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Chapter One

Ro LAREN LOOKED UP at the yellowing clouds, which
rested uneasily upon the jagged teeth of the olive-
hued mountains in the distance. She didn't see the
beauty of the twilit sky or the flowering land with
harvesting season upon it; all she saw were the vapor
trails of shuttlecraft and small transports streaking
away from the planet Gallon. The former Starfleet
officer knew that most of those vessels were little more
than junk and had no warp drive. Where did they
think they were going?
    Her hands paused over the lush sprawl of tomato
vines and plump red fruit in her small vegetable
patch. Who would have thought she could have gotten
so much pleasure from coaxing food from the ground?
Emotions gripped her throat like the teeth of a vole,
and she wanted to lash out with her fists. This isn't
just! No sooner had they found a semblance of peace
than another war was engulfing them with its acrid
stink. Ro knew well the stench of war. Burning rubble,
bloated bodies, wretched refugee camps--those were
her childhood memories. This war was less her fight
than any of those other conflicts, yet it threatened to
dwarf them all.
    She heard a door slam inside the corrugated shed
that served as their home. Ro took a deep breath and
rose from her muddy knees. Lean, hardened by
manual labor, her brown hair cropped short, she was
more striking than beautiful. Her nose ridges were
prominent, and she wore the traditional chains and
bands on her right ear, proclaiming her Bajoran
heritage in this mostly human Maquis community.
Ro wiped her hands on the apron that covered her
frayed jumpsuit, and she listened to his footsteps
creaking on the thin floor of the prefabricated shed.
Derek sounded unusually tense; he was probably
working up the nerve to face her.
    The door banged open again, and she heard his
footsteps on the black volcanic gravel that served as
their soil. Only a combination of hydroponic tech-
niques, chemical fertilization, and constant irrigation
had rendered it fit for growing. Ro wasn't keen on
leaving this soil just yetwshe had poured too much
sweat into it.
    The human walked around the comer of the shed
and stopped when he saw her. She could tell every-
thing she needed to know from the slouch of his
shoulders and his tired blue eyes; even his mustache
drooped wearily. He was gray-haired and many years
her senior, but he had a rakish charm that kept him
youthful. Today that charm could not disguise the
weathered, worried lines in his face. Derek had been a
freelance smuggler and weapons runner, but she had
won him over to the Maquis cause. He still dealt
weapons, but for his people, not profit.
    She ran to him, and he wrapped his wiry arms
around her slender frame. A strand of his gray hair
brushed her cheek, and Derek lifted her chin and
gazed at her. "They didn't take the deal," he said
softly. "We have to go."
    "Again?" she muttered, pulling away from him.
"I've been forced to run too many times--I'm not
sure I can do it again. We stood up to the Cardassians
and the Federation; can't we stand up to them?"
    He gave her a melancholy smile. "These aren't the
Cardies or the Feds. This is the Dominion. We can't
fight them; nobody can. The Federation, the Kling-
ons--they're getting crushed right and left, and the
Jem'Hadar warships look like they're invincible. Plus
they've rebuilt the entire Cardassian fleet, and they're
eager for conquest. Believe it or not, our envoys saw
two ships full of Federation prisoners come in while
they were docked at Tral Kliban for the negotiations."
    Ro snorted derisively. "Some negotiations. What
did you expect, trying to convince the Cardassians
that we're neutral? Once an enemy of the Cardassians,
always an enemy."
    "Not so," answered Derek softly. "We may have
failed, but the Bajorans accepted a nonaggression
treaty. They are neutral."
  "Bajor?" scoffed Ro. "I don't believe it."
    He gave her a sad smile that insisted it was true. "I
don't think Bajor had much choice, and the Domin-
ion probably did it just to annoy the Cardassians, to
let them know who's boss. Deep Space Nine fell, and
it's all going to fall--the whole Federation. Only the
cloaked mines they stuck in front of the wormhole
have saved them so far.
    "We're small potatoes, but the Dominion will get
around to us. Our spies say they want to clear out this
sector, because they're building something big on the
other side of the Badlands, near Sector 283."
  "What?"
    "An artificial wormhole," answered Derek with
awe in his voice. "They may be using slave labor--
Federation prisoners."
    Ro stared at him, stunned by the implications.
With an artificial wormhole deep in Cardassian space,
Dominion forces could travel back and forth between
the Alpha and Gamma quadrants without using the
Bajoran wormhole. They could even destroy it, along
with everything the Bajorans held dear.
    "Some of our cells have already returned to the
Federation," declared Ro. "We've got to swallow our
pride and do the same thing. With the Federation's
help, maybe we can defend this system instead of
running."
    Now it was Derek's turn to snort. "The Federation
will be lucky if they can defend Earth. We're unim-
portant, forgotten. About all we can do is find some
quiet place to hide until it's all over." His attempt at a
smile looked more like a wince.
    "So the proud Maquis just run for their lives, giving
up years of struggle?" asked Ro disdainfully.
    Derek kicked a black pebble. "Our envoys got one
promise from the Cardassians--they'11 give us time to
evacuate, as long as we don't try to enter the hostili-
ties."
 Ro stared at him in disbelief. "Evacuate to where?
There's no running from a war like this. We can fight,
or we can surrender and be at their mercy."
    "Bajor's always an option," answered Derek,
calmly ignoring her tirade as he often did. "Remem-
ber, Bajor is neutral. In fact, the committee is assem-
bling a crew for you, and you're going to captain the
Orb of Peace and take as many people as we can fit in.
Traveling as Bajorans--with you in command--you
stand a good chance of getting through Dominion
space."
    "I wasn't even at the meeting!" snapped Ro. "Who
decided this for me?"
    He gave her a weary smile and gripped her shoul-
ders. "Laren, you're the only one who can pull off a
mission like this. We've got to gain control of the
evacuation, so we don't just have people scattering to
the four winds. We'll never find each other again. The
Maquis are a community, even if we keep getting
chased off our land. I'll feel better knowing you're on
Bajor. I'll come as soon as possible."
    Ro's nose ridges compressed like a bellows. "You're
not coming with me?"
    "No. Someone has got to move our weapons stores,
and I'm the only one who knows where everything is.
I mean, we're not total pacifists, are we?" For an
instant, the roguish grin was back.
    She gripped him desperately, and he hugged her,
his fingers digging into her flesh. When their lips met,
it was a bittersweet kiss with a taste of tears. In a
vegetable patch behind a corrugated shed on a little-
known planet in what was formerly the Cardassian
Demilitarized Zone, now the Dominion, they clung to
each other. They knew it could be the last time.
 "How long do we have?" she asked hoarsely.
 "An hour, maybe. Your ship is en route."
    "They may have to wait," said Ro, taking his arm
and pulling him toward the shed.
    Ro materialized in the small but elegant transporter
chamber of the Orb of Peace. In her gray cap and
jumpsuit, with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder,
she looked like a common crew member. But she was
the captain on this ship, as testified to by the impor-
tance of her welcoming committee. Crunched into the
dimly lit chamber were three provisional admirals,
two of the envoys who had returned empty-handed,
and a cadre of dignitaries that spilled out into the
corridor.
    I might have known, thought Ro. I'm ferrying the
brass to safety, not the common folk.
    Although these men and women outranked her in
the Maquis hierarchy, they looked upon her with awe.
Ro was a legend to the Maquis--a reclusive figure
who had deserted Starfleet to join their hopeless
cause, only to become one of their greatest heroes.
Time and time again, she had distinguished herself in
guerrilla attacks against both the Cardassians and the
Federation. Yet when the Cardassian-Klingon War
brought them relative peace, she had spurned Maquis
offers of higher rank. A small cell of well-trained
fighters was all she had ever commanded, until now.
Ro knew she was an enigma to these people, an
outsider whom they both respected and feared.
    "Citizen Ro," said Shin Watanabe, one of the
recently returned envoys, "we are pleased that you
have undertaken this mission."
    Ro stepped off the transporter platform, and the sea
of people parted respectfully for her.
    "You know our objective," said one admiral
brusquely. "Do you think we can make it to Bajor?"
    With her jaw set determinedly, Ro studied the faces
confronting her. Most of what she saw was fear,
uncertainty, and anger, emotions she could well un-
derstand. These people were close to falling apart,
and she had to make sure they held together.
    "I know you're all afraid," she began, "and so
am I. But we have to get one thing straight before we
start this journey. I am now Captain Ro--by your
choice--and I am in total command of this vessel.
Bajor is a considerable distance, and a lot can happen
between here and there. I want your promise that
nobody will overrule my orders and decisions."
    Watanabe laughed nervously. "Well, naturally, we
will have some input and advice--"
    Ro jumped back onto the transporter platform,
then turned to face them. "Transport me back. I'd
rather take my chances with the Cardassians than
have you questioning my orders."
    A female admiral charged forward. "Laren, we've
known each other a long time. Don't start playing
hierarchical mind games."
    "We all know a ship can have only one captain,"
said Ro evenly. "We have no world, no homeland--
only this vessel flying under a false flag. When you
elected me captain, you chose to put your lives into
my hands. It was your decision. If I'm in charge of
this ship, then we're going to be a crew, not a rabble.
It's that simple--take it or leave it."
 The second admiral, a older man named Shaffer,
saluted her. "Aye, Captain. You have my word on it,
and I'll throw anyone into the brig who argues with
you."
    The others stared at him in shock; then they low-
ered their heads in resignation, shame, and fear. Ro
hadn't meant to come down on them so harshly, but it
was best to settle this matter here and now. The
journey would be difficult enough without endlessly
debating every decision. Besides, Ro wasn't in a very
charitable mood today. The good-bye with Derek had
been painful.
    "Admiral Shaffer," she said, "have I been assigned
a first officer?"
    "Not yet. For the past year, this ship has only had a
maintenance crew. We've staffed it as best we could
on short notice."
    "Then would you be willing to serve as first offi-
cer?" asked Ro.
    He nodded solemnly, and the Bajoran jumped off
the platform and knifed through the crowd. She
ushered Shaffer out the door into the corridor, ignor-
ing the stares of the others. After walking past a spiral
staircase that led to the lower deck, Ro got her
bearings and strode toward the bridge, with the
admiral walking beside her.
"What's the ship's status?" she asked Shaffer.
"As you know, the Orb of Peace was in bad shape
when we bought her on the black market. We refitted
her, leaving enough original technology to show a
Bajoran warp signature."
"So she's slow," said Ro, "and underarmed."
Shaffer smiled. "Well, we boosted her armaments
with six photon torpedoes, and she is capable of warp
three--but she's still just a midrange transport."
 "What's our complement?"
 "Crew of twenty, plus eighty passengers."
Ro scowled. "They must really be crammed in."
"They are. But she was meant to carry clergy, so it
didn't take much to refit her as a troop transport.
There's one good thing--she has a working food
replicator."
    "That makes her a rarity in the Maquis fleet," said
Ro dryly. "See if the replicatot can make some
Bajoran uniforms for the bridge crew. Are there any
other Bajorans on board?"
"Only one, a junior engineer named Shon Navo."
"He's no longer an engineer. Promote him to the
bridge crew--he's to be on duty every moment when
I'm not, which won't be often. If we get hailed by
Dominion ships, they must see a Bajoran in com-
mand on the bridge."
  "Understood," said Shaffer.
    A door slid open at their approach, and they swept
onto the bridge. The small bridge of the Orb of Peace
was more tasteful than practical. It was appointed in
red with austere control consoles that looked like
prayer booths, and the main viewscreen was framed
with sayings of the Prophets. "The ways of the Proph-
ets lead to peace" was the first word of advice to catch
her eye. Ro hid her scowl, having never been as
religious or aesthetic as most of her people.
    The three-person crew, which included a young
pilot at the conn, an operations officer, and a tactical
officer, jumped to their feet. "Captain on the bridge!"
piped one.
    "At ease," she told them. "I'll learn your names as
we go. First dim running lights by sixty percent.
That'll help to hide the fact that most of us aren't
 Bajorans." The young crew sat stiffly in their seats,
 and the ops officer dimmed the lights as ordered.
    There was no official captain's chair on the Bajoran
craft, and Ro took a seat at an auxiliary console. "Set
course for Bajor."
"Direct course?" asked the conn. "No evasion?"
"Ensign, obey my orders as I give them," said Ro
testily. "We're not going to be evasive--we have
nothing to hide. We're a Bajoran trade delegation to
the Dominion, and now we're headed home. I only
wish that we had time to surgically alter everyone to
look Bajoran; but we don't--so we'll have to fake it.
Set course for Bajor, maximum warp."
    "Yes, sir." The young blond woman worked her
ornate controls. "Course laid in."
  "Take us out of orbit, one-third impulse."
  "Aye, sir."
    Admiral Sharfer moved toward the doorway. "I'll
get to work on those uniforms, and I'll have Mr. Shon
assigned to the bridge."
    Ro nodded. The reality of their departure from
Galion had left an unexpected lump in her throat, and
she didn't trust herself to say much.
    "We're clear of orbit," reported the conn o~cer.
"Warp engines on-line."
    Ro pointed her finger exactly as she had seen a
certain Starfleet captain do it. "Engage."
    Phaser blasts from two Galor-class Cardassian war-
ships crackled across space and rocked the sleek form
of the Enterprise-E. The Sovereign-class vessel shud-
dered before it veered into a desperate dive, with the
yellow, fish-shaped warships in quick pursuit.
    On the bridge, Captain Jean-Luc Picard gripped the
armrests of his command chair. "Evasive maneuvers,
pattern Zeta-nine-two!"
    "Yes, sir," answered Will Riker at the auxiliary
conn controls. The regular conn officer sat dazedly on
the deck beside his burned-out console, and Dr.
Beverly Crusher ministered to a wound on his fore-
arm. Everywhere on the bridge was the acrid smell of
burnt and overloaded circuits, caused by high-density
electromagnetic pulses sweeping the ship.
    "Shields down to forty percent," reported Data at
the ops console. The android spoke in a calm, busi-
nesslike tone that belied the urgency of the situation.
    "Target aft torpedoes on the lead craft," ordered
Picard.
    "Targeting quantum torpedoes," reported Ensign
Craycroft on tactical. She was a young woman with
nerves of titanium, and she reminded Picard of
another young woman who had manned that station
ten years ago on another vessel called the Enterprise.
It seemed like a lifetime since they had grieved the
loss of Tasha Yar, because now Starfleet lost a thou-
sand Tasha Yars every day.
  "They're lined up," Riker reported urgently.
  "Lower shields," ordered Picard. "Fire!"
    Ensign Craycroft plied her console. "Torpedoes
away!"
    A brace of torpedoes shot from the tail of the
Enterprise, and they looked like shooting stars as they
streaked across the blackness of space. The torpedoes
swerved into the lead Cardassian ship like hungry
piranhas, and it exploded in a blaze of gas, flames,
and imploding antimatter which engulfed the second
ship behind it. The second ship veered off, sparkling
like a Christmas tree before it went dark and began to
drift. The Enterprise kept going, steady on course.
    Riker looked back at Picard and gave him a boyish
grin. "Works every time."
    "It works on Cardassians in any case," said the
captain cautiously. He didn't like being reduced to
tricks, but when they were outnumbered by superior
forces, they needed all the help they could get. The
Cardassians were arrogant and eager to make a kill on
big game such as the Enterprise. That made them
careless, something the Jem'Hadar were not.
  "Damage report," ordered Riker.
    "There are energy fluctuations on the starboard
nacelle, bridge, and decks fifteen through twenty-six,"
reported Data. "Plasma couplings and EPS conduits
on deck seventeen require immediate repair. Recov-
ery systems are compensating, and repair crews have
been dispatched. Shields are holding steady at forty
percent, and I am rerouting power from the main
reactor. Five casualties reported, none serious."
    Beverly Crusher rose wearily to her feet and
brushed back a strand of blonde hair that had escaped
from her hair band. Her lab coat was stained, and her
face looked gaunt--a doctor at war. "I'm on my way
to sickbay," she said.
    The doctor looked down at her patient and gave
him a professional smile. "Ensign Charles is stabi-
lized, but I want him to sit still for a while. I'll send
somebody for him as soon as I can. Just keep him
comfortable."
    Picard gave her a wan smile. "Still shorthanded
down there?"
 "No, I just come up here in case both you and Will
get knocked out, and I can finally take over. I want to
be on hand when it happens."
    "Good thinking," said Riker, who appreciated gal-
lows humor more than Picard. "But we could have the
computer notify you."
    "I'm sure I'll know." The doctor put her head down
and walked across the spacious bridge, past two
empty science stations, unused since the war started.
Her shoulders stiflened as she entered the turbolift,
but she didn't look back.
    Picard swallowed dryly. He was having a hard time
adjusting to a war in which they were being over-
whelmed on all fronts, in which every department
was shorthanded and shell-shocked. Many of his most
experienced crew members were now chief engineers,
doctors, and captains on their own vessels. Only by
calling in personal favors had he managed to hang on
to his core staff of officers. Defeats and surrenders had
taken their toll, but Starfleet could build more ships
faster than they could build good crew to fly them.
  "What's the fleet situation?" he asked Data.
  Theoretically, they were in the middle of a major
  offensive against Dominion forces, but Starfleet had
  stopped massing their ships in close formation. The
  Dominion fleets simply outgunned them, and they
  couldn't stand toe-to-toe against them. Instead the
  new tactic was to spread the battle in three dimen-
  sions, so that the enemy had to break off and pursue.
  With good luck and a good crew, a captain might face
  only two or three Cardassian warships instead of one
  Jem'Hadar battle cruiser, and he might live to fight
  another hit-and-run skirmish another day.
    Data shook his head. "Captain, I cannot make an
accurate assessment without breaking subspace si-
lence, although long-range scans should indicate pos-
sible hostilities." The android's fingers swiftly worked
his console.
    "Search for distress signals," said Picard, rubbing
his eyes. "Let's go to our secondary mission--res-
cue."
    "Setting predetermined course for secondary mis-
sion," reported Riker. "Warp three?"
    "Full impulse, until we make repairs," replied the
captain. "I want to coddle this ship--she's all we've
got."
    Riker nodded and tapped his comm badge. "Riker
to Engineering. How are we doing, Geordi?"
    "Fine," came a curt reply. "I know I owe you a
repair crew--they're on their way. Is the war over
yet?"
"Not quite," said Riker with a half smile.
Captain Picard settled back into his chair. By all
rights, they had destroyed one enemy ship and had
crippled another, and they should be finished for the
day. But somebody out there needed help--a great
many somebodies.
    On the Orb of Peace, the bridge was not as spacious
and as efficiently laid out as the circular bridge of the
Enterprise. The dimly lit chamber reminded Ro of a
small Bajoran chapel, facing the viewscreen instead of
the shrine. To complete the impression, there were all
those religious homilies decorating the frame around
the viewscreen. However, the elegant Bajoran instru-
ment panels lent a soothing reddish and turquoise
glow to the surroundings.
    Ro looked back at Shon Navo, a teenager who ought
to be in school instead of fighting a war. The two of
them were wearing the rust-brown uniforms of Bajor,
and they were wearing their most ostentatious ear
apparel. As the only Bajorans on this Bajoran ship,
they had to play every part. For two hours, their
journey had been totally uneventful, and they were
chewing up the parsecs as fast as the transport would
go. Ro felt she could take a few moments to coach the
boy in his duties.
  "Mr. Shon," she began, "stay close to me."
    "Yes, Captain," he said eagerly, as he shuffled up to
her right shoulder blade. She judged him to be slightly
shorter than herself.
    "If anybody hails us for any reason, you are to
position yourself in a similar position, very close to
me. We'll go on visual and let them know we're
Bajoran."
  "Yes, sir."
    "I will address remarks to you as if you were my
first officer, and we will speak in Bajoran. They'll be
able to translate it, so keep the remarks pertinent."
  He cleared his throat nervously.
  "Yes?"
      "I... I don't speak Bajoran. I used to know it as a
kid, I think, but I've forgotten it."  "War orphan?"
    He nodded. "And my new parents took me with
them to the Fellowship Colony. Boy, that was nice...
for a while. Then the Federation betrayed us and
handed us over to the Cardassians."
    "Let's keep personal opinions to a minimum," said
Ro. "We're going to Bajor. Despite being officially
neutral, Bajorans hold the Federation in high regard.
After all, the Emissary is a human."
  The boy's face hardened. "Thus far, the Cardas-
sians have killed all four of my parents and have tried
to kill me several times. Anyone who appeases them is
a coward."
      "I'm not telling you you can't hate," said Ro. "Just
keep it to yourself."  "Yes, sir."
    "You might be forced to answer a hail when I'm not
here. Don't delayreit looks suspicious. Simply identi-
fy yourself as the first officer and send for me. This
isn't a big ship--I'U get here quickly. Time permit-
ting, I'll teach you a few Bajoran words. You can start
with--"
    "Captain," said the operations officer, his back
stiffening, "there's a fleet of ships passing within four
parsecs of us. Two of them have dropped out of warp
and are breaking off. They're headed our way."
    "Where are the other ones going?" asked Ro urgent-
ly. "Plot their course."
    "The two Jem'Hadar ships have gone back into
warp and will catch up with us in a few minutes!" said
the nervous pilot.
    "We'll talk our way out of it," declared Ro. "We're
lucky they're Jem'Hadar, not Cardassians. Get Ad-
miral Sharfer to the bridge. And I want to know where
the rest of that fleet is going."
    "Oh, no," groaned the tactical officer. "They're...
they're headed toward Galion! What are we going to
do?"
    Ro could tell she was a Maquis-trained officer, not
Starfleet, and she tried to have patience with her.
"First of all, get control of yourself."
    "Yes, sir," responded the woman, straightening her
shoulders. "Should I arm torpedoes?"
    "No, don't make any aggressive moves without my
command. By the way, we all have people back on
Galion."
    The woman smiled gratefully at her, then gulped.
"Should we warn them?"
    "If we send a message right now," said Ro, "we
probably won't get to finish it."
    Ro turned to gaze at Shon Navo. The fresh-faced
Bajoran looked so innocent, even though his life had
been steeped in tragedy and hatred. "Shon, I want you
to be the first thing they see. Just identify our vessel,
say we're Bajoran, and that you have sent for the
captain. With any luck, they'll be in a hurry."
    She paced behind her unfamiliar crew. "Lower the
lights another ten percent. Put the ships on screen."
    The viewscreen revealed two silvery shapes in the
distance, dwarfed by the vastness of space. The
Jem'Hadar attack ships looked unprepossessing--
they were smaller than the Orb of Peace--but Ro
knew they were tremendously swift, maneuverable,
and destructive. She had never seen the Jem'Hadar,
but she had heard reports of their single-minded
ruthlessness and devotion to their masters, the
Founders.
    "They're at warp six and gaining on us," said the
pilot.
    "Steady as she goes," ordered Ro. "Don't come out
of warp unless they force us to. Don't change speed."
    On the viewscreen, the Dominion ships were larger
now--two puglike fighters with twin nacelles, all spit
and chrome. Ro imagined that her ship was being
scanned and their warp signature was being verified.
Even though she was expecting it, the sudden beep of
the communications panel made her pulse quicken.
    "They're hailing us," said the tactical officer with a
quavering voice. "And they're demanding that we
come out of warp."
    "Answer the hail first." Ro motioned to Shon Navo
to step in front of the viewscreen as she retreated to
the shadows at the rear of the bridge.
    Spine erect, trying to look like his idea of a first
officer, the young Bajoran stepped into the pool of
light in front of the viewscreen. He cleared his throat
and nodded.
    At once, the frightening aspect of a Jem'Hadar
warrior appeared on the screen. His face was gnarled
with prickly ridges like a cactus, and his skin was gray
and lifeless. His eyes appeared to be red and vivid, yet
they were darkly hooded like a lizard's eyes. A strange
mechanical appendage seemed to grow out of his
collarbone and hover in front of his left eye, and a
tube pumped a white liquid into an orifice in the side
of his neck. Behind the Jem'Hadar stood another less
imposing figure. Like her, he was hovering in the
shadows.
    "We are the Orb of Peace, a Bajoran transport,"
said the young Bajoran in a confident yet respectful
tone of voice.
    "Come out of warp," ordered the Jem'Hadar in a
gruff voice. "This is Dominion space."
    "I'm only the first officer," answered Shon, his
voice cracking. "The captain has been summoned."
    "This is Dominion space," repeated the craggy face
on the viewscreen.
    "And we are friends of the Dominion," replied Ro,
marching to the front of the bridge. Shon Navo fell
into line behind her, nearly leaning on her back for
support. She could feel him shivering.
 "Captain Tilo at your service," she added.
 "Come out of warp," ordered the Jem'Hadar.
    Ro nodded to the conn and said loudly, "Full
impulse. Maintain course for Bajor."
    On the Dominion attack ship, the shadowy figure at
the rear of the cockpit leaned over the shoulder of the
pilot. This one was a different species than the
Jem'Hadar, although he certainly wasn't Cardassian.
He had huge ears, pale violet eyes, and an obsequious
expression, like a professional politician. A Vorta, she
thought, the midlevel managers of the Dominion.
    "What is your business in this sector?" he asked
pleasantly enough.
    "We are a Bajoran trade delegation," she answered.
"In the past, we have traded with many worlds in this
sector, and we hope that we can continue to do so."
    "We're in a state of war," answered the little man
with the big ears, "as we aid our allies in their battle
against the unscrupulous practices of the Federation.
You might be wise to continue on your way home
without further interruption."
    "That is our intention," answered Ro. "Thanks to
the benevolence of the Dominion."
    The Vorta nodded in appreciation of the compli-
ment, then he added, "We had noticed a large number
of passengers on your vessel--most of them human."
    "Carrying passengers is a sideline," answered Ro
evenly, "especially on our return voyage. We are
headed straight home."
    "Make certain of that." The Vorta nodded to the
Jem'Hadar pilot, and the screen went blank as the link
ended. A moment later, they watched the two Domin-
ion vessels zoom off into warp.
 Ro scowled. "What's their course?"
    "The same course we traveled," replied tactical.
"They're headed toward Galion and the Maquis
settlements."
    "Do we resume warp speed for Bajor?" asked the
helmsman, his voice quavering.
    Ro gazed from the expectant faces of her young
crew members to the wizened face of Admiral Shar-
fer. None of them ventured an opinion; none of them
offered to make the decision for her. This is what she
had said she wanted--total control over this vessel
and the lives of a hundred people--and she had it.
    Her eyes rested on the young blond woman at the
tactical station: her face was tight with fear, but she
kept her tears at bay. Ro knew the fear wasn't for
herself but for those left behind, unaware that an
enemy fleet was streaking toward them. Her moist
eyes seemed to say that only an animal flees without
any concern for loved ones left behind. They couldn't
beat the Dominion ships to Galion, but they could try
to rescue survivors.
    "Alert Gallon Central," she ordered. "Tell them
about the Dominion fleet. Reverse course, maximum
warp."
    "Aye, Captain," said the conn officer with a mixture
of awe and apprehension.
    The boxy little transport executed a 180-degree
turn and elongated into a streak of golden light before
vanishing entirely.

Chapter Two

THE ONCE LUSH PLANET OF GALLON floated in space like
a charred tree stump, with only patches of moss left
alive. The great forests and groves of olive trees were
blackened swamps, and the lakes were dark with silt
and mud. The cities and towns were nothing but
blasted craters, still burning like hellish volcanoes.
Half a million dead, at the very least. There was open
weeping on the bridge of the Orb of Peace, and Ro said
nothing to discourage it. The sight was so horrible
that she almost ordered it to be taken off the view-
screen, but it demanded to be witnessed.
    She walked over to the navigation console and
asked softly, "Any life signs?"
    The young man shook his head. "No, none, sir...
although the extreme radiation could be affecting our
sensors."
 "They were so much faster than us," said Admiral
Shaffer in shock. "They got here in minutes, and it
took us two hours."
    Ro strode behind her crew and admonished them,
"Keep scanning for life signsmtarget the cities." In
her eyes and her heart, she knew it was hopeless.
Galion was nothing but a funeral pyre, and Derek was
dead, along with scores of friends and comrades.
    The bridge continued to fill with passengers and
their families, and the anquished cries became too
great for her to bear. Ro turned to face them, holding
up her hands to quiet their gasps and sobs. "You are
witnesses. Without provocation, the Dominion has
destroyed our homeworld, our last refuge. I submit
that we are no longer innocent bystanders in this
war--we're part of it."
    She strode to the conn and gazed over the young
man's shoulder at the readouts. "It will take four days
to reach Bajor, and they could destroy us anywhere
along the way. On Bajor, Shon and I could fit in, but
the rest of you would have to be in hiding, right under
the nose of the Cardassians on Deep Space Nine. I
don't think you can hide from this war--I think you
have to stand up and be counted."
    She tapped her finger on the panel. "I say we cut
straight across the DMZ to the Federation lines and
offer them our help. We can be there in a few hours."
    "Yeah, kill the lying bastards!" cried the envoy who
had spent days begging the Dominion to leave the
remnants of the Maquis alone.
 "Our safety--" began another man.
    "Safety is illusory," answered Admiral Shaffer.
"The enemy has shown us that. We must return to the
Federation."
    "That will mean prison for a lot of us," muttered
the other admiral. A resolute yet pained shadow
played across her face.
    "I'm higher on their list than any of you," replied
Ro, "but we have to stand by the Federation, no
matter the personal risk. We certainly can't depend
upon the mercy of the Dominion. Are there any life
signs down there?"
 "No, sir," came the answer.
    "Set course for Federation space, best guess," she
ordered. "And turn up the lights in here."
    On the viewscreen of the Enterprise was a heart-
rending sight--a Federation starship floating in
space, dark and lifeless, with several jagged rifts in her
hull. The Gallant was a Nebula-class vessel, more
compact than the Enterprise, with her twin nacelles
located directly beneath the saucer section and a large
stabilizer atop the craft. Not a light shone on the
derelict vessel, and debris stretched behind it like a
trail of blood.
    "Life signs?" asked Captain Picard, already dread-
ing the answer.
    Data shook his head. "None, sir. There are fourteen
separate breaches in the hull, and it is unlikely that
any section of the ship maintained sufficient integrity
to support life. The distress signal is on automatic and
is fading in strength."
    "It looks like they used her for target practice,"
muttered Riker through clenched teeth.
    "Log her position," ordered Picard glumly. "Some-
one can tow her in later. Alert sickbay and the
transporter rooms to stand down--there's no one to
save here."
    Data frowned at his readouts. "I am receiving two
new distress signals in the same vicinity at a distance
of six parsecs. One is Starfleet; the other is...
Bajoran."
    "Set course, maximum warp," ordered Picard.
"With all this killing, it would be nice to save even
one life today."
    Within minutes, the Enterprise was closing in on
another pocket of death and destruction in the unfor-
giving bleakness of space. Picard could only hope that
this time they would arrive soon enough to help.
    "Long-range scans show hostilities in progress,"
reported Data. "An Ambassador-class starship, the
Aurora, and an unknown Bajoran transport are en-
gaged with a Jem'Hadar cruiser."
    "Shields up," ordered Picard. "As soon as we come
out of warp, fire phasers and keep firing. Don't give
the Jem'Hadar time to react."
    "Yes, sir," snapped Ensign Craycroft on tactical.
"Phasers ready."
    "Coming out of warp in thirty seconds," said Riker
from the auxilary console. "I thought the Bajorans
were neutral."
    "This war doesn't play favorites," replied Picard.
"On screen."
    The Jem'Hadar battle cruiser looked like a bullet
with short fins and a vibrant blue glow along her hull.
She was chasing the Aurora through a thin, purplish
gas cloud, exchanging fire with the crippled ship.
Above the fray, a rectangular transport fired a photon
torpedo at the Jem'Hadar cruiser, rocking it slightly.
But the enemy had its sights set on the bigger ship,
and was ignoring everything else.
 The captain tapped the comm panel on his chair.
"Sickbay and transporter rooms, stand by for casual-
ties."
    With skillful piloting, the Enterprise dropped out of
warp matching the speed and course of the enemy,
and they bombarded the cruiser with phaser fire.
Suddenly, the Dominion warship was caught in a
three-way cross fire, yet the single-minded Jem'Hadar
continued to pound the fleeing Aurora. To her cap-
tain's credit, Aurora never stopped firing, even as a
brace of torpedoes dissolved her port nacelle. The
once-proud Starfleet ship fizzled like a dud firecracker
before it lurched into a fatal spin.
    Picard wanted to commence rescue efforts, but they
were too far away to use transporters. Unless they
eliminated the Jem'Hadar cruiser, they would all
suffer the same fate as the Aurora.
    "Target quantum torpedoes," he ordered. "Ready
to lower shields."
 "Torpedoes targeted," reported Ensign Craycroft.
 "Shields down. Fire!"
    Picard could only hope that the cruiser's shields
had been sutficiently softened during the battle. No-
body breathed on the bridge of the Enterprise as the
torpedoes slammed into the Jem'Hadar craft. The
first two shots blistered off the enemy's shields, but
the second two found their mark, chewing up the aft
fins on the sleek craft. Even as explosions racked the
Jem'Hadar ship, she came about and unleashed a
withering blast of phaser fire that engulfed both the
Enterprise and the plucky Bajoran transport.
    As the bridge rocked, the captain hung on to the
arms of his chair. "Keep firing!" he shouted.
    Craycroft staggered back to her feet and pounded
her console. At once, another bracket of torpedoes
streaked from the saucer of the Enterprise into the
Dominion ship. Energy rippled along the hull of the
doomed cruiser, finally reaching her antimatter core,
and she exploded in a violent shower of gas, flame,
and debris.
    "Captain," said Data. "The Bajoran craft is se-
verely damaged. They are losing life-support."
    "All transporter rooms, lock on to the Bajoran craft
and begin transporting," ordered Picard. "Med
teams, report to transporter rooms."
  He turned to Data. "The Aurora--"
    As if in answer to his unfinished question, the
Ambassador-class starship erupted in an explosion
greater than that which had claimed the Jem'Hadar
ship. All of space seemed torn apart by the blast,
which sent waves of sparkling confetti swirling into
space.
      Picard's shoulders slumped, and he turned away
from the tragic sight on the viewscreen.  "No survivors," said Riker glumly.
    "Log it." Picard turned back to the viewscreen,
half-expecting the Bajoran transport to explode as
well. But the small, unassuming vessel just hung there
in space, still intact.
    "Captain," said Data with a trace of puzzlement,
"we have transported ninety-five wounded people off
the Bajoran ship, and most of them are human."
  "Human?" asked Picard. "Not Bajoran?"
 "Two of them are Bajoran," replied the android.
    Riker frowned. "Maybe that explains why they
were fighting the Dominion."
 "Is the transport salvageable?" asked Picard.
 Data nodded. "Yes, sir. Except for the failure of
life-support and artificial-gravity systems, it is rela-
tively undamaged."
    "If they're civilians, they'll need their ship," sug-
gested Riker. "She's small enough that she won't slow
us down."
    "Ready tractor beam," ordered Picard. "Let's be
thankful that we were in time to save a few lives. Set
course for the Kreel system. Maintain subspace si-
lence."
    The captain wasn't anxious to find out how the
battle had fared. From what he had seen today, he
hardly expected victory. No doubt they had widened
the front and won a few skirmishes here and there,
but he couldn't be optimistic that they had dealt a
serious blow to the Dominion and Cardassian forces.
They were fighting now to keep from being overrun,
nothing more.
    "Tractor beam locked on," reported the conn.
"Course laid in."
"Maximum warp," said the captain. "Engage."
The crew of the Enterprise were as brave as they
come, yet there was a palpable sense of relief on the
bridge once they were headed back to Federation
space. Picard knew they could keep fighting--there
was no shortage of Dominion ships along the ragged
frontwbut his crew was exhausted. Sickbay was full
of wounded civilians, and the Enterprise still had
damage to repair. Despite a gnawing sense of guilt
over having survived when so many other brave
captains and crews hadn't, Picard knew it was time to
call it a day.
    He was rubbing his eyes and wondering if he had
the energy to get up and get himself a cup of tea, when
the comm panel beeped. "Picard here," he answered
wearily.
     "Jean-Luc," said the familiar voice of Beverly
Crusher. "I think you should come to sickbay."
  "Is there a problem?"
    "We've got gurneys spilling out into the corridor,
but that's normal these days." She paused. "We
beamed over somebody you know from the transport.
I've sent for a security team."
    That piqued his interest, and Picard rose to his feet.
"I'11 be right there. Number One, you have the
bridge."
    Ro Laren/Picard stared in amazement at the un-
conscious figure stretched out on the observation
table in sickbay. As if it wasn't crowded enough, four
gold-collared security officers stood guard around her
table and the beds of several prominent Maquis
officers. The captain never thought he would see his
former lieutenant again, not in this lifetime, but here
she was.
    Unbidden, a host of memories came cascading back
to Captain Picard. He remembered when young En-
sign Ro had first come aboard the Enterprise-D--she
was already under a cloud and barely hanging on to
her Starfleet commission. With her independent atti-
tude and spotty record, Ro had instantly earned the
distrust of Will Riker and half the crew, but they
needed her to infiltrate a cadre of Bajoran terrorists.
She had succeeded in that difficult task as she had in
so many others, until she had finally become one of
his most trusted officers.
 Then she had betrayed him and Starfleet.
 Or was it Starfleet that had betrayed Ro? After
promoting her and training her in antiterrorist tactics,
Admiral Nechayev had thrust her into a volatile
situation in the Cardassian Demilitarized Zone. Per-
haps it was inevitable that a renegade and underdog
like Ro would sympathize with the ultimate under-
dogs--the Maquis. At any rate, she had refused to
betray them, opting instead to betray Starfleet. Fight-
ing Federation colonists and former comrades had
been the most painful duty of Picard's career. But like
so many other chapters of his life, it paled in compari-
son with the awful conflict that now engulfed them.
    He turned to Beverly Crusher. "Will she be all
right?"
    "She'll recover," answered the doctor. "Another
few seconds without air, and none of them would
have survived. I can bring most of them back to
consciousness, but do you think they'll be a security
risk?"
    Picard shook his head. "They were fighting the
Dominion when we rescued them. I'm inclined to give
them the benefit of the doubt." He turned to the
security officers. "Wait outside, on alert."
    After the security detail had cleared out, it was a bit
easier to move in sickbay, and Picard stationed him-
self at Ro's bedside. He nodded to Beverly, and she
administered a hypospray to the Bajoran's neck.
    Slowly, wincing with fear and confusion, Ro Laren
opened her eyes and struggled to sit up. When her
vision focused on the concerned face of Captain
Picard, she smiled weakly.
    "Then it's true," she said in amazement, "this
really is the Enterprise. Am I under arrest?"
    "At the moment, you're under my care," said
Beverly. "But I wouldn't worry too much about
 Captain Picard went to considerable trouble to
 rescue you and your shipmates."
    "Thank you." Ro sat up and looked around. "How
are my passengers?"
    "We saved all but five," answered Beverly. "Should
I log you down as captain?"
    "Yes," she answered hoarsely. "Can we talk some-
where?"
    "Of course," said Captain Picard. "We have a
lounge on this ship, much like the old Ten-Forward
room. It's not the same as it used to be--with the war
and all--but we could still go there." The captain
looked at Crusher, who nodded her assent.
  He tapped his comm badge. "Picard to Troi."
  "Yes, Captain?" answered a lilting feminine voice.
  "Counselor, meet me in the lounge right away."
  "Yes, sir."
    Ro swung her long legs over the side of the table and
stood uneasily, holding the table for support. "Don't
trust me, Captain? Have to make sure I'm telling the
truth?"
  "We are at war," said Picard gravely.
    "Understood. Do you mind if I hold your arm? I'm
a little wobbly."
    "Of course." Like the gentleman he was, Picard
offered a steady arm to his former foe.
    It sure isn't like it used to be, thought Ro Laren as
she surveyed the deserted lounge. Only a small corner
of the cavernous room was lit, with only a handful of
tables open for business. Even so, there was nobody in
the lounge but herself, Captain Picard, and Deanna
Troi, who looked as confident and beautiful as always.
Like Picard, Troi was dressed in a different Starfleet
uniform than the ones she recalled. Evidently Star-
fleet's sartorial requirements had changed since Ro's
departure.
    Captain Picard returned to their table with a tray
full of beverages, dispensed from a replicator. "It's
self-service, I'm afraid," said the captain apologeti-
cally. "Table service is a luxury we don't have
anymore. Nor do we have much time to sit and
chat."
    "I never thought I would say that it was good to see
someone from Starfleet," said Ro, grabbing her glass
of tomato juice. "But it's awfully good to see someone
from Starfleet."
    Deanna folded her hands and smiled pleasantly.
"Suppose you tell us, in your own words, what
happened to you?"
    Ro set her jaw and nodded. "To keep from incrimi-
nating myself, I won't tell you what I was doing while
we were still fighting the Federation. But life became
peaceful for us after the Klingons went to war with the
Cardassians, and Starfleet was fighting the Borg and
others. Everyone forgot about us--we were even able
to return to some of our old settlements."
    She took a sip of tomato juice and smiled wistfully.
~'I used to grow my own tomatoes--they were much
better than this." Ro paused and took a deep breath
before continuing. "You can guess what happened to
us. When the Dominion came, they rearmed the
Cardassians and turned them loose on their old
enemies. We tried to be neutral, like the Bajorans,
because we were all tired of fighting. It didn't work.
They destroyed our settlements and massacred us by
the thousands."
 "I'm sorry," said Deanna with heartfelt sympathy.
 Ro shrugged. "It's happening everywhere, isn't it?
 The Maquis are nothing special anymore--just a
 bunch of pathetic refugees. Fortunately, I'm experi-
 enced at being a refugee--I know there's a time to
 run and a time to fight. We set out to run to Bajor, but
 we decided to fight instead. When we came upon that
 starship in trouble, we joined in."
    "That was either very brave, or very foolish," said
Picard.
    "That's the story of my life," answered Ro, leaning
back in her chair. "So... am I under arrest?"
    "No," answered Picard resolutely. "We haven't got
the luxury of holding grudges. I don't need to tell you
that the war is going badly."
    Ro scowled. "I'm afraid I have some more bad news
for you, Captain. The Dominion is building an artifi-
cial wormhole deep in Cardassian space."
    "What?" asked Picard, a stricken look in his face.
"Are you certain about this?"
    "I'm certain." She looked at Deanna Troi. "Tell
him I'm certain."
  Deanna sighed. "She's certain."
    "They may be using Federation prisoners to build
it," added Ro. "Slave labor."
    Picard rose to his feet, his cup of tea untouched.
"Could you repeat this for my staff?. They may have
questions."
    The Bajoran nodded solemnly. "I will, but I want
clemency for all my passengers."
    "That's not mine to grant," answered the captain.
"But we have your transport in tow, and Data says it
can be repaired. Excuse me."
 He strode from the lounge, his back stiff with
resolve. Ro watched him leave, then shook her head in
amazement. "Still the same Captain Picard."
 "Yes," agreed Deanna. "Still the best there is."
    Ro Laren finished her report and dropped her
hands to her sides, gazing expectantly at the officers
gathered in the observation lounge. In her face was
that odd mixture of intensity and indifference which
Picard had come to expect from her. She hadn't
given them any more than a secondhand account,
hadn't furnished any proof, yet her statement was
chilling, especially the account of ships full of Fed-
eration prisoners. They all knew that to be a tragic
fact.
    Still the captain could see doubt in the eyes of some
of his staff, especially Will Riker's. Or perhaps Will's
troubled expression was due to the disastrous impli-
cations of Ro's story. If the Dominion possessed an
artificial wormhole in Cardassian space, then the
mines in front of the Bajoran wormhole would be
worthless. In fact, the Bajoran wormhole itself would
be worthless, and ripe for destruction. The Dominion
could stop protecting Deep Space Nine and move on
to other objectives, such as Earth.
  "Any questions?" concluded Ro.
    "Why would they build this thing so close to the
Badlands?" asked Riker suspiciously.
      "I would guess that they assumed the Badlands
would obscure it from your long-range sensors."
  "That would do it," agreed Geordi La Forge.
    "Could you locate this artificial wormhole on a
chart?" asked Riker.
    "Approximately," answered Ro. "I've never seen it,
but I know Sector 283 fairly well."
Riker scowled. "You're sure of the reliability of the
person who told you this?"
    Ro's jaw stiflened, and her eyes became flint-cold.
"I'm sure of everything that man told me. He never
lied, had no reason to. He was certain that the
Federation was going to lose this war, which is why he
wanted to make friends with the Dominion."
    After an uncomfortable silence, Picard managed a
smile. "Thank you, Captain Ro. Ensign Craycroft will
escort you back to sickbay. I believe that most of your
passengers have recovered."
    The lean Bajoran glanced at the gleaming models
encased on the wall of the observation lounge--all
ships named Enterprise--and she smiled wistfully.
"Many times I thought about how I was such a fool to
throw all of this away. And what happens? I find
you--the Enterprise--in the same condition as me;
we're all fighting for our lives. It's funny how time
reduces everything to the essentials."
    "I don't see anything funny about it," muttered
Riker. His scowl softened slightly. "But I'm very glad
that we were able to rescue you, and thank you for
coming to the aid of the Aurora."
    "We can't choose where to die, only how to die." Ro
Laren glanced at the security officer at her side. "I'm
ready to go."
    Ensign Craycroft touched a panel. The door
opened, and she escorted the Bajoran out.
    As soon as the door snapped shut again, Riker
declared, "She's still a traitor. On top of that, we have
absolutely no proof of her story. It could be a trap."
    "Counselor Troi detected no prevarication." Troi
nodded in confirmation. Captain Picard paced the
length of the gleaming conference table. "We knew
they were taking prisoners, but we didn't know why.
Ro is the first person we've interviewed who has
actually been living behind enemy lines."
    "Judging by her general health," said Beverly
Crusher, "she hasn't been living in luxury."
    "I believe she is telling the truth," added Deanna
Troi. "At least as far as she knows it."
    "That's the catch," said Picard. "Is this fact or
rumor? Either way, we can't ignore it. Data, is an
artificial wormhole even possible?"
    "In theory, yes," answered the android. "Three
years ago, a team of Trill scientists, led by Doctor
Lenara Kahn, set out to answer that very question.
Using the Bajoran wormhole as a model, they deter-
mined that constructing an artificial wormhole would
be possible, although there are many problems to be
overcome. Without any working prototypes, one
would have to construct a verteron collider of at least
eight kilometers in length. I could give you a more
exact estimate, if you wish."
    "Perhaps later," said Picard. Geordi was leaning
forward, anxious to say something. "Mr. La Forge?"
    "In my opinion," said the chief engineer, "the
biggest problem is not the size of the thing but the
exotic construction material you would need to estab-
lish a permanent site. At the mouth of an artificial
wormhole, the outward radial pressure would be
tremendous--like the tension at the center of the
most massive neutron star. We haven't got a building
material that would stand up to that kind of pres-
sure."
    "Geordi, are you forgetting Corzanium?" asked the
android.
The engineer grinned, his pale artificial retinas
glowing with mirth. "Come on, Data, there isn't more
than a teaspoonful of Corzanium in the whole Federa-
tion. It has to be quantum-stepped out of a black hole
with a tractor beam run through a metaphasic shield
enhancer. But if you had enough Corzanium, I sup-
pose, it would do the trick."
    "The Dominion has considerable resources," mut-
tered Picard. "I'm afraid they also have the personnel,
some of it ours. So this artificial wormhole could be a
reality?"
    "Yes, sir," answered Data. "I believe we should take
Captain Ro's report seriously."
    That simple declaration dropped a pall over the
meeting in the observation lounge. No one had to
reiterate what a disaster it would be if the Dominion
could bring through more Jem'Hadar warships, more
unctuous Vorta, and more shapeshifting Change-
lings.
    "We've got to go there and see for ourselves,"
declared Picard. "If it exists, we have to destroy it."
    "Captain," said Riker, stroking his beard thought-
fully, "I feel I should point out that what you're
proposing is... a suicide mission."
    The captain sighed. "And if we fail to go, and she's
right? That would be suicide for the entire Federation.
I'm sending a message to Starfleet, asking them for
permission to investigate Ro's report. Thank you for
your opinions--you are dismissed."
    Ro Laren sat in a small therapy room with Shon
Navo, helping the young Bajoran exercise the re-
paired tendons in his right elbow and right knee. Of
the injuries her crew had received, his were fairly
mild, but the youth felt ostracized on this ship full of
humans flying under the despised Starfleet insignia.
Shon had known nothing but hatred for Starfleet for
most of his life, and now he was being forced to
depend upon their protection.
    He bent and straightened his elbow as Ro moni-
tored his progress on a medical tricorder. "Very
good," she said. "Ten more times, and we'll work on
your knee."
    Shon let his arm flop onto the table. "What's the
point? We're all going to be killed, anyway--or put in
prison."
    "We don't know that. In our case, there's a good
chance we could be repatriated to Bajor."
"If we could ever get close to it," muttered Shon.
Ro frowned, unable to refute the fact that they were
a long way from home, if indeed they could call
anyplace "home." Being homeless had taken its toll,
and Shon was much like her--cynical, disillusioned,
with no respect for authority. Now there would be
more refugees, more prisoners, more damaged and
neglected lives.
    She took a sip from her glass of tomato juice and
replied slowly, "The humans and their allies are not
bad people. In fact, they trust too much, always
looking for the best, even in Cardassians. If they
survive this war, perhaps they won't take so much for
granted. The important thing is to realize that we're
all on the same side now."
    Shon's bravado slipped for a moment, and he
looked like the frightened youth he was. "But won't
they send us to a camp or a prison... just to wait
until the Dominion finally gets us? Everybody says
they're losing the war!"
  "Then look out for yourself. Fight if you have to,
 save people if you can, but survive. For once, it's a
 good time to be Bajoran." She rubbed his shoulder in
 a friendly gesture.
     The door slid open, and Ro turned to see Captain
 Picard standing in the corridor, a concerned look on
 his face. Out of habit, Ro stiflened, tempted to bolt to
 her feet and stand at attention. Then she relaxed as
 she realized that they were now both captains of their
 own ships, a respect he had shown her in front of his
 crew. If she could only be sure that the rest of Starfleet
 would be as forgiving as Captain Picard, she would
 feel more comfortable about this new alliance.
    He smiled at the boy as he entered. "I'm sorry to
intrude, but it's rather urgent that I speak to Captain
Ro. I'm sure one of the orderlies would be happy to
help you with your therapy."
    Ro gazed at the young Bajoran and nodded. With
barely concealed hatred, the boy glared at Picard as he
left, but the stalwart captain was too absorbed by
more pressing concerns to notice.
    "What's going to become of my passengers and
crew?" asked Ro.
    "They'll be protected, but if we lose the war--"
Picard's glower finished his sentence. "All I know is, if
you're correct about the Dominion building an artificial
wormhole, then all is lost. Unless we destroy it. I've
asked Starfleet for permission to investigate your report,
and their response was... not entirely to my liking."
    He sighed. "They refuse to allow us to risk the
Enterprise on such a mission. That leaves us the
option of using another ship, preferably one which
isn't Starfleet and won't arouse suspicion."
    Ro cocked her head and smiled. "Such as the Orb of
Peace?"
    "Precisely. Mr. La Forge says it can be repaired in
thirty hours; that includes adding several improve-
ments. A small, handpicked crew could slip into
Cardassian space and deal with this threat, being
careful not to endanger Federation prisoners."
    Ro's smile grew larger. "Now you're talking about a
dangerous spy mission, followed by a major act of
sabotage. If we're captured, do you know how long the
Cardassians will torture us? We'll be begging for
death."
    "I'm well versed in Cardassian torture," answered
Picard grimly. "If you're worried about your crew and
passengers, I'll make sure they're treated fairly; they'll
be compensated for the Orb of Peace. I'm only asking
for the ship, not your participation--although I
would welcome it."
    "I go with the ship. Besides, none of you know the
Badlands like I do." Hesitantly, Ro asked, "What will
be our chain of command?"
    "You'll be captain of the ship, as you are," an-
swered Picard. 'TII be in charge of the mission. I
often find myself in your position with somebody else
in charge of the mission, so this will be a nice change
of pace for me."
  "Do you have any Bajorans on board?"
    "No, but Dr. Crusher has gotten remarkably good
at disguises over the years. She can alter humans to
pass for Bajorans, even on scans. We'll have a crew of
fifteen, which is all I can spare. You know this mission
has to succeed, don't you?"
    The smile faded from Ro's gaunt face, and she
looked like a soldier once again. "Yes. But you're
asking for too much if you think we can sneak into
Cardassian space, find this thing, blow it up, and save
all the prisoners. We have to be realistic--the prison-
ers are lost."
    "The mission comes first," agreed Picard somberly.
"All we can do for the prisoners is to scout the
situation. Only by defeating the Dominion can we
avenge the suffering of our comrades."
    Ro lifted her glass of tomato juice and gazed into
the disheartened but determined eyes of Captain
Picard. "Here's to vengeance."

