his brain of the ghastly image of tiny Ferengi
toddlers at play with these obscene little models.
"Look, lads," he said, "you shouldn't be here. It's
dangerous."
    "But, Chief," Jake Sisko protested, "we have to help
out somehow. We have to." Nog nodded in agree-
ment, although O'Brien thought the nod lacked both
enthusiasm and sincerity.
    He was struck, however, by the intensity in Jake's
voice, and the terrible yearning in the boy's wide
brown eyes. This was important to Jake, O'Brien
knew, although he couldn't begin to guess why. He
considered the sports equipment in Jake's arms; the
commander and Jake had brought those bats all the
way from Earth, O'Brien recalled, and if Jake was that
eager to sacrifice his own precious possessions for the
sake of the station, who was O'Brien to say him nay?
For an instant, O'Brien recalled his first Starfleet
assignment, and how vital it had been to prove
himself back then. True, Jake was younger now than
O'Brien had been then, but O'Brien thought he recog-
nized the look in the boy's--no, he corrected himself
--the young man's eyes.
    Sisko may never Jorgive me, O'Brien decided then
and there, but I don't have the heart to send him away.
Be~ides, it's not like any place on DS9 is truly safe from
the Hortas.
    And as for Nog? O'Brien averted his eyes while the
Ferengi youth gathered up his scattered "playthings."
Well, he conceded reluctantly, any Ferengi who was
willing to throw away anything, no matter how dis-
gusting, deserved some credit.
    "Okay," he told them both, "you can stay for now,
and scrounge for provisions. But I don't want you
getting anywhere near the Hortas, understand? And
you'll head for shelter the minute they get past the
bridge. Got that?"
    "Yes, Chief," Jake said. The seriousness, and the
desperation, in his voice was positively heartbreaking.
Then he turned away quickly, as if terrified that
O'Brien might change his mind at the last minute.
"C'mon, Nog, let's go lend a hand?'
    Nog hesitated, gazing wistfully at a tiny replica of a
green Orion slave girl. He held the figure up to his eyes
and twirled it between his fingers. "Nog!"
    The Ferengi hastily stuck the doll into his boot and
chased after his friend. "I'm coming," he hollered.
"I'm coming! What's the rush?"
 A red-suited crewman bustled past O'Brien, block-
ing his view of the boys. He carried a globe of Bajor
that had most of its borders redrawn with bright
green, erasable ink. Nobody, O'Brien noted, was
sacrificing their weapons yet. Not far away, two
Hortas happily shared an oval conference table. The
stacks of melting Horta fodder glowed like bonfires.
    "Security," he instructed, hoping to bring some
semblance of order to the scene, "continue bringing
food for the Hortas. Maintenance and engineering,
try to..." He paused and shook his head wearily.
"Hell, try to repair the damage security is doing."
    This is not a long-term solution, O'Brien reminded
himself firmly. The Hortas' progress toward the core
had been stalled temporarily, but not for long. Did he
have to dismantle all of DS9 in order to save it? He
prayed that Commander Sisko could pull some sort of
rabbit out of his hat, as he had before, while there was
still something of the station left.
    In the meantime, he threw another console onto the
bonfire.

    "Gangway!" Quark grunted. "Let us by!" He scur-
ried toward Crossover Bridge 3, shoving his way past
teams of station personnel coming and going with
heaps of Horta fodder. Behind him, Rom tried to keep
up with his brother, even though he was laden with a
stack of steel carrying cases, piled up past the top of
Rom's head. Quark looked over his shoulder. Why
was Rom dawdling at a time like this? "Hurry, you
dolt. There's no time to waste."
    "Perhaps, brother," Rom stuttered, "we would
waste less time if you would help me carry these
boxes?" His arms were wrapped around the bottom
crate and his whole body swayed with the effort to
keep the piled cases from tumbling over.
    Quark merely hissed in reply. Some questions were
not worth answering. He darted around a tall Coridan
officer lugging a foot-long silver rod. He briefly con-
sidered informing her that the artifact in her hands
was in fact a sacred Bajoran relic, which it was, but
why bother? There was no profit in it. Besides, she was
too skinny for anything else. He started to hurry past
several more Starfleet flunkies, then heard a too
familiar voice pipe up to the rear.
    "Oh, excuse me. I mean, you don't want to feed that
to the Hortas. The Bajorans would be very upset .... "
    "Rom!" Quark snapped. He ground his molars
together in frustration. Sometimes he wondered if his
brother had been purchased in a discount offspring
sale; if so, Quark bet that Rom had been marked down
considerably.
    Unsolicited helpful advice, offered free of charge!
Quark marveled at the sheer magnitude of Rom's
foolishness. Next, Quark thought bitterly, he'll be
offbring refunds!
    As he drew nearer to Bridge 3, the activity around
Quark increased. He navigated through the commo-
tion, frequently looking backward to make sure Rom
hadn't fallen too far behind. Then, for a second, his
eyes widened as he saw two unexpected sights heading
down the corridor in the opposite direction: an imma-
ture male Ferengi and a dark-skinned human youth.
He stroked one ear thoughtfully as he hurried on.
What were Nog and Sisko's son doing here? Those two
had to be up to something. Quark resolved to look
into the matter at the first opportunity. After all, as
the Rules of Acquisition so wisely counseled: One
person's secret is another person's opportunity.
    First, however, he had to get by Miles O'Brien. The
human spotted Quark as soon as the Ferengi neared
the bridge. He placed himself directly in Quark's path,
his arms crossed atop his oversized human chest.
"Hold it right there, Quark," O'Brien barked. "What
in blazes are you doing here?"
    Quark scoped out the scene before answering. As
far as he could tell, Odo was nowhere nearby. Of
course, the problem with Odo was that you never
could tell for sure. It would serve that sanctimonious
shapeshifter right, he thought, ifOdo were to turn into
a chair or some such--and find himself fed to a Horta
by an overeager Starfleet cadet. Quark cackled at his
little private joke, then turned his attention back to
Chief O'Brien.
    "Doing my part as a public-minded citizen to help
preserve Deep Space Nine." Quark gestured toward
Rom and his heavy load. "I understand you're having
a scrap drive of sorts."
    "Right," the human said dubiously. "Whatever
you're selling, Quark, we're not buying, so you might
as well be on your way."
    "Selling?" Quark exclaimed, clutching his chest as
if shocked by the very notion. "Who said anything
about selling? I am donating these, my own personal
possessions, for the greater good of all concerned."
    "Right," O'Brien said again. The Starfleet officer
had obviously been spending too much time with
Odo, Quark concluded, and had been contaminated
by Odo's relentless suspicion. It could be worse,
though; Odo would have figured out this entire scam
already.
    "Look," Quark cajoled O'Brien, "do you want all
this or not? Frankly, from what I've heard, you're in
no position to be picky." Quark looked beyond
O'Brien's looming form to where dozens of uni-
formed officers were energetically feeding bits and
pieces of DS9 to the approaching Hortas. The cries of
the feasting monsters echoed off the increasingly bare
and skeletal walls.
    O'Brien sighed loudly. His eyes were tired and
bloodshot. "Okay," he said. "What have you got?"
    "Kamoy syrup!" Quark declared, ignoring the way
O'Brien's face wrinkled at the very thought of the
noxious stuff. "Gallons and gallons of delectable,
irresistible, Cardassian kamoy syrup. Just the thing
for a hungry Horta!"
    And all of it completely unsalable, Quark gloated,
but thoroughly insured. And who knew? Despite that
blather about "donations," maybe he should file some
sort of claim with the Federation as well? He could
conceivably be compensated twice for the loss of the
same useless merchandise. A venal grin threatened to
break out over Quark's features. Modesty be damned,
he thought; this is a stroke of genius.
    "Oh, go on with it then," O'Brien said grudgingly.
He stepped aside and let Quark and Rom pass. "God
knows there's little you can do to make the situation
wcrse." Then O'Brien strode away and started shout-
ing orders to workers who were patching holes in the
bulkheads with plastene sheets. Quark caught
snatches of O'Brien's directives, something about
"infrastructure" and "babies out with bathwater,"
but he really didn't care about any of that. The lure of
easy profit drew him on,
    Various security officers looked warily at Quark as
he and Rom scampered and staggered, respectively,
toward the waiting Hortas. "Fresh supplies," he called
out by way of explanation. "Top priority. Chief
O'Brien's orders." At the very edge of the bridge he
found a team of sweaty Bajorans passing materials
hand-over-hand, like an old-fashioned bucket brigade,
to the Hortas on the bridge. Quark felt a twinge of
alarm when he saw how close the creatures were to the
core and, by extension, to his bar. Still, there was
nothing he could do about that now. He snatched the
uppermost case from Rom's pile and handed it over to
the feeding team. Standing on his toes to get a better
view, he watched gleefully as the case was transported
by a succession of busy hands to a craggy rocklike
entity even larger than the ones who had attacked his
bar earlier.
    The Horta, upon reducing a redundant air filter to a
blackened smear on the floor, approached Quark's
donation with inhuman enthusiasm. Its questing for-
ward tendrils stripped away the metal casing. Kamoy
syrup, pink and oily, leaked from the perforations in
the container. The Horta lurched forward suddenly,
consuming the entire box in one acidic gulp.
    Then, without warning, the Horta backed away
abruptly. It made a peculiar retching noise, then
spewed out a revolting stew of shiny melted metal and
pink slime. The Bajorans threw another case to the
Horta, but this time the creature gave it a wide berth,
and so, as Quark watched in horror, did its assembled
siblings. The security officers had to feed the nearest
Hortas a partially dissembled diagnostic unit to keep
the distraught beasts from tunneling away into the
very floor of the bridge.
    A Starfleet ensign grabbed Quark by the upper arm
and began to escort him away from the scene. Quark
barely noticed. His gaze kept going back to the
regurgitated pink-and-silver mess the Horta had left
behind.
    I don't believe it, he thought. It was too terrible to
accept, but there was no way to deny the awful truth.
Even a Horta wouldn't eat kamoy syrup.