Chapter Three

SAM LAVELLE FLOATED WEIGHTLESSLY through the void,
his tethered space suit feeling like a gown of the finest
silk against his chapped, grimy skin. The umbilical
cord brought him air, security, and close scrutiny.
Only when he tried to lift his arms too far above his
head did he feel the restrictions of the cumbersome
suit. Then he would relax and let himself float until he
had found a better position in which to work on the
exposed metal joint. He avoided using the jets on his
suit, because they often caused him to overshoot his

mark, losing precious seconds.
    The large spanner in his hand had no weight--it
felt like a feather--but it would make a formidable
weapon, if he could only plant his feet. For the
hundredth time that day, Sam fantasized about bring-
ing the wrench crashing upon the head of his
Jem'Hadar overseer.
    "Number zero-five-nine-six," said a gruff voice in
his ear. "You are falling behind the prescribed time-
table. You have fourteen minutes to tighten that seal,
or you will lose your privileges."
    Sam held up his hand and waved, wondering if
they could see that his middle finger was extended
above the others. Probably not, with the thick,
segmented gloves covering his hands. "Privileges"
was a euphemism for food, water, oxygen, and a
bunk--the bare minimum that was needed to stay
alive. Those who lost their privileges only did so
once or twice before they were expelled into space
with the garbage.
    His mind still wandering, Sam Lavelle stared down
the length of the massive verteron collider, a skeletal
tube over ten kilometers long and two kilometers
wide. It was hard to envision the entire structure
when all one could see of it were a few meters of
spindly supports, surrounded by the daunting black-
ness of space.
    The sight of thousands of space-suited workers,
clinging to the structure like an army of inept spiders,
gave him some perspective on its incredible length.
The spectre of sleek Cardassian shuttlecrafts patrol-
ling the center of the tube gave him some idea of its
immense width. The fact that he hadn't moved since
the Jem'Hadar had ordered him to do so made Sam
think that he was prepared to die.
    But he couldn't die, not now, when so many of his
mates depended upon him. Through default and the
force of his own personality, Sam had become the
spokesperson for five hundred prisoners in Pod 18.
He harbored few illusions that he was any more noble
than his fellow captives, or any more likely to survive
his imprisonment, but he was willing to speak up for
them. For some reason, his jailers hadn't been trou-
bled enough to kill him... yet.
    He latched on to the bolt with his spanner, read the
digital printout on the handle, and tightened until the
seal reached the prescribed tension. Two meters away,
a cylindrical verteron accelerator looked down at him
like a bizarre cannon, reminding him of the war. As
far as he knew, the war could be over and the entire
Federation enslaved. On the other hand, the frenetic
pace of the work and the Dominion's single-minded
adherence to its schedules made it clear that the
Federation was still a threat. The Dominion needed
this wormhole.
    And a remarkable achievement it was--a bridge to
another quadrant, tens of thousands of light-years
away. The artificial wormhole was a true mixture of
Dominion and Federation technology, built by Feder-
ation and Dominion hands. It should have been a
symbol of peace and cooperation; instead it sounded
the death knell of the Federation.
    Like thousands of other men and woman drifting
inside the verteron collider or slaving in the laborato-
ries or factories of the complex, Sam wondered how
he could sabotage his own labor. Unfortunately, their
work was tightly supervised, then inspected by Vorta
engineers. Only when they started actual tests would
they know if anyone had been successful in sabotag-
ing the artificial wormhole. Sam waited for his mo-
ment to play the hero, but each passing day only
brought the Dominion closer to its goals.
    Like a robot trained to labor without thinking
about the consequences, Sam finished checking the
seal and logging it as completed. This was the last task
 to be completed on this segment, and he pushed
 himself away and drifted in space. There was no
 sensation in his body except lethargy and a gnawing
 hunger that could have been either his stomach or his
 soul.
    Sam straightened his umbilical tether, watching it
stretched back to the maintenance pod in the junction
of six supports. "Ready to come in," he reported.
    "There will be a delay in retrieval," answered the
gruff voice of his overseer.
    Sam breathed a loud sigh, which echoed in the
hollow recesses of his helmet. He had just been
threatened that if he didn't finish on time he'd be
punished, and now he had been told to continue
drifting in space. Wondering what the delay could be,
Sam twisted around to look in the opposite direc-
tion.
    That's when he saw it--a Cardassian tanker mov-
ing into position at the mouth of the verteron
collider. Sam was no physicist, just a decent helms-
man and navigator, but he knew that the gravitation-
al and temporal forces would be greatest at the exit
point of the wormhole. Only a few prisoners, kept in
isolation, had seen the plans to construct that section
of the collider. He assumed that it had to be a weak
point in the machine, where sabotage could be very
effective. Now he was about to watch an important
development--from a distance of half a kilometer.
He turned his dark brown eyes upon the figures in
the distance.
    Using the miniature jets on their suits, a squadron
of workers maneuvered themselves into tight forma-
tion around the freight hatch at the aft of the tanker.
There had to be fifteen white-garbed prisoners and an
equal number of Jem'Hadar guards in gray space
suits. Something big was coming off that tanker. With
thousands of workers spread across ten kilometers, it
was impossible to say that one spot was the center of
attention, but Sam could feel the work halt as every
eye and every viewscreen focused on the activity at
the tanker.
    The hatch opened, and what looked like a gleaming
beam of sunlight emerged from the recesses of the
tanker. Sam wished he could see more, but he also
had a feeling that he didn't want to be much closer
than he was. When it cleared the hatch, the stack of
pure energy looked to be about ten meters long and a
meter wide. Like the pallbearers at a funeral, the
workers took positions around the blazing object and
guided it away from the tanker.
    Sam guessed that the mysterious material was en-
cased in a stasis field, or perhaps a forcefield. He
didn't think even the Dominion could use antimatter
as a building material, but they treated this substance
with the same respect.
    The Cardassian tanker suddenly fired thrusters and
tried to pull away. It got only a few meters when the
space between the tanker and the glowing cargo
rippled like a Texas highway in the summer heat. Sam
caught his breath, knowing this chain reaction
couldn't be planned. Sure enough, the glowing materi-
al increased in brightness until it seared his eyes.
    Squinting, Sam could see the white-suited workers
firing their jets and fleeing in panic. Ignoring the
danger, the gray-suited Jem'Hadar began firing on the
fleeing workers. Phaser beams crisscrossed the black-
ness of space, and several of his colleagues exploded
in their suits like helium balloons set afire. He gasped
 and held out his arms, unable to do anything but
 watch the tragedy unfold.
    Those who escaped the massacre did not escape the
deadly chain reaction that followed. The stasis field
flickered out, and the glowing material within it
expanded like a solar flare, engulfing the workers, the
Jem'Hadar, the Cardassian tanker, and the collider.
The tanker exploded in a vivid burst of silver confetti
and golden gas clouds, and the mouth of the collider
was consumed by a monstrous fireball.
    Sam braced himself as the wake of the explosion
struck him and flipped him over and over like a leaf
caught in the wind. He could feel a momentary
warming in his suit, which worried him until he
crashed hard into a metal pylon. He caromed off the
structure and spun to the end of his tether, which
jerked him like a puppet on a string. He watched the
tether stretch to a dangerous length, and he jammed
on his jets in time to compensate.
    Now Sam was hurtling in the opposite direction as
debris from the explosion shot past him. Miracu-
lously, none of it ripped his suit, and he was able to
pilot himself back into a controlled drift behind a
thick pylon. He finally had time to glance behind him,
where it was complete chaos along the entire length of
the collider.
    Quickly Cardassian and Jem'Hadar ships con-
verged on the scene of the disaster, but there was no
one and nothing to be saved. People who had been his
shipmates and fellow prisoners now floated in the
void, little more than scraps of charred flesh and
cloth. The Cardassian tanker was a quickly expanding
sphere of dust.
"Stay where you are!" bellowed an angry voice in
his ear. "Do not move!"
    Sam barked a macabre, frustrated laugh. Scores of
lives had been snuffed out in an instant of Cardassian
carelessness, and all his captors could think about was
preventing the escape of their slaves, most of whom
were floating helplessly in space. Where could they
go? How far could they run in a space suit containing
a few minutes' worth of breathable air, minus the
cord?
    If it weren't so tragic, it wouM be funny, thought
Sam Lavelle. Maybe this accident was a harbinger of
good luck, and the artificial wormhole would never
operate as planned. That might be good news for the
Federation, but thousands of Federation prisoners
would then become expendable, even more so than
they were already. If it failed, no doubt the Dominion
would take out their anger and frustration on the
prisoners.
    We're all dead anyway, Sam decided as he floated
aimlessly, watching a misshapen dust cloud in the
distance. That massive cloud was called the Badlands,
and it had once been a refuge of the Maquis. Now it
was a tempting mirage, promising them escape and
freedom, when there was little point in thinking about
such goals.
    His life had ended with the capture of the Aizawa,
the cruiser on which he and his best friend, Taurik,
had been serving as bridge officers. Sam couldn't help
but wonder if their previous ship, the Enterprise, had
survived the war so far. He hadn't met any prisoners
from the Enterprise or heard of its fate, but that didn't
mean much. By now, the Enterprise could be a cloud
 of space junk, like the Cardassian tanker which spar-
 kled all around him.
     He thought back to those days aboard the Enter-
 prise, where his closest friends included Taurik, Sito
 Jaxa, and Alyssa Ogawa. With all their neurotic
 fretting over crew evaluations and promotions, those
 days couldn't be called carefree, but that group had
 real camaraderie. They were gung-ho. Jaxa's death on
 a covert mission had been their first taste of reality,
 and of the sacrifices they would be called upon to
 make.
    Something twinkled in the corner of his eye, and
Sam was glad to turn his attention elsewhere. He
twisted around to see a squat, bronze shuttlecraft
hovering over his head. "Uncouple," commanded a
voice. "Prepare to be retrieved."
    Sam sighed and closed off the intake valve of his
umbilical cord. He attached the spanner to its holder,
unscrewed the valve, and watched the cord retract
slowly into the maintenance pod. Sam floated free in
space for a few seconds, thinking this was as close to
freedom as he would ever come. A familiar tingle
along his body alerted him that the transporter beam
was scrambling his molecules.
    He materialized inside the transporter room of the
shuttlecraft, with three Jem'Hadar guards training
their weapons at him. "Move!" ordered one of them,
brandishing his phaser in a threatening manner.
    Sam staggered off the transporter platform, sud-
denly clumsy and leaden in his space suit. His captors
looked particularly edgy today, and usually he was
met by only one or two of thein, not three. Under the
cold gaze of their pinched, spiny faces, Sam quickly
stripped down to nothing. He dropped his suit into a
chute in the deck and stood there, shivering in his
nakedness.
    Modesty and decency had long been abandoned in
this weightless and silent hell, and Sam was ushered
into a holding cell where three male and four female
prisoners huddled, all naked. They looked wild-eyed
and spooked from their recent brush with disaster.
    At one time, seeing young women nude would have
excited the handsome lieutenant, but now they were
nothing but victims, stripped of their humanity and
will. They were his sisters in this dark tragedy, not
objects of desire. All of them needed a bath, and there
was no pretext of trying to maintain proper appear-
ance. Like most of the males, Sam sported a dark,
ragged beard. Even Taurik, who was normally as
fastidious as any other Vulcan, looked unkempt as he
sat stoically with his naked back resting against a cold
bulkhead.
    Sam nodded wearily to his fellow prisoners as he
slumped down beside Taurik. Just outside the force-
field entrance of the cell, an armed Jem'Hadar stood
watching them. Sam wondered if he would allow the
prisoners to talk. Some Jem'Hadar guards didn't care,
while others strictly forbade talking among the pris-
oners until they were locked safely in their pods.
Cardassian guards, who loved to be overbearing,
would often beat prisoners for talking.
    Deciding to test the guard, Sam turned to Taurik
and asked softly, "What did you think of that explo-
sion?"
    The Vulcan cocked his head thoughtfully, as if he
had been asked a normal question under normal
circumstances. "It appeared to result from the mis-
handling of a very volatile material. Possibly a stasis
 field was disturbed. I could only speculate on the
 material they are using to build the mouth of the
 wormhole."
    A loud shuffling grabbed their attention, and the
prisoners looked up to see two Jem'Hadar guards
dragging an injured human with burns over most of
his naked body. They carried the injured man like a
bag of garbage and flung his body into an open cell. If
he was still alive, it couldn't possibly be for long--un-
less he got treatment soon.
    One of the male prisoners began to weep. They all
knew the man would never get treatment, or even a
funeral. He would die, alone and forgotten, in a cage.
    Sam turned to the man and said, "It's all right. Stay
alive, so we can remember this."
    "I don't want to stay alive," rasped the man in
despair. "And I certainly never want to remember any
of this!"
    "He's a collaborator," hissed a woman, glaring at
Sam.
    "That is inaccurate," replied Taurik. "Lieutenant
Lavelie has volunteered to be Liaison Officer of Pod
Eighteen, which does afford him more access to our
captors than a typical prisoner has. But in no sense is
he aiding and abetting the enemy as a true collabora-
tor would do. He argues on our behalf."
    "Never mind, Taurik," muttered Sam. "Let them
think what they want."
    "This one is all right," grumbled the oldest of the
four women, a lean Klingon with scars over most of
her body. "You want a collaborator, you take that
turncoat Trill--Enrak Grofl Give me a knife, and I
will slice the worm right out of him!"
 "I believe Professor Grof is an unjoined Trill," said
Taurik. "But I agree with you--he is a collaborator in
the accepted sense of the word."
    Sam looked at his friend, wondering if he had
detected a trace of bitterness in the Vulcan's tone. He
couldn't blame Taurik if he was bitter, because Enrak
Grof was close to solving one of science's most elusive
puzzles, unraveling the mysteries of wormholes and
actually re-creating a tunnel through space and time.
In exchange for this privilege, Grof was collaborating
with the enemy. His name was all over schematics
and memos, and he seemed to rank in importance
with the Vorta engineers. He was particularly useful
in telling the Dominion what kind of work best suited
their prisoners.
    Come to think of it, maybe Grof did deserve to be
gutted with a dull Klingon knife.
    Taurik shook his head. "It is highly unlikely that
any of us will get an opportunity to harm Professor
Grof. To my knowledge, few prisoners have seen him
since his capture on Deep Space Nine."
    "How was he captured?" asked the youngest wom-
an. Swapping capture stories was a favorite pastime
among the prisoners.
    "He refused to abandon his experiments on the
Bajoran wormhole," answered Taurik, "and was cap-
tured when the Dominion took over. This would
indicate that his work is more important to him than
anything else."
    "Even his honor," hissed the Klingon woman. "He
may not have a worm inside of him, but he is a
worm."
    "They pulled me out of an escape pod," said the
youngest woman with a haunted look in her pale eyes.
Her freckles went all the way down her back.
    A clank and a slight shudder informed Sam that
they had docked at the pod complex. Although he
had never seen it from the outside, he imagined that
it looked like a giant model of a complex molecule,
with long, narrow shafts connecting large, window-
less spheres in which both they and their jailers lived.
The place felt decentralized, with easily defended
modules instead of a central hub. At any rate, it was
unheard of for anyone to escape from the pod
complex. Where would they go, surrounded by freez-
ing space?
    Sam often thought about stealing a ship, but their
captors never left the shuttlecraft docked for more
than a few seconds. Both the Jem'Hadar and Cardas-
sians were skilled and experienced jailers, and they
considered every possibility.
    "Lucky devils," muttered one of the men. "The
ones who died, I mean."
    No one disputed the man's morbid assessment.
Some days, it did seem as if death was a preferable
option to numbing, soulless labor that would only
benefit the enemy. The war and imprisonment had
made death a constant fixture of their lives, like the
darkness of space.
    Armed Jem'Hadar gathered around the cell, and
one' of them turned off the forcefield. Waving their
weapons, they ushered the prisoners out of the cell
and into the gangway. Most of the prisoners made a
point of not looking at the dying man in the adjoining
cell, but Sam pointed at him.
    "Can't you do something to help him?" demanded
Sam.
    "He is damaged," replied a Jem'Hadar. "Move
along."
    Sam thought about arguing, but the Jem'Hadar
treated their own with the same disregard. The strong
survived, and the weak were best weeded out. Besides,
to die in the service of the Founders was the greatest
reward of all for a Jem'Hadar, and why should
prisoners be any different? Did they grieve the loss of
their comrades in the accident? No. Their only reac-
tion was to increase security and cut short the work
shift.
    He followed the others down the gangway, through
the hatch, and into the freight pod. Situated near the
outer bulkhead, the hold was freezing, and the prison-
ers hurried to grab frayed white jumpsuits from a rack
of used clothing. They gratefully covered their shiver-
ing bodies.
    The woman who had accused Sam of being a
collaborator gave him an embarrassed glance. He
nodded, knowing the glance was as close as he would
ever come to receiving an apology. In this place,
distrust was easier to come by than hope. The guards
motioned the females into the turbolift marked with
vertical red stripes, and the men shuffled silently
toward the turbolift with the horizontal blue stripes.
There was a good chance they would never see each
other again.
    Sam had once demanded that the women and the
men be housed together, but a Jem'Hadar had in-
formed him that pregnant women would have to be
killed. That was as far as the request went.
    Taurik, Sam, and the other man entered the lift and
waited for the door to close. The Jem'Hadar guards
were smart--they never rode the turbolifts with the
prisoners, preferring to avoid tight places where their
charges could jump them and take their weapons.
Come to think of it, Sam had never known the
Jem'Hadar to be careless or make mistakes. They
would fight to the death if ordered to do so, but it
would be a controlled, measured suicide.
    As the men rode in the cramped turbolift, Sam
wondered for the hundredth time if there was any
escape from the seamless chamber. A prisoner named
Neko had once told him that he could escape from the
turbolift, but Sam had never seen Neko again after
that boast.
    The door opened, and a gruff voice said, "Prisoner
three-six-one-nine, this is Pod Fifteen. Exit now."
The man who envied the dead shuffled off the lift and
vanished down a narrow corridor.
    When the door shut, Sam and Taurik continued
their diagonal journey. The long turbolift rides were
the main reason why Sam envisioned the complex as
being individual pods separated by long shafts. Not
that it made much difference, but it was something
to think about when a person was trying to avoid
thinking.
    "It has been a difficult day," said Taurik in the
Vulcan equivalent of small talk.
    "Yes, it has been," agreed Sam. "And the most
difficult days are ahead of us."
    Somehow, before their work was done, they would
have to revolt and try to destroy the artificial worm-
hole. Certainly it would be the day they all died
in utter futility, but the effort had to be mademor
they couldn't live with themselves. But each day, if
they could be called days, slithered by with lethargy
and hopelessness as the prisoners' constant compan-
ions.
 The door slid open, and a gruff voice said, "Prison-
ers zero-five-nine-six and zero-five-nine-seven, this is
Pod Eighteen. Exit now."
    Sam and Taurik filed off the turbolift into the dimly
lit corridor which led to their barracks. After a walk
through a featureless hallway, they came upon a
narrow metal hatch, which snapped open at their
approach. Sam entered a high-ceiling room which
always reminded him of the gymnasium in the base-
ment of his church in Brooklyn. It had the same sort
of Spartan, no-nonsense utility.
    Five hundred bedrolls lay on the floor, and most of
them were occupied with bored male prisoners repre-
senting a score of Federation species, from blue-
skinned Andorians to beaked Saurians. They sat
staring at the observation lenses along the ceiling,
from where, it was assumed, the guards stared down
at them.
    Half a dozen prisoners rushed Sam and Taurik as
they entered. "Did you see it? We heard there was an
accident! What exactly happened out there?" they
demanded in a babble of voices.
    Sam motioned them to be calm, then he told them
what he had witnessed, not mentioining how many
prisoners had been caught in the explosion.
    "Were there many casualties?" asked a young en-
sign.
    Sam shrugged. "Only a few of ours, but they lost a
tanker full of Cardassians and a bunch of Jem'Hadar
guards."
    "All right!" crowed a prisoner, thrusting his fist into
the air. An excited discussion ensued.
    Taurik shot Sam a look that said that he recognized
the lie but wouldn't correct it. Like all of them, the
Vulcan had learned to deal differently with the world
 since becoming a slave laborer. Taurik was willing to
 overlook the truth if it gave some comfort to his
 dispirited comrades.
     A twinge of pain reminded Sam that he had crashed
 hard into the metal supports, and he rubbed his
 shoulder. "What time is it?" he muttered. "Time for
 chow?"
    "More than an hour to go, we think," answered a
prisoner. They were driven by chronometers while
outside working, but timepieces were not allowed
inside the prison pods. There was no day or night to
measure the passage of time, and the jailers never
changed the lighting. Still the prisoners kept a running
estimate, as best they could, based on changes of
shifts and meal delivery.
    A klaxon blared, causing Sam to jump nervously.
He stared up at the observation lenses in the ceiling,
as did hundreds of his fellow prisoners. The excited
conversation dissolved into an apprehensive whis-
per.
    "Prisoner zero-five-nine-six, prepare to exit," said a
voice.
    Sam licked his lips nervously and stepped toward
the door. With a jovial smile, he told the others, "I'll
see you later at chow." They stared at him with a
disconcerting mixture of fear, distrust, and envy.
    The door flew open, and Sam stepped into the

dimly lit corridor. When the door slid shut behind
him, leaving him alone, he felt ostracized from his
fellow prisoners. It was getting harder and harder to
cap his temper and remain cordial to everyone--
when all of them expected so much of him. More than
anything, Sam just wanted to keep the lines of com-
munication open between captors and captives. They
weren't animals, as long as they could communicate
their needs and wants.
    He heard footsteps, and he turned to see an armed
Jem'Hadar marching his way. The guard was flanked
by a short Vorta named Joulesh, whom Sam had met
only twice before when making official requests. He
was not in the habit of meeting with the Vorta; usually
a Cardassian glinn was as high as he got.
    "This is quite an honor," said Sam, keeping his
sarcasm in check.
    "You have no idea of the honor," replied Joulesh
with an enthusiastic smile. "It is only the beginning."
    The little humanoid turned on his heel and strode
briskly down the corridor. Under the stern gaze of
the guard, Sam followed him. To his surprise, the
Vorta stepped into the turbolift and motioned him
aboard. Sam entered, expecting the Jem'Hadar
guard to follow, but he remained behind in the
corridor, glowering at them. The door shut, and they
began to move.
    Joulesh wrinkled his nose at Sam. "I wish we'd had
an opportunity to clean you up somewhat, but this is
an emergency. We'll make do. I advise you to be-
have."
    "That depends on what you plan to do to me," said
Sam.
    The Vorta's silvery eyes twinkled. "What happens
to you depends entirely on your interview. You
aren't the only candidate for this post. However, I
have been keeping an eye on you, and I believe you
are the one."
    "May I remind you that I'm a prisoner of war," said
Sam, "not an employee of the Dominion, Incorpo-
rated."
     The Vorta brushed some lint off his elegant, silver-
 brocaded jacket. "You are an asset of the Dominion.
 Whether you fulfill your potential or end up as waste
 is your decision. Thus far, you have proven yourself
 an able worker, and you have tried to improve rela-
 tionships between our people. These traits could take
 you far in the Dominion."
    Sam forced himself to keep still and not argue with
the popinjay. The fact that the Dominion operated
under the guise of business and mutual cooperation
didn't make them any less a dictatorship. He won-
dered how long it would take the Cardassians to
realize that they were the lackeys in this operation--
temporary help until more fleets of Jem'Hadar war-
ships arrived.
    "I wish the Federation could understand that we
only want to bring them under our protection and
influence," said Joulesh, sounding like a used shuttle-
craft salesman. "Your people don't do us any good if
you are dead or imprisoned."
  "Then let us go," suggested Sam.
    As the door slid open, the Vorta gave him an
amused smirk. "We might do so, one at a time. Follow
me."
    They walked down a well-lit corridor that actually
had doorways and multiple exits... and no
Jem'Hadar guards. Sam followed Joulesh into a sec-
ond turbolift, which had diagonal yellow markings on
it. This lift was the deluxe version, Sam decided, as he
inspected the plush carpeting and tasteful instrument
panel. The lifts he rode were controlled from outside,
and this one was controlled by Joulesh's deft fingers.
After a trip so smooth that Sam couldn't tell they were
moving, the door opened.
"Remember," warned the Vorta, "you are about to
meet a god."
    The words didn't register until Sam stepped off the
turbolift and found himself in a large observation
lounge, with a spread of food and drink in one corner
and a lovely window in the other. A few people were
scattered about, but the scent of food commanded
Sam's attention. Halfway across the room, he saw a
remarkable creature--a slim figure dressed in a spar-
kling beige robe--standing like an angel at the head
of the table. His features were hairless and oddly
unformed, as if this incarnation were so simple that it
didn't require much detail.
    A Founder! thought Sam with alarm. It was the first
Changeling he had ever seen, and he wasn't certain
how to react. Joulesh was practically scraping the
floor, so Sam gave his host a respectful bow. He
couldn't offer his hand as he could scarcely imagine
touching such an ephemeral creature. Despite his
halfhearted attempt at a humanoid appearance, the
Changeling looked more like an illusion than a real
being.
    Sam reminded himself that a handful of Change-
lings had nearly destroyed the Klingon Empire from
within. It was disconcerting to know that the creature
in front of him could morph into any object or person
in the room.
    There were other persons in the lounge, and Sam
looked at them, wondering if they were really what
they seemed. Two Jem'Hadar guards were stationed
near a golden basin, and a second Vorta conferred in
whispers with Joulesh. Standing by the observation
window was a hulking man in a white laboratory coat;
he had an uncouth brown beard and brown spots
 running down his forehead, temples, and neck into
 his collar.
     Enrak Grof It has to be him, thought Sam. This was
 quite a meeting. If his cellmates knew he was in this
 company, he would never be trusted again.
     Sam edged toward the food. "Excuse me," he asked
 the Changeling, "may I eat?"
     "Not until the Founder has blessed the food,"
 cautioned Joulesh, sounding aghast at his imperti-
 nence.
     "It is allowed," said the Founder in a silky voice,
 nodding at his minion. Bowing low, the Vorta backed
 away.
     Sam attacked a plate of what looked like ham. He
 didn't care what it was, as long as it was solid food
 that wouldn't kill him. Assuming he would probably
 say no to whatever proposal they offered him, Sam
 figured he should eat as much as he could before they
 kicked him out.
    "Lieutenant junior grade Samuel Lavelle, or has he
been promoted?" said the Founder, relishing the
unfamiliar syllables of his name. "Captured aboard
the Aizawa, formerly stationed on the Enterprise, now
technician and Liaison Officer for Pod Eighteen."
    Sam mumbled through a mouthful of wonderful
food. He was afraid to say much, lest he slobber all
over the plates, but he was impressed that the Found-
er had used his name instead of a number. He glanced
toward Professor Grof, wondering if he would get a
chance to speak privately with the most notorious
collaborator in the complex. The Trill edged forward,
looking as if he wanted to say something; but he also
held his tongue. Sam guessed that a smart collabora-
tor didn't interrupt a Founder.
    He grabbed some more food. Whatever happened,
he was going to try not to get kicked out of this
shindig too quickly. With his determined chewing,
Sam nearly choked on the next words he heard from
the Founder's smooth lips:
    "Lieutenant Lavelle, we would like to give you a
ship to command."