CHAPTER
     15

Kira FINISHED RIGGING the booby traps over the hole in
the floor, then stood back to check her work. Every-
thing looked perfect--the slightest pressure on the
trip wire would set off the grenades. Let that be a
lesson to the Cardassians: even one Bajoran could
hold an army at bay.
    Turning, she jogged out into the corridor. It was still
deserted. The alarm shrilled more loudly than ever
out here, a blaring wheep-wheep-wheep noise that
grated on her nerves and made her want to cover her
ears. If it affected her that way, she knew it would be
bothering her pursuers as well.
    "This way," she said, turning left. She headed up
the corridor at a dead run. Rounding the corner, she
came face-to-face with a Cardassian technician in a
one-piece blue uniform. The Cardassian dropped a
data board and dove toward a nearby room.
    Kira stunned him, then paused and looked back at
Ensign Aponte. "I need more warning, Ensign." She
didn't add, If he were a soldier, we'd all be dead now.
     "Sorry, Major." Aponte looked at her tricorder
 somewhat sheepishly. "We're being followed," she
 said. "About fifteen Cardassians. I don't think they set
 off the last trap you left, either, Major."
     "Damn," Kira said. Well, she thought, they
 couldn't fall for the same trick forever. "What's
 ahead?"
     "A lift... wait! There are people aboard it. A lot of
 them, too."
     Kira glanced around frantically. Where could they
 hide? She didn't see any cover, just the door the
 technician had dived for. Pressing the handpad didn't
 work; it chirped at her. Locked, she thought.
    She took a step back, thumbed her phaser to full
power, and fired. The locking mechanism disinte-
grated, and the door whisked to one side, revealing a
laboratory of some kind. Three Cardassians in blue
smocks stood behind a table littered with half-
assembled equipment. One of them snatched a phaser
from the table and fired, but Kira ducked out of the
way. If the Cardassian had been a soldier with a
soldier's quick reflexes, she'd be dead now, she
thought.
    Heart pounding, she pressed herself flat beside the
door and drew a stun grenade. This had better work.
She set it for a two-second delay, then tossed it into
the room.
In answer, a phaser blast nearly took off her hand.
"Two... one..." she counted.
The grenade went off with a satisfyingly loud
whump of sound. The corridor shook, and dust shot
out from the laboratory.
    Kira didn't wait. She whipped around and dove
through the door, then rolled up into a crouch,
swinging her phaser around to cover anyone still

moving. Dust settled; the three Cardassians lay on the
floor in an unconscious heap. Most of their equipment
looked like it had shattered beyond all repair.
    Quickly she circled the room, stepping over bro-
ken tables and shattered equipment. Just her luck--
the room proved to be a dead end, with no other
exits or entrances. She'd have to cut another exit for
them.
    "Watch for the soldiers," she told the two ensigns.
"Keep them back as long as you can. And I want
constant reports."
 "Right, Major," Aponte said.
    Kira moved to the back of the room and used her
phaser to cut a hole in the floor. This time she
dropped a couple of stun grenades through first, to get
rid of any possible resistance below, but rather than
descend to the next level, she raced back out into the
hallway. No sign of their pursuers yet, she was relieved
to see.
    "This way," she said, heading up the corridor once
more. "! cut a hole in the floor," she called over her
shoulder. "Hopefully they'll think we moved down a
level. It may gain us a few minutes while they check it
out. How far is Ttan now?"
    "Another sixty meters ahead," Aponte said. "Still
one level up. She hasn't moved."
"What about the Cardassians behind us?"
"Moving slowly. I think they're checking for traps
as they go. I'd say we have four minutes at most before
they find that room. A bigger concern is that liftmits
doors just opened."
    Great, Kira thought. She'd forgotten about it.
"How many aboard?" she demanded.
    "Fifty-two. Major--" She looked up in surprise.
"I'm reading them as Bajorans!"
"No," Kira moaned. It couldn't be Bashir--she'd
told him to stay put.
    "Yes," Aponte said, studying the tricorder's read-
ings. "I think there are also two humans among
them."
    "That idiot!" Kira raged. "Why couldn't he follow
orders and stay where he was? Why--" She broke off
suddenly. This wasn't the time or the place. What was
done was done; she'd hash it out with Bashir later, and
he'd better have a good excuse. For now, she'd make
the best of things.
    "Come on," she said. "We'll join them, then set up
a real ambush for the Cardassians behind us." She
tapped her badge communicator for the first time.
"Doctor, are you there?"
    "Here," her badge chirped. "We've moved up a few
levels--"
    "I know where you are," she said. "Stay there. We
will join you in three minutes. Make sure you don't
shoot us. Out."

    Julian stepped forward and waved when he saw
Kira appear with the rest of the team at the end of the
corridor. Now that they were back together, they
could get on with rescuing Ttan, he thought.
    Kira sprinted toward him. "Get back in that lift?
she shouted. "Hurry!"
    The way she sounded, half the base had to be on her
heels, Julian thought. He groaned inwardly, but
turned and began giving orders. Luckily Captain
Dyoran was there to help.
    He helped carry on several of the sickest, whose
strength had given out on the trek to the lift. They had
no weapons and couldn't defend themselves. When
they were safely aboard, he hopped out and began
counting heads as the Bajorans filed aboard. Fortu-
nately they seemed to know how important speed
was. In record time they had all scrambled aboard,
leaving just enough space at the front for Kira, the
ensigns, and him.
    He stuck his head out and looked up the corridor.
Kira had stopped halfway to the lift while the others
sprinted ahead. They brushed past him as they got on
board.
    He turned to Muckerheide. "What level does she
want us on?" he asked.
    "The next one up," the ensign said. "Get ready to
go. There are Cardassians right behind us."
    "The level is punched in," Captain Dyoran called.
"I'm holding the doors open. Tell her to hurry up."
    Julian stepped out. Kira had been backing up slowly
and was only four or five meters away. Now he could
see what she was doing--setting the timers on what
looked like Cardassian grenades of some kind. As he
watched, she lobbed them down the corridor as far as
she could. When she had set the timer on the last one,
she turned and darted toward him.
    As he stepped out to help Kira into the lift, a pair of
Cardassian soldiers ducked across the far end of the
corridor. Two more leaped out, knelt, and raised their
phaser rifles. Julian whipped up his own phaser to fire,
but before he could, an explosion rocked the far end of
the corridor. Kira careened into him. Thrown off
balance by the blast, he went down. Smoke and dust
filled the air. Several ceiling panels fell, and the lights
overhead began flickering out one by one. Julian's
eyes began to sting. He blinked frantically, then began
to cough. Something's on fire, he thought.
    He rose to help Kira, but she dove at him, hitting
his knees and knocking him flat as a sizzling bolt of
energy zipped past his face.
    "Keep down!" she cried. "We're going to have to
crawl!"
    "Right!" he managed to say. His chest felt like it
was on fire and his eyes were tearing. A third and
fourth blast shook the tunnel. The lights went out
completely; the only illumination came from the lift.
Julian struggled to his knees, but more phaser fire
zipped past him. He dropped flat--and felt himself
freeze up. He didn't know which way to turn.
    Then he felt a hand on his arm. It was Kira, he saw.
She pressed her face close to his ear. "Watch my feet!"
she said into his ear. "Follow them!"
    She turned and began to slide up the corridor on her
belly, using her hands and knees to propel herself
forward. Julian swallowed at a bitter taste in the back
of his throat and tried to emulate her movement. It
was more difficult than he would have imagined, and
his legs and arms began to ache almost immediately.
    He raised his head as they neared the lift and saw
Kira make it inside. Tucking his head down, he
crawled the last two meters, then rolled inside. The
doors closed with a hiss and they started up.
"You idiot!" Kira snapped.
    "What?" Julian looked up at her through a blur of
tears and felt only confusion.
    "This is no time for silly heroics! You should have
waited aboard the lift with the others!"
    He took a deep breath, coughed a bit, decided he
was feeling better, and climbed to his feet. For a
second he swayed, dizzy, and then he felt a dozen
Bajoran hands reach out to help steady him.
  "Major," he said. "Thanks."
    Kira looked around. "You've been busy," she said.
"I didn't send you this many weapons."
    "We had a run-in with a Cardassian security team
down below," he said. "I thought it best to join you
here."
    Kira nodded slowly. "As soon as we find Ttan, we'll
head up and look for a Cardassian transport ship of
some kind."
    The lift suddenly jolted to a stop. Julian caught
himself before he fell, then looked at Captain Dyoran,
who was pounding on the controls. The doors didn't
open.
 Dyoran said, "They cut our power."
    "What do we do now?" Julian asked. He looked at
Kira. If anyone would have a plan, he knew it would
be her.
    Kira stepped forward, forced her fingers between
the double doors, and heaved. They moved a few
centimeters.
    Julian saw at once what she had in mind. "Come
on," he said, "help us." He grabbed the doors too, as
did several others, and together they pried the inner
doors open. They were half a meter short of the next
level, Julian saw--it was just a matter of opening the
outer door, the ones that sealed the corridor from the
lift shaft.
    He helped force the outer doors open. They slid
aside more easily than the inner doors, and he found
himself gazing out into another corridor exactly like
the one below. The lights were still on here, though,
and it was deserted.
    "Major?" He made a step with his hands and
offered it to Kira. Nodding, she stepped out; then he
boosted Dyoran, then Muckerheide up.
 "We'll find Ttan," Kira said.
    "Right," Julian said. He handed her his tricorder.
"You'll need this. I'll get everyone out of the lift and
organized. Call if there's a problem."
    Kira accepted his tricorder. He watched as she and
Dyoran trotted up the corridor in search of the Horta.

    Aboard the runabout, Dax surveyed the ruins
around her. Piles of blankets, pillows, backup sup-
plies, and combat rations littered the floor. After
an hour's search she still hadn't found the emer-
gency tool kit. She'd already missed the first' win-
dow to contact Kira and the others, and if she didn't
find the tool kit soon, she feared the Cardassian
reinforcements would arrive before she could warn
them.
    If I were an immature human doctor, Dax thought,
where would I put it? She sat in the seat where Julian
had been, folded the table out of the wall, and tried to
put herself into his shoes. It had been a long time since
she'd felt quite that young and awkward.
    Of course, she realized, he'd go for the fast and easy
solution. He'd drop the tool kit into the first available
space. Which happened to be the opening the table
left when it was folded out.
    She reached in and felt the smooth, cool plastic
handle just inside and out of view, alongside a cup of
cold replicated coffee and what felt like the remains of
the ham sandwich she'd seen him eating. Yuck.
    She pulled the tool kit out, unfolded it, and re-
moved the three shiny metal instruments she needed:
a spheroid diatronic calibrator, a boxlike phase induc-
er, and most importantly a standard Federation-issue
screwdriver.
    Returning to the communications console, she
dropped to the floor and rolled underneath to get to
work. Time was running out. Fortunately it wouldn't
take long to swap out a single crystal ....

    Kira thought she heard talking and motioned fran-
tically for Dyoran to slow down. He drew up behind
her.
  Two? she pantomimed.
 He nodded an I think so.
    Kira took a quick glance, spotting two guards in
front of a door. She regretted it when the guard closest
to her suddenly whipped around and fired. The shot
went wild, but it was enough to make Kira drop and
roll back under cover.
 "Just two?" Dyoran asked.
 "Yes," she said, climbing back to her feet.
    Her badge communicator beeped. "Major," she
heard Dax's voice say.
    Kira tapped her badge. "This really isn't a good
time, Jadzia." She stuck her arm around the comer
and fired her phaser blindly. Someone screamed.
    "There's something I have to tell you," Dax said.
"There's a Cardassian convoy about to arrive."
 "I know, I know!" Kira snapped. "Kira out!"
    She risked a quick glance around the comer and an
energy beam almost took her head off. Damn cagey,
she thought, pretending to be hit like that. She
reached around the corner and fired blindly again.
    "Cover me," Dyoran said. "I'm going to cross the
corridor."
 "Ready," Kira said grimly.