Chapter Four

 SAM LAVELLE LOWERED HIS PLATE and stared at the
Changeling. What a poker face--there was no way to
tell if he was the butt of a cruel joke, or they were
actually trying to recruit him for some nefarious
purpose. Changelings were rare in the Alpha Quad-
rant, and he didn't think one had summoned him
only to have a laugh at his expense. Wherever this was
going, it had to be dangerous and probably trea-
sonous.
    "You'll give me a ship to command?" he repeated
slowly. "There's got to be a catch. Why don't I
continue to eat, and you can explain to me what you
want. Exactly."
    "First," said the Changeling, "do you know any-
thing about the act of sabotage which occurred
today?"
 Sam looked around the tasteful observation lounge,
and he could tell from their earnest faces that they
were serious. "Sabotage? Do you mean the accident? I
was out there at the time, and that accident was
caused entirely by the boneheaded Cardassians."
    From force of habit, he looked nervously around
the room, but there were no Cardassians present.
Every other race of importance was represented at
this meeting, but not the lackeys. So Sam decided he
could speak freely.
    "I don't know what you were moving out there, but
they put on their thrusters too early and disturbed the
stasis field."
    "Bumbling fools!" muttered Grof, unable to con-
tain himself any longer. "I've warned them often
enough."
    "You said it wasn't entirely their fault," whined
Jonlesh. He looked accusingly at Grof.
    The Trill folded his thick arms. "I warned you that
the compound was too unstable, and that they were
the wrong ones to handle it. I believe I was proven
right on both counts."
  "But all of our models--"
     Sam was beginning to enjoy this bickering when the
 Changeling glided gracefully between the Vorta and
 the Trill. "Enough. Explain it to him so that he can
 understand it."
     Dumb it down for the stupid human, thought Sam,
 bristling at the tone of the Changeling's words. But he
 was willing to listen until the food ran out.
     Grof pointed accusingly at the Vorta. "They chose
 the wrong material to reinforce the mouth of the
 wormhole. I'm sure you know enough physics, Lieu-
 tenant, to realize that we can't use a common building
 material for the opening. Unless we use the right
 substance, the collider will get torn apart by the
 extreme pressures."
     The scientist paced the length of the table, looking
 with disgust at the Vorta. "They listened to the
 Cardassians, who assured them they could use a
 material made of sub-quark particles, despite the
 volatility. After the stasis field was destroyed, the sub-
 quark particles recombined.
     "There is a far more elegant approach. The Federa-
 tion isolated the perfect substance only a few years
 ago--it's stable after it's extracted and recombined.
 We are the only ones who have succeeded in extract-
 ing it."
  "Corzanium," answered Sam.
     "Ah," said Grof with satisfaction, "I see you are
 versed on the latest research."
    "Not really," admitted the human. "My friend,
Taurik, was telling me about it. He admires your
work, but he doesn't think much of you personally."
    "A common sentiment," muttered the Trill, "but
misguided. We are on the verge of great discoveries,
great leaps forward--after our cultures merge. In the
short term, Federation personnel are the best
equipped to find and extract the Corzanium. We
certainly can't rely on the Cardassians."
    "Lieutenant Lavelie, will you command the craft?"
asked the Founder bluntly. Joulesh's oversized ears
twitched expectantly as the Vorta awaited his answer.
    "Into a black hole?" scoffed Sam. "Isn't that where
this stuff comes from? I can see why you don't want
Cardassians--they're probably too smart to under-
take such a crazy mission."
    Despite the bravado, Sam was stalling for time as
he tried to reason it out. Even though he might go
down as the greatest traitor in Starfleet history, the
chance to escape from the prison with a ship under his
command was too tempting to pass up. Survival
instincts that he thought were long dormant suddenly
surged to the surface, and Sam envisioned himself
making a break for freedom.
    Besides, he knew that if he refused, he would be
dead. They had told him too much to let him return to
Pod 18 and the general prison population.
     "Will you give us an answer," said Joulesh, "or
simply continue to eat and make snide comments?"
 "What do I get out of it?" asked Sam.
    "You will receive your freedom," answered the
Founder somberly, as if this were the greatest gift he
could bestow.
 "I get to pick my crew," said Sam.
    "Boy, don't make this difficult!" snarled Grof. "Just
say yes to the Founder, and let's get on with it."
    Sam cautioned himself to remain as stone-faced as
the Changeling and his retinue. He truly was not in a
position to bargain, but maybe he was in a position to
make a difference. It would appear that his patience,
gift of gab, and good work habits were about to get
him promoted in the prison hierarchywinto his real
job. Sam wished he didn't have the spectre of Enrak
Grof staring at him as he decided his fate. Either way,
he doubted whether he would live to reflect on this
decision.
    "I'11 do it," he said. "I won't be going back to Pod
Eighteen, will I?"
    "No," answered Joulesh. "Would you be afraid for
your safety?"
    Sam smiled. "Around here, I'm always afraid for
my safety."
     "Eat," said the Founder, sounding like a friendly
 relative. He wasn't exactly androgynous, but his mas-
 culine traits were underplayed. Sam imagined that he
 could just as easily present a pseudo-female facade.
 The creature was fascinating to study, up close, and it
 was all Sam could do not to ask him to morph into a
 chair. He tried to imagine what it was like on their
 home planet, where they merged into a sea of their
 kind called the Great Link.
     Sam fought the temptation to ask this advanced
 being why it was so important to conquer the Alpha
 Quadrant. He supposed it was the same arrogance
 that had driven Europeans to conquer the Americas
 or Cardassians to conquer Bajor--a certainty of their
 moral and intellectual superiority.
    With the slightest nod from the Founder, the
Jem'Hadar guards suddenly picked up the basin and
carried it out of the room. The Founder walked after
them, and the two Vorta brought up the rear of the
entourage. This left Sam alone with Professor Grof,
plus enough food for a barracks.
    "They're not much for good-byes," remarked the
human.
    "I think the Founder was tired," said Grof. "He
probably has to revert to his liquid form soon. Do-
minion upper management is spread very thinly
through the Alpha Quadrant. Besides, they got what
they came for."
  "Me?" Sam asked incredulously.
    "Yes, but you could have shown them more respect.
This is quite an honor."
    "So everyone tells me." Sam glanced around the
room. "Can I speak freely in here? Are we being
watched?"
    "Don't bother bawling me out," said the Trill. "You
were going to tell me that I'm a traitor, a collaborator,
and so on and so forth. You're going to say that we
ought to escape, or sabotage the artificial wormhole.
Well, let me tell you--what we're building here will
last longer than either the Dominion or the Federa-
tion. The war will be a footnote to this invention. I'm
on the side of science, and what we're building is
going to revolutionize the galaxy."
    "At what cost?" asked Sam. "You would destroy a
federation of hundreds of planets for a machine?
Whose side are you on? Are you a prisoner here, or
are you one of the jailers?"
    Grof scowled and lowered his voice. "I'm both. I
want to see my work to fruition, and I'm not going to
let politics stand in the way. I would like to take my
findings to the Federation. In fact, I hope that this
work brings both sides together, and ends this stupid
war. Meanwhile, I'm still a prisoner. Would I wel-
come a chance to escape? Perhaps at a later date, but
only if it's foolproof."
    Sam picked up a slice of yellow melon and took a
bite. The delicious juice ran down his beard. "You're
obviously doing something right to have all of this
handed to you."
  "I'm just doing my job," snapped Grof.
    At that moment, Sam decided not to trust Enrak
Grof, who seemed entirely too wrapped up in his own
self-interests. Sam would plan his escape without the
Trill, unless his participation was absolutely neces-
sary... and foolproof.
  "What's the ship like?" asked Sam.
     "It's a Cardassian antimatter tanker, specially
 equipped. You start training on it right away. You will
need additional crew of six, and Joulesh and I have
prepared a preliminary list of names. We have every-
one we need right here."
  "I'm sure of that," muttered Sam.
    Grof ignored his sarcasm and went on, "We need
two specialists in material handling, a tractor-beam
specialist, and a senior transporter operator."
  "And Taurik. I want the Vulcan."
  "That leaves one more," said Grof. "Me."
    Sam blinked at him. "You're going along on this
mining expedition?"
    "Everything depends upon it," answered the Trill.
"Now that their engineers have been proven wrong,
it's up to us to finish the job. And show them how
valuable we are."
 "How dangerous is this going to be?"
    The Trill smiled. "Only as dangerous as we make
it."
"It's too dangerous," insisted Will Riker. "Captain,
please, I beg you to reconsider."
    Captain Picard, who was lying on an operating
table in sickbay, closed his eyes and tried to block out
the concerned voice of his first officer. He concen-
trated instead on the sound of Dr. Crusher and Nurse
Ogawa preparing their instruments. It sounded like
fine silverware in use at a banquet.
    "Captain, we have many other people who could do
this mission," insisted Riker.
    "Nonsense," said Picard. "We're so shorthanded
that every able-bodied crew member is indispensable.
The fact is, you can captain the ship, making me more
dispensable than the majority of the crew. I also have
the most expertise working with Ro Laren, and she
can be a bit prickly."
    "She's one of the reasons this is so dangerous,"
growled Riker with frustration.
    "I'm sure Mr. La Forge and I can handle whatever
she throws at us." Literally and figuratively, Picard
thought, recalling her formidable fighting spirit. "And
Data will keep us on long-range scans."
    "What if he loses you in the Badlands?" Riker
persisted.
    "Nothing is without risk, Number One. If we need
rescuing, we'll release our subspace beacon with a
coded distress signal." "Still, Captainw"
    The captain finally opened his eyes and gazed
sympathetically at his first officer. "You won't be able
to talk me out of it, Will. The truth is, I need a break
from this hit-and-run fighting, and you're better at it
than I am. If I can investigate Ro's story, I'll feel I'm
making a difference."
  "I hope this isn't a wild-goose chase."
    "I hope it is," said Picard gravely. "A false
rumorweven a trap intended to catch usmwould be
preferable to finding an artificial wormhole in Do-
minion control. If we find that it actually exists, then
the fate of the Federation rests upon our actions, right
here."
    Riker scratched his beard. "I suppose it's pointless
to tell you to be careful in the middle of a war, but be
careful."
  "You, too."
    Beverly Crusher strode over to the table and shook
her head. "Captain Riker, your persistence will be
 duly noted in my log, but you failed yet again to talk
 some sense into him. That makes two of us. Now we
 need to get on with the procedure, because I have a
 full schedule of appointments today."
    Riker glanced quickly at the tiny implants resting
on a tray held by Nurse Ogawa. Picard tried not to
look too closely at them either. When he awoke, his
face would be altered to look Bajoran, and he would
be given an earring.
    "I'll check on the repairs to the Orb of Peace,"
promised Riker as he backed out of the operating
room.
    Brandishing a hypospray, Beverly gave the captain
a professional smile. "Relax, Jean-Luc. I have to give
you an anesthetic, but you'll only be out for a short
time."
    Picard nodded, thinking that he wouldn't mind a
few minutes of blissful ignorance. As he felt the
pressure of the hypo on his neck, he allowed his
tense shoulders to relax. The urge to do something
would soon be over. Like Don Quixote, he would be
chasing either windmills or the biggest dragon in
the kingdom.
    Sam Lavelle stood on the somber, gray bridge of the
Tag Garwal, studying schematics of the antimatter
tanker under his command. Sam had studied Cardas-
sian vessels for years, and never more intently than in
the weeks leading up to the war. This design was well
known, on a par with Starfleet tankers of similar
vintage. The Tag Garwal was no speed demon or
luxury liner, but it was built to be sturdy, dependable,
and uncomplicated. Sam didn't think he and his
handpicked crew would have any trouble mastering
the craft.
    Professor Grof sat at an auxiliary console, running
diagnostics on the tractor beam and the transporters a
deck below them. He occasionally glanced at Sam to
see what he was doing. The uncomfortable silence
between them was beginning to make Sam nervous,
and he tried to think of a subject safe enough for small
talk.
"Thank you for translating the manuals," said Sam.
"You're welcome," replied Grof brusquely. "But
that was really Joulesh's idea. Are you satisfied with
the ship?"
    "I won't know for sure until I take her for a little
spin."
    "About those little spins," said Grof. "You'll be
closely watched. An attempt to make a break for it
would be suicide."
    "You don't have to lay the company line on me,"
said Sam angrily. "I know how things work around
here. We're more expendable than the Jem'Hadar, or
even the Cardassians..."
    "You may be expendable, but I'm not!" protested
Grof. "I'm irreplaceable, no matter who wins this
thing."
    "Don't you even care/" Sam scowled. "Why should
you? You're already on their side."
    "There's more to being a prisoner than your feeble
mind can envision!" hissed the Trill. "The Federation
is the power in the Alpha Quadrant, and that's why
the Dominion is testing us. Although you can't see it,
everything we do in this secret complex is being
judged and tested. For example, you had no idea they
 were paying such close attention to you, but your
 ability to voice dissatisfaction while being calm and
 reasonable was very impressive to them."
     Grof sighed with frustration. "As you know, the
 Dominion has no real faith in the Cardassians--
 they're just convenient locals. Someday this war will
 be over, and we'll have to live with the Dominion. If
 you and I are a success on this mission, the worth of
 the entire Federation will go up in the eyes of the
 Founders."
    "Oh, wonderful. Do you think they'll give me a
promotion?" Sam winced, knowing that he was losing
the battle to avoid controversial subjects. He had to
end this topic, before he said something he regretted
to this traitor.
    "Listen, Grof, I'll do the mission, and I'll work with
them--but don't expect me to like it. I'm in this for
survival, not science, or to score brownie points."
    The Trill looked deeply disappointed, but he man-
aged to say, "As long as your attitude remains prag-
matic, we should succeed."
    "Fine," snapped Sam. Although he knew he should
keep his mouth shut, he didn't like Enrak Grof. There
had to be some way to needle him without talking
local politics.
    "So, what's it like to be an unjoined Trill?" asked
Sam.
    Grof snorted. "You mean, what's it like to be a
second-class citizen? Imagine your planetary society
has a small segment of people who are automatically
considered superior to everyone else, and they auto-
matically get the best careers. Imagine that these
people have several lifetimes of experience to draw
upon, and you're just starting the only lifetime you
will ever get. How would you like to compete against
them?"
 "I take it you didn't pass the program?"
    "No, I failed," admitted Grof. "My field docent
didn't like my attitude, or some such. Of course, when
eighteen initiates apply for every available symbiont,
they can afford to be choosy."
    "So you found a field in which to excel, to spite
them."
    Grof's dour, hirsute face broke into a slight smile.
"I suppose I can thank them for some of my ambition
and drive. But I firmly believe that I would have been
doing this same work even if I had joined with a
symbiont."
    "Maybe that's why they didn't take you," said Sam,
"too headstrong."
    Grof frowned. "At any rate, it has taken me twice as
long to have my work and my theories recognized. I
should have led teams on which I was only a member,
because we had to have a joined Trill in charge."
     "But the Dominion accepted you right from the
 start," said Sam, putting it all together.
     "Yes," snapped the Trill. "Being unjoined has never
 been a detriment here. They recognized me as a man
 of science. In many respects, the Dominion represents
 a clean slate for the Alpha Quadrant."
     "That seems to be what they're going for--a clean
 slate with us wiped out. And you're helping them."
 Sam inwardly cursed his one-track mind. This was the
 very same conversation he had just tried to derail.
     Grof stroked his beard and looked around. Then he
 lowered his voice to say, "Don't you see, this technol-
 ogy cuts both ways--it allows us to attack them
 through wormholes of our making. It democratizes
 the galaxy."
     He shook his spotted head. "To depend on a natural
 wormhole inhabited by semi-mythological beingsw
 only seen by one person--is absurd. What we're
 creating here is the transportation of the future, as
 important as warp drive or artificial gravity! Ships
 won't need to carry dangerous fuel like antimatter,
 because artificial wormholes will take you to the next
 solar system or the next quadrant in seconds."
    "And with slave labor, you'll have plenty of people
to keep building them," muttered Sam. "But suppose
I'm hardly any better than you. My friends think I'm
a brave soul who disappeared fighting the good fight,
and here I am with decent food and my own ship.
That reminds me, where do I sleep?"
    "Right here." Grof motioned around the cramped,
utilitarian bridge. "The captain's quarters are quite
nice, I understand. There is even a sleeping alcove
directly behind us, off the bridge."
    Sam looked behind him and saw a small, curtained
lounge where there would be a ready room on a
Starfleet vessel. "Yes, this crate was built for long-
range hauls. Well, if this is going to be home for a
while, let's see what kind of entertainment we have."
    He tapped the console, and the main viewscreen
flickered on. A row of closed airlocks greeted Sam's
eyes for a few seconds; then the angle cut to a view of
empty cargo holds, followed by vistas of the verteron
collider and the prison complex. To Sam's delight, the
spheres and shafts of the complex did look like a giant
molecule floating in space.
    "Hey, we're patched into the security feed," said
Sam. "There's nothing like being part of the gang."
    They were treated to several tantalizing glimpses of
various spacecraft docked around an outer sphere.
Sam plied the console and found a way to cycle more
quickly through the images until he found their own
oblong tanker. Its hull was gray with yellow stripes,
and it was mostly featureless except for the dents and
pits.
    "That's us, huh? We won't win any beauty con-
tests."
    Sam continued paging through the images until
they had inspected a number of interesting locations,
including laboratories, factories, and guard posts. He
could see Grof getting nervous about scanning the
security channel, and he was about to stop when they
were suddenly thrust into a women's prison pod. Sam
looked away with embarrassment, hoping the scene
would switch soon.
    A blur of action caught his eye, and Sam looked
back at the screen to see a squad of twenty or so
Cardassians rush into the pod. The Cardassians were
wielding clubs and were wearing vests, helmets, and
riot gear; they quickly surrounded the unarmed pris-
oners. The free-cycling program chose that moment
to cut to another pod, which was full of bedrolls but
otherwise empty. Sam frantically worked the con-
 trols, trying to page back to the first pod.
   "Don't," said Orof softly.
     Sam ignored him and finally cut back to the occu-
 pied pod. Two Cardassian guards were holding a
 woman by her arms and shaking her violently, while a
 glinn grilled her. There was no sound, and Sam
 couldn't tear his eyes away from the viewscreen to
 find it on the console. The other guards herded the
 prisoners away from the action, but the women
 pushed closer, anxious to see what was happening to
 their comrade. It looked like a disaster in the making,
 and Sam gripped the handrail in front of him.
     Sure enough, when the glinn struck the woman
 across her face, her fellow prisoners revolted. This
 resulted in a ruthless crackdown, as the club-wielding
 Cardassians waded into the women, forcing them
 against the walls. As Sam watched in horror, he was
 glad there was no sound.
     Grof finally reached over and pounded the console,
 turning off the viewscreen. By the stricken look on his
 face, it seemed as if the Trill was about to have a heart
 attack, or maybe an attack of conscience.
    "See, they have a good use for the Cardassians,"
hissed Sam. "I'm not sure Federation personnel could
replace them."
    Grof sputtered, looking as if he wanted to say
something but had no words. He hurried off the
bridge of the Tag Garwal, and Sam heard his footsteps
clomping down a ladder to the lower deck.
    Despite a rush of murderous impulses, Sam tried to
stay calm. He thought about turning the viewscreen
back on, but what was the point? His hatreds were
already etched into his soul, and watching more
atrocities wouldn't change anything. He had to main-
tain his cool, jaded faqade until there came a chance
to strike hard against the Dominion--or die trying.
    Eventually Sam put on the viewscreen, but he
tuned it to an innocuous view of the starscape,
dominated by the swirling gases and dust of the
Badlands. In all of this vast universe was there no one
to help them? Where was the might of Starfleet, and
the vaunted resources of the Federation?
    For all he knew, the war could be over, and no one
was out there to give a damn. In which case, maybe he
should be looking out for number one, as he pre-
tended.
    Sam reclined in the alcove off the bridge and tried
to sleep, but his mind kept dwelling on images of
space-suited prisoners, exploding like balloons in the
cold darkness of space.
    Ro Laren stood on the bridge of the Orb of Peace,
marveling at the appearance of her crew. Dressed in
rust-colored uniforms with dangling earrings and
pronounced nose ridges, they could have been the
cream of Bajoran youth. Of course, there was the
older Bajoran sitting at the corm station. He was
mostly bald except for two tufts of unruly gray hair
hanging over his ears, which made him look vaguely
absurd and absentminded, like an old librarian. His
earring was also slightly askew, and Ro couldn't help
but to smile at her former captain.
"She's your ship," said the pilot. "Take her out."
"I'm going to need a code name to call you by,"
said Ro. "Your real name is a bit too well known. Do
you know who you remind me of?. Boothby, the old
gardener at the Academy."
    Picard grinned. "That's quite a compliment, as I
had Boothby in mind when we devised this disguise.
Not very Bajoran, of course, but it will pass for a
nickname--and a code name."
  "Okay, Boothby, set our course for the Badlands."
Ro tapped her comm badge, a distinctive Bajoran
design of a sphere and a fin, surrounded by concentric
ovals. "Ro to La Forge. Is everything ready?"
    "Yes, sir," came the cheerful voice of Starfleet's
best engineer. "We'll coax every parsec we can out of
our warp drives, but this isn't a long-range craft. We
can't cruise hours on end at maximum warp."
    "I know we're not going to outrun or outright
anybody," agreed Ro. "Stealth and guile--that's what
I learned from the Maquis."
    "That's well and good," said La Forge, "but I'm
also worried about those plasma storms in the Bad-
lands."
    "There are bubbles of calm in the storms," ex-
plained Ro. "That's why you have me along. Did you
run the scans?"
    "Yes. We'll register as a Bajoran ship on anything
but the most detailed inspection. Biological scans
came up all Bajoran, too."
    "Thank you, La Forge. Bridge out." Ro tapped her
comm badge again and said, "Orb of Peace to Enter-
prise: we are ready to launch."
    Captain Riker's somber face appeared on the view-
screen. He was still exhibiting his displeasure over
this mission. "Launch sequence completed. We are
opening shuttlebay doors. Good hunting."
    "Thank you," answered Ro. The viewscreen shifted
to an impressive view of the thick doors and smooth
silver walls that enclosed them. The sight only served
to remind her how large the Enterprise wasmher
transport had been swallowed whole inside one shut-
tlebay. Slowly the huge doors slid open, revealing the
star-studded depths of space beyond the womb of the
Enterprise.
    Ro nodded to the conn. "Take us out, one-quarter
impulse to a thousand kilometers."
 "Yes, sir," snapped the dark-skinned woman.
    Picard smiled at his captain. "By the book. You still
remember procedures."
    "Old habits," said Ro with a shrug. "They seem to
work."
    With thrusters firing, the boxy transport lifted off
the deck of the shuttlebay and floated out the open
door. Picking up speed while it rushed past the twin
nacelles of the Enterprise, the Orb of Peace soared into
space.

Chapter Five

SAM HEARD FOOTSTEPS on the ladder, and he turned
away from the ops console to see a thin, cadaverous-
looking Cardassian emerge onto the bridge of the Tag
Garwal. His first reaction was to grab a weapon to
protect himself, but then he realized that it had to be
official business. He was part of the gang now, Sam
reminded himself; and this was his ship.
    Nevertheless, the Cardassian gave him a suspicious
glare as he stepped aside and let the elegant Vorta,
Joulesh, rise from the hatch and join them on the
bridge. Footsteps continued clattering on the ladder,
and a moment later Taurik's head popped out of the
hatch. The graceful Vulcan lifted his lanky body from
the hole and stood before Sam, looking nonplussed by
this sudden change in fortune.
    "Taurik!" exclaimed Sam with delight. He started
to rush forward to embrace his friend when he
remembered where he was, and with whom. "It's
good to see you."
    "And you," said Taurik with a slight nod. "There
are more of us."
    He stepped aside to allow four more dazed Starfleet
officers to join them on the bridge. Unlike the Vulcan,
their faces ran the gamut from confusion to curiosity,
and they glanced with apprehension at the Cardassian
and the Vorta.
    "Here is your crew," said Joulesh with pride, "ex-
cept for Professor Grof, who will join us shortly. I
believe you know Lieutenant Taurik." "Yes."
    The Vorta motioned to the remaining two men and
two women, who were unfamiliar to Sam. All looked
to be older, career officers. "Chief Leni Shonsui,
transporter operator; Commander Tamla Horik,
tractor-beam operator; Chief Enrique Masserelli, sta-
sis engineer; and Lieutenant Jozarnay Woil, material
handler. All were department heads on their own
ships."
    The Vorta smiled, quite pleased with himself. "Two
men and two women. Two are human, one is Deltan,
and the other is Antosian. When you include the
Vulcan and the Trill who are part of our team, I
believe we have put together a representative cross
section of the Federation. All humanoids, I'm afraid.
I would have liked to have a Horta or one of your
more exotic species, but this ship is built for human-
oids."
    Sam pointed to the Cardassian on the suddenly
crowded bridge. "What's he doing here?"
    "Trainer," answered Joulesh. "I know you pride
yourself on knowing everything, but you are bound to
have questions which can only be answered by an
experienced officer. In particular, I'm concerned with
tractor-beam operations."
    The Vorta clapped his hands together. "I almost
forgot--I should introduce you. Ladies and gentle-
men, this is the ship's captain, Lieutenant Sam La-
velie."
    The newly summoned crew looked suspiciously at
Sam, as if he were one of the unfamiliar consoles that
surrounded them. He couldn't expect to have this
crew's loyalty or respect, so he would have to make do
with their fear and curiosity. Plus Sam knew he would
have their instincts for survival on his side.
"How much have any of you been told?" he asked.
"Very little," answered Taurik. "I was told that I
was needed for a special task. Until I saw you here, I
considered it likely you were dead."
    "Likely, but not quite." Sam scratched his bare
chin, which he had shaved for the first time in weeks.
He was also wearing a nondescript but new blue
jumpsuit, while his shipmates were still dressed in
rags, with unkept hair and unshaven faces.
    "It's very simple," he began. "We're going on a
mining expedition to extract Corzanium from a black
hole. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?"
    Woit, the Antosian material handler, gaped at him.
"Corzanium? But we've only been able to extract that
in minute quantities. What are they going to do with
it?"
    "Reinforce the mouth of the collider," answered
Sam bluntly. "But that's not our concern. We have a
ship and a job to do--if we're successful, they've
promised us our freedom."
 His new crew stared at him with expressions rang-
ing from incredulity to belligerence. Taurik merely
looked thoughtful. Can't they read between the lines?
thought Sam with frustration. In the company of a
Vorta and a Cardassian, they weren't going to be able
to talk frankly. It was time for this group to realize
that they were being given a rare opportunity.
    Sam thought back on how frustrated Grof had been
when he hadn't jumped immediately at the chance to
join up. He frowned. "I know none of you volun-
teered for this duty, but you were specially chosen.
Each of you impressed our captors in some way or
another. If you don't want to join this detail and go
back into space, just let me know. You can go back to
your pods and your normal duties."
    With a half smile on his face, Joulesh looked
curiously at Sam. Both of them knew that these
people were never going back to their regular pods
and work routines, no matter what happened. When
no one called Sam's bluff, the Vorta allowed himself a
full smile.
"Very well," said Joulesh. "Shall we begin?"
After securing clean uniforms for everyone and
taking a tour of the tanker, they began the long
process of familiarization. There was special empha-
sis on operations of the bridge stations, tractor beam,
transporter room, stasis fields, and the antimatter
containers that had been converted to store Cor-
zanium. By the end of the day, the reluctant crew
members had embraced the challenges of their task
and were offering suggestions on how to proceed. Sam
could tell that Joulesh was quite pleased by their
progress, while the Cardassian trainer barely hid his
contempt.
  Sam and Taurik found themselves observers during
a session on how to manipulate the robotic arm
mounted to a mining probe.
    "I've got a side job for you," Sam whispered to the
Vulcan.
  "Yes?" answered Taurik, keeping his voice low.
    "I want you to inspect the ship and see if there are
any monitoring devices aboard."
     The Vulcan glanced at him. "You wish to know if
we can speak freely?" "Right."
    Taurik nodded in response, and they went back to
listening to the lecture.
    By the end of a long shift, they were joined by a
taciturn Enrak Grof, who barely grunted as he was
introduced to the rest of his shipmates. The Trill
briefly explained that he had been occupied with
finishing his regular work and calculating how much
more Corzanium they would need to complete the
project. He assured them he would not have to return
to the laboratory, and he was joining them for the
duration.
    As they continued their training, Sam watched his
new crew. They were as experienced and competent
as any captain could possibly hope for, but they were
hardened by their weeks of captivity. Except for Grof,
they were probably loyal to the Federation, but were
they loyal enough to give up their lives? Was he
kidding himself in thinking that they could accom-
plish anything but saving their own skins for a few
extra days? The chances were good that they would all
die in this foolhardy undertaking.
    "Very good!" exclaimed Joulesh, clapping his
hands with delight and snapping Sam from his rever-
ie. "I believe we have made wonderful progress, ahead
of schedule. In fact, let us move up the test flight to
the next shift. The Founder will be so pleased!"
    The Vorta nodded to the Cardassian, who had been
surly but helpful for most of the training. "You are
dismissed."
    With a parting snarl, the Cardassian climbed down
the ladder and disappeared, and Joulesh considered
his cadre of prized pupils. "We are entrusting you
with an enormous responsibility, I hope you realize
that. Yes, you have an opportunity to act foolishly and
register your discontent, but you also have an oppor-
tunity to further science and improve relations be-
tween our peoples."
    Sam looked around at his crew. Almost all of them
were stone-faced over this twisted reasoning, even
Grof, who had avoided Sam since his late arrival. Was
he still thinking about the beatings they had wit-
nessed? Or was he still angry over the senseless loss of
life caused by the Cardassians?
    The burly Trill had barely hidden his contempt for
their Cardassian trainer, and Sam was beginning to
consider him neutral but still unpredictable. If any of
them had any sense, they would avoid being drawn
into a conversation over motives and politics with
this slimy Vorta.
    Joulesh continued to smile gamely at his impassive
audience. "I know it's been a difficult shift, and you
must be tired. This ship has lodging for a crew of
twelve, so you have ample room to spread out. The
replicators in the mess hall have been reprogrammed
for Federation tastes, and everything on this craft is
fully functional, except for the weapons systems, of
course. They were never much to speak of, anyway."
The Vorta started for the ladder, then he waved
back to them. "Use your intelligence, and don't act
rashly. I will see you at your test flight. Yes, the
Founder will be so pleased!"
    As soon as the Vorta left the ship, Taurik moved to
the ops console and began to run diagnostics and
scans of the ship. Sam hovered over his shoulder, as
Grof and the four new crew members looked uneasily
at one another.
    "What's the catch to this?" asked Enrique.
"They're not going to give us a ship and let us fly off
into space, are they?"
    "Yes, they are," answered Grof. "As I've been
telling our captain, the bond between the Dominion
and the Cardassians is weak, because the Cardassians
are incompetent. We have a chance to make a favor-
able impression."
    "Belay that," growled the bald-headed Deltan,
Tamla Horik. "Despite the pretty words, I say we're
aiding and abetting the enemy."
    "Keep it down," warned Sam. "We don't know that
we're not being observed."
    "Actually, Sam, I detect no monitoring devices or
listening coils," said Taurik. "I believe the ship is, as
Joulesh said, unaltered except for improvements to
the containment lockers and the absence of weapons.
There is no reason why we should not speak freely. In
fact, our odds of success depend upon the ability to
communicate."
    "Finally somebody is making sense," muttered
Grof. "Listen to the Vulcan. This isn't a joke or a
test--this is a vital mission for the success of the
greatest invention in our history. I've already ex-
plained all of this to Lieutenant Lavelie, but the
artificial wormhole will outlive all of us, including the
Dominion and the Federation. This invention turns
the entire galaxy into one neighborhood."
    "Giving the Dominion the chance to take over the
whole Milky Way," snapped Leni Shonsui.
    "Don't bother arguing with him," muttered Sam.
"I've already said everything you're going to say, and
he won't listen."
    "And what's the deal with you?" asked Leni. "What
did you do to make captain in the Dominion?"
    "I could ask you the same thing about your assign-
ment to this ship. All of us have been blessed, or
cursed, by the same fate. We're here, we have a ship,
and we have a job to do. Let's get on with it, and we'll
worry about everything else later."
    Enrique edged toward the ladder. "Does that repli-
catot really have any food we want?"
    "I think so," answered Sam. "Go ahead and enjoy
yourselves, because I figure we probably won't sur-
vive, even if we don't do anything stupid."
    "The odds of completing this mission without
being destroyed are approximately ten to one--
against," added Taurik.
    Sam chuckled, letting the tension drain out of his
handsome face. "Thank you, Taurik. Do you see?
There's no sense fighting with each other. The chances
are good that we're going to die in each other's
company, aboard this strange ship, no matter what we
do. But at least we'll die in space, not chained in a
cell."
    Grof scowled and strode toward the ladder, pushing
Enrique out of the way. "We're not going to die--
we're going to succeed.t" He clomped down the ladder,
his footsteps ringing all over the small ship.
    Sam watched the Trill disappear into the hatch,
then he whispered, "With or without him, we're going
to make an escape. But not until I say so."
  "Approaching ships," warned Data.
     Will Riker bolted upright in the command chair of
the Enterprise. "How many? From where?"
    "Three ships, Jem'Hadar battle cruisers, traversing
sector nine-four-six-two on an interception course at
warp eight," answered the android.
    The acting captain of the Enterprise jumped to his
feet and strode toward Data's station. "Who are they
after? Us, or the Orb of Peace?"
    "It would seem to be us, sir. It has now been nine
minutes and thirty-two seconds since the Orb of Peace
entered Cardassian space, and they appear to be
undetected." The android looked earnestly at Riker.
"Estimated arrival time of the Jem'Hadar: twenty-one
minutes and thirty seconds."
  "Are there any Starfleet vessels that can help us?"
  "None that can reach us in time."
    Riker scowled. "We can't stand up to three cruisers.
We have time to run, but we'll have to stop tracking
the away team."
    "Not necessaily, sir." Data cocked his head. "The
Enterprise must retreat, but I could take a small
shuttlecraft and land on the sixth planet of the Kreel
solar system. With the shuttlecraft's sensors, I could
monitor the transport until the danger has passed. If I
maintain my relative position, I could monitor them
indefinitely."
    "That's a class-Q planet," said Riker with distaste,
imagining its cold temperatures and deadly methane
atmosphere. Then he realized that class Q or class M
was all the same to Data.
    "Its inhospitality will prevent the Dominion from
following me. I can land in the polar region where the
methane is frozen."
 "We can beam you down," said Riker.
    "I would prefer to have a shuttlecraft, so I can be
mobile."
    Making an instant decision, Riker motioned to-
ward the turbolift. "Go."
    In a blur, the android leaped from his seat and
rushed off the bridge. A replacement officer, who
looked young enough to be Riker's daughter, settled
into his vacated seat.
     "Bridge to shuttlebay one," said Riker, "prepare a
shuttlecraft for Commander Data. He's on his way."
  "Yes, sir," came the response.
    The acting captain tugged on his beard as he paced
the circular bridge of the Enterprise. This was his
worst nightmare--taking over the ship in the midst of
a crisis without Captain Picard, Geordi, or Data. Not
only was he worried about his friends, but he was
worried about the effectiveness of the crew without
her senior staff. He was surrounded by newly minted
ensigns fresh from the Academy; half their names he
didn't know. Riker wondered whether Beverly Crush-
er would like to take over for him now.
    "Estimated arrival time of enemy ships: nineteen
minutes," reported the young ops officer with a slight
tremolo to her voice.
    The captain stopped behind the conn. "If they want
to chase us, let's lure them to the rendezvous point
and get some help. Set course two-five-eight-mark-six-
four."
    "Yes, sir." The blue-skinned Bolian plied his con-
sole. "Course set."
    Riker strode toward Ensign Craycroft. "Tactical,
send a message to Starfleet and tell them we're on our
way, and that we're bringing companywthree
Jem'Hadar battle cruisers."
    "Yes, sir." Ensign Craycroft turned on her commu-
nications panel and began to enter the message.
  Riker looked back at ops. "Commander Data?"
    "He is entering the shuttlecraft Cook. Launch se-
quence in progress... opening shuttlebay doom."
    "On screen." Riker stepped back to see the hurried
launch on the viewscreen. For the second time that
day, he watched a small ship soar from the belly of the
Enterprise, looking like a bat escaping from a cave
into the dead of night.
    "Five hundred kilometers, six hundred kilometers,
seven hundred kilometers--" droned the ops officer.
    "Good luck, Data," muttered Riker. "Conn, pre-
pare to go to maximum warp. Engage."
    In a halo of golden light, the sleek starship elon-
gated into the sparkling starscape and vanished.
Thousands of kilometers away, a tiny shuttlecraft
veered toward a medium-large planet engulfed in
noxious ivory gases.
    Ro Laren paced across the tastefully illuminated
but cramped bridge of the Orb of Peace, thinking their
return to Cardassian space had been too easy, too
uneventful. Unless a big operation was afoot and
most of the Dominion ships were occupied, they
should have been hailed or intercepted by now. After
all, they were making a straight shot across a war zone
toward one of the Dominion's most sensitive areas.
    "No sign of any ships?" she asked Picard, who was
still seated at the conn. In their agreed-upon chain of
command, she was captain of the ship, and he was in
command of the mission. For a veteran officer, the
captain had been remarkably calm about taking a
subordinate role to her own. Perhaps a real captain
didn't need to have a special chair, extra pips on his
collar, and everyone saluting him. Captain Picard's
bearing and dignity were enough to warrant the
respect of anyone in his presence.
    He shook his head. "There is traffic in several solar
systems along our route, but no one seems overly
interested in us."
    "It's too easy," said Ro with concern. "We're being
watched, evaluatedwI can feel it. By the time they
come after us, it will be too late; they will have made
up their minds."
    Picard tugged on his earring, a tic he was beginning
to develop.
    "Then let's alter our course," Picard suggested.
"Pick a typical solar system that is inhabited, go there
and look like we're doing some trading."
    "That will throw us off our timetable," said the ops
officer.
    "Getting killed will throw us off even more," re-
plied Ro, glowering at the man.
    Picard nodded to his officer. "Find us a likely
planet. Quickly."
"We have goods to trade, don't we?" asked Ro.
"Yes," answered the captain. "We replicated a
supply of zajerberry wine, Bajoran silk, and tetra-
lubisol. Plus, we have a box of Bajoran religious
tracts."
"If we survive this, maybe I'll read them," muttered
RO.
    "Won't it look odd for us to be trading with a
Cardassian colony?" asked the ops officer.
    "I wouldn't be terribly concerned about that,"
answered Picard. "According to Starfleet Intelligence,
the Cardassians developed quite a taste for Bajoran
goods during the occupation, and Bajor is still trying
to rebuild its economy. Under the circumstances it
will just look like a wise business decision."
    Behind her, the ops officer sighed loudly, not happy
with his options. "There's a Cardassian farming colo-
ny on the sixth planet of System H-949."
    "All right then. Set course for it and make our way
slowly, at warp one," ordered Ro. "I want them to see
that we've changed course."
    Since Picard was stationed at the conn, it was his
decision whether to obey the order, and everyone on
the bridge was watching him. Without hesitation, he
punched in the new coordinates. "New course en-
tered. We'd better come out of warp to change
course."
    There was a slight tremor in the primitive craft as it
slowed and made an awkward course correction.
Then the warp engines revved once more, and the
transport shot into space, headed toward an obscure
Cardassian colony.
    Ro sighed, not certain whether her relief was over
the course change or the fact that the fake Bajorans
had obeyed her order. Her authority over this crew
extended solely from Captain Picard, and no one else.
Without his faith in her, she was nothing but a grubby
refugee to this crew of young upstarts. They were
brave and eager to face the enemy, while she was
jumpy and cautious. In Cardassian space, surrounded
by the enemy, she much preferred her collection of
well-earned fears to their naivet6.
    "They're here," said Picard grimly as he studied his
screen. "Two warships are now in pursuit of us. One
Jem'Hadar and one Cardassian."
    "I knew they were watching. Maintain course and
speed." Ro turned to face the crew. "We have to
confront them and prove who we are--to get them off
our tracks. Had we waited too long, heading directly
for the Badlands, they would've decided on their own
that we were spies. How much time do we have?"
    "Eleven minutes until interception," said the ops
officer, a trace of fear in his formerly condescending
voice.
    "When they hail us," said Ro, "be friendly and do
whatever they ask. Remember, the Cardassians treat
their riding hounds better than they treat Bajorans.
We're awfully lucky that we got a Jem'Hadar ship in
the mix."
    "We usually don't feel that way," said Picard with
a wan smile.
    Ro tapped her Bajoran comm badge and spoke in a
loud voice. "Captain Ro to the ship's complement: all
off-duty personnel are to go immediately to the cargo
bay and unpack the zajerberry wine. Put out samples
of all the cargo. Arrange it nicely, as if it's always on
display. Bridge out."
    "Shall we go on yellow alert?" asked the ops officer
uncertainly.
    "No, don't do anything that looks even remotely
aggressive. We'll either talk our way out of this or die
here and now."
  The lanky Bajoran gazed at Picard. "I notice that
one of the 'improvements' you made to my ship was
to add a self-destruct sequence. Feel free to ready it. I,
for one, don't want to be tortured. How about you?"
    The captain cleared his throat and returned her
gaze. "I'll bring it up on my console, keeping it in the
background. I won't move from this station. If cap-
ture looks imminent, I'll arm it with a ten-second
delay."
  Ro nodded. "We always did think alike."
  "We're being hailed," said tactical.
    "On screen." Ro turned to look at the viewscreen
framed with platitudes, and fear clamped her spine.
Instead of the spiny Jem'Hadar face she had hoped to
see, a bony, scaly Cardassian face stared at her. He
smiled with the delight of a sadistic schoolmaster
having caught a tardy student.
    "And what have we here?" he said snidely. "Bajor-
ans in the Cardassian Union? Roaming freely?"
    "Good day to you, noble captain," replied Ro in as
obsequious a tone as she could manage. "We are no
longer enemies--we are practically allies, thanks to
the benevolence of the Dominion."
    That wiped the smirk off the Cardassian's face.
"Come to a full stop and prepare to be boarded."
    "We would welcome that," said Ro brightly, "as we
are looking for the opportunity to trade with your
people."
    "What do you have that we could possibly want?"
asked the Cardassian doubtfully.
    "Zajerberry wine," answered Ro slyly. She knew
that Picard's comments had been on the mark. The
Cardassians had developed a taste for the stuff while
they occupied Bajor. She had once smuggled some out
of Quark's place on Deep Space Nine to buy the
release of Maquis prisoners.
    "Prepare to be boarded." The Cardassian scowled,
and the screen went blank.
    With movements that were so fast they could not be
fully appreciated by a human eye, Data scurried
around his type-9 personnel shuttlecraft, the Cook.
He quickly filled two shielded cases with tricorders,
weapons, tools, a distress beacon, and emergency
supplies, leaving food and water behind. The android
took a final glance at his console and confirmed that
one of the Jem'Hadar battle cruisers had indeed
broken off from the others and gone into orbit around
Kreel VI, the uninhabited planet on which he had
taken refuge.
    If Data didn't want his shuttlecraft to be detected
and destroyed, he had to shut down all systems. Plus,
he knew it would be prudent to run some distance
from the shuttlecraft in case the Jem'Hadar sent down
a probe and discovered it. Fortunately, a scan of the
planet for life signs would not reveal his existence.
Unfortunately, after he turned off all systems, he
would be unable to track the Orb of Peace. After the
danger passed, he would have to depend upon the
transport's last known position and scan from there.
It would be highly imprecise.
    Experiencing a sense of urgency, Data powered
down the shuttlecraft. After a brief pause, the interior
of the small vessel was plunged into total darkness.
Data could sense his surroundings perfectly well as he
opened the hatch manually, something which would
have required two humans to accomplish in the heavy
gravity of Kreel VI.
     Monstrous winds and sleeting methane snow pelted
 Data as he darted outside, carrying a large case in
 each hand. His feet crunched on the frozen tundra,
 and he didn't even want to think about how cold it
 was. Data set down the cases long enough to shut the
 door; then he surveyed his surroundings.
    Visibility was almost zero in the blizzard, and Data
relied upon his built-in sensors to locate an outcrop-
ping of rocks about three kilometers away. As the only
landmark in the area, it would have to serve as his
destination.
    At a fast jog, leaping over fissures, he crossed the
uneven ground, conscious of the opaque ice beneath
his feet. The very fact that the Jem'Hadar had
stopped to look for him on this inhospitable planet
proved that their technology was quite advanced.
They were thorough and determined--a dangerous
adversary. Although the Jem'Hadar were biological
beings, Data felt some kinship with them. Like him-
self, they had been engineered to serve without ques-
tion in a multitude of situations, and they did so
without complaint or selfish motives.
    He heard a wrenching explosion somewhere behind
him, and a sheet of methane blasted his back. A
human would have been pitched off his feet by the
impact of the shock wave, but Data just kept loping
across the uneven terrain, hardly able to see his own
legs in the driving snow. He suddenly detected high
readings of radiation, enough to kill most creatures.
    With his emotion chip turned off, the android felt
no fear, but he spent a microsecond deciding that he
was in serious trouble. His shuttlecraft probably de-
stroyed, his shipmates scattered in different direc-
tions, he was all alone, except for an enemy cruiser
with a complement of several hundred Jem'Hadar. If
the Enterprise was destroyed, nobody in the universe
would know where he was, even if he did manage to
survive this incident.
    Data's most unsettling conclusion, however, was
that his mission had already failed. If the shuttlecraft
was destroyed, he could not track the Orb of?eace,
nor could he catch their distress beacon when they
released it. They were also on their own.
    His legs began to pump uphill through ice and
rubble, and Data realized that he had reached his
destination. The rocky tor offered scant shelter, but it
stood forty meters tall and might disguise his mass
and metallic components from their sensors.
    As there was nothing to see, Data didn't bother to
look for a vantage point. He set his cases down at the
first level ground he came to, then crouched between
them, ready to use them for shields. The tor seemed
to consist of bedrock, which was some consolation to
the android, because it might withstand an attack.
Data waited, watching for the Jem'Hadar to emerge
from the dense clouds and snow that swirled all
around him.
    A dabo-girl smile plastered to her face, Ro Laren
stood by in the cargo bay, which had been hastily
converted into a showroom. She watched halfa dozen
Cardassians paw her merchandise and shove her crew
around, while another half a dozen trained their
weapons on the helpless Bajorans. A gray-haired gul
named Ditok had beamed down with the inspection
team, and he rifled through the silks, then moved on
to the red-clay bottles of wine.
"An excellent vintage," chirped Ro. "Would you
like to try some?"
    He glared at her. "You have the impertinence to
think that I would drink while on duty. Or that I
would even like this Bajoran urine?"
    His men chuckled politely, while Gul Ditok
grabbed a bottle and hefted it. "Probably replicated,
if it isn't totally fake."
    "I can verify its authenticity," promised Ro, "al-
though the truth is in the tasting." She hoped the
Starfleet replicators had been up to the task--some
Cardassians were experts on zajerberry wine.
    "Doesn't matter," snarled the gul, "you have a
bigger problem, no documents."
    Ro offered him a smile of regret. "As I have told
you, we have just entered this sector, and we were
about to make our first stop, where we could apply for
permission. We welcome your visit."
    The gul scowled, as if he much preferred Bajorans
who made trouble. "Is this what your proud people
are reduced to, slinking around with trinkets, like a
tribe of Ferengi?"
    Ro lowered her voice. "To be frank, we are curious
to get to know the Dominion better. We are neutral in
this war, you know, and it's fairly clear how it's going
to end."
    The gul laughed. "Ah. So now you're cowards, but
at least smart cowards."
    A young glinn hovering nearby whispered some-
thing in the ear of the gul, and he glowered at them.
"I'm reminded that your flight pattern shows you
came from Federation space, or what's left of it. How
do you explain that?"
 "We did come from Federation space," answered
Ro. "We were trading there first. In fact, that's where
we obtained the tetralubisol. It's the finest space-rated
lubricant you can buy."
"I know what it is," muttered the Cardassian.
One of the young pseudo-Bajorans approached the
gul with a pamphlet in her hand. "Would you like
something to read? It's very inspiring."
    He slapped the padd out of her hand. "Get away
from me! You're all sheep, the lot of you. Bajorans!"
He spat on the deck.
    Despite the burning bile surging up her throat, Ro
stuck to her plan. "We honestly come in peace. With
the Dominion rolling over two quadrants, we haven't
got anything to gain by remaining loyal to the Federa-
tion. The Federation did nothing but interfere,
anyway."
    "There's a grain of truth," said the Cardassian.
"Have you got any more truth in you?"
    "Only that you once fought against the Dominion,
and now you regard them as allies. Can't you do the
same with us?"
    For a moment, it looked as if the old warrior would
accept her entreaty of peace; then he burst out laugh-
ing. "Bajorans, my dear, are hardly the Dominion."
    His sunken eyes ran down her lean body. "You
personally are quite attractive, Captain, and perhaps
you do offer something of worth. We must have a
private conference later to discuss it."
    Ro gritted her teeth and tried not to vomit. "Then I
could offer you some wine."
    "I'm afraid not," he said with a sympathetic smile.
"We have to confiscate all of the wine. Contraband,
you know."
  "What? What/" sputtered Ro, although she had
expected this turn of events. "You can't take our
whole cargo... I mean, we need to make a profit!"
    "Experience is always a great profit." Gul Ditok
snapped his fingers, and his soldiers roughly herded
the Bajoran crew away from the cases of wine. Within
seconds, they had transported every bottle from the
cargo bay to their warship.
    Ro tried to feign a mixture of indignation and
horror at this outrage, while she was secretly relieved
that they had accepted the bribe. Could she possibly
hope they would leave it at that?
    "Now are you satisfied? Can you let us go?" she
demanded.
    "Not yet. I want to see your bridge and your
weaponry. Our scan suggests that you have photon
torpedoes."
    "Only six," said Ro. "You never know when you'll
confront an asteroid belt, pirates, or some other
obstacle that requires intervention."
    "We don't have pirates in the Cardassian Union,"
said the gul testily.
    "Ah, but we were just in Federation space, where
they have no respect for law and order."
    Once again, the gul looked disappointed that his
prey was so amenable. "Take us to your bridge."
    Gritting her teeth, Ro led the way to the bridge,
which was only up one level via a spiral staircase.
When she entered the control room, she was glad to
see that the lights were dimmed to a soothing level.
Captain Picard and two other duty officers were the
only ones present.
    The Cardassian gul and his entourage muscled their
way into the cramped room and began peering at
everything and everyone. Captain Picard stood im-
mediately and smiled at the visitors.
    The gul looked at his conn screen. "What is your
maximum speed?"
 "Warp three," answered Picard.
    The Cardassian laughed. "Aren't you embarrassed
to be flying this thing?"
    "It's preferable to fighting in the war," said Picard
with a shrug. "We have a message of peace to bring to
the Dominion."
    "We shall see about that." The gul gave a sidelong
glance at his retinue, and they grinned knowingly.
    "Gul Ditok!" snapped a voice. "Look what I have
found."
    They all turned to see a female glinn standing
beside an open cabinet, holding a Starfleet hand
phaser. It was a shock to Ro and everyone else in the
crew, as they had been careful not to bring any
obvious Starfleet equipment on board. All of their
phasers were Bajoran or Ferengi.
    "Aha!" declared the Cardassian. He was so melo-
dramatic about it that Ro instantly knew what had
happened--the phaser had been planted!
    "You are enemies of the Dominion, in league with
the Federation," proclaimed the gul. "We are seizing
this vessel and taking you prisoner."
    Picard shot her a glance, then immediately turned
to his console. His fingers pressed several membrane
panels before the gul slapped him in the head and
knocked him out of his chair. The captain tumbled to
the floor, but he gazed up with a satisfied look on his
face.
  "What have you done?" bellowed the gul.
  "We have eight seconds to live."

Chapter Six

Ro HAD NEVER SEEN a Cardassian's eyes widen, because
of the thick bones which encircled their eye sockets.
But Gul Ditok's eyes grew very wide when Picard told
him that he had seconds to live. Every person on the
bridge of the Orb of Peace looked terrified, and Ro's
eyes went instinctively to the platitudes framing the
viewscreen. "Place yourself in the hands of the Proph-
ets," suggested one phrase, which was a proper senti-
ment under the circumstances.
    Gul Ditok barked into his communicator, "Beam
us up! Immediately!"
    As their sparkling shapes vanished from the bridge,
Picard leaped into his chair and punched his instru-
ment panel. Ro flinched, certain that the next instant
would be their last.
 When they weren't blasted to bits, she opened her
eyes and looked around. "I counted more than ten
seconds."
    "I changed my mind and set it for thirty," admitted
Picard. "I put the shields up, so they can't transport
us off. You'd better start talking to them."
    Ro motioned to Tactical. "Open a channel to the
Jem'Hadar ship. Put me on screen, whether they
acknowledge or not."
    She strode in front of the viewscreen and pouted
angrily. "This is Captain Ro Laren of the Orb of
Peace. Is this how the Dominion treats its neutral
trading partners? We come here in peace, and you
steal our shipment of zajerberry wine, you threaten
my crew, and you plant a weapon on our ship so that
you can illegally seize us!"
    She closed her eyes again, expecting quantum tor-
pedoes to slam into them. When that didn't happen,
Ro went on. "We know there's a war, but our work
goes on. We are a religious people, and we just want a
chance to trade goods and ideas. In this modest
vessel, we couldn't do you any harm."
    Ro tried not to think what a huge lie she had just
delivered, but she was doing the best she could in this
one-way conversation. Ro glanced down at Picard
and saw that he had only paused the self-destruct
sequence. There were fifteen seconds left, and his
fingers were poised to resume the fatal countdown.
    The viewscreen was filled with two imposing war-
ships--the mustard-colored Galor-class warship and
the Jem'Hadar battle cruiser, its hull pulsing with a
vibrant blue light. Ro looked at tactical. "End trans-
mission."
  "Yes, sir."
  "Are they arming weapons?"
     "No," said the officer on tactical. "They're sending
 coded messages back and forth to each other."
     Ro looked at Picard, and he gave her an encourag-
 ing smile. "You're doing fine."
     She nodded and swallowed. It felt good to yell at
 them, even if every word was a lie.
    The tactical officer gasped with surprise. "They
are... they are sending us documents! One set al-
lows us passage in this sector, and the other is an
order to appear on Cardassia Prime in seventy-two
hours to discuss a fine for our offenses."
    "They gave us a ticket," commented Picard with a
touch of amusement in his voice.
Ro looked puzzledly at the human. "A ticket?"
"It's an old Terran phrase," said Picard. "It means
that we received a summons to appear later, so trial
and punishment is put off. Acknowledge it and thank
them."
  "Yes, sir."
    Ro didn't breathe calmly until the two great war-
ships glided into graceful turns and disappeared into
space. For several seconds, the bridge crew stared at
the glittering starscape, scarcely believing that the
threat was gone.
    "Keep them on sensors," ordered Ro, "for as long
as you can."
  "Yes, sir," answered the ops officer.
    "Resume course for the farming colony until we're
sure they're gone," said Ro, her mouth feeling
parched.
    "Aye, sir," replied Picard as he carried out the
order. "We'll have to make a run for the Badlands
sooner or later."
 "I know," answered Ro grimly. "Let's calculate ex-
actly how much time we'll need to make it. When we
get a window, we'll go."
 "Let's hope for a large window," added the captain.
    While buffeted by swirling winds and heavy meth-
ane snow, Data set up a portable scanner on the
rugged outcropping and tried to take readings. Al-
though the electromagnetic interference and radia-
tion levels were high, they weren't disruptive enough
to hide his shuttlecraft, which was still sitting out
there, an alien artifact on an icy plain. At least it
hadn't been totally destroyed.
    He couldn't detect any other machines, vessels,
probes, or life signs near the shuttlecraft, but that
didn't mean the area was safe. The range of his
portable instruments didn't allow him to tell if the
Jem'Hadar ship was still in orbit around Kreel VI.
    Data was neither impatient nor imprudent, and he
could have sat there for weeks, waiting until it was
absolutely safe to venture forth. But every moment he
delayed reduced the likelihood of finding the Orb of
Peace with the shuttlecraft's sensors. His own safety
was not an issue, except that if he was captured or
destroyed, his mission couldn't possibly succeed.
    Overriding these concerns was the necessity of
finding out if the shuttlecraft itself was still intact. In
the pelting blizzard, he repacked his cases and began
his descent from the tor. Not only was the storm
worse than ever, but the daylight was beginning to
fade. By the time Data covered the three kilometers to
his shuttlecraft, the visibility was terrible, and he was
forced to plug directly into his tricorder to scan the
area.
  Thirty meters from the shuttlecraft, he discovered a
dark crater brimming with radiation, and he set down
his cases and crouched between them. He assumed
the crater was the remains of the blast he had felt
earlier, which meant that the Jem'Hadar had missed
his shuttlecraft. Or perhaps it had been a warning
shot, intended to flush him out of hiding. Data
grabbed a phaser, a tricorder, and a bandolier loaded
with photon grenades, which he slung over his
shoulder.
    Despite all indications that the Jem'Hadar had left
the planet without finding him or his ship, Data
hesitated and continued to take readings, both with
his tricorder and his internal sensors. His friend,
Geordi, had an expression: "If it looks too good to be
true, it probably is." In this case, it looked too good to
be true.
    As he searched for esoteric pulses and energy read-
ings, Data detected the low-resonance hum of a light
source which shouldn't be there in the foggy darkness.
It wasn't a strong light source, more like a photo cell
or a photoreceptor.
    A motion detector. On a planet with no life, it was a
simple but effective warning device.
    He concentrated his search on the few meters in
front of the shuttlecraft and pinpointed the location
of the motion detector--directly in front of the hatch.
Was the alarm intended to alert the Jem'Hadar that
he had returned? Or was it even more basicma bomb
intended to turn both him and the shuttlecraft into
scrap? If he took another step closer, he would proba-
bly find out.
    The trick was to get closer without getting closer.
The android did a careful calculation and determined
that he was seventeen meters away from the device,
and it was at ground level. He stepped backward
several paces, ran forward, and leaped twenty meters
into the air.
    In a high arc, Data soared through the methane
atmosphere and landed with a thud on the roof of the
shuttlecraft. He paused, waiting to see if he had
activated the alarm, but the device continued to emit
a low-resonance hum. Because it was on the ground,
its range apparently didn't extend to the roof, and the
shuttlecraft itself hid his movements.
    Because a bomb was a more immediate concern
than an alarm, he had to deactivate it. But getting too
close would have just the opposite effect. Despite all
of his precautions, Data realized that direct and swift
action was required.
    He looked around the roof of the shuttlecraft and
spotted a deflector dish, which had to weigh at least
two hundred kilograms. He grabbed the dish with
both hands and yanked it from its mounts, snapping
the metal as if it were plywood. Calculating the exact
location of the motion detector on the ground below
him, Data leaned over the edge of the roof and
dropped the dish on top of it.
With a satisfying crunch, the humming stopped.
Data noted that both he and the shuttlecraft were
still intact, but he crouched down and drew his
phaser, making sure it was set on heavy stun.
    They came quickly. Four figures in gray space suits
materialized on the ground below him, and Data
didn't wait for them to react. He fired two bursts from
his phaser, felling two of them; then he leaped off the
shuttlecraft as they returned fire.
    Data dropped into a crouch and fired twice more.
The space-suited figures twisted from the impact of
his phaser beams and slumped to the ground. Figur-
ing the casualties would be retrieved quickly, the
android grabbed a plasma grenade, armed it, ripped
off the adhesive, and stuck it to the chest of the closest
Jem'Hadar in less than a second. With movements so
swift that no one could have followed them, Data
planted a live grenade on each enemy body and
leaped back. It was a particularly brutal way to
dispatch with a foe, Data knew. But he also knew that
brutality was unavoidable in war.
    In the dark, swirling fog, the fallen Jem'Hadar
soldiers sparkled brightly as their molecules were
swept off the planet. Data calculated the horrible
chaos that would erupt on the Jem'Hadar ship when
the four plasma grenades exploded in their transport-
er roomrain point-five seconds. With any luck, the
rupture would be bad enough to cause a breach in the
hull, occupying his pursuers until he could get away.
    Data fetched his equipment and opened the hatch
of the shuttlecraft, dragging his reflector shield and
supplies after him. His movements a blur, the android
powered up the small craft, fired thrusters, and
zoomed away from the surface of the planet. The fact
that he was still alive a few moments later assured
him that his diversion had been a success.
    Reaching full-impulse speed in seconds, Data pi-
loted the craft in an elliptical arc which put him on
the other side of the planet, away from their sensors.
He ran a brief scan before he vanished over the dark
horizon and noted with satisfaction that the
Jem'Hadar battle cruiser was in low orbit and de-
scending quickly. He doubted whether the massive
ship was capable of atmospheric reentry, which
meant they were in serious trouble.
    There was no time to appreciate his unexpected
victory over the much larger ship, because Data had a
Bajoran transport to find. He zoomed out of orbit and
entered warp drive, missing the spectacular explosion
that sundered the ivory clouds of Kreel VI.
    Will Riker gripped the arms of the command chair
and held on as the Enterprise was jolted by a
Jem'Hadar torpedo. An ominous rumbling sound
surged along the length of the vessel.
    "Shields down to thirty percent!" shouted Ensign
Craycroft on tactical.
    Riker checked his readouts. "If we can hold on just
a little bit longer... Where the devil is the fleet?"
    It was a rhetorical question, because he didn't
expect an answer. Apparently, the Dominion had
launched a massive offensive all along the Cardassian
border, and the ships chasing the Enterprise were just
two of many. The fact that there were only two was
also troubling, because it meant that one of them had
broken off to pursue either Data or the Orb of Peace.
    He couldn't worry about them now. The Enterprise
shuddered again from the impact of another torpedo
against her weakening shields. Riker glanced at Cray-
croft, and the ashen expression on her face told him
everything he needed to know.
    "All residual power to shields," ordered Riker
through clenched teeth. It was tempting to come
about and make a stand against the enemy, but Riker
knew it would be the last stand. He wasn't prepared to
lose the Enterprise until he could run no farther. The
fleet had to be out there... somewhere.
    "Sir!" gasped Ensign Craycroft. "The Carla Rom-
ney and the Sharansky have responded to our hails!
They'll intercept in two minutes."
    Riker allowed himself a grateful sigh. "All right,
hail the Jem'Hadar and tell them we want to surren-
der. Conn, come out of warp to full impulse."
"Verifying that order to surrender," said Craycroft.
"Yes, because we know they like to take prisoners.
Don't lower shields, but ready phasers. Conn, be
ready to go to warp on a moment's notice." Riker
settled back in his chair and straightened his rumpled
uniform. He had lost about ten kilos since the war
began, and the tunic hung on him. Too bad there was
no time for anyone to appreciate his thinner phy-
sique.
    Craycroft listened intently to her earpiece, then
reported, "They say to lower shields."
    "On screen," ordered Riker, sitting upright in the
command chair.
    When a glowering Jem'Hadar appeared on his
viewscreen, with a stream of white surging into the
veins on his neck, Riker gave him his most charming
smile.
    "I am Commander William Riker of the Starship
Enterprise. We are prepared to surrender. However,
our shield strength dropped to a point where an
emergency backup system took over, and our comput-
er currently has command of the ship. We apologize.
We hope to rectify this problem in--" He glanced at
his panel. "One minute."
  "They're arming phasers!" warned Craycroft.
  "Fire phasers!" barked Riker.
 They got off the first salvo, which rocked the
Jem'Hadar battle cruisers at point-blank range and
delayed their barrage for a few seconds.
    "Maximum warp!" shouted Riker, leaping to his
feet.
    The young Bolian on the conn responded instantly,
and the Enterprise shot off into space as the
Jem'Hadar cruisers pounded the region they had
vacated.
    Riker had no illusions that he had crippled the
battle cruisers in any way, and he was running for his
life even as the Carla Romney and the Sharansky
zoomed past them on the viewscreen, two blurs of
light in the infinite blackness.
    "Reverse course and go to one-third impulse," he
ordered. "Let's hang back and see what's happening.
Ready photon torpedoes."
    There came a chorus of "Yes, sir"s as his young
crew executed his commands. A moment later, the
birdlike form of the Enterprise glided into a graceful
holding pattern, framed by the serene starscape.
    On the viewscreen, it was anything but serene, as
the Jem'Hadar cruisers were caught flat-footed by two
Akira-class starships, which unleashed a phaser bar-
rage as they swooped past. Space rippled around the
Jem'Hadar warships as they absorbed a devastating
bombardment of pure directed energy.
    "Target four torpedoes on closest foe," ordered
Riker.
 "Targeted," reported Ensign Craycroft.
 "Fire!"
    While her allies came about for another attack, the
Enterprise launched a stream of shooting stars at the
closest of the stunned Jem'Hadar ships. The cruiser's
sleek hull glowed with brilliant phosphors as she
powered up to go into warp, but the torpedoes
slammed into her before she could get away. Explo-
sions rippled along the hull of the battle cruiser as her
sister ship successfully escaped into warp.
    Riker watched with grim satisfaction as the Carla
Romney and the Sharansky swooped back into view,
hurling a dozen more quantum torpedoes at the
crippled ship. The barrage obliterated the cruiser's
shields, then the cruiser itself; it exploded like a sun
going nova, hurling flame and debris into the cosmos.
There had been no opportunity to take prisoners, not
that the Jem'Hadar were ever known to surrender.
    Without taking time to gloat over their kill, the
Sharansky and the Carla Romney shot off into space
in pursuit of the second cruiser. Riker sighed and
slumped back into this chair. "Any other ships in the
area?"
    "No, sir, all clear," answered Craycroft, the tension
draining from her voice.
    The captain rubbed his eyes. "Inform Commander
Troi that she's on bridge duty, and set course for
Starbase 209. Before we go back into action, we need
to unload those Maquis passengers." "Yes, sir."
    Riker rose stiffly from the command chair, feeling
as though he had been caught in a barroom brawl. He
wanted to go chasing after Data's shuttlecraft, the
Bajoran transport, and the escaping Jem'Hadar cruis-
er, but there was only so much they could do in a day.
Despite all the business left unfinished, it was time to
rest and lick their wounds.
 Against the odds, they had survived this day, earn-
ing the chance to do it all again tomorrow. He could
only hope his friends had also survived one more day.
    Captain Picard stood on a dusty patch of ground,
surveying a speckled field of waist-high, black-
tasseled grain. He couldn't believe how odd it felt to
be standing on terra firma, gazing at a leafy horizon
and a cloudless blue sky. A warm breeze stroked his
face, bringing greasy smells of Cardassian food bub-
bling in communal pits.
    It had been a long time since he'd had any liberty--
so long he couldn't remember the last time. Although
the visitors were surrounded by sullen Cardassians,
inspecting their wares, the war seemed far removed
from this peaceful farming community. What had
begun as a forced stop to bolster their cover story had
turned into an unexpectedly pleasant respite.
    Picard turned to see Ro talking to the leader of the
village, a gangly Cardassian dressed in simple brown
clothes. At first they had appeared standoffish and
suspicious, but now they were relaxed and cordial.
These farmers were not typical of the Cardassians
with whom he had dealt. For one thing, they didn't
even possess spacecraft or transporters, which neces-
sitated the trip down to the planet. The tetralubisol
was of only minor interest to them, but they wanted
to buy the whole load of Bajoran silk. They postured
very little, as if the typical Cardassian arrogance had
been beaten out of them.
    Ro was supposed to be haggling over a price for the
silk, although the farmers didn't seem to have much
to offer except for food and hospitality. Picard had
the feeling that these lonely people welcomed contact
with anyone from outside their limited sphere, even
Bajorans, and they were in no hurry to conclude the
deal.
    He knew he should be mingling with the customers,
but he wanted to look around. They had to find out
whether Ro's story about the artificial wormhole was
true, and every minute they delayed could be vital.
Picard stepped away from the outdoor bazaar, which
consisted of gray tarpaulins strung between window-
less geodesic domes. The domes were an all-purpose
design that would have suited humans as well, except
for the lack of modern facilities. It almost seemed as if
this place were purposely kept primitive.
    The captain strolled nonchalantly along a path that
ran beside the field of grain. When he was sure he was
out of earshot of the noonday shoppers in the bazaar,
he tapped his communicator badge.
 "Boothby to Orb of Peace," said Picard.
    "Bridge here," answered the cheerful voice of
Geordi La Forge. "How goes it down there?"
    "Fine. We've moved most of the Bajoran silk, but
I'm not sure how much our captain is going to get for
it. The crops are very impressive down here."
    "If you're inquiring about our friends," said La
Forge, "they're still hanging around. It must be a slow
day for them."
    Picard tried to hide his disappointment. It was
hard to imagine that a Galor-class warship and a
Jem'Hadar battle cruiser had nothing better to do
than observe one tiny merchant ship, but that seemed
to be the case. "Keep me posted if the situation
changes. Out."
    He turned away from his self-absorbed conversa-
tion and bumped into a Cardassian woman who was
strolling down the path. She sprang back, cradling her
basket of fruit to her chest, and stared at him as if he
were a bandit.
    "Pardon me," said Picard with concern. "I'm so
sorry. Did I injure you?"
    He instantly regretted his feeble words, because this
was a fit woman in excellent health who was much
more offended than injured. He couldn't be too
certain of her age, because their leathery skin didn't
show much wear, but she was a handsome Cardas-
sian.
 "Who are you?" she asked accusingly.
     He pointed lamely to the sky. "We're merchantsin
we came to trade. Our ship is in orbit."
  "Bajorans?" she asked doubtfully.
    "Yes," answered Picard. "Have you met our people
before?"
    "Yes, in prison." The woman scowled, as if she had
said too much. She brushed past him and hurried
down the path.
    But Picard now was intrigued, and he charged after
the woman. "Madam, can I give you something for
your inconvenience?"
    "Give me something?" the woman asked, peering
strangely at him as if she had never gotten a break in
her life. Just as well, Picard thought sadly. There
wasn't enough latinum in the Alpha quadrant to
compensate this woman for the unhappiness evident
in her vivid green eyes.
 "Have they sent you?"
 "Who?"
    "Don't be coy. Are you telling me that you don't
know what this place is?"
 "I don't know much about this place," admitted
Picard. "It was just a name on a chart to us until a
while ago."
    She snorted a laugh. "Well, somebody in your party
must have a sense of humor. This colony, this com-
munal farm, is an indoctrination center. Despite
the lack of guards and fences, it's a glorified work
camp."
    Picard nodded gravely, thinking that explained the
absence of off-world transportation and modem tech-
nology. "What crimes have you committed."
    "Things like this," answered the woman snidely.
"Talking to the wrong people, saying the wrong
things. I can't help myself."
    "You're dissidents," said Picard, realizing that they
had indeed picked the wrong colony to call upon.
Instead of throwing off suspicions, coming here might
have aroused them more.
    "Ah, but we're toothless, powerless dissidents,"
whispered the woman. "We've been spared, but we
can't leave here. We've been genetically altered--if
we try to eat anything but the food we grow on this
planet, we'll die."
She offered him a shiny yellow fruit. "Want some?"
Picard shook his head, feeling terribly sorry for the
woman and her fellow political prisoners. He wanted
to tell her that Dr. Crusher could reverse the genetic
engineering, but Beverly wasn't with him. He re-
minded himself of his conversation with Ro; they
couldn't save the prisoners, only the Federation, if
they were lucky. No doubt this was one of the colonies
that the Cardassians had insisted they had the right to
build in the Demilitarized Zone, and the Federation
had let them. What appeared to be idyllic farmland
was just another prison camp for the most forgotten
of Cardassia's victims, her own people.
 "How long have you been here?" he asked.
    She gave him a sidelong glance. "Are you sure
you're not a spy?"
    "No," lied Picard, wondering which side she
thought he was on. "How do I know you're not a
spy?"
    "You don't. However, it was you who ran into me,
and you are the stranger here. Plus, you are the only
one of us who is allowed to leave."
    "I wish that were so," muttered Picard, "but we're
under observation by two warships."
    The woman smiled. "We are always under observa-
tion. As they tell us when we complain, if you're
innocent, why should it matter that we're watching
you?"
    "I'm called Boothby," said Picard, appreciating her
sarcastic wit. Her eyes narrowed, perhaps in response
to the odd nickname, Picard thought.
    "Lethama," she said, apparently deciding not to
comment as she sauntered down the path in the
direction of the bazaar. "If you were to get away from
these warships, where would you go?"
    The captain knew he should be careful. But this was
a fact-finding mission, and he couldn't overlook any
possible source of information, especially a dissident
Cardassian. Still, Picard had made a career of judging
character, and he decided that Lethama was on his
side.
    But he was guarded as he replied, "We may never be
in Cardassian space again, so we would want to see
the biggest, most important sight there is."
"Hmmm. There is a dust cloud called the Badlands
which is very unusual."
    "Yes, we need to go there." Picard gazed at her,
hoping that his trust wasn't misplaced.
    "But those ships won't let you go there. That is,
unless they were called away to other duty."
    "Yes," said Picard, gazing benignly at the fields.
"That would be ideal, if they were called away."
    As some of her neighbors strolled past, Letharna
held out a plump piece of fruit to Picard, and this
time he took it. "This planet doesn't have just
farms," she whispered. "There is also a subspace
relay station on the southern continent. From there,
it might be possible to fake a general alert that would
bring them back to their base. It might only distract
them for a short time, but that could be enough to get
a jump."
    Deep in thought, Picard stared at the fruit in his
hand, and she finally smiled at him. "You can eat it.
It's safe."
    He nodded, thinking that he had already decided to
trust Letharna. With a grateful smile, he bit into the
fruit. "Are you sure you can't leave here?"
    "Yes. We lack the enzymes required to digest food
grown anywhere but the soil of this planet. It's a
rather ingenious punishment, isn't it? We require
little security, and we're tucked safely out of the way.
Yet we're available to be displayed when visitors want
to see a nonmilitary colony. And if we don't work
hard, we starve."
    Picard wanted to say that Cardassians were masters
of torture and imprisonment, in all their myriad
forms, but his hostess already knew that.
"Your help will not be forgotten," he assured her.
"I have only begun to help you," said Letharna.
    Ro Laren stared at him, aghast. "You want to take
one of these people aboard our ship, show them what
we're doing, and use them to take out a subspace relay
station?"
    "Not take it out," said Picard. "We just want to
send a fake message, a general alert. Those ships are
close enough to get their relays from this station, and
it might throw them off long enough for us to get
away."
    Ro shook her head vigorously but kept her voice low.
"I believe youmthat these people could be dissi-
dents-but that doesn't mean we can trust them. Some
of these farmers are sure to be government plants, and
the others could be crazy. What if she's just looking for
a way to escape, or to hijack our vessel?"
    "She can't leave the planet," said Picard. "Those
two warships are sitting at the edge of the solar
system, watching us. If you know a better way to get
rid of them, I'm listening."
    Ro scowled, and he knew that she didn't have a
better solution. Picard pressed his point: "In three
days, we're expected to go to Cardassia Prime, a trip
which could land us in a Cardassian prison. Maybe
they're hoping we'll just head back to Bajor, and that
will be the end of it. But we can't do that. We can't
shoot our way out, and we can't talk our way out. As
you say--we need to use stealth and guile."
    Ro nodded politely to a clutch of Cardassians as
they walked by; then she strolled farther away from
the bazaar. "What kind of garrison are we looking
at?" she asked.
"According to Letharna, maybe ten. I believe she's
thought this out fairly well."
    "I wish we had a backup plan," muttered Ro.
"When do we go?"
    "To allay suspicion, I would like to leave you and
the others here. You seem to have quite a few crates of
vegetables to inventory, and Letharna thinks that
with our transporters, we can be there and back in less
than an hour. We won't even have to change our
orbit."
    Picard motioned toward the sky, which was turning
a salmon color with traces of vibrant orange. "It's
already dark on the southern continent."
    Before Ro could reply, the head man of the village
strode up to them, a concerned look on his face. "You
look unhappy. Is everything all right?" asked the
gangly Cardassian.
    "Yes," answered Ro, mustering a smile. "My ship-
mate here doesn't like the price we got for the silk, but
I overruled him."
    "It's simply vegetables I don't like," said Picard
with a friendly smile. "I'll return to the ship and make
room for them in the hold."
    "A gift for you then," said the Cardassian, "for
accepting an uneven trade."
    He handed Picard a small scroll, which the captain
politely took. It wasn't until his hand closed around
the object that Picard realized it was solid, not
paper--the scroll was wrapped around another cylin-
drical object. The intense look on the Cardassian's
face told Picard that he had better accept the gift with
no questions asked, and no examination until later.
    "Thank you," said the captain solemnly. He tapped
his comm badge. "One to beam up."
    A few moments later, Picard materialized in the
stylish but small transporter room of the Orb of Peace.
La Forge was at the controls, looking quite dashing
with his dangling earring, nose ridges, and pilot's
goggles, which hid his ocular implants.
 "Captain," said Geordi. "Anyone else?"
    "One more person," said Picard, jumping off the
transporter platform. "But first, help me unwrap this
gift."
    He carefully removed the scroll to find a copper-
colored cylinder with magentic strips along its length
and a blue label at the top.
    "Hmm," said the engineer with appreciation, "an
isolinear rod, Cardassian design. What does it con-
trol?"
    "I think we'll find out soon." Picard leaned over the
transporter console and entered prearranged coordi-
nates into the computer. "Beam up one, from that
location."
    "Yes, sir." La Forge completed the procedure, and
another figure began to materialize in a column of
sparkling light. Even wearing goggles, it was evident
that the engineer's eyes widened considerably when
he got a good look at the newest arrival.
    Letharna stepped down from the transporter plat-
form and glanced around at her ornate surroundings.
"I can't believe I'm in space again... on a Bajoran
vessel."
    "Unfortunately, there's no time to show you
around," said Picard. "Are you ready?"
    She pointed to the object in his hand. "Good, you
have the isolinear rod. That will help."
    Picard was having second thoughts, realizing that
he had jeopardized their entire mission on a hunch. If
he was wrong about Letharna--if she was well mean-
ing but unstable--they could very well doom them-
selves to capture and torture. For his own satisfaction,
he had to ask, "Why are you doing this?"
    Letharna glared at him. "I'm no traitor if that's
what you're getting at. The Dominion is exactly what
we have always feared. While our military leaders
strut and preen, they let an outside force take over our
civilization. Wasn't it a terran who said, 'Absolute
power corrupts absolutely'? The absolute power of the
military made us weak and corrupt, unable to resist
the lure of the Dominion. This is why I help you,
whoever you are."
    Picard glanced at La Forge, and the two old com-
rades exchanged a shrug. It wasn't the first time they
had gambled.
    "Stay here, Geordi," said the captain. "We're going
to need an experienced hand on the transporter."

Chapter Seven

ON BOARD THE TAG GARWAL, Sam Lavelie took person-
al control of the conn, deciding to pilot the antimatter
tanker himself on their first test flight. Taurik sat
nearby on ops, monitoring ship's systems. The tower-
ing Deltan, Tamla Horik, was on tactical, manning
the tractor beam in lieu of weapons. Grof, the two
material handlers, and the transporter chief were also
available, but Sam knew that he and Taurik were
basically the bridge crew. In fact, the others weren't
even on the bridge but below, fussing over the trans-
porter, mining probe, and recombination storage
chamber.
    He was glad this wasn't a Jem'Hadar ship, because
he didn't think he'd have time to get used to an
eyepiece for visual input instead of the more tradi-
tional viewscreen. Cardassian technology was roughly
equivalent to Federation technology, and they had all
studied Miles O'Brien's compendium of Cardassian
technology.
    It helped that today's mission wasn't very difficult.
They were to disengage from the docking sphere and
take a short spin five thousand kilometers into space,
where they would grab a dummy cargo bin with the
tractor beam and bring it back. Sam presumed all of
this would take place under the watchful eye of the
military vessels docked around them.
    He tapped the comm panel on the arm of his chair.
"Lavelie to crew. We've run through our checklist,
and the bridge systems are ready for launch. Does
anyone need a delay?"
    "No, get moving," grumbled the voice of Enrak
Grof. "We're ready."
    "Affirmative," said Sam, pressing another button.
"This is tanker Tag Garwal to station control, seeking
permission to launch on test flight zero-zero-one."
    On his screen came the familiar face of Joulesh, the
Vorta, looking delighted with his charges. "Tag Gar-
wal, you are clear to launch. We've rerouted incoming
traffic for you. Good luck."
    Sam didn't know whether to thank Joulesh for his
precautions or not. All of them had flown more
difficult flights than this as second-year cadets, and he
anticipated no problems. He supposed that Grof was
right about one thing: they were constantly forced to
prove themselves to their captors.
    "Retracting airlock and disengaging," said Sam. He
wiped Joulesh's grinning face off the viewscreen and
put up the view from the nose of the tanker. Sam felt
as if he should be nervous, but it was such a relief to
be back at the conn of a ship, doing what he had been
trained to do. Without hesitation, he fired thrusters
and slowly piloted the bulky tanker away from the
spacedock.
    Once they were cruising at full impulse power
through space, Sam couldn't help but to look at
Taurik and smile. The Vulcan, of course, gave him
only a blank stare, and he was forced to look at the
Deltan to convey his pleasure. The bald female
beamed back at him, sharing his joy at this momen-
tary taste of freedom.
    Sam set his course and put the ship on automatic
pilot to insure it was working properly. Once they got
to the black hole, they would be depending a great
deal on the automatic settings, and there would be no
room for error, human or machine. He carefully
monitored their progress, and they covered the five
thousand kilometers in what seemed like seconds.
    Looking like a trash bin floating in space, a large
rectangular object loomed ahead of them, and Sam
slowed to one-third impulse.
 "Ready tractor beam," he ordered.
    "This is too easy," grumbled the Deltan. "Graviton
levels steady, tractor beam ready."
    Sam brought the ship to a full stop and used his
thrusters to reverse her heading. "All right, latch on."
    The Deltan plied her controls as Sam watched the
invisible bonds twist their cargo around and draw it
closer to the tail of their ship. "Tractor beam hold-
ing," reported the Deltan. "Levels steady."
    "I would love to take it to warp," said Sam, "but I
think that would surprise our trainers too much. I'm
setting course back to the dock."
    Reluctantly, Sam piloted the craft and its dummy
cargo back to the sphere they had left about ten
minutes earlier. The successful but rapid conclusion
of their test flight left him feeling oddly disappointed,
and he didn't want the mission to end.
    In some respects, this was the cruelest punishment
of all, he decided, waving a tantalizing glimpse of
freedom and normality under their noses before forc-
ing them back into their cage. He began to understand
how Enrak Grof had evolved into a collaborator. It
would be hard to give up feeling useful and respon-
sible-to go back to being a prisoner awaiting death.
    "We're docked," he announced to no one in partic-
ular. "Mission complete."
    He heard footsteps clomping up the ladder, and he
turned to see the rotund, beaming face of Enrak Grof.
"Excellent!" bellowed the Trill. "Very efficient pilot-
ing, Lieutenant, and excellent work with the tractor
beam, Commander."
    The Deltan scowled. "My baby sister could have
retrieved that cargo bin."
    "Baby steps are what we must take," said Grof,
"until we are allowed to take the big step."
    The Trill flashed Sam a look, and then he climbed
back down the ladder. There was something in his
choice of words and his expression which made Sam
wonder how hard he would resist an escape attempt.
When the moment came, it would be hard to predict
how any of them would react. It would either be
escape or death, so they would have to choose the
moment carefully. If Grof resisted, they would be
forced to deal with him themselves.
    There were more footsteps, and Joulesh poked his
web-eared head over the top of the hatch. "I wish to
convey the Founder's extreme pleasure with your
progress," said the Vorta. "Two more test flights, and
we believe you will be free to make history."
    Whose history? wondered Sam. Who will end up
writing it?
    Jean-Luc Picard materialized inside a narrow, low-
ceilinged tunnel that linked the subspace relay station
to the barracks of the permanent garrison. He was
glad that Letharna had warned him to duck, or his
head would have materialized inside a concrete ceil-
ing. More black-garbed guerrilla fighters were stand-
ing by in the transporter room of the Orb of Peace, in
case they were needed, but the initial assault team
consisted of himself, Letharna, and two young hu-
mans who looked Bajoran.
    He and his crew members were armed with phasers
set to heavy stun, although they hoped to slip in,
broadcast the alert, and escape without being de-
tected. Letharna was armed only with the isolinear
rod. In a crouch, she motioned them to follow her as
she scuttled down the dank tunnel toward a shadowy
doorway.
    Feeling unexpectedly nervous, Picard nodded to his
subordinates to follow her, while he brought up the
rear. The tunnel was intended for use during bad
weather, to move from one building to another, but it
had apparently fallen into disuse. According to Let-
harna, it wouldn't have sensors capable of detecting a
small force beaming down, but the tunnel was giving
Picard an uncomfortable feeling of claustrophobia.
He didn't have enough knowledge of the station to
take over the point from Letharna, so he had to trust
her. Trusting Cardassians, even dissidents, did not
come easily.
    He thought of another Cardassian he had trusted,
Joret Dal, a Federation operative who had infiltrated
the Cardassian military. Dal disappeared in a shuttle-
craft with Ensign Sito Jaxa, attempting the same thing
his team was trying to do--sneak into Cardassian
space. Was Dal found out, or was he a double agent?
They would never know. What a tragedy it had been
to lose Ensign Sito, recalled Picard. Putting people in
danger was his least favorite aspect of command,
especially when he lost the gamble, as he had with
Sito Jaxa.
    A moment later, the captain arrived at the solid
metal door where Letharna and his two officers were
gathered. Confronted by a card entry system, Lethar-
na drew a handful of Cardassian security cards from
her belt, and she intently fed them into the slot,
looking for one that would work.
    "They don't change the codes that often," she
whispered. "After all, their nearest neighbors are on
another continent, with no way to get here."
    While she worked on the door, Picard checked his
chronometer. He was worried that if the operation
took too long, their ship would move so far in its orbit
that it would be out of transporter range. Then the
ship would have to backtrack, possibly raising suspi-
cions.
    He was about to tell Letharna to hurry up, when the
lights on the door turned white and the lock clicked.
Letharna pushed the door open, and it squeaked on
rusty hinges. Stealthily they climbed a flight of metal
stairs.
    On the move again, Picard felt more confident.
When they got to the open door at the top of the
stairs, Letharna dropped into a crouch, and Picard
moved into position behind her, his Bajoran hand
phaser leveled for action. They crept into a large
bunker filled with electronic equipment, computer
stations, and the chirping sounds of a constant stream
of subspace radio traffic. The only window was a
narrow slit in the wall which afforded a partial view of
a giant parabolic antenna on the outer grounds.
Although it was night, the floodlights outside were as
bright as day.
    No one seemed to be present in the bunker, and
Picard felt a mixture of relief and dread. Just as
before, it was going too smoothly. He motioned to
one of his officers to remain by the door, and she did
so, crouching down on the upper landing. The other
officer followed Picard and Letharna as they crept
through rows of shelves, boxes, and electronic equip-
ment.
    Suddenly they heard voices mixed in with the
subspace chatter, and all three of them dropped to
their bellies and remained prone as two Cardassian
guards entered from an outside door. Laughing, the
guards seemed to share a joke as they checked the
readouts on a console by the door.
    Picard saw Letharna draw a long, curved knife from
her bosom and clutch it in a trembling hand. He
quickly tapped her leg. After getting her attention, he
shook his head vigorously, then he held up his phaser,
hoping she would get the idea. Letharna had a look of
bloodlust in her dark eyes which he had seen before in
Cardassians. Looking somewhat disappointed, she
nodded at him.
    A moment later, Picard felt a tap on his leg, and he
looked back at his young officer to see him urgently
pointing. The captain turned to see one of the Cardas-
sians strolling nonchalantly across the room, checking
various readouts as he went. He was coming closer.
    For the moment, they were hidden by stacks of
equipment, but there was no way of telling when the
Cardassian would walk down their aisle. There was
also no way of knowing how long these workers would
remain on duty in this bunker, and time was running
out.
    With both of his comrades staring at him, awaiting
a decision, Picard made one. He held up his phaser,
motioned to his officer, and pointed to the guard
making the rounds. Then he pointed to himself and
motioned to the guard farther away on the main
console. A sense of urgency gripped the captain when
he saw his target insert an isolinear rod into the
receptacle on the instrument panel.
    He jumped to his feet, seeing his comrades do the
same. Picard took quick but sure aim and unleashed a
red beam, which streaked across the room and struck
his target in the back. The Cardassian gasped and
slumped over his console, unconscious.
    Picard heard shuffling and crashing sounds, and he
turned to see that his officer had missed his target.
The second Cardassian scrambled down the aisle,
making a dash for the exit, and there was another
flash of movement to Picard's right.
    With a total disregard for her safety, Letharna
leaped over a computer console and pounced upon
the escaping guard. Picard watched in horror as she
neatly slit his throat with her curved blade. His body
slumped uselessly onto the floor, yet she continued to
shake him, looking annoyed that the life had so
quickly seeped out of him.
  "That's enough!" hissed Picard, grabbing her arm.
  "He was going for the alarm," she said defensively.
  "That could be," muttered Picard. As disappointed
as he was in her rash actions, he still needed Letharna,
so he swallowed the rest of his words.
    "I'm sorry, sir," said the officer who had missed his
target. The young man looked quite mortified.
    "Dispose of his body," said Picard. He took the
young man's phaser and set it to vaporize. The officer
nodded and went about his grim task.
    Letharna was already at the main console. She
grabbed the unconsious guard and tossed his body to
the floor; then she sat down at his place. Picard looked
nervously over her shoulder and studied the unfamil-
iar readouts.
 "Can you do it?" he asked.
    "Oh, yes, that was never in doubt." Letharna gave
him a sardonic grin, and for the first time Picard saw a
look of madness in her sunken eyes.
    "I have control of the whole station from here, the
whole security grid--the whole planet!" With confi-
dent fingers, Letharna worked the instruments. "Do
you know how long we've waited to get in here?"
    Picard tried to curb his anger and impatience. "The
message to the warships," he reminded her.
    She removed the rod from the console and replaced
it with the one given to them by the village leader.
"This should give us access to the interrupt codes.
Yes, there it is. You want them to receive a general
alert that will cause them to return to base?"
    "Yes," breathed Picard, worried that Letharna was
beginning to look upon this as an opportunity to right
as many wrongs as possible.
    As she entered commands, an urgent beeping
caused all of them to jump, and Picard looked accus-
ingly at the blinking communications panel. Letharna
kept working, a delighted grin on her face, and Picard
finally slapped the panel to silence it. A moment later,
a stream of spoken Cardassian erupted from the
panel, and he tapped it again to squelch that.
  "Hurry," he breathed.
    "Your part is done," she said. "Now I have to
collect as many new codes as I can, while we have this
chance. I'm going to fill up this rod."
    The man on the floor groaned, and Picard adjusted
his phaser to a heavier stun and drilled him at point-
blank range. A second later, they heard footsteps
running outside the bunker, and Picard knew it was
time to go.
    He looked around, took stock of the situation, and
tapped his comm badge. "Orb of Peace--five second
delay, then six to beam up." "Yes, sir,"
    Picard motioned to his officer stationed by the
tunnel, and she hustled over. He heard more footsteps
and voices outside, plus the comm panel began to
beep again. "It's time to go," he told Letharna.
    "One more minute," she growled, her fingers work-
ing furiously.
    Picard grabbed her precious isolinear rod and
yanked it from its slot. The screen went blank. En-
raged, Letharna screamed and jumped up with her
knife over her head, but Picard shot her in the
stomach. Stunned, she slumped to the floor, and
Picard caught her falling body just as their molecules
turned into a swarm of swirling fireflies. When the
Cardassians burst in a moment later, they found no
one.
    Captain Picard, two humans disguised as Bajorans,
and two unconsious Cardassians materialized in a
heap on the transporter pad of the Orb of Peace.
Picard staggered off, setting Letharna gently on the
floor and tucking her knife and her isolinear rod into
her belt. The blacked-garbed officers quickly sur-
rounded the fallen Cardassians. The wounded one
appeared to be dead.
    "Mr. La Forge," said Picard urgently, "what about
the warships?"
    The engineer grinned. "They lit out right on cue,
twenty seconds ago."
    "Accelerated orbit," ordered Picard. "I want Ro
and the rest of the team back here as soon as pos-
sible."
    La Forge carried out the command on his trans-
porter console, while the captain gazed down at
Letharna. "A remarkable woman--I wish I had time
to thank her properly. I'm glad she was willing to help
us. Beam her back down to the planet." "Like that, unconscious?"
    "Yes, we don't have time for good-byes." He looked
with distaste at the living Cardassian. "I hadn't in-
tended to take a prisoner, but now we have one.
Starfleet may want to interrogate him."
    "But, Captain," said La Forge, "we don't have a
brig. And no internal forcefields either."
    Picard turned to the security detail. "Put the pris-
oner in the captain's quarters. We haven't been using
it. Strip the furnishings, except for a mattress, and put
restraints on his legs. I want him to feel as if he's being
well treatedrebut watch him closely." "Yes, sir," they replied in unison.
    "Captain," said Geordi, "we're coming up on
transporter range."
 "Notify the away team and tell them to keep their
good-byes short," ordered Picard, striding toward the
door. "We're getting out of here."
    It was a peaceful evening aboard the Tag Garwal. At
least, it felt like evening, with both their test flights
over and almost everyone asleep. The bridge was
quiet, with only Sam Lavelie on duty. There was no
particlar reason why he had to be on duty, because
they were docked and safely cocooned within the
might of the Dominion. Their comrades were suffer-
ing only a short distance away, but no harm could
befall the chosen ones.
    That is, no harm could befall them until tomorrow,
when they set off on their mission. Perhaps that was
why Sam couldn't sleep, why he had to haunt the
bridge long after his shift was over. He wasn't worried
about their official mission, only the unofficial one.
He had promised his crew that they would try to
escape; it was their duty as prisoners of war. But how
could he pull it off?. Did he have the right to jeopar-
dize all their lives in what could well be a futile
gesture? Especially when they had a chance to survive
this hell.
Survival versus honor--it was a tough choice.
Sam was startled by heavy footsteps on the ladder,
and he knew before he turned around that it was
Grof. The big Trill lumbered up the steps, veered
toward him, and slumped into the tactical station.
  "Can't sleep?" asked Sam.
    Grof scowled. "No, of course I can't sleep with the
voices coming from the quarters next door. That
Deltan is up all night, entertaining her friend, En-
rique."
  "Oh, let them be," replied Sam, putting his hands
behind his back. "Sex is a kind of religious experience
to Deltans. Besides, weren't you ever young... and
about to die?"
    "We aren't going to die," muttered Grof through
clenched teeth. "The Dominion should have contin-
ued to keep us segregated by sex even here."
    "I guess they don't think of everything," said Sam
with a sly smile. "And if we manage to live through
this, it will be a miracle."
    "I wish you would stop saying that. Although it's
dangerous, there's no reason why we can't success-
fully complete this mission."
    Yes, there is, thought Sam, but he wasn't going to
tell Grof why. Besides, it was time to change the
subject. "Tell me about our destination, the Eye of
Talek."
     Grof shrugged. "It's the smallest black hole in
Cardassian space. Probably the oldest, too." "It's not an imploded star?"
    "No," answered Grof, "the Eye of Talek dates from
the formation of the universe. At least that's the
legend according to the Cardassians, and the cosmol-
ogy tends to bear it out. Had we tried to go with an
imploded star, the gravity would have been too great
for our operation. You know, a typical black hole
keeps the same mass it had when it was a star. As for
the small ones, like the Eye of Talek, and the huge
ones, like that monster at the center of our galaxyw
we can only guess where they came from."
    "Some people think it was a supreme being who
created the universe," said Sam. "What we call God.
Some people wouldn't like the idea of you creating an
artificial wormhole either. Don't you sometimes feel
like you're playing God?"
    "Yes," answered Grof proudly, "but it's necessary
to play God. Once we discovered that space and time
were curved, it was essential that we try to exploit the
intersections where they curve back upon themselves.
Where God failed was that he made wormholes
unstable. The Bajorans consider the Prophets to be
gods, simply because they stabilized a wormhole.
Imagine what kind of god I'll be after I stabilize
hundreds of wormholes, connecting every corner of
the galaxy?"
    Sam shook his head in amazement. "You have a big
enough ego for the job."
'TI1 take that as a compliment," said Grof smugly.
The lieutenant yawned and pointed to the sleeping
alcove off the rear of the bridge. "You're welcome to
bunk back there if you don't want to go below."
    Grof glowered at the injustice of it all, but he finally
acceded. "Thank you."
    The bear of a Trill rose to his feet and shuffled off;
then he looked back. "You know, Lavelie, this mission
depends entirely upon you. You're our leader. If you
crack--or you pull something stupid--we'll all go
down with you."
    "Not that you would put any pressure on me,"
muttered Sam.
    "I just want you to know how much is riding on
this. Our equalityre"
    "Equality?" Sam burst out laughing. "We're slaves,
Grofi Maybe someday a few of us could aspire to
attain the status of a Jem'Hadar or a Vorta. Well,
thanks but no thanks. There's only one race who
matters--the Founders. The rest of us are just the
help. If you try to be a god, they'll squash you like a
bug. The Founders are the gods around here."
    Grof opened his mouth and started to respond, but
Sam let him off the hook by jumping up and brushing
past him. Stomping as loudly as the burly Trill, he
headed down the ladder.
    In the corridor outside the captain's quarters, Ro
Laren compressed her lips in annoyance as she lis-
tened to the sounds of their prisoner kicking the
bulkhead. Even though he had restraints on his arms
and legs, he was still thrashing around like a fish in the
bottom of a boat. She couldn't understand why Cap-
tain Picard had put the Cardassian in their best cabin;
whatever impression he wished to make, it was obvi-
ously lost on the brute.
    The captain stood beside her, his jaw clenched. He
motioned to four armed officers behind him and said,
"Phasers set to heavy stun."
 "We can't keep him stunned all the time," said Ro.
 "I know. And I am open to other suggestions."
 "We could throw him out an airlock."
    The captain scowled. "That's not an option. If we
could only interrogate him, he might be useful."
    "Chances are good he doesn't know anything about
the artificial wormhole," said Ro, "stationed in the
middle of nowhere like he was. The Cardassians are
good at keeping secrets, even from each other. We
could jeopardize the mission if we take him with us
into the Badlands, and we'll be there soon."
    "Nonetheless, Captain," said Picard with determi-
nation. "It is always worthwhile to try talking." He
tapped his comm badge. "This is Boothby to the
captain's quarters. Please quiet down and listen to
me. You are our guest, and we would like to send you
home."
    But the ferocious thrashing went on, and it was now
centered on the door itself. He could wreak some
serious damage if left alone like this, thought Ro.
    Picard glanced at the crew assembled to help them,
and he picked the two stoutest officers. "You two,
hand your weapons to the others, and let's subdue
him by hand. Stand on either side of me. The rest of
you, be prepared to use your phasers."
    Ro hefted her Bajoran phaser rifle as Picard step-
ped closer to the door. After the two unarmed officers
took up their places on either side of him, the captain
reached a long arm across the bulkhead to touch the
wall panel and open the cabin door.
    As soon as the door slid open, the Cardassian head-
butted Picard sending him reeling into the bulkhead.
Then came a howl of indignation as the Cardassian
hopped out, his legs bound together and his hands
tied behind him. Lowering his shoulders, he bulled
into the two unarmed guards and knocked them back
on their heels. He hadn't looked so big lying on the
deck, but now he looked huge, with his thick neck
muscles bulging like the hood of a cobra.
"Surrender!" ordered Picard staggering to his feet.
"Die!" shrieked the Cardassian. He lowered his
head and charged toward the captain.
    Ro lifted her rifle, ready to protect the captain, but
he stepped gracefully away from the charge as he
brought his knee upward in a swift kick. He caught
the Cardassian in the nose, and he howled as his head
bounced. Then Picard grabbed him by the seat of his
pants and tossed him headfirst to the deck. That
should have subdued him, but the bloodied Cardas-
sian rolled onto his knees and tried to stand once
more.
 "Cease resistance!" warned Picard.
    "No!" Eyes bulging from their bony sockets, the
Cardassian flopped onto his back and tried to kick
Picard. Amidst his enraged grunts and groans, the
captain's comm badge sounded.
 "That's enough," he told Ro. "Stun him."
    She shot her weapon, and the red beam finally put
the wild prisoner back into blessed unconsciousness.
Only then did Picard answer his comm badge.
"Boothby here."
    "Sir, you'd better get to the bridge," said a nervous
voice. "We've picked up enemy ships on our tail,
closing fast!"