    Ttan came to full consciousness with the noise of
phaser fire echoing in her senses. She rose and went to
the door to her cell. Through the force-bars she could
see the corridor. Both guards had vanished.
    Once more she heard sounds of phasers firing, and
then the scream of an injured humanoid. She paused.
Should she leave her cell? Gul Mavek might hurt her
children if she did. But there was clearly something
wrong. Had the Federation come to rescue her?
    It was a possibility she hadn't dared consider until
now. The sounds of battle were getting more intense.
She knew she had to do something, and soon.
    Finally she decided to take a look. If they had come
to rescue her, she had to let them know about her
children. Perhaps they already had them. Perhaps it
was a matter of their finding her and beaming her
back to their ship to join them!
    She burrowed through the stone wall, then out into
the corridor, right behind the two guards who had
been watching her cell. One of them whipped his
weapon around and shot her at point-blank range.
The phaser beam traced a painful line across Ttan's
back.
    Ttan quivered all over for a moment, then leaped
on top of him, acid pumping. In seconds his fragile
carbon body had been reduced to a smoking black
smear on the hallway floor.
    The other guard was still firing at someone else up
the corridor, but Ttan leaped on him, too, for good
measure. As his flesh disintegrated under her, she felt
a strange thrill of satisfaction. It was selJ~defense, she
told herself. That's what I'll tell Gul Mavek if he
questions me.
    She surged forward. Two more humanolds were
advancing down the corridor. They had smooth skins,
like Captain Dawson of the Puyallup, but neither of
them wore a Federation uniform. Clearly they weren't
Cardassians. Who were they?
    The woman in the lead raised her hand in greeting.
"Ttan!" she said. "My name is Major Kira. We have
come to free you."
    Joy, joy! Ttan thought. It was true. The Federation
had sent these people to rescue her.
    She stopped in front of the female and asked,
"Where are my children?"
    The Universal Translator made a strange gurgling
noise. Ttan hesitated, puzzled, then turned to exam-
ine it.
    The Cardassian who had shot her moments before
had hit her translator device, she realized with a gritty
feeling inside. She tried again and got the same
strange gurgling noise.
    "I can't understand you," Kira said. "What's
wrong?"
    Slowly, very carefully, Ttan excreted acid in the
exact pattern the Federation used for written commu-
nication. It was a clumsy method of communicating,
but Ttan had been taught to use it in case of an
emergency, and this certainly qualified as one.
    When she moved back, large, blocky letters had
been burned into the floor. They said: NO TRANSLATOR.
"Can you understand me?" the woman asked.
    YEs, Ttan wrote. She moved back and etched anoth-
er line: SAVe MY CHILDREN.
    "Your eggs?" Kira said. "They are safe on DS9--
the space station you were traveling to. The
Cardassians didn't take them. They only beamed you
to their ship."
    Relief flooded through Ttanmand then a cold rage
like none she had ever felt before. Gul Mavek had lied
to her. He had threatened her children when in truth
he didn't even have them. It made everything else he
had done seem all the more terrible. And she had
believed him. Prime Mother, she had believed him!

    Everything seemed to be coming together at once,
Kira thought with little sense of satisfaction. But now
they had to get out of here. She checked the time.
They still had forty minutes before Dax would be in
transporter range again... they had to hold out that
long. Then perhaps Dax would be able to beam them a
few at a time into whatever docking area this base
had.
  "Major!" Bashir called.
      She jogged to the comer. With a sound like rolling
boulders, the Horta followed.  "What is it?" she called.
      "According to Ensign Aponte," he said, "there are
Cardassians approaching from every side!"
  "Bring the others here," she said.
    When she turned back to the Horta, she found that
Ttan had left a new message on the floor: i HELP. TELL
HOW.
    "Ttan," Kira said, hardly daring to hope. "We need
transportation away from here. Our ship is not large
enough to carry all of the prisoners we have rescued.
We need to capture one of the Cardassians' ships. Do
you know how to get to their docking bay?"
 YES, Ttan wrote. FOLLOW.
    Turning, the Horta touched the wall and seemed to
melt into it. Her body turned almost sideways, leaving
a tunnel large enough for a person to walk upright.
The sides of the tunnel smoked a bit from the acid she
excreted, but the acid became inert almost at once.
Kira stuck her head into the tunnel. Yes, she thought,
this would more than do. She could see Ttan burrow-
ing upward at a rapid pace, and on a twenty-degree
slope. Clearly the Horta knew exactly what angle
humans needed to comfortably follow her.
    Kira stepped back. The others were coming up the
corridor in twos, with Dyoran and Muckerheide lead-
ing the way. Bashir darted around the marchem and
trotted up to her side.
    "We have about five minutes, Aponte says," he
reported. "They think they have us pinned down
here." He stared up the Horta's tunnel. "Amazing,"
he breathed. "Is she all right?"
    "She's been hit by several phaser blasts, but she's a
tough girl," Kira said. She wished they had a dozen
more like her. "You can doctor her to your heart's
contentment once we get aboard the shuttle. She's
taking us to the docking bay now."
    Julian jumped away from the tunnel. "She's coming
back!"
"What?" Surprised, Kira leaned forward to see.
Sure enough, Ttan was on her way back down,
enlarging the tunnel even more as she went. Two,
possibly three men could have walked through it
abreast. Suddenly Ttan veered to the side and disap-
peared from sight. She darted in and out several
times, and when she was done, the first section of her
new tunnel now had a large stone column standing in
its center, supporting the roof.
    Kira grinned. If they removed that column, she
knew the roof would fall in--making pursuit impossi-
ble. Ttan knew what she was doing, all right.
    "Why is she doing that?" Bashir asked. "I don't
understand."
    "She's left a booby trap of her own," Kira said, and
she took a moment to explain. By the time she
finished, most of the rescued prisoners had queued
up.
    Next came the hard part--waiting while everyone
entered the tunnel.
    "Aponte, Muckerheide," she called. "You and Cap-
tain Dyoran go through first, then Wilkens and
Jonsson. Everyone else, follow in pairs. This tunnel
leads straight to the docking bay. We'll find a ship
there. Dr. Bashir and I will hold our position here,
then seal the tunnel to keep the Cardassians from
attacking our flank."
    "Right? Ensign Aponte said. She ducked into
Ttan's tunnel, and the others followed, two at a time.
    Ten, Kira counted, twenty, thirty. She could only
stand and watch, tapping her foot and trying not to get
too jumpy. Hurry, she breathed. The Cardassians
would be there soon.
    She glanced at Bashir. He was taking tricorder
readings. "They're closing in!" he warned. "Both
sides!"
    Forty, Kira counted. Forty-two, forty-four. Come
on, come on. Then she realized they weren't going to
make it.
    Tensing, she raised her phaser. "Get ready to fire,"
she said to Bashir. "As soon as you see movement,
Then duck through the tunnel."  Forty-four, forty-six...
  "What about you?" Bashir demanded.
"I can take care of myself," she said. Forty-eight--
Something rattled down the corridor toward them.
It took her a half-second to focus on it. "Stun gre-
nade!" she shouted, and instinctively she threw her-
self on Bashir.
    She got Bashir to the floor just as the grenade went
off--and just as the last pair of Bajorans were about
to duck into Ttan's tunnel.
 Then the walls were shaking and she felt the floor
heave under her almost like a thing alive. Lights
flickered and died, and with a horrible metallic rip-
ping noise, something fell on top of her from the
ceiling.
    She must have blacked out for a second, for the next
thing she knew, she was inside the tunnel with Dr.
Bashir. He was panting for breath in the semidark-
ness, and his eyes were wild.
  "The last twow" she gasped.
    He shook his head. "They didn't make it into the
tunnel. They're both dead, crushed when the ceiling
caved in."
    Kira tried to stand and almost blacked out again
from the pain that lanced through the whole left side
of her body. She glanced down. Her left leg was folded
back at an odd angle, against the joint. Oh, by the
Prophets, no. Broken, she knew. She felt sick inside.
She bit her lip. He must have injected her with
painkillers, she thought, for her to be conscious at all.
    Bashir gently turned her head to face him. "Easy,
Majors" he said, voice grave. "Do you have another
stun grenade? Anything explosive?"
    "No," she said. Her voice sounded small and'
distant. I'm going into shock, she realized. This can't
be happening. They need me too much. Her gaze
drifted down toward her leg again. She stared, disbe-
lieving. How could it look like that? That couldn't
really be her leg, she decided.
    "Major?" Bashir turned her face toward him again.
"Major! The column is still in place! Ttan's tunnel
hasn't collapsed!"
    "Yes," she said vaguely. She reached for her weap-
on, but it had vanished. "Give me your phaser," she
said.
 "I lost it in the blast," he said.
    Kira drew a breath, then let it out with a gasp. Pain
so intense she couldn't move, couldn't breathe racked
her left side.
    "Major?" Bashir said. "What should I do? Help me,
Major. I'm counting on you."
    She whispered, "Leave me. I've done what I had to.
I'll slow you down. Get to a ship... get the others out
of here .... "
 "I can't do that," he said.
 "It's an order!" she gasped.
    "Whatever you say," Bashir said. "You're a real
hero, Major. Never forget that."
    For a second, Kira smiled. Then everything went
black.