Chapter Eight

Ro FOLLOWED CAPTAIN PICARD onto the bridge of the
Orb of Peace. The relief personnel had an edgy look
about their eyes, and they didn't seem Bajoran any-
more, despite the nose ridges and earrings. Maybe it
was the human scent of their sweat.
    The man on the conn jumped to his feet when he
saw Picard.
    "Status?" barked Picard as Ro headed toward the
conn.
    "Three Jem'Hadar attack ships are on an intercept
course with us," reported the officer, stepping aside to
let the Bajoran take his seat. "They're going twice our
speed, and they'll be in weapons range in approxi-
mately thirty-six minutes."
 "And how much time to the Badlands?"
 "Approximately forty minutes," answered Ro.
 Picard scowled, and she could feel his frustration.
They were so close to reaching a hiding place, only
minutes away, but the hounds were running them
aground. Ro knew this feeling of dread--to run for
her life with time counting against her. "Evasive maneuvers?" she asked.
    "Not yet," replied the captain, tapping his finger to
his chin. "Steady as she goes."
    Ro knew that Picard was reviewing his options, but
they weren't many. They were no match for one
Jem'Hadar ship, let alone three, and they couldn't
explain making a mad dash to the Badlands. This
time, they probably wouldn't even get a chance to talk
to the enemy before the attack began.
    "They must have us on scanners," said Ro. "I'm
sure they're watching every move we make. Evasive
maneuvers might work against bigger ships, but not
against these. The Jem'Hadar attack ships are the
most maneuverable vessels we've ever seen."
    "The Orb of Peace has two operational escape pods.
Let's put our Cardassian friend into one of those pods
and launch him toward a planet. If they're watching
us, they'll have to stop to investigate, especially after
they scan and find a Cardassian on board," said
Picard.
    Ro tugged thoughtfully on her earring. "We'll have
to come out of warp, which will cost us some time,
but it will be worth it."
    "Captain," said the officer on ops, "may I remind
you that we need both of those escape pods to
evacuate the ship's crew. If we're missing one, eight
crew members cannot evacuate."
    The captain gazed at Ro, and the Bajoran knew
from his determined expression that they were still on
the same frequency. This mission would either result
in success or death, perhaps both, so there was no
point in planning for survival in Cardassian space.
When Picard armed the self-destruct sequence, they
had both known it would be all or nothing. -
    Will Riker had been right--this was a suicide
mission.
    Picard leaned over her. "Attend to it, Ro. Ready
escape pod one, and put the prisoner into it. Tie him
down securely."
 "Don't worry about that," she assured the captain.
    A short while later, a snarling Cardassian strapped
to a vertical seat tried to spit in Ro's face, but she
jerked away just in time. He ended up drooling on his
angular chin and staring hatefully at her. She didn't
want to sink to his level, but she lifted a spool of
metal-coated tape and waved it in his face. "I could
shut you up."
    "You... you are cowards!" sputtered the prisoner.
"Terrorists!" He gasped when a muscular officer tug-
ged sharply on the belt stretching across his chest.
    Because the cramped sphere was designed to fly
automatically toward an inhabited planet and make
an atmospheric reentry, anyone aboard would have to
be strapped in his seat. The Cardassian was simply
strapped in more securely than usual, with his hands
and legs bound together with metal tape and strips.
    "We're letting you go," said Ro, "so I don't know
why you're so angry with us."
    "Bajorans!" he hissed. "We should have killed you
all!"
    "You tried," said Ro evenly. "In fact, if our roles
were reversed, I'm sure you would just toss my body
out an airlock. But we've treated you like a gul. We
put you up in the captain's quarters, and now we're
sacrificing this whole escape pod just to let you go
free. You ought to be grateful."
    The Cardassian growled and tried to twist out of his
bonds, but they held tightly. Ro had made sure to get
the same two officers who had tried to subdue him
earlier; they had scores of their own to settle. She
wanted to ask him about the artificial wormhole, and
she would have, if they were going to slit his throat
instead of let him go. But asking him about the
wormhole would reveal their mission, and it probably
wouldn't gamer them any information.
    In fact, maybe this was a good time to impart some
false intelligence. "We're neutral, you know," ex-
plained Ro. "We're not interested in your stupid war
with the Federation. We have some terrorists still
hiding out in the Badlands, and we're only trying to
rescue them. So if you leave us alone, we'll finish our
mission and go home. You'll never know we were
here."
    'Tll know, because you've ruined my career!"
wailed the Cardassian. "Why don't you just kill me?
After failing to protect the station and being kid-
napped, I'll be lucky not to be sent to a work camp!"
    "These are dangerous times," replied Ro. She
looked at her comrades, and they nodded, signaling
they were through. "Sorry for the inconvenience.
Have a nice flight."
    Ro and the two officers ducked through the hatch,
which she secured herself. Then she cleared the air-
lock and listened to the air escape with a hiss. Like
most escape pods, this one was jettisoned into space
by an array of tiny thrusters, and its flight was totally
automated. All that was needed was to enter the
 coordinates of the destination planet, hit the launch
 button, and hope for the best.
     She tapped her comm badge. "Ro to bridge. Our
 passenger is secure in escape pod one."
     "Good," answered Picard crisply. "We're working
 on his itinerary. We've got several possibilities, but we
 need to find a planet which will allow us to jump out
 of warp and back quickly. We can enter the coordi-
 nates from here, so you can return to the bridge."
   "Yes, sir."
    A minute later, Ro stood on the bridge, explaining
to the captain how she had told the prisoner they were
on a simple rescue mission to the Badlands.
  "Do you think he believed it?" asked Picard.
    "That's hard to say," answered Ro. "He was mostly
upset that we wrecked his career."
    "Coming within range of H-574," announced the
conn. "Optimal launch window in forty seconds."
    Picard turned to tactical and asked, "How far are
we from our pursuers?"
    "At present speed and course, we will make contact
in approximately twenty minutes."
    "Come out of warp, half-impulse," ordered Picard,
"and prepare to launch escape pod one."
"Yes, sir," answered three voices at once.
Stepping out of the way, Ro watched the viewscreen
as the Orb of Peace slowed down just long enough to
jetrison the escape pod. The tiny sphere shot into
space like an ancient musket ball and swerved toward
a nearby planet covered with shimmering blue water
and emerald islands, sparkling in the sun. The Car-
dassians had all these beautiful planets, thought Ro,
and they begrudged the Maquis even one little rock.
"Escape pod on course," reported the officer on
ops.
    "Set course for the Badlands, maximum warp,"
ordered Picard. "Engage."
    Once again, they were streaking through space at an
incredible speed that was faster than light but wasn't
faster than the three Jem'Hadar attack craft. There
was silence on the bridge and little to discuss until
they saw how their pursuers responded to the escape
pod. Ro wondered whether they would take the bait,
and if so, how many of them would be delayed.
    When the tactical officer spoke, her voice betrayed
the uncertain nature of the news: "Captain, one of the
Jem'Hadar ships has broken off in pursuit of the
escape pod. The other two remain on an intercept
course with us. Contact in approximately twelve
minutes."
    Picard glanced at Ro. "That's about the best we
could expect. Any more ideas on how to even the
odds?"
    "Well," answered the Bajoran, "there's an old trick
we used to use on Starfleet. When you have a small
craft traveling at warp speed, it's almost impossible to
distinguish it on long-range scans from a photon
torpedo at warp speed, especially if you set it for
indefinite distance and no detonation."
    Picard scratched his chin, and a smile of apprecia-
tion crept across his face. "You mean, use torpedoes
as decoys?"
    "Yes. We could launch two torpedoes, one of them
on the course we're traveling now, and the second one
on another likely course to the Badlands. We'll pick a
third course and hope they go after the two decoys."
    "We'll have to match speed exactly," said Picard,
sounding excited--or concerned, it was hard to tell.
He hovered over the tactical station. "Do you under-
stand what Captain Ro is proposing?"
    "Yes, sir," answered the officer, plying her console.
"I'm configuring torpedoes now: one for our exact
heading and one for ten degrees to port. They're set
for no target, indefinite distance, no detonation, and
warp speed matching ours."
    "Right, stand by." Picard stepped across the
cramped bridge to the conn. "Set course ten degrees
to starboard. We'll enter the Badlands at a different
place than we planned, but that can't be helped. We'll
slow our warp speed by point-zero-five to launch
torpedoes, then change course and resume maximum
warp."
    "Yes, sir," said the pilot. He glanced at Ro and gave
her a grateful smile. Although she hadn't saved his life
yet, the young man was hopeful that she would.
    "I should point out that we will be reduced to four
torpedoes," said the tactical officer.
    "Acknowledged." If it pained the captain to use his
torpedoes for subterfuge instead of a real attack, he
didn't show it.
 "Course changes laid in," reported the conn.
    With a glance at Ro, Picard brought his hand down.
"Reduce speed."
 "Speed reduced," echoed the conn.
 "Fire!"
 "Torpedoes away," announced tactical.
    "Changing course," said the conn. "Resuming
speed."
    Now it was time to wait again, to see if the
Jem'Hadar fell for the parlor trick. A tense silence fell
over the bridge, and it wasn't assuaged by the fact that
they could see the Badlands on the viewscreen, shim-
mering in the distance. Although the forbidding cloud
appeared relatively close, it was a long way in an
underpowered Bajoran transport chased by swift
fighters.
    "This is a trick I hadn't heard of before," said Pi-
card conversationally. "And we've been studying Ma-
quis tactics very closely the last few months."
    "You need a small ship," answered Ro. "I'm wor-
ried that this one may be too large."
    "It's worth a try," said Picard. "If they change
course at all to chase the decoys, we'll pick up val-
uable minutes."
    With everyone staring intently at their readouts or
the viewscreen, the gasp of the tactical officer made
them jump. Ro whirled around to see her triumphant
grin. "Both Jem'Hadar vessels are following the decoy
on our old course."
    She stared intently at her instruments, and every-
one else stared intently at her. After a minute that
seemed like a day, the implants over her nose wrin-
kled into a frown. "Now one attack ship has changed
course and is in pursuit of us. They'll be in weapons
range in eight minutes."
 "How long to the Badlands?"
 "Eleven minutes."
    "All right, we're down to one," said Picard. "That
is certainly much better odds than I expected. Main-
tain course and speed." "Yes, sir."
    Now it was Ro's turn to hover over the conn
station. "Listen, the Badlands are a plasma dust
cloud, and instruments are completely useless there.
So the sooner we reach it, the better. Like most dust
clouds, it has fingers and tendrils which stretch into
surrounding space. If we can find a tendril, maybe we
can cut our time getting there."
    Picard walked to the viewscreen and studied the
octopus-like cloud that loomed in front of them. He
pointed to a massive finger of dust shaped like a
horse's head. "There--that looks promising."
    "IfI change course," said the conn, "we could reach
it maybe two minutes sooner. But we wouldn't have
time to scan the area before we entered."
    "We don't have much choice." Picard turned back
to Tactical. "What's the position of the second craft?"
    "They've broken off pursuit of the decoy," an-
swered the young woman, not hiding her disappoint-
ment. "They're on an intercept course, but they won't
reach us in time. Only the first one is a threat."
    "Change course, most direct route," ordered Pi-
card.
 "Yes, sir. Course laid in."
    The captain tapped his comm badge. "Bridge to
Engineering. Geordi, we need you to boost our warp
speed--right now. Any increase would help."
    "We're in the red zone now, Captain," replied the
engineer, "but I can shut down the safety overrides
and coax a bit more out of her." "Make it so."
    "Captain," interrupted the woman on tactical,
"they're sending a message, demanding that we stop
and surrender. The message is repeating on all fre-
quencies."
 "They don't want to talk," said Ro.
    "Ignore it," replied Picard. "How many of our
torpedoes are aft-mounted?"
  "Only two."
    Two or twenty, it didn't matter, thought Ro, be-
cause the Orb of?eace wasn't a warship. If they didn't
make the Badlands in time to hide, the Jem'Hadar
would pick them apart.
    "Lead ship has launched a torpedo," cut in the
tactical officer, surprise in her voice. "But they won't
be in optimal range for several minutes."
    "But their torpedo will reach us a few seconds
before they do," said Picard. "We're both playing for
seconds now. Conn, maintain course and speed, but
be ready to go to evasive maneuvers."
    "We can't use our standard patterns," replied the
officer.
    "Devise something simple but effective, based on
the alpha pattern, but keep us headed toward that
tendril."
    They could see it clearly now on the viewscreen--
the daunting cloud of dust and debris which rose over
the darker body of the Badlands like a horse's head.
The colors kept shifting from a murky brown to a
golden orange to a vibrant magenta, as plasma storms
glimmered behind the clouds like lightning in a far-off
thunderstorm.
    Ro couldn't help but to remember all the times she
had made this mad dash to the Badlands, thinking
each time would be her last. Unfortunately, she had
never been in a vessel so ill equipped for fighting. Ro
also remembered all the ships that had entered that
forbidding region but had not come out. Brave com-
rades, deserving Cardassians, bumbling Starfleet--
the plasma storms and anomalies played no favorites.
Decrepit shuttlecraft or great starships, when the
Badlands claimed them they were gone.
    The Cardassians and Starfleet had developed a
healthy fear of the massive cloud, but Ro had no idea
how seriously the Jem'Hadar took the legends. With
their vaunted superiority, they might think they were
immune to the sinister lure of the Badlands. Perhaps
they would pursue them into the heart of it, although
that wouldn't be easy once their instruments deserted
them.
    Thatg it! thought Ro as a shiver gripped her spine.
We have to fool their instruments now!
    "Contact with torpedo in one minute," reported
the officer on tactical.
    "Ready aft torpedoes," said the captain grimly.
"Target our first one on their torpedo and the second
one on the lead ship." "Yes, sir."
    In the confines of the small bridge, Ro was already
at Picard's back. "Sir, if we detonate both of our
torpedoes directly behind us, we can blow up the
torpedo and disrupt their sensors."
    "That will only last a few seconds," said Picard
thoughtfully, "but we can go to evasive maneuvers
right after."
    "Captain," insisted tactical, "contact in thirty sec-
onds."
    He strode toward the young woman. "Target both
torpedoes on the lead craft, but detonate two seconds
after launch. Conn, go to evasive maneuvers on my
mark."
  "Yes, sir," came the tense replies.
  "Launch when ready."
  "Torpedoes away!" barked the tactical officer.
    Silently, Ro counted to herself, one thousand one,
one thousand two.
  "Mark," said Picard, pointing at the conn.
    While the pilot worked his console, Ro tried to
imagine the brilliant light, like a miniature nova, as
the two photon torpedoes exploded inside a warp
corridor. That would make a very large blip on their
pursuers' scanners, not to mention sending their
torpedo haywire. For several seconds, the Orb of Peace
would be invisible. When they found her again, they
would have to change course, but which course? If the
pilot were good, he could send them the wrong way
again, buying the transport a few more seconds. She
fought the temptation to hover behind him and watch
what he was doing.
    "They're firing more torpedoes," said tactical.
"Phasers, too. But we're out of phaser range."
    "They're desperate," said Picard. "We're losing
them."
    The viewscreen filled with an ominous cloud of
debris and dust--the scene of some cosmic cataclysm
and the resting place of countless ships. The twinkling
of plasma storms in the swirls looked like some exotic
lighting in a smoke-filled nightclub.
"I'm losing instrumentation," said the conn.
Picard motioned for Ro to take over for the young
man, who bolted to his feet. "Good flying," said Ro as
she took his seat.
    "Thank you." Beaming, the young man shuffled
behind Captain Picard.
    "Keep the viewscreen on as long as possible,"
ordered Ro. "And keep adjusting to correct for
static."
 "Aye, sir," answered the officer on ops.
 "They're closing on us," warned Tactical.
 "That's all right. By now, they're losing sensors and
instrumentation, too. I'm corning out of warp--to
full impulse. Shields up!"
    "Shields are up," echoed the woman on tactical,
"but I've lost the Jem'Hadar! They're nowhere to be
seen."
    "Keep looking," said Ro, knowing it was useless;
but it would keep her busy. Flying through the Bad-
lands was not for the faint of heart, especially with the
enemy hot on your tail and no reconnaissance ahead
of you. If they hit a major plasma storm, nothing in
the universe could save them.
    The scene on the viewscreen changed very little as
the boxy transport plowed into the thick of the
plasma-charged cloud. She couldn't see the sleek
attack ship with its pulsing blue lights, but she knew it
had followed her in.
    Without slowing speed, Ro piloted them through
the thickets of smoke and mist, which flowed past on
the viewscreen like some psychotropically induced
dream, She tried to navigate the pockets of calm,
avoiding the plasma streaks, which lit up the cloud
like electrical impulses shooting across a nerve end-
ing. Ro didn't mention to her comrades that at any
moment they could get struck by plasma and evapo-
rate-or whatever ships did when they disappeared
in here. Ideally, she would pick her way through this
morass at one-quarter impulse, but there wasn't any-
thing ideal about this mission.
    The viewscreen crackled with streaks of static, and
she slowed to half impulse. She had to find their
pursuer while there was still a chance.
 "Ops, give me a view from aft," she ordered.
 "Want a split screen?" asked the man.
 "No, give me what I ask for," demanded Ro.
"Flying like this through the Badlands requires more
luck than sight."
    Stiffening his back, the ops officer changed the view
to the aft lens. It was hardly any different than the
view from the front, except that their wake was like a
tunnel in the colorful dust. She saw a small beam of
light in the distance, and at first she thought it was
another bolt of plasma--until the Orb of Peace shud-
dered from a sudden impact.
    "Torpedo," said Tactical. "I'm not sure it hit us--
no damage."
    "It was discharged by the plasma," said Ro.
"They'll quickly figure out they'll have to use phasers,
or whatever kind of beamed weapons they have. Front
view."
    The ops officer obeyed her order instantly, showing
Ro the thickening, stringy fog of the Badlands, shot
through with brilliant streaks of plasma. For the first
time, Ro set course for the brightest storm in the area
and increased speed to full impulse.
    "You are aware, I take it, that we are heading into
the storm?" asked Picard, controlled concern audible
in his voice. Just how far does he trust me? Ro
wondered.
    "I'm coming about now, before we reach it." Ro
eased the transport into a steep turn, finding that the
craft was surprisingly easy to handle. At least her
people built simplicity and elegance into all their
creations.
    "You're hoping to draw their fire," said Picard,
comprehension dawning on his face.
    She squinted into the filmy swirls of dust and
debris, searching for their nemesis. When she finally
spotted the Jem'Hadar ship, they were almost nose to
nose, streaking toward each other at speeds too fast
for the limited visibility. Ro ignored the gasps behind
her as she dropped the transport into a steep dive. In
the same instant, the warship fired a deadly beam that
streaked through the dust, barely missing the trans-
port.
    Instead the phaser beam struck a bolt of plasma in
the storm that Ro had lured them into. The plasma
rippled along its new path and hit the Jem'Hadar
attack ship like an avenging bolt of lightning. Ro
turned her ship around just in time to see the sleek
vessel light up like a fluorescent bulb and then burst
into a billion shards of shimmering crystal.
    When the gasps quieted, Picard said hoarsely,
"Well done."
    Ro sighed and brought the craft to a complete halt.
She was finally able to rub her eyes and brush the hair
off her clammy forehead.
    "For once," she said, "it was good to fight a
Jem'Hadar ship. I couldn't have pulled that trick on a
Cardassian."
    "I can truthfully say, we would not have made it
without you," answered Picard. The faces of the
young crew beamed at her with relief and respect, and
they began to look Bajoran again. Maybe they would
hop to when obeying her orders next time.
"So we're here," she declared. "What now?"
"First of all, we have to see if the artificial worm-
hole exists," answered Picard. "We have to know if
it's there. Data said they need a verteron collider of
large size, so we should be able to find it."
    He wrinkled his artificial nose ridges. "Of course,
that means we have to cross the entire Badlands,
without knowing where it is on the other side. I wish
we could get some intelligence first. I understand that
the Badlands are inhabited by people who like their
privacy, for one reason or another, and they're willing
to risk the plasma storms."
    "There is a place--" mused Ro, turning back to her
console. "I wonder if it's still there? I'll get an approx-
imate fix from our last known position, and we'll use
dead reckoning from there. Settle back, and let me
take you on a tour of the Badlands."
    On the shuttlecraft Cook, Data put in another day
of work without relief, staring at instruments as he
drifted through an asteroid belt for cover. He would
not have thought to complain; in fact, Data believed
his time had been remarkably well spent. He had
located the Orb of Peace on long-range scanners and
had followed her all the way until her disappearance
in the Badlands, which was to be expected. He had
also seen the transport somehow manage to shake
four enemy ships, with a fifth one still in pursuit.
    Had his emotion chip been turned on, the android
would have been extremely apprehensive about the
mad chase he had witnessed from afar. Now it was
simply a successful incursion into Cardassian space,
unless the fifth ship had destroyed them. But from
what he knew of the Badlands, Data considered it far
more likely that the plasma storms would destroy
them.
    His vigilance was far from over, as now he planned
to vacate the asteroid belt and sneak even closer to
Cardassian space. From peripheral scans, Data had
concluded that the fighting had moved on from this
sector, leaving him some room to maneuver. For as
many days and weeks as it took, he would scan the
Badlands, looking for a craft which could be the Orb
of Peace. At the same time, he would be looking for
the Enterprise to rendezvous with him. Since they
were currently overdue, there was a very good chance
they had been destroyed as well.
    No, concluded Data, he had no intentions of turn-
ing on his emotion chip.

Chapter Nine

AT LONG LAST, THE TAG GARWAL was cruising through
space under the command of Federation prisoners,
with orders to stay out until her mission was accom-
plished, or they were all killed. Despite the dire
circumstances, Sam Lavelle felt almost giddy as he
stood on the bridge and watched the endless expanse
of stars stream past. He could easily forget the war,
the Dominion, the artificial wormhole, and every-
thing else in the mistaken belief that he was free to
explore this dark infinity. Space was oblivious of their
petty quarrels; it always looked the same--endless,
vast, imponderable.
    For a taste of realism, Sam put the aft view on the
screen. Now he could see the Jem'Hadar attack ship
keeping a respectful but watchful distance behind
them. The craft was smaller than theirs, but Sam
knew it superior in every other way. The tanker
had decent shields but no weapons, whereas the
Jem'Hadar craft was a flying arsenal with no other
purpose but to destroy enemy vessels. Their shadow
was friendly at the moment, but Sam had no doubts
that the Jem'Hadar would destroy them with all
aboard at the slightest provocation.
    "Their relative distance has not changed in twelve
hours," observed Taurik, seated at the conn.
    "I know," replied Sam. "I didn't expect them to be
gone."
"Staring at them will not change the situation."
"I know!" groaned Sam. Vulcans! Sometimes their
literal nature drove him crazy. Of course, it made no
sense to stand here and watch the Jem'Hadar ship,
hoping it would go away, but that was precisely the
sort of thing humans did.
    How could he make it go away? That was the
question. Without their shadow, they were in a good
position to make an escape and get back to Federation
space. The Tag Garwal was a common type of supply
ship found everywhere in Cardassian space, and she
would typically be traveling alone. Nobody would pay
any attention to them.
    He looked around the bridge. As usual, only he and
Taurik were on duty, with Grof and the rest of the
crew below, fretting over their tractor beams, trans-
porters, mining probes, and recombination chambers.
    Sam tapped the ops console and put the starscape
back on view, then he lowered his voice to ask Taurik,
"How can we get away from that Jem'Hadar ship?"
    The Vulcan raised an eyebrow. "I hope you are
asking in the theoretical sense, because eluding them
would be virutally impossible."
 "Impossible?" repeated Sam, not liking the taste of
the word in his mouth. "Then we just carry out this
operation and put them closer to victory? We don't
even try to escape?"
    "I did not say that," answered Taurik, "only that
escape from that Jem'Hadar attack ship is virtually
impossible. We have no weapons, and they are well
armed and three times faster than us."
    Sam bent down and whispered into the Vulcan's
pointed ear, "Could we beam over to their ship? We
have a larger crew--we could take them in hand-to-
hand combat." Taurik raised an eyebrow. Sam knew
the Vulcan was calculating the abysmal odds of such a
fight.
    "We could if only they lowered their shields and
came within transporter range, neither of which they
appear inclined to do."
    "Then we'll have to make them do it," said Sam
determinedly. He heard footsteps on the ladder, and
he asked loudly, "How much longer to the Eye of
Talek?"
    "Twelve more hours. We are approximately halfway
there."
    "Excellent!" barked the voice of Enrak Grof as he
lumbered out of the hatch and strode toward them.
He was followed up the ladder by Enrique, the lucky
material handler.
    "Is the ship handling well?" asked Grof expan-
sively, as if this were his private yacht.
    "Fine," answered Sam with false cheer. "It feels
good to be out in space again."
    "I would imagine," Grof replied. "I would hate to
be separated from my work for a lengthy period."
    Sam bit his tongue and didn't say any of the several
nasty things that occurred to him. Despite everything
he had seen and heard, Grof was steadfastly deter-
mined to get the Corzanium and return to the Domin-
ion. The war, the slave-labor camps, the subjugation
of the Federation--these were all annoying side is-
sues to the important matters of Grotes wormhole and
his place in history.
    Sam once again decided not to trust the Trill with
any knowledge of their escape plan, when they had
one. Grotes only purpose was to provide cover until
they were ready to make their move. Sam had to make
sure they got a realistic opportunity to sabotage the
mission and escape. He hated to think about killing
Grof with his own hands, but he would if he had to.
    The professor motioned toward the glimmering
starscape ahead of them. "Even without this worm-
hole business, we are making history on our little
mission. No other operation has ever succeeded in
extracting more than a few cubic centimeters of
Corzanium from a black hole, and we're going to
mine fifty cubic meters of the stuff."
    "If we live long enough," added Taurik. "There are
logical reasons why no one has been successful. Shall I
list them?"
    "No, thank you," muttered Grof. "Nobody has
ever had as good a reason as ours, or else they would
have done it before. All the models say it's possible
with standard equipment. Right, Enrique?"
     But the material handler was staring off into space
with a moonstruck expression on his face. "Right, Enrique?" asked Grof testily.
    "Whatever you say, boss," replied the avuncular
human. "I'd better get below and recheck those
calibrations." Whistling cheerfully, the lithe man
dropped into the hatch and was gone.
    Grof scowled and opened his mouth undoubtedly
to offer another tiresome prudish opinion, Sam
thought. He cut the Trill off before the tirade even
began.
    "Oh, let him be," said Sam. "We've got twelve more
hours before we have to get serious. The important
thing is not to get overconfident or careless. No one's
ever been sucked into a black hole and lived."
    "Or ever been found again, except for some minute
trace particles," added Taurik.
    "The Eye of Talek is perfect for this operation,"
insisted Grof. "We've got nothing like it in the Feder-
ation. But I agree with you, Sam--we have to be
careful. You just keep reminding me of that, because I
do have a tendency to be overconfident."
    Sam blinked at this outburst of humility. "I'11
remember that, Grof."
    The Trill nodded and looked uncomfortable for a
moment, as if he wanted to be accepted into their
circle but knew he never would be. "See you at chow!"
called Grof, heading for the hatch.
    "Yeah, at chow." Sam waved lazily and turned his
attention to the viewscreen. Once the footsteps had
stopped clomping down the ladder, Sam switched the
view back to the sleek Jem'Hadar ship on their tail.
Taurik would never agree, but maybe staring at it
would give him an idea on how to lure it close enough
to board it and capture it.
    At times during their tense but sluggish cruise
through the Badlands, Picard wanted to ask Ro if she
really knew where they were going. He admired her
ability to navigate by dead reckoning, only getting her
bearings on rare occasions when they found a bubble,
as she called them, where the dust and interference
were thin enough to take sensor readings. He could
tell that Ro was tempted to remain awhile in the
relative safety of the bubbles, but she knew they had
to push on.
    Once, it seemed, they came very close to another
ship, but they passed so quickly in the surreal fog that
it was impossible to tell for sure what it was. Maybe it
was only a plasma storm, thought Picard. Perhaps
they were hallucinating. The Badlands struck him as
the kind of place where a person's imagination and
fear might get the better of him.
    So dense was the dust and debris in some stretches
that Picard felt as if he were on a submarine floating
through a sea of mud. The shields took a beating, but
the transport held together and somehow avoided the
ubiquitous bursts of plasma.
    Through all of this, Ro piloted the craft in a
businesslike calm, talking very little and only relin-
quishing the conn for a few moments. Picard had
little to do but watch the bizarre light show.
    After hours and hours, Ro began to peer intently at
the viewscreen, and Picard began to watch more
closely, too. He saw it at the same moment she did--
something black and ominous that sat like a gigantic
spider in the middle of a vast neon web.
     "There!" she said excitedly, pointing toward the
viewscreen. The relief in her voice surprised Picard.
  "What is it?" he asked.
    "I think it started life as a space station," answered
Ro. "Don't ask me whose, because it's ancient. I don't
know how anyone thought they could build a station
that would survive in this mess, although maybe it
was here before the cloud. The Maquis call it the 'OK
Corral.'"
    Picard smiled. "It seems fitting that the Badlands
should have a famous corral."
    "And that's what it's used for," added Ro, cau-
tiously steering them closer. "It's been hit so many
times over the years by the plasma blasts that it's
developed a repulsion effect--now the plasma actu-
ally stays away. The hull is nothing but a black hulk--
you can't even tell what it's made out of."
    "It sounds fascinating." Picard stared with interest
at the spidery structure hanging in the magenta-
brown haze. When it was illuminated by a far-off
streak of plasma, be could see that the "legs" of the
spider were broken spokes coming from a central hub.
In its prime, this station must have been bigger than
Deep Space Nine, and it was built in a similar
gyroscopic design. Despite its familiar traits, the OK
Corral seemed otherworldly, perfectly suited to its
bizarre surroundings.
    Ro circled the blackened ruin from a respectful
distance, as if she were afraid something was going to
pop out. Close up, the structure looked more like a
lopsided, pitted asteroid than a creation of civilized
beings; but its shape and symmetry were too exact to
be accidental. It reminded Picard of an ancient burial
mound he had seen in North America--beaten into
something natural by the elements yet unmistakably a
work of intelligence and artistry.
    Without warning, they were jarred by a sudden
blast, and Picard had to grab Ro's chair to remain
upright. "What was that? Plasma burst?"
 Ro scowled. "More like a photon torpedo."
    "She's right," agreed the tactical officer. "No dam-
age."
    "A warning shot," added Ro grimly. "But we're not
going to be warned off. We've got as much right here
as anybody else. Still, keep those shields up."
    Picard was about to ask where the shot had come
from when a burst of plasma reflected off something
silvery lurking within the hulk of the old station. As
they continued to circle the OK Corral, the captain
spotted a gaping crater that was big enough for the
Enterprise to fly through. It looked as if something
had taken a huge bite out of the central hub, leaving a
blackened, hollow wreck. Sure enough, docked inside
this unlikely safe harbor were two Ferengi marauders;
they looked like sleek, bronze horseshoe crabs.
  "Ro," said Picard, pointing at the viewscreen.
    "I see them," she answered with a smile. "The old
neighborhood is still active. They're most likely pi-
rates and smugglers, so let's keep on our guard.
Tactical, all auxiliary power to shields."
    "May I remind you," said the woman on Tactical,
"we're down to two torpedoes."
    "They won't do us much good, anyway," answered
Ro. "When they see how small we are--and that
we're Bajoran--maybe they'll let us in." "If they don't?" asked Picard.
    "Then we'll look for friendlier pirates and smug-
glers. A good friend of mine used to say that you don't
meet any choirboys in the Badlands." When Ro
mentioned her friend, her eyes got a faraway look, and
Picard glimpsed the grief she had been hauling with
her.
    Acting as if the Orb of Peace were the equal of the
two battle-scarred warships, Ro Laren swept through
the crater and into their midst. Picard half-expected
the Ferengi to rake them with withering phaser fire;
then he realized that these ships were not going to risk
destroying their refuge. He had seen enough of the
Badlands to know that safe places to stop were few
and far between.
    Now that they were inside the hollowed-out ruins
of the main hub, the captain marveled at the bizarre
sights that surrounded them. In addition to the two
garish warships, he could see a cross section of the
devastated space station, complete with decks, cham-
bers, and bays; it all looked like a massive burnt
honeycomb. He made a pact with himself that if he
were ever free to travel Cardassian space--with no
war--he would come back to the OK Corral and
investigate this wondrous artifact.
    "Have we got anything to trade for information?"
asked Ro.
 "Perhaps some tetralubisol," Picard suggested.
     Ro shrugged. "I guess that's worth a try. I'm going
to hail them. Ops, let's dim the lights." "Yes, sir."
    "Remember," said the captain, "they're smugglers
and pirates."
    "And fellow neutrals." Ro stood up and nodded to
Tactical.
    "Hailing frequencies open," reported the young
woman on duty.
    "Greetings. This is Captain Ro Laren of the Orb of
Peace, from Bajor. We were forced off course by some
unusual circumstances, and we hope you don't mind
if we stopre"
    "Quiet!" growled a voice, and the viewscreen
popped on, showing a flurry of moving figures, most
of them naked. They were clearly in the master
stateroom of the Ferengi captain, because his wives
were scurrying to get out of the way. But it was a
muscular, unclothed Orion male who stepped into
their view. The green-skinned humanoid grabbed a
shimmering blue robe and pulled it around his thick
body; then he motioned to the unseen shadows.
    "Shek, get out here!" bellowed the Orion. His rough
voice seemed to have only one volume--loud.
    Accompanied by giggles and women straightening
his clothes, a scrawny Ferengi strolled toward them
from the shadows. He looked a bit taller and more fit
than the typical Ferengi, although he was still dwarfed
by the big Orion.
    With a snaggletoothed grin, the Ferengi asked
them, "What is this? A Bajoran vessel sneaking
around Cardassian space--in the middle of a war7
Are you lost? Or crazy?"
    The muscular Orion glared suspiciously at her.
"Nobody knows about this place... nobody who's
still alive."
    Ro put her hands on her hips and sighed. "Okay,
we're really trying to find some terrorists we left here.
We think they're still fighting the war with Cardassia
and don't know that we're neutral. This used to be a
place we could find them."
    The Orion and the Ferengi looked at one another,
and Picard thought they would buy it--until the
Orion turned and shook his fist at them. "I say we loot
their ship! You have ten seconds to surrender!"
    "Wait a minute, Rolf," said Shek, patting his large
partner on the shoulder. "You never dispose of mer-
chandise until you find out its worth. They have
exhibited considerable skill and knowledge just get-
ting here. Unless I am a worse judge of appearance
than usual, they have nothing of value aboard their
ship. Their ship isn't worth anything either. I know. I
tried to sell one of those once--took a real loss. Had
to sell it to the Maquis!"
    The Orion scratched his chin and leered at her. "!
know a place where they pay dearly for young Bajoran
females. It's not far from here either."
    "We're not young," scoffed Ro. "We're all old and
haggard, like me." She reached out and pulled Picard
into their view. "See, this is my first officer. He's
typical of this crew. This is a humanitarian mission to
rescue some of our warriors who no longer need to
fight. Do you think somebody young and beautiful
would take a job like this?"
    Shek laughed. "I like her. Let's have dinner with
her. Anyone who can find her way here has got to have
some interesting stories."
    The toothsome Ferengi wiggled his finger at her.
"We'll beam you over in one hour--you and your first
officer. Unarmed, please."
    "Thank you," said Ro evenly. "We accept your
invitation."
    The screen went dark, and Ro's tense shoulder
blades finally dropped into their regular position. She
looked so worn, Picard thought as he placed a tenta-
tive, but he hoped comforting, hand on her shoulder.
    "It's worth the risk," he said gently. Ro glanced
back at him with a rare glint of insecurity in her dark
eyes.
    "Those are fast ships out there," Picard continued,
pointing to the two bronze marauders filling the
viewscreen. "They can outrun Jem'Hadar and Car-
dassian ships, so they've probably seen a lot of this
sector. They may also have dealings with the Domin-
ion. If the artificial wormhole is real, they ought to
know."
    Ro looked back at her young crew and whispered,
"On the other hand, our relief should be prepared to
run for it, if we don't return."
 "We'll work out a signal," said Picard grimly.
    Ro smiled. "Make sure your earring is on straight.
Believe me, how you wear that earring is nine-tenths
of being a Bajoran."
 "Understood," answered Picard gravely.
    Will Riker paced outside the office of Commander
Shana Winslow on Starbase 209, fuming. Winslow
was head of the repair pool, and she had refused to
release the Enterprise for active duty. Sure, Will knew
they were a little banged up, but unfit for duty? He
didn't think so! Besides, he had friends and comrades
out there who needed him, and Starfleet forces were
spread too thin to worry about one little fact-finding
mission. Picard, Data, La Forge, every member of the
away team--they were counting on the Enterprise.
    Commander Winslow's assistant was a bookish-
looking Benzite, who sat behind his desk and watched
Riker with thinly veiled contempt. Every so often, he
clucked like a chicken, which was driving Riker crazy.
    "Where is she?" grumbled Riker. "Doesn't she
know there's a war going on?"
    "Oh, she's quite aware there's a war going on,"
answered the Benzite with a long blue face. "Too
many ships needing repair, too few parts, too many
interruptions in supply and manufacturing--it's all
quite difficult."
"If I don't get in there to talk to her pretty soon, it's
going to be even more difficult," vowed Riker.
    At that moment, the door to Commander Wins-
low's office slid open, and four engineers walked out
and brushed past him with stricken expressions on
their faces. They looked like men who had just been
chewed out. Riker straightened his uniform and tried
to be calm. Honey instead of vinegar, he told himself.
    He stared expectantly at the Benzite, who took his
sweet time in looking up and saying, "You may go in,
Commander."
    "Thank you." Riker stode through the door from
the anteroom to Commander Winslow's inner office.
The first thing that struck him was the size of the
office: it wasn't ready-room-size but more like a
miniature auditorium with several rows of seats and a
large viewscreen. Either Commander Winslow con-
ducted classes here, or she liked to chew people out en
masse.
    The second thing that struck him was Commander
Winslow herself. She was a striking brunette about his
own age, with dark eyes that drilled into him as he
approached her. She was also partly bionic, with a
prosthetic left arm and left leg, which he glimpsed
before she limped behind her desk.
    Commander Winslow gave him a businesslike
smile as she sat down and punched her computer
terminal. "Commander Riker of the Enterprise," she
read aloud. "I thought that ship was still under the
command of Jean-Luc Picard. I trust that Captain
Picard is all right?"
    "So do I," answered Riker, mustering a smile. "I'm
acting captain, and I hope we can return to active duty
soon. We've got to support Captain Picard and sever-
al of our senior officers who are on a mission into
Cardassian space."
    "Sounds risky," replied Winslow with extreme un-
derstatement. She folded her hands and drilled him
again with those dark eyes. "Commander Riker, I
know you want to leave right now, but the Enterprise
has failed almost every readiness test. You've got
leakage from the warp coil, stress failure on the outer
hull, burned-out circuitry on every deck, and dozens
of patchwork field repairs that are holding, somehow,
but can't for long."
    Riker winced, then held out his hands. "But she's
still in one piece. We flew in here, didn't we? La Forge
has kept her in top shape--."
    Shana Winslow gave him a sympathetic smile.
"Despite the redoubtable Mr. La Forge, your ship is
in no condition to go back into action. I would be
remiss in my duties if I released her now."
  Riker's shoulders drooped. "How long?"
    "The Enterprise is a top priority, Commander, but
the best I can promise is a week."
    "A week!" blurted Riker, not meaning to. He was
shocked that it would take that long--in a week,
Captain Picard could be dead.
    She fixed him with her disconcerting eyes. "I'm
sorry, but if I release you before we complete all the
necessary repairs, Starfleet's most advanced star-
ship--and most experienced crew--could be lost to
us. It's my job to make sure that ships are ready to do
the job for which they were intended, and your ship is
not."
 Back off, Riker told himself. Honey, not vinegar.
    He stepped away from her desk and sighed. "I
suppose I should welcome a few days of liberty for my
crew, but it's difficult when we've got comrades out
there."
    "Believe me, I know." Winslow lifted her prosthet-
ic arm and set it on her desk. "I was once a ship's
engineer--I'm still not used to flying a desk."
    He glanced at her arm and wondered why Starfleet
hadn't provided her with a more natural looking
prosthetic. "How did you get injured?"
    "On board the Budapest last year, defending Earth
from the Borg. We let them get past us--thanks for
saving our hides."
    She paused, apparently noting his stare. Smiling
gently she said "Your ship and I have something in
common." She pointed to her clumsy artificial limb.
"We both have to wait out the war shortages to be
properly refitted."
    Riker grinned. "The Enterprise spent a month on
413 after that battle, while we cleaned all the Borg
technology out of her."
    Commander Winslow leaned forward eagerly. "Oh,
I wish I could've been there to see that, to be able to
study it firsthand. I've always had tremendous inter-
est in the Borg, which was only heightened when they
almost killed me. Their efficiency is amazing--if I
could only get a crew of them working for me."
    "I've had them on board, and I don't recommend
it." Riker stepped closer and flashed a boyish smile.
"If you were to have dinner with me tonight, I could
tell you all about the Borg."
    "Hmmm," she replied thoughtfully, checking her
computer screen. "Yes, that would be acceptable at,
say, nineteen hundred hours. And I can explain to you
about our procurement problems, which have delayed
everything. We've got to end this war soon, or the
infrastructure is going to break down."
    "Right," said Riker. "That's why I'm trying to get
back into it."
    "I know." Winslow stood and motioned to the
door. "We'll meet here again at nineteen hundred
hours."
    Riker started to the door, then turned nervously.
"The Enterprise, you are--"
    "Yes, we're working on it. See you later, Com-
mander."
    Captain Picard steeled himself as he felt the tingle
of the transporter beam, although Ro gave him an
encouraging nod at the last second. He admired her
61an--she seemed more at ease around scoundrels
than most, though he wasn't entirely sure she would
regard the sentiment as a compliment if he gave voice
to it.
    They materialized inside a sumptuous dining hall
festooned with pastel-colored banners and golden
tinsel draped from the ceilings. In one sunken comer
were plush pillows and chaise longues that overlooked
a stage upon which torches burned brightly. To the
rear of the hall was a beautiful table of pure amber, set
for four. A Ferengi harpist sat in another corner,
playing a sweet melody on his golden instrument.
    "'Song for Solitude,'" said Ro with a faint smile.
"It's a well-known Bajoran piece. We'll have to thank
our hosts."
    Picard tried to imagine himself as someone else, a
kindly vedek perhaps. Ro was the captain, so she
could play the tough one. He needed to appear serene
and spiritual, above the baser, petty aspects of life.
    Double doors at the far end of the hall swept open,
and Shek, the Ferengi, swept into the room, with
luxurious satiny robes trailing behind him. Towering
over him, looking like a bodyguard, came the hulking
Orion, Rolf.
    "Welcome!" gushed Shek, rushing toward Ro and
taking her hand. He gazed lasciviously into her sullen
eyes. "It's a pleasure to have you aboard my humble
vessel, the Success. This is Rolf, captain of our con-
sort, the Swift. Excuse us for firing upon you, Captain
Ro, but you can never be sure who you will meet in
these trying times."
    "Understood," said Ro with a polite bow. "This is
my first mate."
    "We are enjoying the music," said Picard with a
polite bow. "'Song for Solitude' always reminds me of
childhood. Thank you."
    "You're welcome. And may I say, that is a very nice
earring you're wearing. That stone comes from Jer-
rado, doesn't it?"
    "Yes," answered Picard with a smile. "Not many
people realize that."
    "We recognize items of value. Since no one can
visit Jerrado anymore, that earring is a real collector's
item. Are you hungry?" Dwarfed by his oversized
robes, Shek shuffled toward the table. "We don't
know much about Bajoran cooking, although it looks
less exotic than our own. It's certainly less exotic than
Orion cooking, what with all those tear-inducing
spices."
    "Bah," grumbled Rolf. "He likes everything
bland."
    "I do not," countered Shek. "It's just that we have
to respect other people's tastes. Therefore, we are
having roasted hornbill, a type of local fowl."
    "Yes, we saw some at a Cardassian farming colony
on our way here," said Ro. "The Cardassians stole
half our cargo; they said it was contraband."
    Rolf laughed heartily. "Yes, they'll do that. If you
don't have a ship that can outrun them, what do you
expect7"
    Shek pulled out a chair for Ro. "Please sit here,
Captain."
    "Thank you," said the Bajoran, taking the proffered
chair.
    Shek quickly sat on one side of her, and Rolf sat on
the other, leaving Picard to take the outermost chair.
He didn't like the way the two pirates were sand-
wiched on each side of Ro, but his persona didn't
allow him to do much about it. With a pleasant smile
on his face, Pieard had to watch them fawn over her.
    "You can't possibly expect to find any terrorists
alive after all this time," said their host. "Would you
like some Trakian ale?"
    "Thank you," answered Ro, folding her hands in
front of her. "Whether we expect to find them alive or
not, we have to look."
    "Have you ever considered dancing?" asked the
Orion, admiring her slim physique.
    "I'm a ship's captain," she replied, "the same as
you. Have you considered dancing?"
    "Eldra!" shouted Shek, waving toward the door. A
short, blubbery Ferengi woman rushed in with a
pitcher full of dark ale, bubbling at its narrow neck.
Picard had to admit that his throat was dry, and the
beverage looked good. There was a pause in conversa-
tion as glasses were poured and drinks were hoisted.
"To hell with the Dominion!" cheerfully toasted the
Orion before downing his entire glass. Picard and Ro
drank along with him as they exchanged glances.
"You don't care for the Dominion?" asked Picard.
"Who could like those Denebiau slime devils?"
grumbled the Orion. "The Cardassians were fine
before they came--they were corrupt; they could be
bought. The Dominion just wants to take over every-
thing. They don't want any competition. What fun is
that?"
    "And they're trying to kill our best customers,"
sniffed the Ferengi. "The Dominion is bad for busi-
ness. A Ferengi will take a monopoly if he can get one,
but he still knows it's unnatural. These people think
it's all right for a puddle of shapeshifters to rule the
galaxy, and skim off everybody."
    The Orion snorted with laughter. "We hope the
Federation wins, but we hope the war goes on for a
long time, don't we?"
    "Of course," answered the Ferengi. "War is good
for the black market. It's chaos, and chaos is always
good for those of us who work in the shadows. But not
this war--too much killing."
    The guests nodded, unable to add much to that
sentiment. Fortunately, the food arrived shortly
thereafter, delivered by the rotund Eldra, who encour-
aged them to eat. So zealous were her eritreaties that
Picard assumed she had prepared the meal. He hoped
she hadn't also prechewed it.
    It was good food and decent company, with discus-
sion on all sorts of matters, ranging from the price of
antimatter to Bajoran neutrality. Picard wanted to
casually slip the idea of an artificial wormhole into
the conversation, but it seemed premature. They had
just now struck a civil discourse with one another,
and even the Orion was behaving like a gentleman.
    After the dishes were removed, Shek clapped his
hands and rose to his feet. "It's time for the evening's
entertainment."
    They retired to the cushions and lounges of the
sunken den in front of the stage. Picard was a little
light-headed after all the ale, although he had tried to
pace himself. He had to admit that the food had been
excellent, very similar to squab, and he had eaten
more than his share. Thus far, this respite with the
pirates had proven to be surprisingly enjoyable.
    Once they had settled into the upholstered lair,
Shek tugged on his ear and gave them a snaggle-
toothed grin. "Tonight's entertainment is furnished
by my good friend, Rolf. Ah, here is the Saurian
brandy."
    When Eldra appeared with a carafe and small
glasses, Picard felt like declining, but he saw a warn-
ing look in Rolf's eyes. When the green giant took a
glass of brandy, he held it up for all to see, and Picard
knew that he had better do the same.
    "We toast to your health and your gods," said the
Orion.
 "To the Prophets," said Ro, drinking.
 "To the Prophets," echoed Picard, taking a sip.
 "To the dancing girls!" crowed Shek.
    A drumroll crashed and thundered behind them,
and Picard was about to turn around when three lithe
figures leaped from the curtain behind the stage. They
landed in the flickering pool of light given off by the
torches and began to sway. As the drums increased
their frenzy, the green-skinned Orion women undu-
lated to the pulsing beat. Picard had heard of these
famed entertainers, but he had never thought he
would actually see them... in the flesh, so to speak.
There was a great deal of green flesh exhibited by the
filmly costumes.
    He felt so relaxed and content as he snuggled in the
oversized cushions, watching the acrobatic and sug-
gestive dancing of the Orion women. It was hard not
to imagine that this dinner party was really a gather-
ing of pirate chieftains in some remote tropical har-
bor, participating in the drunken debaucheries of
yore.
    Picard looked over at Ro Laren, and she was asleep,
curled peacefully among the pillows. So rare for her to
look so peaceful, thought the captain. He looked back
at the dancing women--so animalistic, so exotic, so
voluptuous. He could almost smell their pungent
scent and taste their sweet green skin. Sweat was
breaking out on the back of his neck. Enough was
enough, he decided. It was time to get some air.
    As Picard staggered to his knees, he heard Rolf
laughing uproariously in his ear, and a big arm
reached out and dragged him back into the cushions.
"Settle down, my good man. What about the girl you
came in with?"
    The captain looked again at Ro Laren, and he
realized that she shouldn't be sleeping. A spark in the
back of his brain cut through the fog and told him that
this shouldn't be happening. He was in some kind of
trouble. He started to reach for his communicator to
give it two quick taps--the signal--but his limbs felt
as leaden as tree trunks.
    A hand came from nowhere, slapped his chest, and
ripped the comm badge off. He touched the hole in
the fabric where it used to be, gazed bewilderedly at
the big ears of the Ferengi, then slumped back onto
the pillows.
    "All fight," said Shek, leaning over him, "why
don't you tell us where you really came from. And
what you're really doing here."
"My... my ship!" gasped Picard helplessly.
"Yes, let's not forget about your ship," agreed Shek.
He tapped his comm badge. "Captain to bridge:
activate tractor beam. Prepare to hoard."

Chapter Ten

LYING SUPPINE ON CUSHIONS in the dining hall of the
Ferengi ship, Captain Picard had a strong sense of
d6j/~ vu. He felt the way he had when he was going
through emergency heart surgery--conscious but un-
able to feel anything or control his limbs. He didn't
exactly float over his body, but he wasn't inside of it
either. He felt oddly apart, like an observer, shunted
off to the side.
    The Orion dancing girls kept undulating sugges-
tively to the throbbing drumbeat, but there was
something wrong with them, too. They seemed to be
nothing but moving bodies, devoid of consciousness.
    The Ferengi, Shek, clapped his hands. "Computer,
end program."
    At once, the green-skinned women disappeared,
and so did most of the furnishings and decorations
in the sumptuous dining hall. Glasses of brandy
dropped to the floor and shattered, and Picard's body
collapsed onto a hard floor as well. He struggled to sit
upmbut couldn't.
    "It's a nerve conditioner," said Shek. "You have no
control over what you do or say. Oddly, you and
Captain Ro reacted completely differently to the drug.
She fell asleep."
  "And you?" asked Picard in a hollow, raspy voice.
    Shek smiled and pointed to Rolf, the big green
Orion. "Oh, we took the antidote before dinner."
    Roll scowled. "I miss the days when we used to
torture people to get information."
    "Yes, but you must admit, these new species-
specific drugs are faster and more efficient." Shek
patted his large partner on the shoulder, then turned
back to Picard. "All right, what is your real name and
position?"
    He tried to make his mouth form the words "Lieu-
tenant Tom Smith," or "Chief Ray Jones," or any-
thing but the truth. But to his horror he heard his own
voice say "Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship
Enterprise."
    "Really?" said Shek, obviously impressed. "And
your friend, Captain Ro?"
    "She is Captain Ro Laren of the Orb of Peace,
formerly of my command."
 "What are you doing in Cardassian space?"
    "We are looking for the Dominion's artificial
wormhole."
    Rolf burst out laughing. "And what are they going
to do with it when they find it? The Federation is
more desperate than I thought."
 Perhaps he could pretend to be as feebleminded as
he felt and change the subject to something a bit less
controversial. "The dancers?" asked Picard reaching
toward the empty space where they had been.
    "Alas, they're holograms," replied Shek. "In this
day and age, who can afford real Orion slave girls? But
you're more interesting, anyway, Captain. What were
you planning to do with the artificial wormhole,
should it exist?" Change the subject, indeed. Perhaps
he was as feebleminded as he felt, Picard thought
bitterly.
 "Destroy it," he whispered.
    The Ferengi and the Orion looked at one another
and laughed, slapping their thighs. "Do you know
how big that thing is?" asked Shek. "How big?"
    Shek pushed him back onto the hard floor. "We
need to confer now, Captain. Your eyes are getting
heavy, and you're very tired. All you want to do is
sleep, like your comrade. Go to sleep, Captain Picard,
you've earned the rest."
    With that the captain closed his eyes and drifted
into unconsciousness.

    "When the reactor exploded and the concussion hit
me, I went unconscious," said Commander Shana
Winslow as she stirred her Mai Tai with a swizzle
stick held in the mechanical fingers of her left hand.
She and Will Riker were sitting at a back table in a
place called the Bolian Bistro, reputed to be the best
restaurant on Starbase 209, although it served a
limited menu. All of the eateries on the starbase were
suffering from shortages.
    "For all intents and purposes, I was dead," she went
on. "I never knew they beamed me out until I woke
up in a bed on a medical ship. And when I looked
down and saw how much of me was missing, I cursed
the hell out of them."
    Will Riker smiled and shook the ice in his glass. "I
can imagine you did. How long did your recovery
take?"
    "It's still going on," answered Winslow. "The phys-
ical therapy, the counseling sessions--I don't think it
will ever end. As I said, I long to be out there as much
as you do, but I've got to be realistic. This is my job
now; it's a job for which I'm suited."
"And you don't have any family to worry about?"
The engineer shook her head sadly. "Not now. I
had a husband, but he died aboard the Budapest in
the same action against the Borg."
    "I'm sorry," said Riker, regretting his glib com-
ment.
    Winslow managed a bittersweet smile. "Don't wor-
ry about it. Talking about it is part of my recovery. In
some respects, it was a marriage of convenience, since
we were both so wrapped up in our careers. We had
finally gotten assigned to the same ship, and we were
going to work on the marriage. Instead, we nearly
died together in our first action."
    She stirred her drink and looked at him coyly.
"What about you?"
    "Confirmed bachelor," answered Riker, leaning
back in his chair and grinning. "Although I won't say
that I haven't come close to marriage--but only once,
seriously."
 "And what happened to her?"
    "She's my best friend," answered Riker, taking a
sip of his drink. "She understands me better than
anybody--well enough to know that she wouldn't
want to be married to me."
    "Yes, that's what I miss most about Jack being
gone. It's good to have at least one person who really
knows you, around whom you don't have to pretend."
Shana Winslow gave him a melancholy smile.
    Riker reached for her hand. "Listen, you were
spared for a reason. We've all been spared this long
for a reason--maybe it's to fight this lousy war."
    "Ah, now you're getting back to the subject of your
ship," said Winslow. "It's still seven days--six if we
can get the EPS couplings we need by tomorrow."
    Riker smiled. "Who do I have to rob to get those
couplings?"
 "Just hope for the supply convoy to get through."
    Riker quickly lifted his glass. "Here's to the supply
convoy. And also to good company."
    "To good company," echoed Shana Winslow, heft-
ing her glass and peering at him over the rim with her
intense dark eyes.
    "I hope my crew is enjoying their liberty as much as
I am," said Riker.
    Ro Laren awoke with shooting pains in her arms,
legs, and head. She quickly determined that the cause
of the pain in her extremities was from the ropes
binding her to a stiff, hard chair. But the pain in her
head was like the worst hangover she'd ever gotten
from drinking's Derek's homemade wine.
    She looked around the empty room, which had a
grid on the walls but nothing else, and she saw
Captain Picard sitting about five meters away. He was
also bound tightly to his chair. The captain looked
more disheveled and beaten than she did, although he
managed a wan smile. "Good morning."
  "What happened?" she asked with a groan.
  "We were drugged by our hosts."
"But they ate and drank the same things we did."
"Yes, but they took an antidote first." Picard strug-
gled against his bonds for a moment, but it was
useless.
  "Where are we?"
    "Same place we were before," answered the cap-
tain, "only now you can tell it's a holodeck. Listen,
my memory is hazy, but I believe they know every-
thing."
  "Everything?" she asked in horror.
    He nodded grimly. "I don't know what they intend
to do to us."
    Ro shivered, not wanting to think about all the
gruesome options they had.
    Picard continued, "I believe they know they have a
valuable prize. If I were them, I might go to both the
Federation and the Dominion, seeing who will bid
more to get a starship captain." "The ship--" began Ro.
    "Your ship is all right," said a snide voice. With
difficulty and pain, Ro twisted her head around
enough to see Shek and Rolf stride through the doors
into the holodeck. The Orion was holding a padd, a
handheld computing device, which looked out of
place in his big green hands. The Ferengi had a pulse
whip tied to his belt in a serpentine coil.
    "We've just interrogated your crew and searched
your ship," said Shek glumly. "As I suspected, you
have nothing of value. Why are patriots always so
broke?"
    "There are some young Bajoran females." Rolf
smiled lasciviously at the prisoners.
 "They aren't really Bajoran," countered Ro.
    "We know," muttered Shek, "and that is problem-
atic. If they ever found out we sold them fake mer-
chandise... well, that's not a good way to conduct
business. So the only thing of value is Captain Jean-
Luc Picard."
    "I'm not valuable," answered Picard. "I would be
just one of thousands of prisoners of war."
    "At least that way you might get to see your
artificial wormhole," joked Rolf.
    Both Ro and Picard stared at the Orion. "Then it
does exist?" asked the captain.
    Rolf nodded. "Oh, yes. It's a gigantic thing, bigger
than several moons I've seen. If it were up to Shek
here, you would never see it, because he wanted to sell
you to the Dominion. But I convinced him not to."
    Ro and Picard looked accusingly at the scrawny
Ferengi, who gave them an apologetic shrug. "Hey, a
fellow has to make a profit."
    "I convinced him that we should let you carry out
your mission," said the muscular Orion with a note of
pride in his voice. "With a little help from us."
    Ro gaped at him. "You're going to join us with your
ships?"
    The Orion burst out laughing. "Hardly! Do we look
like fools? We can't be seen having anything to do
with this."
    Shek pointed a bony finger at them. "And we hope
you have the good sense not to get captured again!
Next time, have the decency to get killed, will you?"
 Picard ignored the last part of Shek's request. "We
have no intentions of being captured by the Domin-
ion," he said.
    "Good." The Orion held out the computer padd.
"We've done some calculations, and we don't see how
you could ever destroy the verteron collider, even if
you had the Enterprise with you. But maybe you don't
have to destroy it to keep it from working."
    Ro and Picard glanced puzzledly at one another,
then back at their captors. "What do you have in
mind?" asked Ro.
    Even though they were all alone on the Ferengi
vessel, Shek glanced around nervously and lowered
his voice. "I received a nice bit of intelligence the
other day. The Dominion has had a hard time finish-
ing the mouth of the wormhole, because they need a
rather exotic material to withstand the pressure. They
blew up a tanker trying to off-load a sub-quark
compound, and now they're getting desperate."
    Shek tapped his fingertips together. "My spies tell
me that they've sent a mining vessel to a black hole
called the Eye of Talek. They're trying to extract some
Corzanium to use for the building material. Does this
sound plausible to you?"
 "Very," answered Picard.
    "So," concluded Rolf, "you don't have to destroy
the whole thing to stop them. You just have to keep
them from mining the Corzanium--destroy the min-
ing vessel."
    "Do you know the location of the Eye of Talek?"
asked Ro. "I've heard of it, but I don't know where it
is."
    "Right here," answered Roll, pointing to his com-
puter padd.
"Then why are we still tied up?" demanded Ro.
"We need to get moving!"
    The Orion and the Ferengi glanced at one another,
and the Orion shrugged and pulled a curved knife out
of the gold sash around his waist. Ro winced as the
sharp blade ran down the skin of her forearms and
sawed the rope tying her wrists. When her arms finally
dropped to her sides, Ro never thought she could feel
such reliefi She watched intently as he cut the rope
around her ankles, then she stood and stretched,
trying to ignore the screams of her cramped muscles.
    Picard sat stoically as the Orion cut away his bonds;
then he stood and rubbed the chafed skin on his
wrists. "You know, we could have reached the same
conclusion without so much trouble."
    "Ah," said the Ferengi, grabbing the handle of his
whip, "where is the fun in that? Frankly, if you had
told us that a little Bajoran transport with two torpe-
does was going to take out a verteron collider that is
ten kilometers long and protected by a Dominion
fleet, we wouldn't have believed you. Would we have,
Rolf?."
    "I'm still not sure I believe them," grumbled the
Orion. "But the truth potion never lies, which means
they are simply deludedmso let's give them a chance
to die for their cause! Besides, we want to keep the
war going, don't we, Shek?"
    "Yes, we do," answered the Ferengi, "but if I find
out that you've been captured--when I could have
sold you to themmI'11 be very angry."
    "You won't have to worry about that," vowed
Picard. "Can we go back to our ship now?"
Roll nodded and shoved the padd into the captain's
hands. "Use this information well--we hate to give it
away for free."
    "Is it going to be hard to reach the Eye of Talek?"
asked Ro.
    "In your ship, it's a journey of two days," answered
Roll. "But you have made it past the front, where
most of the Dominion ships are deployed, so you
shouldn't encounter many of them."
    "Thank you," said Picard. He reached for his
comm badge and found a torn patch of fabric where it
should have been.
    "Oh!" exclaimed Shek, producing two Bajoran
comm badges from a pocket on his vest. With an
apologetic smile, he handed them over.
    "Thank you." Picard tapped his badge and said,
"Away team to the Orb of Peace."
    "Captain!" answered La Forge's breathless voice.
"Are you all right? We thought you were dead... or
worse."
"We're fine, Geordi. Our hosts are letting us go."
"They hit us with a tractor beam," said La Forge,
"and we had no choice but to let them board and
search us."
    "Yes, they're very thorough when it comes to dig-
ging for information," agreed Picard. "But they've
given us some news that could prove to be invaluable.
Two to transport back."  "Yes, sir."
    "We never had this conversation," insisted Shek as
the tingle of the transporter beam gripped Ro's spine.
"You don't know us!"
    "Nevertheless," said the Bajoran, "we won't forget
your help."
     After they were gone, the two pirate captains looked
at one another and shook their heads in amazement.
  "Do you think they stand a chance?" asked Shek.
  "None!" scoffed the Orion. "A tiny transport
  against the entire Dominion? They'll have to get very
  lucky."
    "Something tells me that Captain Picard knows a
thing or two about luck." Shek tugged on an oversized
earlobe. "Maybe they will disrupt the Dominion long
enough for us to pull offa caper or two. Let's go to the
chart room and plan it."
    The Orion slapped his scrawny partner on the
shoulder. "Now you're thinking. Lead the way!"
    Before the two scurvy captains could exit the holo-
deck, the Ferengi's comm badge chirped. With a
scowl, he tapped it and answered, "This is Captain
Shek. What is it?"
    "Captain," said a quavering voice, "that ship which
just left--three men beamed over from transporter
room two when the others beamed back. Desert they
did, sir!"
    "The scoundrels!" growled the Ferengi, reaching
for the handle of his whip. "Listen, hail the Bajorans
and tell them they've got stowaways!"
    "We tried that, sir, and there's too much interfer-
ence. The plasma storms are really bad out there--
they'll be lucky if they make it through. Should we go
after them, sir?"
    "No," growled Shek, "not if the storms are bad.
Plus, we've got to meet the Plektaks here. Who did we
lose?"
  "The three Romulans."
  "Good riddance," muttered Shek. "Out."
    Rolf chuckled. "I told you not to take them on. Now
they've decided to grab their own ship and go free-
lance. Pretty good timing."
    "Captain Picard's luck just turned the other way,"
muttered the Ferengi, shuffling out the door.

    Will Riker stood at the door of Shana Winslow's
quarters, wondering how far he should go in the
pursuit of special treatment for the Enterprise. Logic
told him that no matter what he did, it wouldn't make
any difference. Maybe in the field, under fire, Winslow
would be willing to make quick and dirty repairs; but
in her current post, she was determined to follow
procedures. He didn't think she would make any
exceptions for an amiable dinner date.
    Then why was he here, paused to follow Shana into
her private chambers? He had to answer that he was
interested in the woman, not what she could do for
him. She had lost her family and her ship, and his
heart went out to her. Will knew how many people
doubted his sanity over his refusal to leave the Enter-
prise to take command of another ship. But the
Enterprise and her crew were like no other ship. They
were family, and the Enterprise was home.
    "A penny for your thoughts," said Winslow as her
door slid open.
    He smiled wistfully. "I'm afraid I was thinking
about my ship and her crew. I can be awfully single-
minded."
    "Me, too." She motioned toward her small but
tastefully appointed cabin, standard issue, as if she
hadn't really moved in yet. "Would you like to come
in for a drink?"
  "Yes, I would."
    She led the way. "I have to warn you that even the
replicators are offering reduced selections these days.
We have to ration both raw materials and power
consumption."
 "Do you still have cold water?"
    "I think so," she answered with a smile, moving
toward the food slot. "One cold water. Please, have a
seat."
    "On the ship, our biggest problem is a lack of
experienced personnel," said Riker, dropping into a
cushy sofa. "It doesn't do any good to throw bodies at
a problem unless they have the experience to deal
with it."
    "Tell me about it." Winslow brought him a glass of
water, carrying it in her natural hand. "How would
you like to have to compete with ships of the line for
good people? The admirals just want to throw every-
body into the front, forgetting all about the support
services. We've shut down two wings of the station--
nobody to do maintenance."
    "I noticed." Riker sipped his water and looked
quizzically at her. "You're not drinking anything?"
    "I'm going back now. I have a hard time carrying
more than one glass at a time."
    Riker fought the temptation to jump up and fetch
her a drink. Instead he watched her laboriously get
herself a cup of tea and return to the sofa. He was
flattered when she sat down close beside him.
    "Ah," said Winslow with a sigh. "Now, where were
we?"
    "We were complaining about how we don't have
enough good people."
    "These are extraordinary times," said the engineer.
"Starfleet has fought plenty of conflicts before, but
we've never been stretched so thin, over such a long
period of time--with no end in sight."
    Riker sighed. "There is an end in sight, but it's not
one we want to think about."
    "That bad, huh?" She shook her head. "I know the
shortages and pressure we're under, but I don't really
get a feel for it. I wish I were out there--with you
people."
    "We're holding our own," he lied. "Even without
you."
    Winslow smiled sweetly at him, her dark eyes
glimmering. "I suppose we have to make the most of
every moment we're alive. That's something I really
haven't learned to do since the Budapest went down.
Sometimes it's just so easy to get caught up in your
work."
    "I know," said Riker, his arm curling around her
shoulder. "Maybe this is a good time to start."
    She snuggled back into the crook of his arm and
closed her eyes. "Can I just sit here for a moment?
Human contact, and all that. There's one thing you
don't get much in Starfleet--a hug. They ought to
have a couple of people in charge of hugs, just to
dispense them randomly."
    Riker settled back, too, his arm around this very
agreeable women, not in any rush himself. In his
younger years, he would have been all over Shana, but
now the simple contact felt good. He hadn't had much
time for hugs either.
    When she finally opened her eyes, they sparkled
like two black opals, faraway and dreamy. Her face
had beauty, ruggedness, and character--the face of a
woman who worked too hard for too little in return.
Looking surprised, she touched his other arm, as if
trying to make sure he was real. That was when he
knew he had to kiss her.
    Riker bent low, and she angled her chin upward,
closing her eyes again. As his mouth was about to
taste her honey and tea-scented lips and her hand
gripped his bicep, an urgent beep sounded on a
nearby comm panel.
    "I'm sorry, Will," said Winslow apologetically as
she rose to her feet. "I told them not to call me unless
it's an emergency."
  "I understand," said Riker.
She tapped the panel and said, "Winslow here."
"This is Lieutenant Harflon, work detail three on
the Seleya," came a crisp voice. "The energy fluctua-
tions in the IPS are still affecting the grid. Lorimar
said you had an undocumented fix for this, and the
work orders say to call you."
     "Yes, yes," she answered. "Is the test flight still
scheduled for oh-eight-hundred?" "Yes, Commander."
    "I'll be right there. Out." Winslow winced at Riker
as she headed toward the door. "Sorry, Will. But you
know, this might not take long. You're welcome to
make yourself at home... relax."
    "How come the Seleya is getting special treat-
ment?" asked Riker, following her out into the corri-
dor. "Because it's the admiral's ship?"
    "Could be, except that it's been in my shop for a
week already, and the admiral is like you--impa-
tient." She headed determinedly toward the turbolift.
  "Well, then... what about enjoying life?"
  Winslow waved as she entered the turbolift. "In
  case you hadn't heard, there's a war on! Dinner
  tomorrow, same time?"
 "Sure."
    The turbolift door shut, leaving Riker to shake his
head in amazement. He turned and headed back the
other way, curious to see if any of his crew were still at
the Bolian Bistro.
    On a large moon where the atmosphere was so thin
that day looked like night, Data sat in the powdery
dust, watching his portable instruments. They were
attached by wires to a small sensor array which he had
mounted on the roof of his shuttlecraft. Doing so had
helped him target the Badlands.
    In his short stay on the nameless moon, Data had
monitored considerable traffic in Dominion ships
moving to and from the front. He kept diligent notes
on the enemy ship movement, thinking that someday
the information might be important. But he hadn't
found the Orb of Peace, nor had he detected the return
of the Enterprise. Even concentrating long-range sen-
sors on the Badlands, he had yet to locate any ship
that could possibly be the Bajoran transport or its
emergency beacon.
    As far as he could tell with the shifting borders, this
moon was located well into Cardassian space, and he
dared not go any deeper. Going farther would only
endanger his mission without substantially increasing
his odds of success, which were not good to begin
with. Data calculated that the odds of the Enterprise
or another Starfleet vessel finding him were less than
one in four. He preferred not to calculate the odds of
recovering Picard, Geordi, Ro, and the Orb of Peace.
    In this instance, the android couldn't be sure that
patience would have the desired effect, but he coun-
seled himself to be patient anyway. Nevertheless,
Data had recurring thoughts about Japanese soldiers
in World War II stranded at their jungle posts years
after their war was over. He thought about not ever
seeing his friends again, and he academically consid-
ered the grief and worry he would be experiencing if
his emotion chip were turned on.
    No, Data decided, war required a level head, good
judgment, and that ethereal commodity known as
good fortune. Unfortunately, it appeared as if he
would have to wait for the good fortune part.

Chapter Eleven

THE EYE OF TALEK LOOMED before them like a hole
punctured in the fabric of space, notable for an
absence of stars and a golden halo of gas and dust
streaming into it. The black hole was the size of a
saucer section on a big starship, but almost brilliantly
black, like the sun as seen in a photographic negative.
    Sam turned away from the viewscreen and looked
at Grof, who was beaming with pleasure. "Isn't it
magnificent?" asked the Trill with a grand sweep of
his arms.
    "'Scary' is the word I would use," replied Sam. "I
thought you said this was a small black hole."
    "It is. If it were a large one, we couldn't have come
this close."
    "What's on the other side?" asked Jozarnay Woil,
the Antosian material handler.
Grof laughed. "There is no other side--it's a celes-
tial body with gravity so strong that not even light
particles can escape. An old professor of mine used to
call this singularity a 'gravity graveyard.' The smaller
the black hole, the older it is. Over time, some
material will escape through natural quantum step-
ping, so in ten billion years, maybe this black hole will
shrink to nothing. For now, it's the only place where
Corzanium can be found."
    "However," said Taurik, seated at the corm, "the
main reason our task is so difficult is that gravity
warps space. At a distance directly proportional to the
mass of the collapsed object, an event horizon occurs.
In essence, the material making up the black hole
exists in a different space-time continuum, which is
why the gas and debris seem to disappear when they
enter. This is also why we must quantum-step the
Corzanium out, particle by particle."
    "Have you and Horik made the adjustments to the
tractor beam?" asked Grof.
    The Vulcan nodded. "The metaphasic shield en-
hancer is on-line and has been integrated with tractor-
beam operations." "Excellent!'~
    Sam's mind wandered while Grof and Taurik en-
gaged in a rapid-fire discussion of various scientific
aspects of their mission. He was more concerned
about the Jem'Hadar attack ship that had trailed
them halfway across Cardassian space, just to make
sure they attended to business and didn't try to
escape. Sam was determined to disappoint them and
escape anyway.
    Since they didn't have any weapons and couldn't
run fast enough from the small warship, the only
plausible plan was to escape in the attack craft itself.
Either that, or they had to use their transporters to
damage the Jem'Hadar shiprain effect, tossing a
monkey wrench into their engine.
    While Grof, Taurik, and Woil continued their dis-
cussion, Sam used the ops console to locate the
Jem'Hadar ship. The small but deadly craft had
assumed an outer orbit around the Eye of Talek at a
distance that was a hundred kilometers beyond their
transporter range. The trick would be to lure it closer
with some kind of catastrophe or emergency. But
what?
    The Jem'Hadar were undoubtedly prepared for an
escape attempt, and they were certainly under orders
to make sure the prisoners perished rather than
escaped. As prisoners and crew, they were expend-
able, but their cargo was not. The tanker would soon
be very important to the Dominion and the war.
    That meant they would have to extract a large
amount of the exotic ore before they could make their
move--probably by making the tanker appear to be
threatened. If they weren't careful, they could all die
in an accident before they had a chance to make a
break for it. Reluctantly, Sam tuned back in to
ongoing conversation, figuring he had better concen-
trate on their mission for the time being.
    Jozarnay Woil still looked confused as he scratched
the bun of tight black hair atop his head. "Professor,
can you go through the high points one more time?
Listening to you and Taurik is over my head."
    Grof thrust his finger into the air. "To begin with,
the Corzanium is extremely volatile until we
quantum-step it beyond the event horizon and recom-
bine it in the chamber. The sequence goes like this:
Using the tractor beam, we lower the mining probe
into the black hole just above the event horizon. Then
we bombard the hole with tachyons, which changes
the terms of probability and quantum-steps the parti-
cles, expelling them in the process. You might com-
pare this to drilling in a typical mining operation.
Now we have escaping matter which we can guide
into the probe with the tractor beam. Then we beam
the probe on board and put it in stasis.
    "After that, Mr. Woil, you work your magic and
transfer the ore from the stasis field into the recom
chamber. Then it's just like any other metal, except
that it has a unique resistance to gravity."
    The Antosian shook his head. "No wonder it's so
rare."
    "We wouldn't be here if it weren't," muttered the
Trill.
    "Remember, we only have three probes," said Sam,
trying to sound interested. "We can't afford to lose
any."
 "That will be plenty," countered Grof.
 "When do we start?" asked Woil.
    "There's no time like the present!" The Trill
clapped his hands together.
    "I would take issue with that," replied Taurik.
"While some of us have been sleeping, others like
myself have been on duty for twenty-five hours
straight. Although you make the extraction process
sound relatively simple, it is anything but. A mistake
by any one of us could destroy this ship and all
aboard."
    "But we could get a start," countered Grof. "Take
some readings, prepare the equipment."
    "A mistake in any of those tasks would be equally
disastrous," answered Taurik.
    "He's right," said Sam, putting a friendly hand on
Grof's beefy shoulder. "Let's get some rest. Do you
think our shadow would mind?"
    "Forget them," said Grof irritably. "They're merely
an escort--/am in charge of this mission."
  "But they have the weapons," Sam reminded him.
    "Oh-six-hundred hours," grumbled the Trill, check-
ing his chronometer. "No later than that."
    "Okay, no later," Sam assured him. "Woil, can you
tell the others?"
    "Sure, Captain." The Antosian climbed down the
ladder, and the last thing to disappear was the bun of
black hair atop his head.
  "I want this to go smoothly," warned Grof,
    "And if it doesn't," said Sam, "you can harangue
me about it in the next life."
    The Trill shot him a look of disgust. "Remember,
I'm an unjoined Trill--I only get one life." Then his
glower changed into a tepid smile before he clomped
down the ladder, pulling the hatch lid shut behind
him.
    "Is he mellowing, or is he crazy?" asked Sam
rhetorically.
    "I think a bit of both," answered Woil. "The ques-
tion is, what are we?"
    "We're hiding our time," said Sam, biting off the
wrapper of a rations bar.