CHAPTER
     16

After several TRIES, Sisko succeeded in going over
the deputy secretary's head. Vedek Sloi, director of
the Bajoran Council on Ecological Controls, appeared
on the small screen in Sisko's office. It was not a clear
transmission; her image wavered in and out of focus,
and was sometimes distorted by waves of phosphor
"snow." More evidence of the Hortas' destructive
handiwork, Sisko knew.
    "Vedek Sloi, thank you for responding to my in-
quiries." Finally, he added privately. The Vedek had
been ducking his calls for hours, during which time
the all-consuming Hortas had practically reduced
the station to its bare bones.
    The Bajoran cleric, her gaunt features framed by a
headdress of folded red fabric, acknowledged his
greeting with a nod. "I apologize for the delay," she
said. Persistent static gave her voice an unnatural,
crackling accent. "The work of the Prophets, and of
the council, is never-ending."
    Sisko was not surprised to discover that Secretary
Pova's superior was also a religious leader. On Bajor,
the line between church and state was often uncom-
fortably thin. He hoped Sloi was more like the Kai
Opaka and less like Vedek Winn and her followers.
Kira could have informed him, discreetly, on Sloi's
reputation and politics, but Kira, of course, wasn't
here. Major, he wondered, where in hell are you? I
need that Mother Horta back now.
    "I understand," he said. "Still, our situation is
urgent. I assume you have been briefed on the emer-
gency?"
    "My respected colleague, Pova Lerg, has kept me
apprised of the details. He has also shared his opin-
ions on the matter, with which I am inclined to agree.
The Hortas do not belong on or below the sacred soil
of Bajor."
    Damn/He'd half-expected this reaction, but Sisko
refused to back down now. "With all due respect to
your friend Pova," he said, deliberately letting some
of his irritation creep into his tone, "perhaps he hasn't
made our position perfectly clear. While we debate,
the Hortas are on the verge of invading the core of
DS9. Despite our best efforts, they are destroying this
station and endangering the lives of everyone aboard,
human and Bajoran. We have to transfer the Hortas to
Bajor immediately."
    The Vedek shook her head. "The Prophets created
Bajor according to their divine plan, a plan which
clearly does not include the Hortas. If such creatures
were meant to exist on Bajor, they would have dwelt
here from the beginning. What you are proposing is
anathema."
  Beneath his desk, and out of sight of Vedek Sloi,
Sisko's foot tapped angrily against the floor. Incredi-
bly, he found himself missing Pova, who at least
pretended to secular motivations. "But alien life-
forms have visited Bajor before," he pointed out.
Indeed, the Prophets themselves were far more alien
than the Hortas, although this was not an argument
likely to appease a Vedek.
    "And our people have been the sadder for it," Sloi
said. "Or have you forgotten the Cardassians?"
    "The Hortas are not conquerors, ¥edek. They're
children!"
    "Children who have brought your precious station
to the brink of ruin. The more you speak of your own
danger, the more I fear for my planet."
    "It's not the same thing!" Sisko protested. "We're
an enclosed environment sustained artificially..."
Sloi tried to cut him off with a wave of her hand, but
Sisko would not be silenced. "They can't destroy a
planet. In fact, they came here to help Bajor."
    "Not at my request," she reminded him, "or the
provisional government's."
    Sisko tried another tack. "Forget the Hortas' rights,
then. What about the other lives at stake here?
Bajoran lives?"
    "Our people are accustomed to sacrifice," she an-
swered coolly, apparently unfazed by the increasing
heat of Sisko's tone. Another band of interference
rippled across the screen, deforming the Vedek's face
like a fun-house mirror. "There is another possibility,
of course," she continued. The signal's distortion
turned the straight line of her lips into a twisted
grimace.
 "Which is?" Sisko asked.
 "Destroy the Hortas. Purely in self~defense."
    Sisko no longer saw any point to controlling his
anger. "That, Madame Director, is exactly what our
Cardassian computer suggested as well."
    Even through the snow and static, Sisko saw the
Vedek's eyes flash with fury at his comparison. "Our
conversation is at an end, Commander. The decision
of the council is final. Any attempt to deposit the
Hortas anywhere on Bajor will be considered an
illegal invasion on the part of Starfleet. Bajor out."
    The screen blanked abruptly. So much for diploma-
cy, Sisko thought. He stared at the screen as if he
could beam his thoughts directly to the Vedek's office
on Bajor.
    "I'll find a way, Sloi," he said aloud, "to save the
station and the Hortas. And to hell with you and your
entire council."
    Sisko stood up suddenly. He stepped away from his
desk and marched toward Ops. There were other
councils and committees that might be able to over-
rule or circumvent Vedek Sloi and her xenophobic
brand of ecological protection, but he had neither the
time nor the patience to wrestle anymore with the
intricacies of Bajoran politics, not with a litter of feral
Hortas breathing down his neck.
     The double doors slid open automatically, selfishly
 depriving him of the pleasure of slamming them
 behind him. Sisko strode onto the upper tier of Ops.
 No one looked up to note his arrival; everyone ap-
 peared engrossed in tracking the Hortas or compen-
 sating for one of a hundred malfunctioning systems.
 The environmental controls were clearly in trouble, as
 well as the air circulators.
     Despite the absence of Dax, Kira, and O'Brien, Ops
 was more crowded than usual. A bad sign, he realized.
 As they lost more and more territory to the Hortas, a
larger percentage of his staff had crammed into Ops to
assist however they could. Despite their injuries,
Dawson and Shirar from the Puyallup had pitched in
to help. Captain Dawson supervised the operations
table while his Vulcan navigator scanned the sur-
rounding area for transmissions from the Amazon.
    Looking around Ops, Sisko was startled to see one
young ensign wearing nothing but a blanket; at the
moment, he knelt beside the science station, making
rapid adjustments to the long-range sensor displays
while his free hand struggled to hold the makeshift
toga together. Sisko rolled his eyes wearily. There had
to be a story behind the nearly naked ensign, but he
didn't have the time to look into it. Neither did
anybody else, apparently; it was a measure of how bad
things were that nobody on the floor was giving the
young man a hard time.
    Sisko decided to get the news straight from the
front. "Chief O'Brien," he said, activating his comm.
"Sisko here. Report."
    The Irishman's voice came through more clearly
than the broadcast from Bajor. "We're losing ground,
Commander, and in a big way. We've fed the ugly
rock-rats damn near everything but the docking py-
lons and they're still coming."
 "How far from the core?" Sisko asked.
    "Commander, they're in the core already. They got
past us on the bridge ten minutes ago."
    Silently, Sisko cursed Sloi and Pova and their
useless council to the darkest corner of the Bajoran
netherworld. "Chief, I want you back in Ops now.
Prepare to be beamed here directly."
    There was a momentary silence on the other end of
the line. "Chief?." Sisko inquired.
 O'Brien's voice took on a slightly embarrassed tone.
"Er, if it's all the same to you, Commander, I'd just as
soon take the turbolift."
    "I can't risk you getting stuck in a shaft for the next
three hours. There might not be a station left when
you got out," Sisko said, hoping that he was exaggerat-
ing but not willing to bet on it.
  "Right you are, sir," O'Brien conceded.
    Sisko issued the command to the naked ensign,
noting that the youth's blanket had drooped past his
knees; nobody bothered to cover him up again. Al-
most instantly, Chief O'Brien's pattern formed over
the transporter pad in a radiant aura of materializing
energy. As soon as the glow faded, O'Brien stepped
briskly off the pad. Sanger stepped aside to let the
chief take his place at the engineering station.
    Despite the unfolding crisis, Sisko felt reassured to
see one of his senior officers back in Ops. "Where is
Odo right now?" he asked aloud.
    O'Brien looked up from his station. "Indisposed, if
you know what I mean."
    In his pail, in other words. Sisko nodded, and
O'Brien returned to his work. It's too bad, Sisko
thought, that Odo can't split himself like an amoeba; I
couM use several more of him at the moment. "What
about the Hortas?" he inquired. "How far are they
from Ops?"
    O'Brien brought up a schematic on the main view-
er. It was a vertical cross section of the core itself, with
Ops located near the top, just below the communica-
tions cluster. Sisko spotted a flurry of red triangles
spreading out a few levels below the Promenade, then
starting to sink lower on the diagram. "That's pecu-
liar," O'Brien commented. "They seem to be ignoring
the upper core entirely this time. They're all moving
into the lower core, but there's nothing down there
except cargo bays, storage tanks, and"--O'Brien's
eyes widened in alarm as he realized what he was
saying--"the fusion reactors!"
    Sisko was way ahead of him. Suddenly, everything
came together. "Of course," he declared, "that's what
they've been looking for all this time. The reactors.
Think about it, Chief. The reaction chambers gener-
ate power which is then transferred to beds of liquid
sodium and silicon. Silicon, that's the key; the Hortas'
entire biology is based on it."
    "My God," O'Brien said, as the full implications of
Sisko's revelation sunk in. "Tanks of hot liquid sili-
con. It must seem like mother's milk to them!"
    "That's right," Sisko agreed. "They've been con-
fused and distracted up to now, but they must be able
to sense it somehow. That's why they keep circling
back toward the core, and that's where they're going
now."
    O'Brien's face grew pale. "But if they do to the
reactors what they've done to the rest of the station, if
they rupture the reaction chambers..." He didn't
need to elaborate. Deep Space Nine could survive
some torn-up living quarters and even an occasional
hull breach, but if the reactors went the entire station
would end up as a lifeless, uninhabitable tombstone
drifting on the outskirts of the wormhole.
    Sisko stared at the display on the viewer. The
Hortas were still several levels away from the reactor,
exploring the maintenance equipment and storage
areas that made up most of the lower core, but the
clock was clearly ticking toward a disaster that could
kill everyone on the station. He couldn't wait for Kira
anymore.
    "Chief," he said in a firm, controlled voice. "I want
you to set up as many shields as possible between the
Hortas and the reactors. Divert power from every-
thing short of life support if you have to."
    "But shields can't stop them," O'Brien said. "I wish
they could!"
    "The shields are just to buy time." Sisko tapped his
comm. "Lieutenant Moru, get a full team of security
officers, armed with the most powerful phasers you
have, to the lower core. I want you to set up a firing
line between the Hortas and the reactors." Sisko
paused, thought of Jake and Jennifer and Ttan, then
gave the order he'd been dreading: "Set phasers on
maximum settings. Shoot to kill."
Forgive me, Ttan, he thought. Forgive us all.
BEEEEEEEP. A buzzing electronic siren suddenly
activated at the science station, interrupting Sisko's
guilty brooding. Now what, he wondered irritably. He
turned his fierce, questioning gaze on Lieutenant
Eddon.
    "A proximity alarm," the Andorian explained. She
deactivated the siren with a few deft movements of
her pale blue fingers. "The Prodigal is coming as close
to DS9 as it is going to get." She hastily consulted her
screens, then added, "The station is in no danger, as
long as our inertial fields compensate for the toOOh'S
gravitational pull."
 "Chief?." Sisko asked.
    "No problem so far," O'Brien assured him. "Frank-
ly, that moon is the least of our troubles."
    Thank heaven for small favors, Sisko thought. What
with Ttan's abduction, the rescue mission, and the
baby Hortas' subsequent rampage, he'd completely
forgotten The Prodigal's scheduled flyby. Too bad, he
thought ruefully. Under better circumstances, he
would have liked to have watched the moon's ap-
proach with Jake. The sight was supposed to be quite
impressive, with the moon approaching near enough
that many features of its terrain could be seen with the
naked eye. So close that...
    "Chief," he asked abruptly, the urgent timbre of his
voice catching the attention of everyone in Ops,
hushing the hubbub of dozens of Starfleet officers at
work. "Is the moon within transporter range of the
station?"
    "Almost," O'Brien announced after only a mo-
ment's calculation. "We should have a thirty-six-
minute window of opportunity opening up in approx-
imately ten minutes." The hope in O'Brien's eyes
matched Sisko's. "Are you thinking what I'm think-
ing, Commander?"
    "Lock on to those Hortas, Chief. Get ready to
transport them on my command."
    For the first time in hours, Sisko felt the danger
might be coming under control. He opened a line to
the security team posted in the lower core. "Lieuten-
ant Morn, hold your fire until it is absolutely neces-
sary. We may have a way out of this massacre." An
encouraging smile formed on his face. Take that,
Vedek Sloi, he thought. And your little dog, too.
    Then, without warning, the lights went out, throw-
ing Ops into total darkness. Sisko heard gasps of
alarm and shouting, from the systems core two levels
below. No screams, though, he noted with a touch of
pride; his staff was trained better than that.
    The emergency lights came on, as well as the main
viewer and some of the monitors. The dim red
illumination cast eerie scarlet shadows over the scene,
but Sisko barely noticed. He needed to know what had
happened immediately. "Chief O'Brien," he said
loudly. "Report."
 "Power levels are dropping in Reactor One,"
O'Brien told him. Pellets of sweat broke out on the
Irishman's brow. "I think we have a Horta in the
silicon bed."
    "What?" Sisko was momentarily taken aback. The
schematic on the viewer showed the Hortas still a few
levels away from the reactors, nor had Lieutenant
Moru reported engaging the enemy yet. He watched
eighteen red triangles descending toward the bottom
of DS9. They couldn't have reached the reactors
already, unless...
    "The missing Horta," he realized at once. Some-
how it had gotten ahead of the others.
 And their time had run out.