    "All instruments and systems back on-line," said
the young man at the ops panel with obvious relief.
On the viewscreen of the Orb of Peace, the murky but
alluring dust cloud called the Badlands faded from
view. The rectangular transport finally escaped into
open star-studded space.
    Ro Laren looked up from her conn and turned to
see a dozen young pseudo-Bajorans gathered on the
cramped bridge, beaming at her. The final leg through
the Badlands had been extremely tense, with plasma
storms rippling all around them, and most of the crew
had peeked into the bridge to offer support or look for
camaraderie.
Ro gave them a smile and said, "Well done."
"Well done to you," declared Captain Picard, who
then leaned back in his seat at the tactical station and
took a deep breath. "There aren't many people who
could have made it through there."
    "Nobody else was foolish enough to try," answered
Ro. She stood and stretched, thinking that she was
more stiff now than she had been when she was tied to
a chair on the pirates' ship.
    "Captain Ro, I think you deserve some relief, and
some rest." Picard motioned to one of the young
bystanders to take her place at the conn, and Ro
didn't resist. She stepped aside and let the blond
woman have her seat.
     "Our course is laid in," Ro told her. "Just take her
to maximum warp, when ready." "Yes, sir."
    The Bajoran turned to Picard and asked, "Any sign
of enemy ships?"
    "There are a few possible ships on long-range scans,
but none of them are headed to intercept us. I think
we're finally clear of the border patrol."
    Ro let out a sharp breath. At last, they were behind
enemy lines.
    Picard squinted at his board and reported, "I'm
picking up something that might be the artificial
wormhole. It's where our friends said it was."
  "Can you put it on screen?"
    "Yes, but it won't be very clear. These aren't the
most accurate scanners and screens."
    A large, gleaming cylinder appeared on the view-
screen, floating in the blackness of space. It might
have been mistaken for some kind of space probe or
satellite, except for the bright blips that surrounded it
like fireflies swarming around a log in the woods. Ro
knew these insignificant blips were in reality mighty
warships, tankers, and troop transports.
    "Boy, up close, it must be the eighth wonder of the
universe," said the officer on ops.
    "I'm glad we don't have to take it out," answered
Ro.
    But she wondered if this terrible threat could be
resolved as easily as all that--by just destroying a
mining vessel outside a black hole. Thus far, the
pirates' information had proven correct, so perhaps
this incredible structure did have a weak spot. Still, it
was hard to imagine that the Dominion's most impor-
tant project in the Alpha Quadrant would turn out to
be nothing but a white elephant, useless for lack of the
right building material. But now they had seen itm
the artificial wormhole really existed.
    "Can we take a holoscan of it for Will Riker?" she
asked.
    Picard smiled. "I don't believe that will be neces-
sary. He'll be more than happy to apologize when we
get back."
    "I'm not sure I'll be going back," said Ro. "I'm not
that fond of prison."
    Picard's jaw tightened. "I'll do everything I can to
get your situation squared away, I promise. In fact, I
can even see about getting you your commission
back."
    "One step at a time. First, let's make sure there's a
Starfleet to go back to." Ro started toward the rear of
the bridge and paused in the doorway. "If you want to
talk about it, Captain, I'll buy you a drink."
    "All right. I think things are under control here."
Picard rose from the tactical station and motioned to
a junior officer to relieve him. The young crew mem-
bers were all too eager to resume their stations now
that they were away from the unpredictable dangers of
the Badlands.
    "We should have someone check on those fruits
and vegetables in the hold," suggested Picard. "Let's
dispense them to the crew before they start going
bad."
    "Good idea," replied Ro. "Henderson, you have
the bridge. Send a detail to the cargo bay--we'll be in
the mess hall." "Yes, sir."
    Ro followed Picard out, and the Bajoran felt a
weary sense of satisfaction as they strolled down the
corridor. She finally felt as if she had earned the trust
of her unfamiliar crew. She'd had Captain Picard's
trust all along, but the others didn't know her and
what she could do. Now they did.
    Picard stopped at the turbolift and smiled at her.
"Do you mind if we ask Mr. La Forge to join us? He
could probably use a break, too."
    "That's fine," answered Ro. In reality, she was too
weary to make much small talk, and she knew the
gregarious engineer would fill in the gaps in the
conversation. Also she wasn't ready to commit to
 going back to Starfleet, even if they would have her.
 Ro knew she ought to sleep, but she was too wired for
 that. Just a chair, a glass of juice, and nothing to do
 for a few minutesmthat sounded manageable.
     Picard tapped his comm badge. "Boothby to La
 Forge: can you meet us in the mess hall?"
     "Sure," answered the engineer. "Let me assign my
 relief, and I'll be right there. Out."
    Picard and Ro wended their way down a spiral
staircase to the lower level, then strolled along a
deserted corridor.
    "I was serious about what I said," began Picard,
"about getting you back into Starfleet."
    "I know you were," answered the Bajoran, "and I
appreciate it. But if my people really are neutral in the
war, perhaps I should be, too. That would be a change
of pace for me--I'm always partisan."
    "I know," said Picard with a smile. "Well, you have
our gratitude. Without you, we wouldn't have known
about the Dominion's plans until it was too late.
Apparently we're here in time to stop them."
Ro led the way into the mess hall. "Let's hope so."
A moment later, they sat down in a small, austere
dining room, decorated in tasteful beige colors and
subdued lighting. All the rest of the young crew were
either working or taking their sleep shift.
    "What would you like to do when this is over?"
asked Picard. "Providing it ends the way we hope it
will."
    "Maybe I'll help refugees. There are bound to be
millions of them." She held up her hand, cutting him
off, she hoped not too abruptly. "I know, there are
positions like that in Starfleet, but I have a hard time
thinking that far ahead. Whenever I make plans to
have a normal life, things go haywire."
    "I know that feeling," replied the captain wistfully.
"You think you can escape from the pressures, but
they always come after you."
    La Forge strolled jauntily through the door, still
looking rather roguish with his earring, nose ridges,
and pilot's goggles. "Hello, Captain Picard, Captain
Ro," he said cheerfully, stopping at the food replica-
tor. "What's your pleasure?"
    "Hello, Geordi," said Picard with an uncharacteris-
tic yawn. "Tea, Earl Grey, hot."
    "Knowing that replicator, I think you might have to
settle for Bajoran tea," said Ro. "I'11 have the juice
cocktail."
    La Forge repeated their orders a few times into the
recalcitrant repticator until it was finally able to
produce their beverages. He delivered their drinks to
the table, then went back to get his glass of milk.
    "So, is it clear sailing from here?" asked the engi-
neer, pulling up a chair.
    "Theoretically," answered Picard. "If we can delay
them by destroying the shipment of Corzanium--and
we can get back to our lines and tell everyone what
we've seen--maybe we can mount an attack against
this thing. A few distractions here and there along the
line, and a sizable attack force could slip through to
the Badlands. At least we found the wormhole before
it's operational."
    "I wouldn't mind playing with a verteron collider
that huge," said La Forge wistfully. "It's really too
bad that we've got to destroy it, or at least make sure
it never works. A completely stable artificial worm-
 hole that we have total control over--it sounds like a
 dream come true."
     "Or a nightmare, depending on which side you're
 on," muttered Picard. He took a sip of tea.
    The Bajoran's comm badge beeped, and she an-
swered, "Ro here."
    "This is Ensign Owlswing outside the cargo bay,"
responded a female voice. "Henderson sent us down
to check on those vegetables and fruits in the hold,
but something's wrong with the cargo-bay hatch. We
can't get it open--it's locked and won't respond to
the controls."
    Ro started to rise wearily from her seat. "We can
override the lock, take it off the computer, and open it
manually."
    "I know, sir," said Owlswing, "I just wanted your
permission to try it."
    Ro sunk back into her seat and saw Picard smiling
at her. "Yes, go ahead. Ro out."
    "See, it really is your ship," said Picard, "and your
crew."
    "For a young crew, they've been relatively calm and
levelheaded," conceded Ro. "Let's hope they stay that
way, because we're not done yet."
    Picard sat forward and folded his hands in front of
him. "That's true, and we've got to decide how we're
going to destroy this mining vessel with our limited
firepower."
    "If they're working in the vicinity of a black hole,"
offered Geordi, "it should be fairly simple to cause
them to have an accident and get sucked inside.
Maybe it's something we can do from a distance, with
a minimum of risk."
 From somewhere in the ship, they heard a muffled
shout. Picard turned around at looked at the open
door and the empty corridor beyond. "What was
that?"
    Geordi shook his head. "I think it was just the
welds groaning. No offense, Ro, but this ship is kind
of a bucket of bolts."
    "No offense taken," answered Ro. "We're all
aboard the Orb of?eace because we didn't have a lot
of choice."
    Suddenly, they heard frantic footsteps on the spiral
ladder, followed by a loud shout. A young female
officer paused in the doorway, a stricken look on her
face, as a beam of red light shot from behind her and
drilled into her back. As she stood transfixed in the
doorway, her eyes wide with horror, a glowing red
splotch appeared on her chest, and she collapsed in a
heap on the deck, her eyes staring straight upward.
    Picard jumped instantly to his feet and rushed for
the door as another young officer ran past. He, too,
was consumed in the beam of a sloppy shot, which
scattered sparks off the bulkhead. Before Picard could
reach the wounded man, the doors slid shut on their
own, blocking out the scene of carnage in the hallway.
The captain started to pound on the wall panel to
open the portal when caution got the better of him.
They didn't have a weapon among them, and to rush
into the line of fire was foolish, no matter what the
horror.
    Ro slapped her comm badge. "Captain to bridge!
What's going on?"
    A harried voice came on, "Intruder alert! Intruder
on the bridge... aaggh!" His voice dissolved into a
strangled scream.
  Ro looked at Geordi, who ripped his goggles off and
stared at her with alarmed, pale eyes. He tapped his
comm badge. "La Forge to Engineering--respond!
Engineering, come in!" No one answered his frantic
call.
    "It doesn't mean they're dead because they didn't
answer," said Ro. "Communications may be down."
    "Then again," said Picard grimly, "if they hit the
bridge and Engineering on this ship, they've hit it all."
    The Orb of Peace was indeed a tiny ship, which a
small, determined party of armed intruders could
capture from stem to stern in a matter of seconds. But
who? Where had they come from? Ro didn't want to
think that someone on their own crew could have
mutinied against them, but she read that very thought
in Picard's face.
    Only a few seconds had passed since the attack
started, but it was now deathly quiet on the transport.
The mess hall was about the most useless place to be
during an emergency, as it contained no weapons, no
equipment, and no computer terminals, except for the
food replicator. There was also no escape, except for
the door that Picard stood ready to open. Or perhaps
he intended to keep it shut, in case the intruders tried
to break in.
  "I've got to go out there," said the captain.
  "We'll all go," offered La Forge.
    "No. You two stay in hiding. If worse comes to
worse, you may have to take back the ship."
    "Sir, it's my ship," said Ro, brushing past the
captain. "It's my place to see what's going on."
    He looked as if he wanted to argue with her, then
thought better of it. "I'11 give you a few seconds' lead,
then I'm going to see if they found the weapons
storage in the dormitory. Geordi, we have to keep you
in reserve. You've got the mess hall--see what you
can do with it." "Yes, sir."
    "Let's hope it's not what we think it is," muttered
the Bajoran as she slapped the panel and opened the
door.
    Ro stepped out into the corridor to see three dead
bodies. The woman was slumped in front of the door,
the man was crumpled against a bulkhead a few
meters away, and another officer was sprawled across
the top of the spiral staircase. Whoever the intruders
were, they shot to kill.
    She walked cautiously toward the stairs, knowing
that she had to go to the bridge to find out who was
behind this massacre. On the deck was a lump of
silvery metal, which Ro recognized as one of their
Bajoran phasers, melted by a blast from the intruders'
weapon.
    After stopping to remove her shoes, she started up
the stairs in her stocking feet, hopeful not to unduly
surprise whoever was on the bridge--whoever was
now in command of her ship. Ro didn't enjoy walking
into death, but she and death were old friends by this
time. He had brushed awfully close to her lately,
especially when he took Derek. Ro didn't fear death,
but she was awfully angry about the way he toyed with
her, and the way he exulted in this insane war.
    After climbing the staircase, she found another
dead body, this one blasted almost in two by beamed
weapons. The destruction was so horrible that Ro
wanted to look away, but she had to search the body
for weapons, on the off chance that the assailants had
missed collecting them.
 After searching unsuccessfully for a handheld phas-
er, Ro strode down the corridor toward the open door
to the bridge. She could hear muffled voices. On the
bulkhead walls, storage cabinets had been pulled
open and rifled through, and a pile of bandages lay
strewn across the hallway. Another body--this one
Henderson's--blocked the doorway. His petrified
face gazed up at her, no longer looking so arrogant.
    Ro steeled herself for an odious job. In essence, she
was poised to surrender her ship--her first com-
mand-to whomever was in charge of the bridge.
Considering the ruthlessness of the attack, she would
probably join her shipmates in death, but she had to
meet the new masters of the Orb of Peace first. She
had lost the ship in the blink of an eye, while she had
been relaxing, negligent in her duties. That was the
most galling part.
    Captain Picard jumped up from a crouch and
dashed across the expanse of the dormitory room,
where several score of hammocks hung from the
ceiling like old moss. It was dark, and he dared not
turn on any lights for fear of being spotted. As he
neared the last row of hammocks, he stumbled over
the dead body of a young ensign. By her loose
clothing, he concluded that she had been ruthlessly
cut down while she slept.
    The war and a life fraught with danger had inured
him somewhat to death, but it was still difficult to
accept when the victim was a young person with so
many years ahead of her. To see her cut down unex-
pectedly, for no reason, was a sinful waste. Even so,
thought Picard, he had been willing to kill this same
young woman instead of letting her be taken prisoner
by the Dominion. He had killed and was prepared to
do it again.
    He tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Why
had someone wanted this ordinary little ship so badly
they had to kill for it? Their assailants seemed to
know their way around the ship fairly well; they knew
exactly where to strike. So Picard wasn't optimistic
about finding their cache of hand phasers intact as he
reached the rear bulkhead in the dormitory.
    Sure enough, the cabinet had been stripped of its
weapons. He heard a groan, and he whirled around to
see a lump in the corner, twitching, groping for him.
"Help me!" rasped the figure.
    Picard ran to the wounded man and tried not to
gape at his wretched condition. "I'm right here," he
told the dying man. "Please stop trying to talk. Save
your strength."
    The man gripped Picard's shoulder, and the captain
could feel him shivering, growing weaker. Both of
them were obscured by shadows. "No warning,"
croaked the officer.
    "Who was it?" asked Picard as he tried to straight-
en the man's limbs and make him comfortable.
    "Romulans!" wheezed the officer with a violent
shudder. Suddenly his shivering and twitching
stopped, and he went limp in the captain's arms.
    "Rest in peace," whispered the captain, setting the
man gently onto the deck. His jaw set determinedly,
Picard rose to his feet and looked around the dormi-
tory for any object he could use as a weapon. He
spotted a toolbox and quickly opened it. Among the
tools was a heavy spanner, which he hefted in his
hand with grim satisfaction.
    What his plan was, Picard didn't yet know. He was
in reaction mode, thinking of other ships, other times
when intruders had taken over and forced him into
guerrilla warfare on his own decks. Every time, his foe
had been so ruthless as to leave him no choice.
    Picard pounded the spanner into the palm of his
hand, jumped up, and dashed back through the dor-
mitory. It was deserted except for the ghosts.
    Ro paused outside the door of the bridge. Still in
her stocking feet, she had approached the hijackers
unseen and unheard, and she could see them hovering
over the consoles, oblivious of the butchered bodies
that littered the deck. The streaked image on the
viewscreen led her to believe that they were still in
warp drive, probably still on course for the Eye of
Talek.
    She saw two of the victors and heard the voice of a
third, all men and dressed in civilian clothing--not
the Bajoran uniforms of her crew. At least it hadn't
been a mutiny. To know so much about the ship, these
intruders had to be connected to the pirates. Maybe
they had boarded during the search of the ship, while
she had been drugged. Chuckling and congratulating
each other, they sounded elated over the success of
their murderous assault.
    At that moment, when she had intended to surren-
der to them, Ro knew she couldn't do it. Her fury at
losing her ship and her instincts for survival forced
her to back slowly away from the door. Suddenly she
heard angry voices, and one of the intruders turned
around and strode toward her. Although his uniform
was unfamiliar, she identified his straight black hair
and imperious bearing.
 A Romulan!
    He stared at her, scowled, and reached for a Kling-
on disruptor in his belt. Ro darted down the hall and
vaulted over a body and into the spiral staircase. She
plunged several steps as a disruptor beam vaporized
the hand railing, scattering droplets of molten metal
down on her.

Chapter Twelve

Ro CHARGED DOWN THE STAIRS, listening to the shouts
and footsteps of her pursuer. She had no intent but to
run like hell, which she did as soon as she hit the
lower deck. Glancing behind her, Ro didn't see the
first body sprawled across the corridor, and she stum-
bled over it. She crashed to the deck just as heavy
footsteps bounded onto the deck behind her.
"Need help?" shouted a distant voice from above.
"No, no!" answered the grinning Romulan as he
leveled his disruptor at Ro. "I've got matters in
control."
    Expecting to be vaporized, Ro flinched, and she
nearly missed seeing Captain Picard spring from
behind the staircase and hit the Romulan across the
back of his skull. His features contorted for a second
before he collapsed onto the deck, sending the disrup-
tor skittering across the floor toward Ro. She instantly
pounced upon the weapon and aimed it at the top of
the staircase, waiting for more of them to descend.
    Picard searched the fallen Romulan but found
nothing worth keeping. He motioned to Ro, and she
picked herself up and scurried over. Picard pointed to
the body and back down the corridor; then he gripped
the prisoner's closest armpit. Keeping her weapon
aimed at the Romulan, Ro gripped the other armpit,
and together they dragged their prisoner back down
the corridor toward the mess hall.
    Seeing the bodies of their comrades was no easier
this time, but she struggled on, helping Picard drag
the unconscious Romulan to the door of the dining
hall. When the door didn't open, Picard pushed the
panel beside it. When that failed, he rapped on the
door.
 "Geordi! It's us!"
    The door slid open, and they dragged the Romulan
inside, as Ro stole a glance down the corridor. The
other two were still above deck, thinking their friend
was in control.
 La Forge gaped at them. "You caught a Romulan?"
    "Yes," answered Picard breathlessly. "I see you
have the door rigged?"
    "For now," answered La Forge, gingerly sticking a
fork back into the open wall compartment and mak-
ing an adjustment. "These aren't heavy-duty doors--
they could bust through fairly easily. How many are
there?"
    "Three," answered Ro. "Him and two others, all
Romulans."
    "And there were Romulans in that bunch of pirates
who boarded us," recalled Geordi. "I guess they had a
look around and liked what they saw."
    Picard's jaw tightened. "We've got a weapon, and
we've lowered the odds. But I really don't want to try
a direct assault on the bridge."
    Their prisoner groaned and began to move his
limbs. Ro looked at the disruptor and scowled. "This
is the cheap model, the one with no stun setting."
    "Don't hesitate to kill him if necessary," ordered
Picard. "Mr. La Forge, have we got anything to tie
him up?"
    The engineer reached into the open panel and
yanked out several long strands of electrical wiring,
which he tossed to Picard. "Use this, because I've
disabled the door's circuitry."
    When the Romulan groaned some more and tried
to open his eyes, Ro's finger encircled the trigger of
the disruptor and aimed the weapon at his chest. La
Forge jumped down and helped Picard tie the cap-
tive's wrists together. They were working on his feet
when he came to and gaped at them with startling
clarity.
 "What?" he gasped. "What is--"
    "Quiet," ordered Picard. "Kill him if he breathes
another word."
 "With pleasure," answered Ro.
    The Romulan's darting eyes took in Picard's stern
visage, then the disruptor in Ro's hands, and finally
the intense look on Ro's face. She didn't need to do
anything to put the fear into him, because her deter-
mination to kill him was etched into her gaunt
features. He stopped his movements and stared at
them, wide-eyed.
    "Why did you kill so many of us?" demanded
Picard.
    "We wanted your ship," said the Romulan evenly.
"Would you have given it to us?"
    "Why did you want this ship?" he pressed the
captive.
    "It was the only one which presented itself to us."
The Romulan winced as he shifted position. "You
don't know what it was like, serving under Roll and
Shek! We were virtual prisoners--allowed none of the
luxuries they got. And all the things we were forced to
do--well, we learned how to take over a ship from
them."
    "Did they have anything to do with this?" asked
Picard.
    "No, Rolf would torture and kill us, if he knew. We
had been talking about deserting, if we could get a
ship. After we returned from searching your vessel, we
put our plan into action. We're Romulans. We were
born to rule, not serve."
"We're recapturing this ship," vowed Picard.
"There's no need for bloodshed," offered the Rom-
ulan, struggling against his bonds. "Turn me loose.
Let me talk to them."
    Ro glanced at Picard and La Forge, and it was
obvious from their grim expressions that the Rom-
ulan was not getting his freedom any time soon.
  "On your feet," ordered Picard.
    "You're going to let me go?" asked the Romulan in
amazement.
    "Yes, and you're going to march straight to the
bridge. Only I'll be right behind you, with the disrup-
tor in your back."
    When the Romulan struggled to stand up, La Forge
tried to help him. With a sullen expression, he
bumped Geordi with his shoulder and knocked him
away. "I can do it!" snarled the Romulan. He strode
resolutely toward the door, staring straight ahead.
    Something is wrong, thought Ro. None of this
seemed right to herin not the hijacking, not the sense-
less killings, not the piratical Romulans.
    "Wait a minute," she said, moving toward to the
prisoner with the disruptor leveled at his stomach.
"What are you doing here--in Cardassian space--
with a war going on?"
    It was the same question she had been asked a day
earlier, and like her, the Romulan did not have a
satisfactory answer. He looked evasive as he replied,
"We were young and foolish, out for adventure."
    "They're Romulan spies," concluded Ro. "Perhaps
they're even here for the same reason we're here."
    Picard and La Forge glanced at each other, while
the puzzled Romulan turned abruptly to Ro. "I
thought you were Bajoran merchants."
    "No," answered Ro with a clenched jaw. "You
murdered a dozen Starfleet officers who were dis-
guised to look like Bajorans. Now I'll ask again: Why
are you here?"
    The Romulan licked his lips, as if tasting the truth
for the first time in his life. "We may be neutral in this
war, but it's only natural to gather intelligence."
    La Forge frowned. "And what better way to see
what's happening than to enlist on a Ferengi ship that
prowls back and forth across the lines. So what have
you found out?"
    The Romulan smirked. "I know you're losing the
war, but I don't suppose that's news."
    "Hakron!" shouted a voice that was distant, but not
distant enough.
    When the Romulan looked as if he wanted to
respond, Ro jabbed him sharply in the ribs with the
disruptor and glared at him. "What else?"
    "Let's make a deal," he whispered. "Let me talk to
my comrades. The chances are, we both want the
same thing."
    "You wanted our ship," said Ro testily. "Why?
What do you know about the Dominion's artificial
wormhole?"
"Hakron!" shouted the voice, sounding closer.
"You haven't got a chance," said Hakron smugly.
Picard promptly grabbed their captive and shoved
him toward the door. "Be quiet and don't say a
word." He nodded to La Forge, who went to the
doctored door panel and awaited his orders. Then he
held out his hand to Ro, who gave him the disruptor.
    Picard grabbed the Romulan by his collar and
pressed the barrel of the weapon against his neck.
"We're going out. Tell them to hold their fire. Don't
try to get away, or you're dead. Understand?"
The Romulan nodded languorously.
     The captain looked at Ro. "Can you be the eyes in
the back of my head?" "Yes, sir."
    Picard nodded to La Forge, and the engineer ap-
plied his fork to the circuitry. With a jolt, the door
slid open, and the captain pushed his captive out
ahead of him. Ro immediately peered around the
edge of the door, looking in the direction where
Picard's back was turned. To her relief, she didn't see
anything but a corridor littered with bodies.
    Her relief was short-lived, because Hakron sud-
denly whirled around with his foot and caught Picard
in the knee. The captain started to fall, but he kept his
grip on the Romulan's collar and dragged his prisoner
to the deck with him.
  "T'ar'Fe'" cursed the Romulan.
    At the end of the corridor, his confederate leaped
out of the dormitory, saw them, and aimed his
weapon. Picard hoisted the Romulan to his knees and
ducked behind his torso just as a red disruptor beam
streaked down the length of the hallway.
    "No!" screamed Hakron as the beam struck him in
the chest, setting it aglow. Using the slumping Rom-
ulan as cover, Picard fired his own disruptor. The
deadly beam pulsed down the corridor and sliced his
foe's left arm off at the shoulder. His screams echoed
throughout the ship as he staggered for cover inside
the dormitory.
    Ro suddenly realized that she was neglecting her
duty by watching the melee, so she turned to look at
the spiral staircase. When she saw the body on the top
step move slightly, she shouted, "Watch out!"
    Picard whirled around to shoot blindly at the top of
the stairs. The disruptor beam blew the corpse off the
steps and forced their adversary to retreat; they heard
his scurrying footsteps. Now they were in the difficult
position of having to defend both ends of the corri-
dor, although it wasn't certain that the Romulan on
their level could still mount an attack. Picard mo-
tioned to Ro and La Forge to follow him as he led the
way toward the dormitory.
    "Captain," whispered La Forge, "if I could get up
one level to the transporter room, I could fix the guy
on the bridge--without risking more disruptor fire."
    Picard stopped to consider the problem. "But the
only way up is that staircase."
 "He might be changing course, taking us into
Romulan space," added Ro. "We've got to get the
bridge under control."
    The captain nodded. "Let me see if we have another
weapon." He moved cautiously down the hallway and
inspected the deck in front of the dormitory door,
which was closed. Ro could see the severed arm, but
apparently their foe hadn't dropped his weapon.
    Looking sickened by the violence, the captain re-
turned to his comrades. "All right, I'll cover the stairs
and the door to the bridge. Mr. La Forge, you go to the
transporter room."
    "What are you going to do, beam him into space?"
asked Ro.
 "Is that a problem?"
    "Not under these circumstances," she replied with-
out hesitation. She knew that Picard cringed at the
thought of fighting to the death, but the enemy hadn't
left them much choice. With Ro keeping an eye on
their rear, they began moving toward the spiral stair-
case.
    Startling them, a voice crackled over the ship's
intercom. "To those who are resisting--you must
stop! We have control of the ship. You must surrender!
We won't harm you."
    Picard never stopped moving, and he was already
halfway up the stairs, with La Forge behind him and
Ro bringing up the rear. She assumed that if he was
speaking to them on the ship's comm, he had to be on
the bridge, probably with the door shut. When they
reached the top of the stairs, she found her assump-
tion to be true, and Picard covered them while La
Forge and Ro dashed down the corridor to the safety
of the transporter room.
 Ro watched the door while La Forge rushed to the
transporter controls. A moment later, Picard joined
them, as a voice continued to plead over the
intercom:
    "Lay your weapons down, and we will talk. We are
reasonable people, and we have all your weapons. I
have control of the bridge. You must deal with me!"
    "Not necessarily," said La Forge as he skillfully
plied the transporter console. "I've locked on to the
only life sign on the bridge. That's an outer bulkhead
behind the transporter. Ro, will you pace it off for
me?"
    "Sure." She leaped upon the raised platform and
quickly paced off the rough distance to the wall
behind it. "Five meters," she reported.
    "All right," said La Forge with a sigh. "Do we give
him a chance to surrender?"
    "No!" snapped Ro. "They didn't give our crew a
chance."
    Keeping watch at the door with his disruptor,
Picard shook his head concurring with Ro's assess-
ment. "Energize."
    La Forge slid an old-fashioned lever forward, and a
almost melodic noise sounded in the air. But nothing
appeared on the transporter platform.
    "It's done," said La Forge heavily. "What about the
one in the dormitory?"
    "No," answered Picard, "he's probably in shock.
We should be able to deal with him. All of our
weapons must be on the bridge--let's go get them."
    Cautiously, they made their way down the corridor,
following Picard and his disruptor. The small bridge
of the Orb of Peace, which usually looked so serene,
now looked like a chamber of horrors. There were
dead bodies everywhere, and an impressive pile of
weapons in front of the viewscreen. Ro and La Forge
each grabbed a Bajoran hand phaser, and Ro checked
the readings on the conn.
    "We're still on course to the black hole," she
reported. "Still at warp three."
    "I want to question the last Romulan," said Picard,
"if he's still alive."
    Once again, they wound their way down the spiral
staircase, past the familiar dead bodies. When they
reached the dormitory, Picard motioned them away
from the door as he pressed the wall panel. When the
door slid open, they flung themselves out of the way,
expecting fire to erupt from the room--but none
came. Cautiously Picard reached around the edge of
the door and felt for the panel that would turn on the
lights. When he found it, the shadowy chambers were
suddenly illuminated by cheerful lighting.
    Once again, they pinned themselves against the
bulkhead in the corridor, expecting enemy fire to
pulse through the doorway. Picard picked up a piece
of nearby battle debris. He tossed the debris into the
room, and it hit the deck with a loud clunk.
    "Unnh!" groaned a voice with surprise, as if they
had awakened him from a nap. Suddenly wild disrup-
tor fire streaked out the door and raked the opposite
bulkhead.
    "Hold your fire!" shouted Picard, backing away
from the door. "Your confederates are dead, and
we've recaptured the ship! If you throw your weapon
toward the door, we'll come in and give you medical
attention."
    The scattered beams stopped, and they waited in
tense silence, punctuated only by their own rapid
breathing. Finally, there came a skittering sound as a
disruptor bounced across the deck and out the door-
way. Ro instantly scooped it up.
    "Mr. La Forge, see if you can find a med kit,"
ordered the captain. "Let's go."
    Still keeping his weapon leveled in front of him,
Picard led the way into the hammock-filled dormito-
ry. Ro tried to ignore the sight of more young officers,
pointlessly slain in the cowardly attack; she concen-
trated on searching the room for the wounded Rom-
ulan.
  "Here!" called Picard.
    She caught up with the captain as he knelt down
beside a shivering humanoid who was clutching the
burned stump of his arm. Sweat and grime smeared
his once-proud face, and he blinked at them with
terror and shock.
  "La Forge!" called Ro.
    "Coming!" The engineer reached them a moment
later. He popped open a white case and took out a
hypospray.
    After they injected the hypo into the Romulan's
neck, he calmed down considerably and stopped
shivering. Ro figured that they had only a few seconds
before he lost consciousness... probably forever.
    She bent over him, her face inches away from his.
"The Dominion is building an artificial wormhole.
What do you know about it?"
 "Must see if it works--" he answered dazedly.
    "Why?" He was losing consciousness, and she had
to shake him to get his attention. "Why?"
    "If it works," he rasped, "we become their al-
lies... we join the Dominion."
    Then he was out, unconscious but still breathing
roughly. She looked gravely at Picard and La Forge.
None of them needed to say what it would mean if the
Romulan Star Empire turned against them, too. They
would be caught in a vise.
    "It's not going to work," vowed Picard. "It's never
going to work." He slumped back on his haunches,
weary and shell-shocked. The raw struggle for survival
had been won, leaving Ro with a sense of failure and a
dread of the killing to come.
    His fingers twitchy and nervous, Sam Lavelle sat at
the conn of the Tag Garwal, waiting for his crewmates
to finish their last-minute preparations. In the hold
was a mining probe that would soon be dangled over a
black hole. He didn't know why he was so nervous,
because theoretically he had the easiest job of the lot
of them--to simply maintain their position. Of
course, he was captain as well as helmsman, and he
knew it would be up to him to take over in an
emergency. At the same time, he had to look out for
providential opportunities to escape.
    He glanced at the viewscreen, knowing it was the
Eye of Talek that made him nervous. Although small
as black holes went, it looked like a stealth moon--an
alien world within the endless void. In some strange
way, it made space seem vulnerable. Although Grof
had said that matter escaped from it, the flow of dust,
debris, and gas seemed to be all one way.
    "Beautiful, isn't it?" said Grof, settling into the seat
at the ops console.
    "It's still scary to me," answered Sam. "Maybe
that's because I don't trust it."
    "When the Cardassians discovered it," said Grof,
"they only had telescopes, no space travel, and they
didn't know what it was. But they had a myth about a
large monster with one eye which consumed every-
thing it saw. That was Talek."
    "That makes me feel so much better," murmured
Sam. "I take it your main job is to shoot the tach-
yons?"
    "That, and to monitor everything that goes on. I'd
like to observe you, for instance, and learn your job."
"I'm sure you would," Sam replied snidely.
    "In a positive sense," said the Trill defensively. "We
have a small crew, so the more efficiently we can
relieve each other, the better off we'll be."
    "Just do your job," ordered Sam, "and let every-
body else worry about theirs." In truth, he would
rather have had Taurik on the bridge with him, but
the consensus was that Taurik was needed at the
airlock with the mining probe, which was too heavy
for anyone else to lift. Then Taurik would assist the
material handlers in the transporter room and the
recombination chambers.
    Footsteps on the ladder made Sam jump, and he
whirled around to see Tamla Horik, the tractor-beam
specialist, emerge from the hatch. The Deltan looked
contented and relaxed these days, just glad to be free.
This was Sam's first command, he thought to himself,
and he couldn't even enjoy it.
    The Deltan took her seat at the tactical station and
reported, "The others are all set. Commence when
ready."
    "Thank you," said Grof testily. He punched the
communications panel, and his voice echoed through-
out the ship. "Crew of the Tag Garwal, we are ready to
begin our historic mission. Release the mining
probe."
 Sam shook his head at the pomposity of the Trill.
He talked as if he were running the operation when, in
reality, the only one in charge was the Jem'Hadar
attack ship. It continued to scrutinize from afar, with
the power to destroy them at any second.
    Knowing he had to forget about them and concen-
trate on the job, Sam put the mining probe on the
viewscreen. The small unmanned craft looked un-
gainly with its array of robotic arms, sensors, and
reflector dishes. And it looked helpless as it cruised
inexorably toward the deep emptiness of the Eye of
Talek.
    Sam tried not to think how much was riding on all
this Cardassian equipment, but he knew that Grof,
Taurik, and the others had checked every piece a
dozen times. He had to rely on their judgment about
the equipment, as they relied on his about the ship.
 "Tractor beam," ordered Grof.
    "Tractor beam on," replied the Deltan at the tacti-
cal station.
    The escaping probe was engulfed in an invisible
beam that registered only on their instrument panels.
Nevertheless, the probe now had a leash which,
theoretically, would keep it from plunging into the
black hole.
    "Distance to event horizon: three hundred kilome-
ters," reported Horik. "Tractor beam holding
steady."
 "Don't let it cross that horizon," warned Grof.
 "Or what will happen?" asked Sam.
    "If the tractor beam held, we could retrieve it,"
answered the Trill, "but that's a big 'ifi' And I don't
know what kind of shape it would be in. More than
likely, we'd be down to two probes."
    "Two hundred kilometers," said the Deltan. "I'm
slowing speed to one-quarter impulse."
"It's looking good," said Grof, his eyes intent upon
his readouts.
    Sam looked at his own readouts to make sure they
hadn't drifted in their orbit, which was matched to
the slight rotation of the black hole. It seemed odd to
be orbiting nothing, but this nothing had a lot of
gravity for its size.
    "One hundred kilometers," reported Horik.
"Thrusters stopped. We're now coasting into position
one-half kilometer in front of the event horizon."
    "We're sure about those calculations, are't we?"
asked Grof, sounding nervous for the first time.
    "Yes," answered the Deltan, "unless this black hole
doesn't obey the known laws of physics, which is
always possible with a singularity."
    Sam didn't like the way Grof gnawed on his lower
lip as the probe completed its final approach to the
black hole. He tried not to think about the incredible
gravitational pull on the small probe, counteracted
only by their souped-up tractor beam. Sam increased
the magnification on the viewscreen to get a better
look at the probe... perhaps the last look at it.
    "Approaching one kilometer," said the calm, con-
tented Deltan. She plied her console. "All right, it's
stopped."
    The three of them stared at the viewscreen, half-
expecting the awkward probe to vanish forever into
the gaping blackness. But the probe was stopped,
hanging on the lip of the abyss.
    Grof let out a loud sigh, and then he rubbed his
hands together, ready for his part in the drama. First
he made a shipwide announcement. "Attention, crew:
the probe is in place. I'm bombarding the black hole
with tachyons--stand by tractor beam, remote con-
trol, and transporter room."
    Sam hoped that soon they would get proficient
enough at this operation to do it without Grof's
melodramatics; but for the moment, he was glad that
someone was calling every shot. On the viewscreen,
they watched an impossibly long strand of tachyons
stretch from their ship, past the probe, into the
blackness of the singularity. Sam knew this was a
crucial step, the one that would actually quantum-
step the particles and force them outward. The tractor
beam would capture and guide them into the probe.
  "Extend tractor beam," ordered Grofi
  "Extending," said the Deltan.
  "Start extraction."
    Leni Shonsui's voice came over the comm. "Extrac-
tion in progress."
    Again there was a tense silence as they watched the
timers and their readouts. Sam noticed that some
force was slightly altering their orbit, and he compen-
sated without comment. There would be time later to
point this out to the others and make a correction for
the next shot. Right now, they were all absorbed in
their own tasks.
    "Load full!" announced Shonsui's voice. "Let's reel
it in."
    Now everyone breathed a sigh of relief, although
they weren't out of the woods yet. Sam knew that they
had to perfectly coordinate cutting the tractor beam
at the same moment that they transported the probe
back to the ship.
    Grof held up his finger. "Transport on my mark.
Three, two, one... mark!"
The Deltan punched her board. They waited for
confirmation.
    "Masserelli here," came a voice from below.
"We've got her, and the stasis field is holding!"
    "At last." Grof slumped back in his seat and turned
apologetically toward Sam. "I've got to go down and
see it."
    "Go ahead. I wouldn't mind seeing the next step
myself." Sam didn't mention it, but the ship was in
extreme danger at this point, with a highly volatile
material in stasis.
    "You two go on," said Horik at her tactical station.
"I can watch things here."
    With Grof eagerly leading the way, they tromped
down the ladder to the lower level and dashed along
the corridor to the transporter room. The glow of the
stasis field in the center of the transporter pad cap-
tured their attention and forced them to halt in the
doorway. Woil, Shonsui, and Masserelli were wearing
protective gear that covered them from head to foot,
and Sam and Grof sunk back from the danger.
    Jozarnay Well grabbed a flexible tube that hung
from a mass of pipes in the ceiling and checked its
fittings. As if he did this every day of the week, he
calmly walked up to the glowing stasis field, stuck the
tube in, and clamped it to the elevated mining probe.
Woil stepped back, motioning to Enrique Masserelli,
who manipulated the stasis field and the probe with a
handheld remote. Shonsui stood at the transporter
console, keeping a close watch on an array of read-
outs. Soon the tube was bulging as the contents of the
probe were being evacuated to the recom chambers in
the hold.
Grof nudged Sam with an elbow. "Come on."
The human followed the Trill to the stern of the
ship. From there, large double doors opened into the
two-story-high cargo hold. As an antimatter tanker,
the Tag Garwal's hold was by far her most impressive
feature. Antimatter was the most volatile cargo in the
galaxy, and it had to be stored in special forcefield
containers and transported in special conduits, which
snaked all over the ceiling and walls of the hold.
    The upright containers looked like massive African
drums. Having been used strictly for storage, now
their forcefields were being used to recombine parti-
cles that had, until a few moments ago, existed in
another space-time continuum. Despite Sam's mis-
givings, it was exciting to think that they could fill
these drums with material dredged from a black hole.
    They heard footsteps, and they turned to see En-
rique walking toward them with his headgear and a
tricorder in his hands, and a big grin on his face.
"How does it look?"
    "Like Corzanium!" declared Grof. "Which one is it
in?"
    Enrique muscled past them in his bulky suit and
approached the first upright container. He opened a
tricorder and took readings. "Right here. It's all going
as planned."
    Suddenly there came a loud crashing sound from
directly behind them--in the transporter room. Big
man though he was, Grof whirled around like a
dancer and bolted down the corridor. Sam and En-
rique jogged after him.
    When they reached the transporter room, they were
all horrified to see the mining probe lying on the
transporter pad, many of its external components
broken and smashed. No one needed to ask what had
fallen over.
 "What happened?" roared Grof, shaking his fists.
    Shonsui looked at Woil, and the Antosian shrugged.
"When I cut the stasis field, then it... I don't know."
    "Cutting the stasis field had nothing to do with it,"
said Chief Shonsui on the transporter controls. "I
take full blame. I didn't have it adjusted for the
correct weight of the empty probe, which is something
I wouldn't have to do with a Federation transporter. I
mean, you don't expect to empty a probe and have it
weigh more."
    "You idiot! Up to this point, it was going perfectly/"
Grof stomped around like a little boy denied his
dessert at suppertime.
    Sam knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he
couldn't help himself. "I wouldn't say it was perfect. I
had to compensate to hold our position, and that
wasn't in any of the models."
    Now the Trill glared at him. "And you didn't say
anything? Imbeciles! I'm surrounded by imbeciles!"
Grof stormed out of the transporter room, and they
could hear him shouting all the way down the cor-
ridor.
    Sam looked at his crew and shook his head. "I'm
personally proud of you that you managed to pull that
off so well. In one day, we've collected more Cor-
zanium than anybody else in two quadrants, and
that's using Cardassian equipment, with a gun
pointed at our heads! Screw that old goat."
    "Yeah, so we had a few minor glitches," said
Enrique. "That's to be expected." Still, there was no
way to look at the damaged probe without thinking
they had made a grave error--one that might cost
them their lives.
    Taurik appeared in the doorway, looking non-
plussed by the mess on the transporter pad. "I will
prepare another probe."
    As the Vulcan hurried off, Sam sank against the
bulkhead. He was disheartened by the realization that
they would have to go through that tense procedure
again and again until they had collected a hoard of
Corzanium. He looked around and could tell by the
stark faces that his crew knew the truth: they were still
slaves, even with a ship at their disposal. This tanker
was nothing but a floating jail, with a lunatic as the
jailer.
    "Get another probe out there," said Sam. "But
don't worry, we're getting out."

Chapter Thirteen

Ro LAREN, GEORDI LA FORGE, AND JEAN-LUC PICARD
stood in the transporter room of the Orb of Peace,
with La Forge at the transporter controls. The room's
nonthreatening, welcoming atmosphere was severely
tested by the sight of four bodies piled like firewood
on the transporter pad. Picard tried not to think of
the other three piles of corpses which had lain there in
the last hour. Very badly, he wanted to wash his
hands, but he wasn't done yet.
    This pile of bodies was a mixture of two of his
crew and two dead Romulans. Whether they would
appreciate the burial rites, he didn't know. The
captain's face drew tight as he performed his least
favorite duty.
    "We commit these bodies of our comrades--and
our enemies--to the void of space, to which they
dedicated their lives. I only wish they could have
experienced more of the joyful, awe-inspiring aspect
of space exploration, rather than the senseless de-
struction of war. But no matter how advanced the
races of the galaxy, we still suffer from greed and
bloodlust."
    The captain sighed, bereft of words to explain what
had happened to these young people--and so many
other young people who were dying at that very
moment in the far-flung theater of war. He knew why
they fought, and what they fought to preserve, but
excuses for killing were beyond Picard at that mo-
ment.
    "May their beliefs in the afterlife be fulfilled,"
concluded the captain.
    He nodded to La Forge, who turned the pile of
corpses into a glittering funeral pyre for a few brief
seconds until they disappeared entirely.
    Picard strode to the door. "I wish there were time
to reflect and mourn, but there's not. Since there's
only three of us, we have to conserve our resources.
One of us must be sleeping while the other two are on
duty--one in the engine room and one on the
bridge."
    As they followed the captain down the corridor, Ro
asked, "What about the one-armed Romulan?"
    Picard stopped to consider the question. Against all
odds, their prisoner hadn't died... yet. When it
came to first aid, none of them were Beverly Crusher,
but they had apparently done a satisfactory job of
patching him up. It helped that he was a fit, young
Romulan. But if he kept recovering, he would soon
become a problem.
  "Lock him in the captain's quarters," said Picard.
"Whoever is stationed in Engineering will pay period-
ic visits and keep him sedated."  "I volunteer--" began Ro.
    "No," answered Picard with a smile. "You steered
us through the Badlands, and you must be exhausted.
I'll take the bridge, La Forge Engineering, and Ro--
you get the bunk. And that's an order."
    "Aye, Captain," she answered with weary resigna-
tion. "Do you think we can do this by ourselves?"
    "We have to," said Picard with determination.
"There's no one else."
    Collecting three more loads of Corzanium without
incident had mollified Enrak Grof somewhat. The
'Frill sat in the mess hall, playing with his newest toy, a
fist-sized chunk of Corzanium, while Sam drank a cup
of coffee. Although Grof hadn't liked it, he had agreed
to give them a rest break for two hours. Everyone
needed it.
    Grof hefted his golden rock, then removed his
hand, letting it float in the air. "This is amazing
stuff," he told Sam. "If we had enough of it, we could
build shuttlecraft that required only a slight push to
get them off a planet. We could shoot probes into the
largest sun and have them come out again on their
own power. In fact, gravity-resistant probes would
make mining Corzanium itself a snap."
    He squinted at the floating rock. "I wonder if it will
ever be possible to replicate this stuff?."
    Sam yawned. "Grof, do you ever stop thinking
about getting ahead?"
    "No, as a matter of fact, I don't. Progress is my
business. The rest of the universe may be content with
the status quo, but I never am. Most of our greatest
achievements are only beginnings, halfway measures
until the real thing comes along. I'm going to be
famous someday, Sam. You'll be able to brag to your
grandchildren that you knew me."
    "Only if we escape from here," said the human,
staring pointedly at the Trill.
    For once, Grof met his gaze. "What do you want
from me? Some pointless act of patriotism that won't
stop the juggernaut of the Dominion for one second?
You think I don't hear your little whispered conversa-
tions and plots? I do. Of course, Sam, I've heard you
talking about escape for several days now, and I think
it's just talk. Just by doing your job, you're getting
closer to freedom--by earning it instead of being
stupid. If there's such a big difference between us, I'd
like to know what it is."
    "You think it's just talk," murmured Sam, worried
that the Trill could be right.
    "Let me put it this way: I'm a man who looks for
options, and thus far, you haven't presented me with
any." Grof snatched his floating rock from the air and
stalked out of the mess hall.
    Sam watched the collaborator go, thinking that, for
once, he was right. The time for talking and waiting
was over.
    Commander Shana Winslow led the way through
the aquarium, which was part of the Natural History
Exhibit on Starbase 209. Will Rikor followed behind
her, marveling at what had been done in such a small
space to give the feeling of an aquatic world. There
were magnified tanks of starfish, seahorses, and neon-
orange coral fish, letting a few aquatic animals stand
in for many. He paused in a round anteroom, where a
school of hundreds of glinting sardines swam around
the amazed visitors, moving like electrons in their
circular tank.
    "Beautiful, aren't they?" asked Winslow. "At one
time, they were a staple food source for our ances-
tors."
    "Seems like it would take a lot of them to make a
meal," observed Riker.
    A cacophony of excited voices diverted his atten-
tion, and he and his date stepped out of the way as a
gaggle of schoolchildren walked through, talking and
pointing excitedly at the whirl of sardines. Since he
was taller than them, his view was unobstructed; still
Riker found himself watching the school of children
instead of the school of fish. Some of them looked
distracted, sad.
    When the group had moved on, he turned to see a
melancholy look on Winslow's face. "What's the
matter?" he asked.
    She sighed and shifted her weight onto her natural
leg. "Most of those kids are war orphans whose
parents are not coming back. This base isn't really at
the front lines, yet we're filling up with war refugees,
orphans, and the like. You brought us almost a
hundred of them. I don't know how much longer we
can go on before we start busting at the seams."
"Aren't there any transports out?" asked Riker.
"Not very many of them. The commercial space
routes are all shut down, and Starfleet's ships are all
too busy. There was a time when we could ask a ship
like the Enterprise to ferry some of these folks for us. I
don't suppose you'd like to take a side jaunt to Earth
or Bajor before you go back into action?"
 "No," admitted Riker, studying the woman's hon-
est face and large brown eyes. "In truth, we probably
couldn't make it to Bajor."
    "Then the Bajorans may be stuck on this star-
base... for the duration." Winslow left the school of
sardines and wandered toward a wall tank of swaying
seaweed and skittery octopus. Riker silently followed
her between the soothing tanks of fish.
    When he reached her, she mustered a smile and
said, "You haven't asked me about your ship all
evening. I don't know whether to thank you or be
offended."
    "I know you and everyone else on 209 are doing all
you can." He reached out and brushed a strand of
dark hair off her pronounced cheekbone, as he gazed
into her wide, sultry eyes. "It's funny. When we first
got here, I was in a big hurry to leave. But now I'm not
in such a big hurry. I'd be a fool not to enjoy these last
few days... with you."
    "You don't expect to come back either?" asked
Winslow hoarsely.
    "To tell you the truth, Shana, I don't know what to
expect. I'm scared. But I'll keep doing my duty and
trying to protect my crew until... until there's no
point. All I'm trying to say is that you've made these
few days better than I had any reason to expect--"
    Before he could finish, Captain Winslow pulled
him toward her with surprising strength. Her mouth
met his in a kiss that was fierce and demanding, only
becoming tender after they tasted each other. She
gripped his broad shoulders as if hanging on for her
life, and he pulled her slight frame into his chest.
    They heard giggling, and they turned to see two of
the schoolgirls watching them intently. "Shoo!" said
Riker with a good-natured grin. The girls ran off,
joining the larger pack of children as they wound their
way out of the aquarium.
    Winslow stepped away from him and pushed a few
strands of hair back into place. "I should think twice
about public displays of affection, or the other cap-
tains will think you have the inside track."
 "Well, don't I?" asked Riker with a grin.
  "I mean, for getting your ship serviced faster."
    "Ah." His hands encircled her waist. "That's not on
my mind anymore."
    Winslow gently pushed him away. "We need to be
more discreet. Shall we return to my quarters?"
    "It's your call," said Will, giving her a graceful way
to escape his clutches. Under the best of circum-
stances, he knew he could be something of a wolf, and
these weren't the best of times. He only knew that
Shana Winslow filled some empty spot within him,
and he hoped he did the same for her. These weren't
good times to be alone.
    "I'm inviting you," she answered, taking his hand
and squeezing it. "But, Will, I want you to know that
I... my body is--"
    "You're an oasis of beauty," insisted Riker. "I've
got a few scars, too--we can compare them. The
Klingons gave me a dandy one when I served aboard
the Pagh, and it's in a place few people get to see.
Then this Borg scratched me across the back with a
drill bit--"
    Winslow snuggled into the crook of his arm. "I look
forward to exploring all of them."
    They walked slowly through the suddenly quiet
aquarium, and Riker asked, "Are you going to get any
emergency calls?"
 "Not tonight. The admiral's ship is gone." She gave
him a worried smile and gripped his forearm tighter.
"Unless all hell breaks loose--"
    "It won't tonight," Riker assured her. "Maybe
tomorrow, but tonight the galaxy is going to stand still
for us."
    After several shifts and a dozen loads of Cor-
zanium, a professional level of confidence was creep-
ing into the work of the tanker crew. No longer was
every extraction from the black hole into the recom
chambers a white-knuckled dance with death. More
and more, the process was like a slow-motion relay
race, where the baton kept getting handed off until it
crossed the finish line. The flaky Cardassian equip-
ment began to seem stable, even adequate.
    They began to think of the Eye of Talek as a deep
mining shaft instead of a black hole, and they called it
simply "the Hole." It was still dangerous, to be sure,
but the Hole was no longer the ominous mystery it
had been when they had first seen it. For good or evil,
they began to see the black hole as a resource to be
plundered.
    Grof was still bossy, but he was in a fairly good
mood over their progress. The best result of their
latest fight was that Grof was now keeping away from
the bridge entirely, which suited Sam just fine. Most
of the others were good company on the bridge,
whenever they filled in at relief or simply stopped by
to hang out. But even his best friend, Taurik, wasn't
around very much. In the pecking order, it was
beginning to seem as if the real action was below-
decks in the cargo hold, and Sam was just an after-
thought, like the shuttlecraft pilot on the company
picnic.
    Nobody thought much about the Jem'Hadar ship
off starboard, except for Sam. He watched it every
spare moment and thought about it constantly. After
all this time, he still didn't have a plan to capture the
attack craft or disable it. He didn't know whether the
Jem'Hadar were getting cocky and overconfident at
all, but they deserved to be. So far, everything had
gone their way. Patience, Sam told himself, a good
idea will come. An opportunity will present itself--be
ready to act.
    Perhaps his troubled thoughts were distracting him
that first shift of the day, when he should have been at
his most alert. But why was Enrique so unobservant
at the tactical station? Why was nobody even at the
ops station? Were the Jem'Hadar groggy from their
white stuff?. It probably wouldn't have made any
difference, but somebody should have seen that mete-
oroid come streaking out of nowhere, headed straight
toward the Eye of Talek.
    The meteoroid caught them at the most critical
juncture of the extraction, when they had just ex-
tended the tractor beam into the black hole to attract
the escaping Corzanium. The probe hung on the edge
of the event horizon, centimeters from plunging into
another realm of space and time. It couldn't have
appeared at a worse time.
    "Oh, my God!" muttered Enrique when he saw the
thing on his readouts.
    Both he and Sam stared up at the viewscreen in
time to see a monstrous rock as big as a house come
hurtling past them. As if that near miss wasn't bad
enough, the meteoroid crossed the tractor beam,
breaking the seal with the probe. The delicate piece of
machinery, which they had babied since dropping the
first one, was sucked into the blackness in a microsec-
ond. It disappeared from Sam's readouts like a phan-
tom blip.
    "What's going on?" demanded Grof over the ship's
comm.
    There was no time for Sam to reply, because the
meteoroid's path was altered by the tractor beam. It
passed through the beam again, caught hold, and
jolted the ship. Having much greater mass than the
probe, the meteoroid abruptly dragged the tanker
toward the Eye of Talek.
    "Cut the tractor beam," ordered Sam, but it was
too late. Angry footsteps sounded on the ladder
behind him.
  "We're falling into the hole!" yelled Enrique.
    Sam threw every forward thruster into full reverse,
and they were tossed out of their seats by the oppos-
ing forces. He heard Grof roar with rage as he was
dumped off the ladder, but Sam was totally preoccu-
pied with his job now. With every reflex, instinct, and
sliver of experience he had, Sam worked the controls
in a desperate attempt to save the Tag Garwal and
themselves.
    But the response was sluggish--it was as if the ship
were under water, a submarine. Sam realized it was
the gravity from the Eye of Talek and possibly some
unknown effect of the event horizon. They were too
low--on a reentry course with something they
couldn't possibly reenter.
    Finally Grof stomped up the ladder and stormed
out of the hatch, his face purple with rage. "What are
you doing, you idiot? You're wrecking my ship!"
    "Shut up," growled Enrique. "He's trying to save it.
Look at the viewscreenmit's a huge meteoroid!"
    Sam heard gasps as the giant rock disappeared into
the hole, which had come close enou~ to fill the
entire viewscreen with blackness. M1 of this was on
the periphery of Sam's senses, as he strug~ed with the
helm. Perhaps a first-class shuttlecraft with a slew of
thrusters would have survived this descent, but not
the awkward antimatter tanker, which was not a
terrestrial craft. It didn't have enough power to fill
this kind of cavity.
    "Pull out!" bellowed Grof. "Before we hit the event
horizon."
  "I'm going into wa~ drive," declared Sam.
  "No!" said Grof. "They... they'll kill us."
    "Not if we're already dead." He was about to apply
an emergency procedure that would probably tear
them apart, when something else jolted the Tag Gar-
wal. Sam looked at his controls and was amazed to see
that their plunge into the hole had been slowed by
eighty percent.
    "The Jem'Hadar ship," said Enrique. "They've got
us in their tractor beam."
    Sam changed the viewscreen immediately, putting
up the pulsing blue vessel, which was closer than it
had ever been before. It was even in transporter range!
although they had just saved his life, his first instinct
was to disable them. But he wasn't prepared--it was
too sudden.
    He again jammed on the jets and finally began to
pull away from the gaping singularity, which had
swallowed a gigantic meteoroid and a probe without
so much as a burp. The Jem'Hadar ship backed away
quickly, but Sam was already counting in his head
how many seconds they had stayed within his trans-
porter range. They didn't release his ship and return
to their former position until the tanker was well out
of danger. For almost a minute, they had been vulner-
able.
    Sam didn't relax until the Tag Garwal was safely
parked in her former orbit. He felt an odd mixture of
anger, fear, and elation. They had almost gotten
killed, but they had learned a valuable lesson: the
Jem'Hadar were willing to risk their ship and their
lives to save the tanker from disaster.
    He flicked on the comm. "Captain here. We're okay
now, but we lost that probe. Start looking for dam-
age." He tapped it off.
    Grof breathed a raspy sigh of reliefi "You see, Sam.
Now what do you think about the Jem'Hadar?"
    "I think the damned idiots should have shot down
that meteoroid before it got to us!" ~owled Sam.
"Enrique, open a channel to them."
    "Belay that order," said the Trill. "Sam, I beg you,
don't do an~hing foolish."
    "I'm the captain of this star-crossed ship," mut-
tered Sam. "Enrique, do it."
    After a brief pause, the dark-haired human
punched his panel. "Opening hailing frequencies.
Audio and visual."
    Sam stud up and whispered to Grofi "Have some
faith in me, will you."
 "You're on," said Enrique.
    Sam straightened his jumpsuit and stared resolutely
at the viewscreen. "I wish to thank our escort for their
quick action in saving the Tag Ga~al. Our entire
crew is in your debt, because we would have been lost,
along with our valuable cargo.
    "However, that meteoroid should not have been
allowed to get so close to us. I know you consider that
your primary mission is to watch us, but you've also
got to watch the sky. That meteoroid must have had a
trajectory that could be tracked. You have to be our
shield and look out for us. If you do that, it will make
our job easier." Sam put his hands on his hips and
waited.
  "They're responding!" said Enrique nervously.
  "On screen."
    A spiny, cracked, gray face appeared on the screen.
The Jem'Hadar lowered his heavy lids and nodded.
"Message acknowledged. We will add the service you
requested to our duties."
    "Thank you." Sam allowed them a polite smile,
although he didn't get one in return.
    "Out," said the Jem'Hadar before the screen went
blank.
    Sam turned to look at Grof, who appeared relieved,
terrified, and amazed at the same time. "You got them
to change their mission."
    "To help us stay alive," Sam added. "I guess they
think that's a good idea. Don't you?"
    "Yes, yes," answered Grof. "I'm sorry I yelled at
you, Sam. I didn't know what had happened."
    "Yeah, but you're awfully quick to blame your
coworkers for everything that goes wrong, when
sometimes it's just a matter of Murphy's Law."
    "Murphy's Law?" asked Grof. "I'm unfamiliar with
that concept."
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."
Grof nodded sagely. "Yes, I can see the wisdom in
thinking along those lines. And I must take responsi-
bility for only bringing three probes, which I thought
would be sufficient."
 "Let's take a look at the one we dropped," Sam
suggested. "Maybe there are some parts we can repli-
cate."
    They heard footsteps on the ladder, and Taurik
emerged from the hatch. "We have secured the cargo
and the equipment, but we did suffer minor damage. I
suggest we suspend operations for the rest of this shift
to make repairs and review our procedures."
    "Absolutely," said Grof. "We can't be too careful.
From now on, we follow the maxim called Murphy's
Law. We learned a valuable lesson today."
    "Yes, we did," agreed Sam, although he wasn't
talking about the same lesson. He had learned the
chink in the Jem'Hadar's armor, but it would require
a great deal of courage to exploit it.
    There was really only one person he would need to
take into his confidencemLeni Shonsui, the trans-
porter operator. For the time being, the fewer people
who knew, the better; plus Shonsui disliked Grof and
wouldn't be inclined to talk to him. The Trill had to
be kept in the dark and neutralized, when the time
came.
    He looked up to see the professor giving him a
warm smile, which he found rather unsettling while
he was scheming to murder the man. "You did a
superb job during the crisis, Sam, and I was wrong--
it was a good idea to contact our escort. From now on,
I'm going to temper my criticism."
    "Good idea, Grof." Sam patted the Trill on the
back and steered him toward the ladder. "We might
as well get along, because we're all going to hang
together."

Chapter Fourteen

SAM COLLAPSED INTO HIS BUNK in the alcove off the
bridge of the Tag Garwal. He was vaguely aware of the
lowered voices of Taurik and Woil as they held down
the bridge and monitored shipwide systems. It was
downtime on the tanker while they licked their
wounds after the near-fatal accident. Apart from the
shaken nerves, the major effect was obvious: they
were down to one probe with only about a fourth of
their projected cargo in the hold.
    Unfortunately, this meant that Sam would have to
put his plans into effect before they accidentally
destroyed the third and last probe. He had no doubt
that they would head back to base with half a load
rather than none, and he knew he might never get
another opportunity to escape like this one, with a
ship.
 Sam struggled to push all these conflicting con-
cerns and details out of his mind. He had always
been a worrier, even when he was a little kid. In the
last couple of years, he had learned not to let it show
so much, but it hadn't gone away entirely. Since
developing more faith in himself, Sam now made
quicker decisions and backed them up more force-
fully. He guessed he was learning to command,
although most of the time he felt helpless and frus-
trated.
    Of all the commands in the galaxy, this had to be
the worst: in charge of both the ship and the muti-
neers, perched on the edge of a black hole with
phasers breathing down his neck. That realization
didn't console Sam as he struggled to clear his mind
and fall asleep.
    Finally the lieutenant succumbed to exhaustion
and slipped into an agreeable dream. In this dream,
he was a lowly ensign back on the Enterprise with
Ogawa, Sito, Taurik, and those veteran officers like
Riker and Worf, who seemed so wise and calm. Now
he knew they must have been sweating out every crisis
along with the rest of the crew, but it was their job not
to show it.
    Even Riker was nice to him in this dream, which
was like an endless party in the Ten-Forward lounge.
Promotions, recommendations, congratulations, and
salutations all around! It was like graduation from
high school. In fact, some of his old high-school
chums were there, too, which struck Sam as odd for a
few seconds, until he remembered that this was the
Enterprise. Anything was possible on the Enterprise/
    He danced with Jenny, his high-school flame, on the
dance floor of the Ten-Forward lounge in his dress
uniform. Hot dog/Does it get any better than this?
After they danced, they walked off to a dark corner
where they could study the serene starscape together
and hold hands, while listening to the soft jazz of
Riker's quartet. He could feel her hands in his,
caressing his chest, stroking his face--
    Real hands shook him forcefully. "Captain, wake
up!" insisted the Antosian, Jozarnay Woil.
      Sam bolted upright, disappointed to find his dream
replaced by stark reality. "What now?"  "Another ship has just arrived."
    Sam rolled off the bed and pulled his shoes on. He
dashed out to the bridge and gazed at the viewscreen,
rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Sure enough, another
ship had approached the Jem'Hadar craft at a respect-
ful distance, and the two seemed to be parlaying. He
didn't recognize the ship or its origins; it was an
inelegant craft, possibly even uglier than the Tag
GarwaL
    "Is that another tanker?" he asked Taurik on the
conn.
    "Negative," answered the Vulcan. "The warp signa-
ture identifies it as Bajoran. I would say it is a
transport, perhaps a scientific vessel."
    "Bajoran?" muttered Woil, shaking his head. "This
war just gets weirder and weirder."
    Sam's sleepy vision and foggy mind cleared as he
studied the strange craft, wondering if he dared to hail
them. That would depend, he supposed, on how the
Jem'Hadar treated the new arrivals. Unless they were
part of the club, he sincerely doubted that their guard
would let them hang around the prison work party.
Still there might be some way to use their presence to
his advantage, and this could be an opportunity
waiting to be snatched.
 "Should we tell the others?" asked Taurik.
     "No," answered Sam. "Look, they're leaving. Track
them, Taurik." "Yes, sir."
    The bridge crew watched silently as the boxy ship
made an awkward turn and retreated. "Maintain long-
range view," ordered Sam.
    Observing the Bajoran vessel proved worthwhile.
She hadn't gone very far before she stopped and
turned around to watch them. Sam wondered if the
strangers could provoke the Jem'Hadar enough to
chase them and desert the tanker, even for a few
seconds.
    "They have moved outside weapons range," re-
ported Taurik. "Although I can hardly believe they
would be any match for the Jem'Hadar craft."
    "Maybe it's the Eye of Talek they're interested in,"
said Woil. "You know, tourists."
"Or a scientific team," suggested Taurik.
Whatever the ship was doing here, Sam didn't want
to lose an opportunity. If the Bajorans could be
coerced into playing a role in their escape, he had to
find a way to do it.
 "How close are we to first shift?" asked Sam.
 "Twenty-nine," answered Taurik.
    "I think we should get everyone up and get an early
start on the day's work," declared Sam, rubbing his
hands together as if he were Grof. "Let's put that
probe out there and grab some more Corzanium."
    Taurik gave him a raised eyebrow, but he still rose
from his seat and headed for the ladder, ready to
carry out the orders.
    Woil looked at him point-blank and smiled.
"You've got something planned, don't you?"
    "Just don't get too attached to your job," cautioned
Sam.
    Ro Laren stood on the bridge of the Orb of Peace,
flanked by Captain Picard and Commander La Forge,
who was seated at the conn. According to their
shorthanded work regimen, one of them should have
been in Engineering and the other one asleep in his
bunk, but all three had come to the bridge to survey
their target:
    The Cardassian mining vessel floated in space,
looking like a glint in the Eye of Talek. To Ro, it
seemed incredible that they could deal a crippling
blow to the Dominion's plans merely by destroying
this insignificant craft. Thus far, all of the Ferengi's
intelligence had been correct, even though they had
paid a high price for it. The mining ship had to be
destroyed.
    As with most of the objectives on this foolhardy
mission, this one wasn't going to come easily, because
sitting between them and their target was a
Jem'Hadar attack ship. They had seen enough of
these craft in the last few days to know exactly her
capabilities and strengths. Making a frontal attack on
the mining ship would be suicide, especially with two
torpedoes.
    They had already tried stealth and guile, by telling
the Jem'Hadar that they were a Bajoran scientif-
ic mission sent to study the Eye of Talek. The
Jem'Hadar had told them to go away. Now they were
just outside weapons range, knowing that the
Jem'Hadar had undoubtedly meant for them to go
farther away than this. Would the watchdogs feel
threatened by the small transport, or would they leave
them alone?
    Picard frowned at the enemy ships on the view-
screen. "We have to act quickly. Mr. La Forge, can we
shoot a torpedo from this range and know that it will
eventually make it to the black hole?"
    "We could," answered the engineer, "but it would
have to be sublight speed, and they would have time
to take evasive maneuvers. Then the black hole's
gravity would throw off the torpedo's guidance
system."
"And we'd be dead thirty seconds later," added Ro.
"Is there something we could do which would be
undetectable?" the captain asked hopefully. "Can we
make use of the black hole and its side effects?"
    With his ocular implants, La Forge scanned quickly
between the screen and his readouts. "Maybe there is
something we could do. What if we caused a rock
slide?"
 "A rock slide?" asked Picard.
    "Yes. We passed an asteroid belt about three hun-
dred thousand kilometers back. In a bunch of years,
those asteroids will find their way into the black hole,
anyway, but we could speed up the process." Ro leaned over him. "How?"
    "Collect as many as we can in a tractor beam,"
answered La Forge, "then take off at low warp speed.
We cut the tractor beam and come out of warp,
leaving the rocks to go on their way. Sort of like a
giant slingshot. At near-warp speed, they won't know
what hit them."
    "I used to throw rocks at Cardassians as a kid,"
said Ro. "Sometimes they can be very effective."
    "It's the shotgun approach," admitted La Forge
with a shrug. "We might miss, but we won't have to
use any of our torpedoes. There's nothing that will
divert those rocks from that black hole--no shields,
no phasers. You can blast them into smaller bits, but
they'll just keep coming."
    Picard tugged thoughtfully on his earring, then he
nodded. "Make it so."
    Leni Shonsui was probably the oldest member of
the Tag Garwal crew, and the Terran had a tough, no-
nonsense attitude about life. She had taken the
accident with the first probe personally and had
withdrawn from the rest of the crew. She was of
Asian extraction, thought Sam, and she might have
been very beautiful in her youth. Now she was
attractive but much embittered by captivity. Never-
theless, what she had managed to do with the Car-
dassian technology was quite impressive, despite her
one lapse.
    Sam didn't want to leave seeing her alone to
chance, so he purposely called a shipwide meeting in
the mess hall for everyone to discuss the probe
situation, only he summoned Shonsui to the bridge
one minute beforehand.
    After the small woman had climbed out of the
hatch, he quickly locked it shut behind her. "Leni,"
he said, "I won't waste time. You know what we have
to do--we have to escape. Now we know that the
Jem'Hadar will come into transporter range and
lower their shields to save us, and you have to disable
them so that we can get away. Any ideas."
    The woman took a sharp breath. "What about
Grof?."
 "We'll get somebody to neutralize him."
    "Okay." She lowered her voice and stood on tiptoes
to reach his ear. Her trembling hands gripped his
forearm. "Let me beam some of that Corzanium into
their warp coil. I grabbed a chunk for myself. Any-
where I put it is bound to cause a problem, even if I
miss a bit. We must have schematics of an attack ship
on board."
    "Yes, I've already located them," answered Sam,
pointing to his console. "You take over here on the
bridge while I go to the meeting. We'll use the
notification icon on your readouts. When I give you
the signal, that means we're within transporter range.
You have about a minute to do your part. Don't worry
about how I get them within range."
    "But we won't go into the hole?" asked Shonsui
with concern.
    "No. Leave that to me. I'm counting on you, Leni,
and not a word to anybody. Basically, you and I can
make this happen."
    "Okay, Captain," she answered with a grin. "And
we get to kill a lot of the enemy in the bargain."
    "Yeah," answered Sam with somewhat less enthusi-
asm. Sometimes when he looked at his fellow prison-
ers, he forgot that they were damaged goods, driven
beyond endurance by their captors. He tried to re-
member all the details he had to attend to.
    "We'll fix them," promised Leni, sitting at the
conn. "I'll be ready when I get your signal."
    "Thank you," breathed Sam as he backed toward
the hatch. Now he was certain that he would really
have to go through with it. The one person who might
have talked him out of it had embraced his foolish
plan wholeheartedly.
    Sam stepped down the ladder with a feeling of
dread. In a short while, he was either going to escape
this hell, or he was going to commit suicide and take
his fellow prisoners with him.
    Will Riker was jolted out of a deep, contented sleep
by a piercing, frightened scream. He rolled out of bed,
momentarily uncertain where he was.
    Turning, he saw Shana Winslow thrashing her fists
in the air, sobbing pitifully. With her eyes screwed
shut, she still seemed to be asleep, but she was also in
some kind of torment. Riker felt he had to wake her
up.
    "Shana! Shana," he said, gently shaking her. "Wake
up."
    With a gasp she opened her dark eyes and stared at
him. For a moment, she didn't seem to know where
she was either. Finally she focused on Riker's face;
then she gave him a desperate hug, gripping him as if
he were the only real thing in her life.
    "Oh, Will! Am I crazy? I see my death every
night--the one that didn't happen. I was supposed to
die on the Budapest--I know itmbut they pulled me
back from death."
    Her fingernails dug into the flesh of Riker's back,
and she stared past him. "I see them all--the ones
who did die! My husband, the captain, the first
officer--"
    "Hey, it's all right to see them," said Riker sooth-
ingly. "It's just survivor's guilt. Your dreams may take
you back to the past, but you're really here in the
present--with me. We're alive. I don't know for how
much longer, but we're alive now... and we're to-
gether."
"That's right," she breathed. "We're alive, and
they're dead. Don't know how long--"
    In the darkness of a modest cabin on Starbase 209,
surrounded by war, refugees, damaged ships, and
cold space, the acting captain held the grieving
woman in his arms. Riker knew all about survivor's
guilt; he was feeling it himself, certain that the
captain, La Forge, Data, Ro, and all the rest were
dead. He gripped Winslow's fragile body until her
shaking stopped.
    "Let's do it!" said Sam over the ship's comm.
"Prepare to launch the probe."
    "That's the spirit," bellowed Grof, standing behind
him. He looked uncertainly at Taurik, who was now
on tactical. They had gotten used to having the Vulcan
belowdeck, filling in where needed, but Sam wanted
him here--for this run.
    "Whatever happened to that other ship?" asked
Grof, sounding as if he were making nervous small
talk.
    "They left," replied Taurik, "approximately one
hour ago."
 "Probe ready," announced Woil from below.
    "You're on ops, Grof," ordered Sam, slipping casu-
ally into his seat at the conn.
    "No, wait a minute," blustered the Trill. "With
Taurik up here, I'm needed belowrowe're short-
handed."
    "Nonsense," answered Sam. "Lately the problems
have been up here, not in the hold. I'll let you shoot
the tachyons. Please, I want the crack team on the
bridge, just for a while."
 He thought that appealing to Grof's ego would win
him over. The large Trill sunk into the seat at ops
and mustered a put-upon smile. Sam nodded grate-
fully.
    "Captain to crew," he announced. "Launch probe
when ready. Stand by on tractor beam."
    Despite the disaster of the last probe and the
bizarre circumstances, they knew the routine after a
dozen successful runs. They were professionals, do-
ing the jobs for which they had trained and lived.
The probes may have taken a beating, but the tanker
and her crew were still in prime condition, a fact
which Sam was counting on. This ignoble craft had
to make due as their escape pod back to the Federa-
tion.
    Without incident, they captured the probe with the
tractor beam and lowered it to the brink of the black
hole. With a halo of dust flowing into its unquench-
able emptiness, the Eye of Talek looked aptly
named--a window into the soul of a monster. Its
primitive force made the war, the Dominion, and a
handful of prisoners seem like plankton to a whale.
Worst of all, the hole still looked hungry.
    "Beginning tachyon bombardment," said Grof
softly, as if taken by the solemnity of the occasion.
They were very close to the moment when they had
been ambushed by fate the last time.
 "Extending tractor beam," reported Taurik.
    "Extracting Corzanium," came Tamla Horik's
voice from below.
    With his heart beginning to race, Sam turned
slightly in his seat so that Grof couldn't see his
movements. The Trill appeared to be fixated on his
own console, as did Taurik, although he would need
the Vulcan's attention very soon. After yesterday,
Sam knew enough not to cause a problem while the
tractor beam was still extended into the hole. But
afterward, when they began to withdraw the probe
back to a place where it could be safely transported--
that was the time to strike. Now it was time to plant
the seeds.
    "Grof," cut in Sam, "I'm still having to compensate
for slight shifts in our trajectory. That anomaly has
never been corrected." He leaned back and pointed to
his display.
    "Just compensate," growled Grofi "I believe you.
There must be spikes in the gravity or something.
Someday you can come back and figure it out. For
now, just keep us on course."
    "If you say so," replied Sam pleasantly, doing as he
was told.
    Taurik cocked his head thoughtfully. "Perhaps this
effect is caused by minute differences in the probes
themselves. They may look identical, but they are
not."
    "Could be," allowed Sam, silently thanking his
friend for buttressing his claim. "Like the professor
says, nothing to get upset about."
    After a few seconds more, Tomla Horik announced,
"You were shaking things up in the cockpit, but it's
full now. Reel her in."
    "Retracting tractor beam," said Taurik. "Stand by
to--"
    Without warning, the Tag Garwal was slammed by
a series of sudden jolts, like machine-gun bullets
raking their hull. Luckily, Sam's eyes were on his
controls, because he immediately fired thrusters to get
them away from the black hole.
  Sparks and acrid smoke spewed from a wall panel
to his left, and Grof was shouting, "What's going on?
We've lost the probet"
    "Damage on level two," reported Taurik evenly.
"Hull breach, losing atmosphere--"
    Sam tuned out the noise, the voices, and the panic
as he struggled with the helm, visions of yesterday's
disaster swimming in his head. He had a slight jump,
more distance, and no tractor beam to contend with,
and his reflexes were poised for action. Sam stopped
their descent at a safe distance from the event
horizon, but he tried not to make it appear too safe.
Maybe this was the chance he had been waiting for.
    Almost as an afterthought, he glanced at the status
of the Jem'Hadar ship, and what he saw made him
gasp. He put it on the viewscreen to make sure he
was seeing it correctly. The attack ship was list-
ing badly, with gases escaping from half a dozen
breaches in her hull. Whatever had hit them, she had
taken the brunt of it. Her sensors must have been
malfunctioning; normally a Jem'Hadar ship could
deflect just about anything. Her thrusters burned
brightly, trying to escape the inevitable gravity, but
she was on a slow descent straight toward the Eye of
Talek.
    "Shields up!" he ordered Taurik, thinking they
might be hit by more of the invisible missiles, whatev-
er they were.
    Sam watched the crippled Jem'Hadar ship drift
closer, until she was nearly in transporter range. His
finger moved to the corner of his panel, where a
special icon awaited his touch: it was the signal to
alert Shonsui in the transporter room.
 "Hold it right there!" barked Enrak Grof. Sam
looked up to see the Trill glaring at him with hatred
and suspicion in his piggish eyes--and a small hand
phaser trembling in his hand.
"Where did you get that?" Sam demanded.
"Never mind! I don't know how you did it, but I
know you're behind this. You're insane! Back away
from the conn."
    "Professor," said Taurik evenly. "We are likely to
die unless you allow Sam to pilot the ship. Now please
excuse me, there are wounded below, and I am going
to attend to them."
    While Grof was momentarily distracted by the
departure of the Vulcan, Sam pressed his panel and
sent the signal to the transporter room. Now it was a
moot point. They might all die, but the Jem'Hadar
would die first.
    The burly Trill looked so angry that his spots were
pulsing on his forehead. "Sam, I swear I'll shoot
you!"
    "Then shoot me already! I was going to knock you
out before we made a move, but then this happened.
You want options, Grot'?. Here are two: shoot me and
die, or escape with us to freedom!"
    Stricken by indecision, the Trill looked up at the
viewscreen and the damaged attack ship. Now its
thrusters weren't even firing, and the vibrant blue
glow along its hull was gone, replaced by a dull,
lifeless gray--like the skin of a Jem'Hadar.
    Grof wailed, "They'll think we did this! They'll
hunt us down from one end of the galaxy to the other.
You could save them, Sam--lock the tractor beam on
to the Jem'Hadar. Do it, or I shoot!"
  Sam flinched, certain that in the next instant he
would feel the phaser beam rip into his skin. But he
ignored Grof and maintained steady impulse power
away from the attack ship and the black hole which
was about to claim it.
    "I warned you," muttered Grof, aiming his
phaser.

Chapter Fifteen

IGNORING THE PHASER pointed at his skull, Sam Lavelie
gazed at the viewscreen and saw the Jem'Hadar attack
craft go into a slow spiral in its inexorable descent
into the Eye of Talek. He wondered if those stoic
warriors showed any panic when confronted with
imminent death. Sam himself was surprisingly calm,
considering that death was all around him. The
destruction of the Jem'Hadar ship had seemed like an
act of God, and Sam was willing to believe that
nothing would stop their dash to freedom.
    "Grof," he said slowly, not turning around, "am I
to assume you're not going to kill me?"
    Glumly, the Trill lowered his phaser. "I should, but
I'm not going to."
"Welcome back to the Federation," said Sam, mus-
tering a wan smile. "And wave good-bye to your
friends."
    The two crewmates, prisoners, and former enemies
watched in stunned silence as the Dominion warship
sank into the blackness of the Eye of Talek and
disappeared. It was a terrible ending for any starship,
thought Sam, as if space had consumed one of its own
children.
    "Now to set course," said the pilot, shaking off the
willies and turning back to his controls. "Any ideas?"
"We could--"
    Before he got a chance to finish his sentence, they
were struck again by an unseen object. This time, the
impact knocked Grofto his feet and threw Sam out of
his chair, while sparks and smoke engulfed the tiny
bridge. Sam glanced at the viewscreen long enough to
see the crate-like Bajoran transport heading toward
them, coming in for the kill!
    Coughing from the acrid smoke, Sam staggered to
his feet, vaulted over the unconscious Trill, and
collapsed on top of the tactical station. With his last
shred of consciousness, he opened the hailing fre-
quencies.
    "Their shields are gone," reported La Forge at the
conn of the Orb of Peace. "The next one will finish
them."
    "Target the last torpedo," ordered Picard grimly.
"Fire when ready."
    When he didn't hear his order repeated back to him
after a suitable time, Picard turned to glare at Ro on
tactical. "I said fire when ready."
 The Bajoran squinted puzzledly as she held an
earphone closer to her head. "I know, sir, but... I'm
getting a message from one of them. He says they're
Federation prisoners."
    "Prisoners?" echoed Picard in amazement. "Ask
him to identify himself."
    Ro gaped at the captain. "It sounds familiar--
Lieutenant Sam Lavelie?"
    "Lavelie!" The captain strode to Geordi's station
and gazed over the engineer's shoulder. "Are we in
any danger? Can they fire weapons?"
    "No, sir, they're unarmed." La Forge looked at him
and frowned. "They're drifting into that black hole.
Unless we do something to help them, they're fin-
ished, anyway."
    "Very well, get down to the transporter room, and
lock on to whoever's on that bridge. Beam one over,
and if he's really one of ours, get them all."
    "Yes, sir." La Forge bolted to his feet and dashed off
the bridge.
    Ro hefted a phaser and checked the settings. "I'd
better help him out."
    "Go ahead, I'll take over the conn. Ro, we've
already got one prisoner, and I don't want to take any
more, unless it's necessary."
    "Understood, sir." Her jaw set determinedly, the
lanky Bajoran strode off the bridge, leaving the cap-
tain alone.
    He slumped into the seat at the conn, watching the
Cardassian mining vessel drift toward the same mon-
strous end as the Jem'Hadar ship. Now that he had
seen the awesome black hole up close--and witnessed
its dangers--he had no problem believing that the
Dominion was using slave labor for this sort of work.
Would a person who had free will plant himself at the
edge of a black hole? Could a sane person look into
that opaque abyss every day?
    Picard wasn't surprised when he heard from Ro a
few moments later. "Captain," she said breathlessly,
"it's true. They're Starfleet, all but one Trill civilian.
There are seven in all, and a few are wounded. But
they're alive."
    "Make them comfortable," ordered the captain.
"Send La Forge to Engineering, because we're getting
out of here. I'm concerned that the Jem'Hadar may
have sent out a distress call. I'm pulling back to
maximum torpedo range."
    Had he more than one torpedo, the captain would
have blasted the Cardassian tanker right then and
there. But with only one, he had to be content to
sneak away to a safe distance and watch the crippled
vessel drift closer to its doom. If he ever had to
destroy a starship without leaving a trace, now he
knew where to bring it. Finally, the ship disappeared
like a candle flame being blown out.
    At least they had rescued a handful of prisoners,
prisoners who might have a great deal of firsthand
intelligence. Most importantly, they had stopped
work on the artificial wormhole. Feeling a measure of
relief, Picard set course for the Badlands at maximum
warp.
    Captain Picard and Ro Laren sat in the mess hall of
the Orb of Peace with the three healthiest of the
rescued prisoners. Two of them had served aboard the
Enterprise, Sam Lavelie and the Vulcan, Taurik--
Picard remembered them as friends of Sito Jaxa. The
other man was a Trill scientist named Enrak Grof,
who had been captured during the fall of Deep Space
Nine.
    After the preliminaries, they got down to important
matters. "Have we really managed to deal a serious
setback to the enemy's artificial wormhole?" asked
Picard.
    Sam, who was still dazed over their rescue, nodded
slowly. "I think we have. They can't finish it without
the Corzanium you sent back into the hole. Thanks to
you, I think we've stopped them."
    Taurik and Grof looked less convinced. A show of
enthusiastic confidence was not expected from the
Vulcan, but the Trill's gloomy expression was trou-
bling.
    "What's the matter, Professor Grof?." asked Picard.
"You don't share Sam's opinion?"
    The Trill sighed heavily. "I wish I could, but I know
something they don't know." He looked glumly at
Sam, whose smile slowly melted from his face.
    "Sam, I... I made it sound as if we were the only
team sent to extract Corzanium, but that isn't true. At
least one other team of Cardassians was sent secretly
to another black hole. I fully expected us to be the
ones who succeeded when they failed."
    "Why am I not surprsied?" muttered Sam, rising to
his feet. "Just one more lie you had to tell us, huh,
Grof?."
    "Come on." The Trill scowled. "You didn't expect
the Dominion to put all their eggs in one basket. We
were an important experiment, but they were pre-
pared for our failure... or attempted escape."
    Ro Laren slumped back in her chair. "So what
you're saying is--we've still got to take out that
verteron collider."
    Grof nodded wearily. "Yes, it's a shame, too, be-
cause it's a triumph of engineering and construction.
It would have worked."
    "It will work, if we don't destroy it," concluded
Taurik. "The Dominion has the resources and the
resolve to complete the work. Before the accident
which necessitated our mission, I believe they were
nearly ready to begin tests."
    "And they'll probably use prisoners for that," said
Sam gloomily.
    Tight-lipped, Picard turned to Ro and said, "Put
the subspace beacon away. We're not going home for a
while."
    Boredom was an abstract term to an android, but
Data knew very well what it meant: the absence of
something to do. He had a duty, of course--monitor-
ing the scanner array he had set up on the barren
moonrebut it required less than one percent of his
attention. Staring at the starlit sky had never im-
pressed him as being an entertaining activity, as it was
for many humanoids, but he found himself doing just
that for hour after hour.
    Finally, in the interest of experimentation, Data
turned on his emotion chip. At once, a shock wave of
worry, fear, guilt, and war sickness slammed into
him, making him feel more despondent than he had
ever felt in his entire existence. The horror, tragedy,
and destruction of the war was too much to contem-
plate, even for his positronic brain, and Data could
only stare at the dust at his feet. He fretted over his
lost comrades, all of whom were afraid, lonely, griev-
ing, and bored.
 Realizing it had been a mistake to activate his
emotion chip, Data reluctantly turned it off. After
returning to normal, he still felt weakened and so-
bered by the assault of heartrending emotions. Now
Data had an interesting question to contemplate as he
sat on his barren outpost: How did humans and other
sensitive races deal with war, knowing its horrors?
How could they possibly maintain their sanity?