    At last! The little Horta rejoiced, basking in a bath
of warmth and satisfaction. Pure food, better than
anything she had eaten since she escaped her shell,
surrounded her on all sides. She had found what she
was looking for. More, she was literally swimming in
it.
    All thoughts of the carbon-beings, of disappearing
holoscenes, and of her long trek down the turboshaft
were driven from her mind by the sheer bliss of
immediate, unadulterated gratification. She sucked
energized silicon through her cilia. She absorbed it
directly through her hide. Rather than sating her
appetite, the potent brew spurred her hunger on to
even greater heights. She could not consume her tasty
new world fast enough.
    In the midst of her banquet, however, she remem-
bered her brothers and sisters. She sensed that they
were not far away and, in her joy, she was eager to
share her bounty.
 Comet Come/Come/the Horta sang out, beckoning
her siblings, extolling the treasure she'd uncovered.
Hurry, she exhorted, and she thought she heard the
other Hortas respond.
    Soon they would join her, she thought happily.
There was enough here for everyone. They could eat
to their souls' content, or until the end of the world.




CHAPTER
     17

TTAN HAD LEFT the end of her escape tunnel for last. As
soon as she finished carving out a passage that her
Federation rescuers could use, she bored her way
through the rhodinium-reinforced slab of concrete
that formed the floor of the docking bay.
    When she emerged, she found herself surrounded
by Cardassians with phaser rifles. She hesitated. Her
back still stung where the guard had shot her. Clearly
their weapons could do her serious damage on their
highest setting... as they had to be set now.
  "Don't fire," a familiar voice ordered.
    Gul Mavek pushed through his men to face her. He
crossed his arms and stared, his expression unreada-
ble to the Horta.
    "I am very angry, Ttan," he said in a low, menacing
voice. "Very angry. So angry I have ordered all of your
children killed in five minutes. If you help us capture
the rebel slaves, I will stop that order. Your children
do not have to die."
 The blinding rage returned to Ttan. She began to
 creep forward very slowly.
    "Ttan," Mavek said in a warning voice. "Have you
forgotten your children? All nineteen of them are
going to die if you don't obey me."
    "Liar," Ttan said. The Universal Translator made a
hopeless garbled sound. Two meters. One meter.
    "Ttanw" For the first time, she saw a look of worry
on Gul Mavek's face. He took a step back, then
another.
    "Liar," Ttan said again. She gathered her cilia
under her body.
    Gul Mavek screamed as Ttan leaped. The guards
fired. Pain washed through Ttan's body, but she didn't
stop, didn't hesitate. She had come too far now. She
shot streams of acid from every gland in her body,
shooting them not just at Gul Mavek, but in every
direction.
    The force of her leap bowled Mavek over, and she
sat on top of him, letting acid pour from her body.
The phasers around them had stopped firing, she
noticed, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was
Gul Mavek's frail carbon and calcium body now lying
beneath, quickly burning away to nothing.
    That is for my children, she thought, and for the pain
you have caused us all.
    When she looked up, all the other Cardassians had
dropped their weapons and fled. Many of them were
shrieking in agony--touched by the streams of acid
Ttan had shot from her body as she launched herself
at Gul Mavek.
    The first few of her humanoid allies emerged from
the tunnel, looking around in surprise. The ones with
Federation uniforms took charge at once.
    Content to watch for the moment, Ttan settled back
as they stormed the Dagger, the late Gul Mavek's ship.

    Thank goodness for small favors, Julian Bashir
thought. He might have lost his phaser, but he'd
managed to keep his medical bag. And in the suddenly
lessened gravity, he could move like an acrobat in the
peak of condition.
    The hypospray that had put Major Kira to sleep
snapped back into its holder. He pulled out two
splints, emergency tape, and a tube of the silicon
plaster he'd brought in case Ttan had been injured.
He'd never thought he'd have to use it on a Bajoran.
    Taking a quick medical scan of Kira's broken
leg--a rather clean break on top of a dislocated knee,
he discovered--he realized there wasn't a pretty way
to do it. Taking a deep breath, he snapped her leg back
into place. If Kira had been awake, he knew, she
would have screamed in mortal agony. As it was, deep
under a haze of painkillers, she moaned like a sick
animal. This was one of the worst parts of being a
doctor, Julian thought. He hated seeing people suffer.
    Holding her leg fully extended, he taped the splints
in place, then used the silicon plaster to make a cast. It
was battlefield medicine at its most primitive, but it
would do for now. He could move her without fear of
killing her.
    Rising a trifle unsteadily, he tucked the bag under
one arm, picked Kira up with the other, and followed
after the others. Thank goodness for the moon's low
gravity here, he thought. Even burdened with Kira's
body, he wasn't carrying more than two-thirds of his
normal weight.
    He thought he saw a little more light ahead and
pressed on, feeling excited. Ttan, he soon discovered,
 had bored small holes into other levels of the
 Cardassian base, letting light spill through and illumi-
.nate the passage. Then he caught sight of the escaping
 Bajoransmor at least two of them. A man and a
 woman, looking to be in little better shape than he
 was, had paused to rest in a pool of light. They
 struggled to their feet as he approached.
  "Let me take your bag," the woman said.
     Julian handed it to her gratefully. In the process,
 though, he must have jostled Kira the wrong way
 because she suddenly stirred and moaned through the
 painkillers,
     "Here," said the man, steadying Julian's arm for a
 second. "What can I do to help?"
     Julian shifted Kira until he could hold her in one
 hand without fear of dropping her. Then he extended
 his other hand to the Bajoran.
     "Grab my wristreyes, like that~and I'll grab
 yours," he said. "We'll make a seat for her so there
 isn't any pressure on her leg." That was the best he
 could do f()r Kira right now, he thought.
     With the Bajoran's help, he managed to balance
 Kira more easily. Following the woman holding his
 bag, he and the man had no trouble making it the last
 thirty meters to where the tunnel broke through a
 thick slab of concrete:
     At the lip of the tunnel, he paused a second to gaze
 across the landing bay. Overhead, a force field shim-
 mered, and beyond it Julian could see the black of
 interstellar space, sprinkled with glittering jewels of
 stars. This had to be the landing bay. Straight ahead,
 in the center of the open area, stood what looked like a
 Bruja-class Cardassian ship. He thought it was the
 same one that had attacked the Puyallup, but couldn't
 be certain. Its cargo hatch stood open, though, and
Bajorans were pouring through it as quickly as they
could, as Aponte, Muckerheide, and Wilkens stood
watch, phasers drawn and ready.
    Then he spotted Ttan. The Horta sat on the ground
next to the hatch as if on guard. The outline of a body
had been burned into the concrete next to her. Was it a
warning to the Cardassians? If so, it certainly seemed
to work--Julian found it chilling.
    The sound of phaser fire suddenly erupted behind
him. Julian jerked his head around, trying to see down
the tunnel. The Cardassians must have stormed the
tunnel mouth, he thought. If only he'd managed to
cave it in, he thought desperately.
    "Hurry," he said to the Bajoran next to him.
"They're right behind us."
  The man nodded. "I hear them."
    Julian eased forward onto the docking bay, careful-
ly balancing Kira, and headed for the shuttle as
quickly as he could. He'd only taken a dozen steps
when he suddenly noticed blood dripping from the
cast on Kira's left foot. Not a good sign, he thought.
All the jostling must have cut something inside her
leg. He'd have to treat it as soon as he could--but his
top priority had to be getting her under cover. Stop-
ping the bleeding wouldn't do a bit of good if the
Cardassians got them.
      As they neared the ship, to his relief Ensign Aponte
came bounding down the gangway.  "Let me help--" she began.
    Then a phaser blast hit her in the chest, knocking
her back against the ship's hull with a thud. Julian
drew up short, shocked. He couldn't believe what had
just happened. Aponte had a hole the size of a dinner
plate in her chest, he saw, and the flesh had been
neatly cauterized so there wasn't any bleeding.
    "Nataliam" he began. But he knew nothing he
could say or do could possibly help. Not even the
finest medical unit at Starfleet could bring her back
from so severe a wound.
    Swallowing, he forced his attention back to Kira.
Unarmed, carrying a wounded friend, he couldn't
turn and fight, much as he wanted to. At least your
death wasn't in vain, he thought to Ensign Aponte.
You helped save all the others.
    Another phaser blast zipped past. It jarred some-
thing inside him. They had to get under cover as
quickly as possible.
"Hurry," he urged the man helping him carry Kira.
"I am hurrying!" the man snapped back.
More crimson beams of energy lanced the air.
Someone screamed what sounded like an incoherent
warning to his right, and Julian paused for a heart-
beat. Half a dozen Bajorans ran down from the cargo
hatch and began laying down a covering fire for him.
    He lugged Kira into the cargo hold and eased her to
the deck. Blood slowly began to pool around her left
foot, and he wondered if he'd missed something.
When he took a quick scan of her leg, though, he
realized it wasn't life-threatening, just a cut below her
knee, which he hadn't noticed in the tunnel's dimness.
He was free to take care of others first--just the way
Kira would have wanted it, he thought a little wryly.
    The Bajoran who'd helped him carry Kira aboard
touched his arm. "You know we didn't have anything
to worry about back there," the man said.
    "What makes you say that?" Julian demanded.
He'd almost been hit several times, after all. "The way
those phaser blasts were flying--"
    The man snorted. "I guess you didn't notice, but
they were only shooting at people with guns. We were
a secondary target. Now, how about going forward
and seeing about getting us off this rock, will you? I'm
a medic. I'll look after the wounded in here."
    Julian glanced around, but the cargo hold seemed to
be under control. There were several people with
minor injuries, and a couple who seemed to be
nursing broken arms, but that was it. The Bajoran
could see to them. The Bajorans who'd stayed outside
were boarding one by one, covering each other. Then,
as he watched, Ttan surged up the gangway. She
must've been guarding the rear, he thought.
    "Everyone's aboard," Ensign Wilkens called to
him.
    "Close the hatch!" Julian called back, but someone
had already hit the controls. As the hatch's huge doors
swung shut, several phaser bolts made it through.
Luckily they didn't hit anything important, just the
rhodinium plating on the walls. Then the hold sealed
with an audible hiss.
    Julian took a deep, calming breath. You're in charge
here, he told himself. Act like it.
    He handed his medical bag to the Bajoran medic.
"Everything you need is inside," he said.
    "Thanks," the man said. He hurried off to see to the
wounded.
    "Wilkens," he said. "You're in charge down here.
Get everyone settled in for takeoff. Muckerheide!"
    "Here, sir," a weak voice called. Julian turned until
he located the source. Muckerheide was propped in
the corner. He looked like he'd taken a glancing
phaser blast to his side. The fact that he was conscious
at all was sign enough that he'd live.
"Take it easy," Julian called. "I'11 be on the bridge."
He wove through the Bajorans sitting on the floor
and made his way down a long, narrow corridor with
 tomblike cabins to either side. The Cardassians didn't
 build with human aesthetics in mind, he told himself,
 feeling a touch claustrophobic.
     He pushed through a small hatch and into the ship's
 bridge. It was situated in the nose of ship, a
 semicircle-shaped room about twice the size of a
 runabout's main cabin. The captain's station was in
 the middle, six crew stations spaced equidistantly
 around it. Captain Dyoran and five other Bajorans he
 didn't know by name now manned all those stations.
     The captain's seat was empty. Feeling a little bit out
 of place, Julian sank into it. The softness surprised
 him--one of the few comforts he'd yet found in the
 Cardassian military.
    Now, he thought, to get on top of things. He studied
the forward viewscreen, which showed the docking
bay. Several dozen Cardassian soldiers seemed to be
setting up an energy cannon. Doubtless they planned
to use it on the ship. What would Sisko have done?
Gathered information, then made the best decision he
could based on available data.
    "Report!" he snapped in his best impression of
Sisko.
    Captain Dyoran looked back at him a little oddly.
"Engines up to full power. We can take off any time we
want."
  "Do so," Julian said.
  "Doctor, there's a force field--"
    "Then blast its controls. This ship has weapons,
doesn't it?"
    Dyoran grinned. "My thought exactly." He turned
to the woman next to him. "Proceed, Cella."
    She touched several buttons, and phaser fire lashed
out from the ship.
     The phaser shots struck the control booth. It va-
 porized. Abruptly the docking bay's lights went out.
 For a heartbeat Julian listened to absolute silence;
 then, even through the hull of the ship, he heard the
 vast sucking sound outside. Vacuum, he realized--
 the cargo bay had been exposed to the raw vacuum of
 space. To his horror, everything not bolted to the
 groundmCardassians, papers, equipment, everything
 mblew out through the opening overhead where the
 forcefield had been.
     It only took a few seconds to clear out the docking
 bay. But the sucking sound didn't stop. It dwindled to
 a whistle, a little like an old Earth train on an old tape.
 Why didn't the noise stop?
    Ttan's tunnel. He felt a sudden flutter in his chest as
he realized the effect must be spreading throughout
the whole underground complex. Ttan had cut
through the docking bay's floor into half a dozen
levels, straight into the heart of the base. Every bit of
air would be sucked out into space.
    He'd condemned dozens, if not hundreds, of
Cardassians to death. Never mind that they'd been
trying to kill him and committing war crimes to
boot~the magnitude of what he'd done staggered
him. His orders had made it so. He'd never carried
such a weight on his shoulders before, and the immen-
sity of it staggered him.
  "Captain?" Dyoran said. "Captain?"
    It took Julian a moment to realize Dyoran meant
him. "Uh, yes?" he said.
  "All stations standing by."
  "Then--lift off," he said. "Get us out of here."
    He sank back, feeling sick and exhausted, and
watched in a numb sort of amazement as the crew
 around him powered up the engines and lifted the
 ship on impulse power. They cleared the docking bay
 and reached open space, and the gas giant--with
 its swirling reds, oranges, and yellows~seemed to
 swing around. It took up most of the forward view-
 screen.
     It was done, he realized. They had succeeded.
 They'd not only rescued Ttan, but dozens of Bajoran
 prisoners.
  Then his communicator hailed him.
     "Julian?" Dax's voice said. "What in the seven hells
 is going on down there?"
     Julian gasped. In the excitement he'd completely
 forgotten about her. He tapped his badge.
 "Bashir here," he said. Hastily he filled her in.
 There came a long silence when he finished. Finally
 Dax said, "We'll have to make the best of it. Go to this
 headings" and she read off a series of numbers.
  "Got that?" Julian asked Dyoran.
    "Yes, Captain," Dyoran said. "New heading on this
mark."
    "Julian," Dax went on over the communicator. "I
want you to listen to me very carefully. I'm picking up
six large Cardassian vessels bearing down on your
moon. Head for Federation space at impulse power
for five more minutes. Be prepared to go to warp on
my command."
    "Roger," Julian said. He found himself gripping the
arms of the captain's seat so hard his knuckles hurt.
He forced himself to let go.
    "We're being hailed," one of the Bajorans told him.
"It's the lead ship--the Ramothg Revenge. Should I
answer'?"
 "No," Julian said. Then he bit his lip. If he didn't
answer, they'd know something was wrong. "Yes," he
said. "Voice only--no picture."  "Coming through now."
    "Dagger," said a chill Cardassian voice, "what is
your status?"
    "Davonia has suffered a major reactor leak," Julian
said in what he hoped was an equally cool voice. "We
are contaminated. Stand off, Ramoth ~ Revenge."
  "Put me on visual."
    "Negative," Julian said, praying desperately that
the captain of the Ramoth's Revenge would believe
him. "Our equipment is damaged." He caught his
breath and waited for their response.
    When none came for several heartbeats, he whis-
pered to Dyoran, "Can we take them in a battle?"
    "It would be difficult," Dyoran said. "There are six
of them, sir."
"They're scanning us," another Bajoran called.
"Go to full impulse power." Julian tried to keep the
tremor from his voice. "Keep us on course. Let's see
what they're going to do." And let's hope Dax has a
plan, he mentally added. If only Kira were awakem
she'd know what to do.
      "They're hailing us again," the Bajoran at the
communications station said.  "Ignore it," Julian said.
    "Sir," called a fourth Bajoran, "there's a small ship
lifting off from the second moon. It's heading straight
for the six ships. It's firing on them!"
    "What!" Julian demanded. That had to be Dax. But
she had to know her runabout would be no match for
six Cardassian ships! "Put it on the viewscreen!" he
said.
  The view changed to show what was happening aft.
 As he watched, the runabout fired a volley of phaser
 blasts, then its three remaining photon torpedoes.
 Abruptly the runabout swung around and sped to-
 ward Cardassian space. It went to warp before Julian's
 startled eyes.
    Two of the torpedoes hit home before the
Cardassians could raise shields. A series of brilliant
explosions rocked one of the ships, and it spun away
from the rest of the formation.
    The five remaining vessels changed course to follow
the runabout. They, too, went to warp speed in
pursuit.
    Julian swallowed. The runabout could barely do
warp three without shaking itself to pieces. He knew
the battle would be suddenly and savagely ended. Dax
had sacrificed herself to save them.
    Then the door to the bridge rolled open and Dax
entered.
  "Jadzia!" Julian exclaimed. "How--what--"
    "I beamed myself aboard before the runabout went
to warp on automatic pilot," she said. "I believe
you're in my seat, Doctor."
    "And glad to get out of it," he said, leaping to his
feet. He'd thought he would never see her again.
    "Go to maximum warp," Dax ordered. She sank
into the captain's seat. "That won't fool them long.
They'll be after us with everything they have."
    The view switched to the front of the ship. Stars
blurred into lines as they accelerated.
    "Warp five-point-three," one of the Bajorans called.
"That's about all we're going to get out of her."
    "Will that be enough?" Julian asked. He wondered
what speeds the Cardassian freighters were capable of.
 "We'll see," Dax said. "I estimate their ships'
maximum speeds at somewhere between warp six and
warp seven." She turned to Julian.
    He grinned at her. Things were definitely back to
normal, he realized.
    "Now," she said, "I think I need a slightly more
detailed report. Let's start with what happened to
Major Kira."

CHAPTER
     18

 "FORGET THE OTHER HORTAS," Sisko ordered. "Lock
on to the one in the reactor right away!"
    At his engineering station, one level below the
commander's perch in Ops, Chief O'Brien struggled
with his equipment. Unfortunately, trying to lock on
to a silicon-based life-form in the middle of a molten
bath of liquid silicon was as tricky as it sounded,
especially with many key sensors out and one of DS9's
two working reactors in trouble.
    Instructing Lieutenant Eddon to monitor the dam-
age in the reactor, he tried to get some sort of decent
readings on his transporter controls. "Contamina-
tion?" he asked her without looking up from his
station.
    "Minimal spillage so far, but rising. Something is
curbing the flow of conductive fluid from the ruptured
tank, and maybe even damping the radiation levels
somewhat." The Andorian sounded confused. Once
the silicon bed's container was ruptured, the resulting
release of superheated liquid should have resulted in
massive destruction in the reactor facility.
    O'Brien knew what was saving them. "The Horta,"
he said tersely. Ironically, the little bugger was drink-
ing up the radioactive fluid faster than it could spill
into the rest of the station. The Horta's omnivorous
tendencies would do them no good at all, however,
once the creature found its way into the reaction
chamber itself. There was no use crying over spilled
radioactive waste, as they used to joke at the Acade-
my, but antimatter was something else entirely. Some-
how, he doubted that even a Horta could stomach an
antimatter-induced fusion reaction. More likely, the
resulting explosion would obliterate them all before
the creature could take more than a bite.
    It was too late to shut down the reactor, as well.
Even though DS9 still had one more reactor in
operation, the radioactive materials--and the anti-
matter--would not go away with the flick of a switch.
Besides, O'Brien reasoned, it was better to keep the
Horta happy and occupied at Reactor 1, rather than
risk driving it over to Reactor 2. One rupture was
enough.
    "Prodigal within transporter range," N'Heydor
announced.
 "Visual," Sisko said.
    O'Brien continued to concentrate on the transport-
er controls. Someone at the operations table could
handle the commander's request.
    He took a quick glance at the main viewer. Sure
enough, the diagram had been replaced by a view of
open space dominated by The Prodigal. Its rough
surface looked like the product of centuries of volcan-
ic upheavals, as well as several rounds of demolition
derby with stray meteors and asteroids. No wonder,
O'Brien thought, neither the Bajorans nor the
Cardassians had ever tried colonizing it. The vaga-
bond moon struck him as an ugly and inhospitable
place--although maybe not to Hortas, he reminded
himself.
    Lord, though, it was practically next door. He'd
have no trouble beaming the renegade Horta over
there, if only he could get a lock on the damn beastie.
He swiftly adjusted the transporter scans, trying to
probe the ruptured energy bed, but fluctuating radia-
tion levels caused his readings to shift constantly,
beyond any reasonable margin for error. "Comput-
er," he demanded, ready at this point to accept help
from any quarter, "lock on to alien life-form in
Reactor Bed One."
    "Unable to comply," the computer replied. "Silicon
life-form indistinguishable from silicon environ-
ment."
    O'Brien couldn't believe it. He clenched his jaws
together angrily. The bloody computer had been
trying to beam the poor Hortas off the station since
forever, it felt like--and now, the moment things got
a little sticky, the stupid program was "unable to
comply." The hell it was!
    "Ignore chemical composition. Scan for concentra-
tions of solid mass in the reactor bed."
    "Insutficient capability to perform function. Seven-
ty percent of primary sensors malfunctioning. Re-
quire immediate repairs to execute command."
    Sisko appeared at O'Brien's shoulder. "Chief?" he
asked softly. O'Brien felt rather than saw over a dozen
pairs of eyes watching him intently. Everyone was
counting on him now, he knew, and not just the
assorted officers packed into Ops. The fate of the
station and the Hortas and, especially, Molly and
Keiko depended on whether or not he could execute
Commander Sisko's last-ditch plan for their survival.
    Is it just me, he thought, wiping his forehead, or is it
unusually hot in here?
    "I'm going to have to do this manually, sir," he
explained, sounding a lot more confident than he felt,
and doubting that he'd fooled Benjamin Sisko for one
minute. He popped a latch on the side of his console
and exposed the transporter sensors themselves. The
trick, he assured himself, is to skip past all the techno-
logical bureaucracy: the controls controlling the con-
trols and so on. Bypass the computer safeguards,
dispense with the voice-activated systems, skip the
convenient buttons and touch controls... go straight
to the parts that do the work.
    And, when all else fails, pray to whatever gods there
be.
    "Radiation levels rising," Eddon warned from the
science station. Her antennae drooped alarmingly,
although there was no sign of fear on her face.
    "Remaining Hortas approaching reactors," Sanger
chimed in. "There's only one layer of flooring between
them and the security team."
    O'Brien dug his fingers into the innards of the
console. All I really need to do, he thought, is
recalibrate the subprocessor modules of the short-range
sensors ....
    Unexpectedly, the floor of the station shook be-
neath his feet. O'Brien held on to his station and
refused to let go. The entire chamber tilted about ten
degrees to the left. Several officers lost their balance
and fell to the floor. A Vulcan woman with a cast on
her leg lurched against O'Brien, smacking into his
side, but he managed to stay on his feet. With one
hand clutched around a rail, Sisko grabbed the Vulcan
and kept her from hitting the ground. A moment later
a naked man landed hard on top of the operations
table.
 A naked man?
    "The Prodigal's gravitational pull has overcome the
inertial field," N'Heydor called out. Ordinarily,
O'Brien knew, the moon would not have posed a
problem; either a power loss or direct damage from
the Horta had caused the field to fail. "The thrusters
are compensating," N'Heydor said.
    Ops righted itself, and O'Brien assumed they hadn't
been knocked out of orbit yet. He heard Sisko take a
deep breath behind him. "With all deliberate speed,
Chief," he said, in the calm, emotionless voice he
reserved for the direst of emergencies.
    Hastily, O'Brien reprogrammed the subprocessors.
He tuned out everything around him, including his
own aches and bruises and rushes of fear, and focused
on the machine and his mission. Estimate the mass.
Filter out the radiation. Scan for life signs, but not
according to standard parameters for carbon-based
entities ....
    "Got her!" O'Brien said triumphantly. But maybe
only for a minute, he added silently.
    "To The Prodigal, Chief O'Brien. Now!" Sisko
commanded.
    Via the transporter beam, O'Brien seized the rogue
Horta, yanking her free of the reactor bed and throw-
ing her onto the surface of the moon. He didn't realize
he'd stopped breathing until the transporter released
the Horta's signal and indicated that she had fully
materialized on the satellite on the screen. Then he let
out a sigh he figured could probably be heard on Bajor
itself, if not back in Dublin.
  "Done?" Sisko asked.
  "Done," O'Brien told him.
    "Long-range sensors are detecting Horta life signs
on The Prodigal," Lieutenant Eddon informed them.
"I believe it's burrowing into the interior of the:
moon." The blue antennae emerging from her white
hair perked up even as she spoke, rising like sunflow-
ers seeking the dawn.
    Sisko smiled. The crisis had been averted, but the
work wasn't done yet. "Lock on to the other Hortas,
Chief. Send them after the first one."
    O'Brien nodded. He closed the latch and restored
the transporter to its standard settings. Compared to
finding that single Horta in her silicon haystack,
transporting her hatchmates would be ehild's play. It
took him only a minute or two to beam all the
remaining Hortas (except, he recalled sadly, the dead
Horta now resting, in the infirmary) over to The
Prodigal.
    Meanwhile, the commander fired off instructions to
the rest of Ops. "Shut down Reactor Two," he or-
dered, "and place a containment field around the
ruptured bed. Tell Lieutenant Moru and her people to
stand down and get away from that radiation. I want a
repair team down there at once." Sisko paused for a
second, reconsidering. "Give the weapons towers top
priority, though."
    That last command gave O'Brien pause and muted
some of the glee he'd been feeling since the Hortas left
DS9. There was still a Cardassian raider out there
somewhere, and after the Hortas' depredations the
station was in no shape for a fight. Then, too, the
Mother Horta remained missing, along with Kira,
Bashir, Dax, and the others.
    He hoped the rescue team had had an easier time
than he had, but the longer they stayed missing in
action, the less likely that seemed.




CHAPTER
     19

Dax COULD FEEL the tension on the bridge. As the
Cardassian ships closed in, she began to wonder if
they were going to make it.
    "They're energizing their weapons systems," the
Bajoran at the weapons console told her.
    "Raise shields," Dax ordered. "Prepare to drop out
of warp. And prepare ready to hail DS9--we're going
to need help fast."
    The Cardassians hadn't been fooled for long by her
trick with the runabout. They'd been in close pursuit
for the last eight hours, gaining steadily. She'd used
every trick she knew to try to slip away from them, but
all she'd managed to do was gain a little more time.
The Cardassians hadn't managed to get so much as a
shot off at the Dagger yet, but she suspected that their
luck was about to run out.
 "Status?" she demanded again.
  "Ready," one station after another reported.
    A phaser blast hit the back of the Dagger, rocking it
violently. Dax clung to the arms of the captain's chair,
wishing Cardassians would equip their ships with
safety belts like other intelligent races.
    Another blast shook the ship. Only a few seconds
more, she thought... according to the computer,
they were about to enter Bajoran space.
     "Deflector shields now down to seventy-eight-
percent strength," someone called. "Now!" Dax yelled.
    The Dagger slowed to impulse power without warn-
ing. She'd hoped the Cardassians would overshoot
them and have to come back, but it didn't happen. A
third powerful blast shook the ship. The running
lights flickered and died, then came back up at half
power. Hopefully the passengers in the cargo hold had
weathered the jolts without serious harm. Their sec-
tion of the ship was taking the heaviest beating.

    "Sir," the naked ensign called to Sisko. "I'm pick-
ing up a ship entering this system at high speed. Wait,
make that six ships... all Cardassian!" Sisko turned. "Cardassian?"
    "The lead ship is a Bruja-class military vessel. The
others are much larger .... "
    Kira, he wondered, what the hell have you started?
And where was the Amazon?
    "Go to battle alert," Sisko said, striding toward the
operations table. A klaxon began to blare. "Get Odo
up here on the double if he's out of his bucket by now.
Chief O'Brien, what's our status?"
    O'Brien shook his head grimly. "Only one weapons
tower is operational, sir. We have a single bank of
phasers." He looked at Sisko apologetically. "My
people are working as fast as they can, but those
Hortas did a lot of damage."
 Unfortunately, Sisko thought, six Cardassian attack
ships have enough firepower to make the Hortas'
rampage seem like a bad case of mildew. "I want those
phasers ready to fire," he told O'Brien. He was
outgunned, but at least he wasn't unarmed. "Lieuten-
ant Eddon, put me through to the Cardassians."
    "Commander," Eddon announced. "The lead ship
is already hailing us." She turned, surprise evident on
her face. "It's Lieutenant Dax!"
  "Well," Sisko said, "put her on."
    A static-filled image lit up the main viewscreen. It
was Dax, sure enough, and from what little Sisko
could see of the bridge behind her, she had a Bajoran
crew. He recognized Dr. Bashir, but nobody else.
    A thousand questions rushed through his mind.
Where had all these Bajorans come from? What about
Ttan? And Kira?
    "No time to explain, Benjamin," Dax said. "I've
got a shipload of Bajoran nationals. We're in pretty
bad shape. Our shields are down to forty-four-percent
power and we've lost warp capacity. The Cardassians
are getting ready to fire on us again."
    "Hold tight," Sisko said. "I'll talk to their com-
mander."
    He turned toward Eddon at the communications
station. "Hail those ships."
  "Yes, sir," she said. "No answer."
    "Put this through anyway. They'll be listening." He
paused a second. "Cardassian pursuit ships, this is
Commander Benjamin Sisko of Deep Space Nine. You
are ordered to identify yourselves. Decelerate and
stand by for more instructions." "No response, sir."
    "Then we'll send them a message they can't ig-
nore." Sisko nodded at Chief O'Brien. "Give them a
phaser volley across the lead vessel's bow."
     "But, Commander," O'Brien protested, "that's all
 we've got! We'll be defenseless."
     "I know, Chief. ! know." He turned his gaze on a
 wounded man with a red beard. "Captain Dawson, if
 you'd like to do the honors... ?"
    "With pleasure, Commander!" The captain of the
Puyallup tapped decisively at a bank of controls, and
halfa second later three short bursts from the station's
phaser banks split the distance between Dax's ship
and the Cardassians.
    "Sir!" Eddon addressed him. "I'm now getting a
transmission from Gul Nogar of the Ramoth's Re-
venge."
  "Put him on."
    The image of a Cardassian officer filled the
viewscreen: black and silver uniform, corded neck,
and an arrogant, supercilious manner that set Sisko's
teeth on edge. Nogar leaned forward, lip curled back,
and snarled: "Hold your fire, Commander Sisko. We
are in pursuit of a criminal ship. Your assistance is
neither required nor requested here. It is an internal
Cardassian matter."
    "That ship has requested political asylum here,"
Sisko lied, "and I'm afraid the provisional authorities
have granted it." Sisko leaned forward over the Ops
table. For a man facing an armada with no weapons to
speak of, Sisko thought he must look remarkably
unworried. "The ship is, as I'm sure you're aware,
piloted by Bajoran nationals."
    Captain Nogar stared at him without blinking. "I
did not know that."
    "You are, of course," Sisko went on in his most
charming voice, "welcome to dock at DS9 and enjoy
our shore-leave facilities while you plead your case to
the Bajoran government. I'm sure they will be very
eager to hear from you. I'm sure we can have a
definitive answer for you in, say, six to eight weeks."
    "That is not acceptable." Nogar's eyes narrowed as
he peered at Sisko through the viewer. "My under-
standing was that your station had recently suffered
certain ... difficulties?"
    This is it, Sisko thought. Either he falls for my bluff
or we're space dust.
    "Some minor disturbances, nothing more," Sisko
said casually. "Kids acting up, you know how they can
be. The entire station has never been in better condi-
tion, including our state-of-the-art weapons systems.
If you fire again on that ship, I'm afraid I'll have no
choice but to return fire on their behalf. Defending
Bajor and Bajoran nationals is part of our charter
here, as I'm sure you know."
    "Hold," Nogar said, and the viewscreen went
blank.
    "Commander," Ensign Sanger said. "We're being
scanned by the Cardassians."
    "Block those scans, mister," Sisko ordered. "Your
life depends on it."
  "Yes, sir!" Sanger said, suitably inspired.
    After a long, endless moment Nogar resumed his
transmission. Sisko smiled calmly, despite the mount-
ing tension in Ops. "Commander," Nogar said a trifle
archly, "in the interest of furthering the spirit of
friendship"mit seemed like an effort for him to spit
out that word--"and cooperation between our peo-
ple, we will let you have your Bajoran nationals, if
that's what they are."
    Despite the pounding of his heart, Sisko could
almost hear the unspoken "this time."
    "Thank you," he said. "And if you or your crew
would like to visit our stationre"
    Captain Nogar disconnected with an audible snarl
of displeasure.

    Odo met Sisko at the airlock when the Dagger
docked at DS9. Sisko was glad to see the constable
solid again. Before their eyes, the huge clockwork
door rolled aside, revealing a narrow passageway.
    Julian Bashir was the only one waiting there. "Infir-
mary, I need fifteen stretchers down here, stat!" he
called, darting around Sisko and Odo with a barely
mumbled "Hello, sir." He sprinted down the corridor
and vanished from sight.
      Sisko exchanged a puzzled glance with Odo. "Per-
haps we'd better go aboard," Odo suggested.
 "My thoughts exactly," Sisko said.
    Odo went through, then into the ship. The hatch led
into an antechamber, which was empty, then into a
corridor. Odo turned right, and Sisko followed on his
heels. They could hear voices from ahead.
    The corridor opened into a cargo bay, where literal-
ly dozens of injured Bajoran men and women lay
waiting for treatment. The smell of blood thickened
the air. Most of the prone bodies looked more bruised
and shaken up than injured, but more than a few had
serious wounds. Sheets covered what looked like half
a dozen bodies off to one side... casualties?
    And in the center of the room rested Ttan. Sisko
nodded in relief. The mission had been a success...
more than a success, from the looks of things.
  "Benjamin, over here."
    Sisko followed the voice back to Dax. She was off to
the side, bending over one of the injured Bajorans.
Sisko joined her. The injured Bajoran turned out to be
Major Kira, whose leg was in a splint. Kira looked as
angry as a Denebian horned groat.
 "Major?" Sisko asked, kneeling. "How are you?"
    "Good," Kira said through clenched teeth. "Mis-
sion accomplished, sir. And then some."
    "I see that. Very well done, Major. I'd be surprised
if there aren't a few commendations in your future
when news of what happened comes out. There's only
one thing..."
 "What's that?" Dax asked.
 "What the hell happened?"
    Dax laughed and began to fill him in. Kira scowled
through the whole story, but obligingly filled in the
parts Dax didn't know.
    When they finished, Sisko nodded thoughtfully.
"That's quite a story," he said. "But I still don't quite
understand how you made it to the ship after you
broke your leg, Major."
    Dax said, "Julian told me she fainted from shock.
He carried her aboard."
 Kira snorted. "Fainted from shock indeed."
    Sisko raised his eyebrows. "It sounds like you two
make quite a team." Clearly there was more to the
story than what he'd already heard. He'd have to
worm the whole truth out of Julian later that week.
    Then Julian beamed in with a dozen other helpers.
He began giving orders, beaming the most seriously
injured straight to the infirmary in record time.
    "I think everything is in order," Sisko said, rising.
"I'll expect full reports from everyone tomorrow.
Ode, give them a hand getting off, will you? I have
some calls to make... and a family to reunite."
  "Yes, sir," Ode said.
    Sisko crossed to where Ttan had been waiting
patiently. The Horta shifted as he approached.
  "I know you can understand me, but can't reply,"
he said. "I want you to know your eggs have hatched
and all your children are safe except one."
    The Universal Translator on Ttan's back made a
garbled noise.
    "If you'll follow me," Sisko said, "I'll take you to
our chief engineer. If he can't fix your translator, he
can fit you with a new one."
    Turning, he tapped his communicator. "Chief
O'Brien, report to the docking ring."

    Under other circumstances, the Promenade would
have fascinated Ttan. All around her, humaneiris of
various shapes and composition went about their
business in a colorful, spacious environment very
different from the caverns of Janus VI. Most were
busy repairing storefronts and displays.
    Ttan felt only a rising sense of apprehension as they
neared the infirmary. The commander of the station
had explained how he had beamed her children to
safety on a nearby moon. Still, she dreaded the
prospect of facing the remains of the one child who
had not survived.
    The human named O'Brien walked beside her. He
seemed very sympathetic to her loss. "I have a child of
my own," he confided. "I can only imagine what you
must be going through. I wish we could have saved
her."
    "Thank you," Ttan replied. Her new translator
worked perfectly, but could not convey all the sadness
she carried inside.
    "Here we are," O'Brien said. He stopped in front of
a black door alongside the infirmary. "Dr. Bashir
needed all the medical facilities for the wounded, so
they moved your child into this holding facility." He
touched a panel and the door slid aside.
     The station's Place of the Dead was clean and spare,
 lacking even the most rudimentary etched ceremonial
 decorations. It was a place of no soul, without the
 comforting weight of tradition and history.
     In the center of the chamber, atop a strange piece of
 machinery covered with controls and monitors, lay
 the child. A boy, she saw at once, so large and
 healthy-looking that she couldn't believe he was dead.
    Oh, my son, she lamented silently, why did you
travel so far to come to such a barren place? Please
forgive me. I never imagined my ambition and dreams
of adventure would cost you your life.
    "Let me turn off the stasis field," he said, touching
one of the controls. The golden glow around her son
faded as the energized field dispersed. "Take as much
time as you need. I know you'll want to say goodbye."
    Ttan glided across the floor toward her child. The
translator produced the unmistakable sound of sobs.
    O'Brien cleared his throat. "I'll wait outside," he
said.
    Before the human could leave, however, an odd
sizzling sound came from the medical equipment
underneath the dead Horta. Sparks suddenly flashed
from an array of burning circuits. Smoke billowed up
to the ceiling.
    Ttan froze. Was this some sort of malfunction, she
wondered, or a bizarre human rite of cremation?
    O'Brien rushed forward with a cry of alarm. Her
baby twitched. Acid dripped from its cilia. "My God,
it's eating the unit!" the human shouted.
    Overcome with happiness, she lunged forward to
embrace her son. She gripped him as if she would
never let go. She felt him snuggle closer to her. The
soft scent of his baby acids, so mild compared to her
own, filled her with maternal pride.
    "Commander," she heard o'Brien say. "I think
you'd better get down here. I can't believe it, but...
the baby's alive! The shock of the vacuum must have
:put it into a coma."
 Mother? the baby asked.
  That's right, she said. I'm here.




EPILOGUE

QUARK SURVEYED his bar proudly. The sightseers had
gone, but the profit remained. Five days after the
Hortas had been beamed to the rogue moon, things
had almost returned to normal. No, not quite normal,
Quark decided. Odo was worse than ever.
    The constable, leaning on the bar, shook his head
and scowled, as he'd been doing repeatedly over the
last few days.
 "What is it this time?" Quark demanded.
    "I'm just remembering how agreeably amorphous
the Mother Horta's shape was," he said. "Now I'm
stuck back in this awkward humanoid form sixteen
hours a day to deal with the likes of you."
    "You can always turn into a gaming table," Quark
said. 'Tll put you to good use. The two hundred and
forty-third Rule of Acquisition clearly states--"
    "Or I suppose I could turn back into a Horta and
finish this bar for lunch," Odo growled.
 "Not necessary, not necessary!" Shaking his head,
 Quark swaggered over to the table where Dr. Bashir
 was, as usual, flirting with Dax. Quark doubted the
 doctor's efforts would be any more successful this
 time. After all, Quark thought, if I can't get anywhere
 with her, what chance does that eager puppy have?
     "Another bottle of this excellent vintage," Bashir
 called with a grand gesture.
     "Coming right up!" Quark replied. "The Chateau
 Picard, right?"
  "Uh, no, the good stuff," Bashir said.
    As Quark fetched another bottle from behind the
counter, Major Kira stormed in. Her leg had mended
nicely, Quark thought, but her temper hadn't.
    She stomped up to Bashir, snapped, "I have never
fainted from shock!" Then she turned and stomped
back out. Bashir blushed furiously. Dax looked
amused.
    Shaking his head, Quark brought a bottle of fifty-
year-old Thunderbird back to Bashir and Dax, un-
screwed the cap, and refilled both of their goblets.
  "Anything else?" he asked.
    "Not right now," Dr. Bashir said. He turned to
Dax. "For a second there, I thought she was going to
slug me!"
    Dax rose, her face an icy mask. "I'm getting very
tired of the slug remarks, Julian." She stalked after
Kira.
Julian rose. "But Jadzia--!" He ran after her.
Yes, Quark thought, things were definitely getting
back to normal. Wiping his hands on his apron, he
calmly screwed the cap back onto the bottle and
carried it behind the bar. No sense wasting it, though
of course it would show up on Dr. Bashir's tab.
 He went into the storeroom to check on his new
workers. Looking very unhappy, Nog and Jake were
both on their hands and knees, laying a new tile floor.
    Nog said, "We've almost finished fixing all the holes
in the floor, Uncle."
    "Good," Quark said. "Next you can start on the
walls."
Jake groaned. Nog hissed in displeasure.
"Unless," Quark went on, "you want me to men-
tion to your fathers how that first baby Horta got
loose. Not to mention who deactivated the stasis
field."
    In reply, the two boys redoubled their efforts.
Neither met his gaze. Quark cackled happily. With
any luck, he could string them along for the next six
months. He had a lot of repairs in mind... they'd
save him a fortune in maintenance costs.

    Actually, Jake had already 'fessed up to his father.
He couldn't admit that to Nog, though; he knew
his friend would lose all respect for him if he found
out. So, Jake thought as he carefully affixed another
tile to the floor, I have to lie to my friend about
telling the truth to my dad. He groaned, and not just
because of his tired muscles. Trying to deal with
humans and Ferengi at the same time made his head
hurt.
    Not that it mattered in this case. His dad had still
insisted that Jake help repair the damage he'd caused.
And, as far as Jake knew, his father almost always got
what he wanted, one way or another.

    Benjamin Sisko had been refusing Vedek Sloi's calls
for the last five days. Finally, in the sanctuary of his
private office, he deigned to answer.
    Her face was livid on the monitor. "This is an
outrage," she began as her greeting. "You had no right
to beam those Hortas to one of Bajor's sacred moons.
I'm drafting a formal complaint to Starfleet request-
ing your removal at once."
  "On what grounds?" he asked evenly.
    "You were explicitly told to keep those unholy
monsters on Deep Space Nine," she snarled.
    "Excuse me, but I believe you said--and I quote-
'The Hortas do not belong on or below the sacred soil
of Bajor.' You said nothing about Bajor's moons. If
you like, I can have the tape played for you."
    "A shameless technicality, unworthy of you. You
knew they wouldn't be welcome on any Bajoran
territory."
    "I'm sorry," he said. "I must have misunderstood.
If you like, I can have them recalled. But that would
probably prevent them from finishing their report."
  "What report?"
    "On the vast mineral wealth hidden below the
moon's surface."
  She paused. "Vast mineral wealth?"
    "Oh, nothing you'd be interested in, I'm sure. Just
some uranium, pergium, and quite a bit of latinurn as
well. But I know how your mind is occupied with
spiritual matters, which are, of course, more impor-
tant."
     Vedek Sloi leaned back thoughtfully. The silence
stretched between them. "Vedek?" he asked.
    "Perhaps," she finally said, "we have been too
hasty. After all, a moon isn't Bajor."
    Benjamin said, "Then you don't want me to send
the Hortas back to Janus VI?"
    There was another long pause. Then the Vedek
spoke again.
  "Perhaps," she said slowly, "a compromise can be
worked out after all ...."
 Sisko smiled.