Текст книги "Cathedral "

Автор книги: Andy Mangels

Соавторы: Michael Martin
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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

25

After Chief Chao had finished diverting auxiliary power to the targeting circuits, Shar attempted once again to reestablish the transporter lock on the away team as the deck beneath him shuddered and rolled.

“Nothing,” Chao said. “I’m resetting the targeting scanner and reinitializing the transporter relays. Let’s try this again.”

Standing behind Shar and the transporter chief, Bowers breathed a quiet curse when this latest attempt to lock onto the away team failed as well. “Any more combadge signals from the artifact?”

“Negative,” Shar said, shaking his head, his antennae curling backward. “But they’ve only been inside for a few minutes. I’m not even certain that time flows at the same rate inside the artifact as it does in normal space.”

“Resetting again,” Chao said, clearly not intending to give up anytime soon. “This would be a lot easier if we could bypass the relay network and bring the Defiantright up close to that artifact.”

The ship rumbled and shook yet again under the Nyazen onslaught. “That doesn’t strike me as particularly likely at the moment,” Shar said, trying very hard not to think about the fact that three of his friends and colleagues might never be recovered. And as with Thriss, their deaths would weigh heavily on his soul.

But he knew he had no time or energy to spare on such self-recriminations. We’re in a combat situation now.Turning toward Bowers, he said, “We have to get to the bridge.” Even in his own ears, his voice sounded hoarse, pained.

Bowers’s combadge spoke before either of them managed to get into motion. “Medical bay to security!”Ensign Richter’s voice played a note of controlled panic.

“Bowers here. Go ahead, Krissten.”

“The alien—Sacagawea—has just gotten into a highly agitated state. Maybe the fighting out there has spooked him, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“I’m on my way,” Bowers said, drawing his phaser, already at a run. Shar followed him out into the corridor and within moments the pair came bounding into the medical bay, where Lieutenant McCallum had also just arrived, phaser in hand. Bowers signaled with a quick shake of his head, and the lanky security officer stood ready to back him up.

Ensign Richter held a large hypospray in front of her. She had backed a few meters away from Sacagawea, who stood in the center of the chamber, gesticulating wildly with his spindly, insectile limbs. “Nothing is to fear now/presently,” the D’Naali was saying, repeating the phrase like a mantra. “Help/assistance is inbound/ coming. Soonfastsoon.”

Shar felt an odd tingling in his antennae, a sensation he’d felt only in the immediate proximity of either a shrouded Jem’Hadar soldier—

–or a powerful subspace transmitter.

His curiosity fully roused, Shar approached the tall, willowy being, raising a hand in the direction of Bowers and McCallum to silence their protests. Sacagawea was immediately calmed, either by the science officer’s mere presence or by his utter lack of fear.

“Are you saying that D’Naali ships are coming to assist us against the Nyazen?” Shar said, speaking slowly and distinctly so as not to overtax the universal translator. The ship shook and pitched again as yet another Nyazen salvo grappled with the Defiant’s shielding.

“Affirm/aver this to be so,” said the creature.

Yes,Shar thought, glancing back at Bowers, whose eyes were beginning to narrow with suspicion. McCallum merely stood by, holding his phaser and looking bewildered.

“I would like to know why,” the tactical officer said to the D’Naali, “you seem so sure about that.”

Shar tapped his combadge. “Ensign ch’Thane to Commander Vaughn.”

“Vaughn here,”came the curt response. “We’re a bitbusy at the moment, Ensign.”The ship shook yet again, as though to underscore the commander’s words.

Shar winced inwardly, recalling his zhavey’s frequent tongue-lashings over far more trivial matters. “I don’t think this can wait, sir.”

“Then make it good, Mister.”

  *  *  *

After listening to Shar’s bare-bones report, Vaughn ordered Tenmei to fall back another twenty million kilometers sunward. Undeterred, the Nyazen flotilla continued its dogged pursuit.

“They’re rapidly closing to weapons range again,” Merimark said from the tactical station, her tone losing a bit of its customary professional detachment. “Pulse phaser cannons are still off-line from the last salvos.”

“Propulsion?” Vaughn asked.

“Warp and impulse both available,” Merimark reported. “As long as we don’t take any more damage, that is. Ensign VanBuskirk reports that the last hits effectively wiped out the cloaking-device repairs that were in progress.”

Vaughn wasn’t surprised. A working cloaking device would have been far too much to ask for. “Look sharp, Ensign Merimark. Ensign Tenmei, I want you to be ready to warp us out of this system on my order.”

Tenmei cast a quizzical glance over her shoulder. “Sir?”

“That’s only as a last resort, Ensign. I’m notabandoning our away team while there’s an alternative.”

“Captain, we can’t survive another sustained, simultaneous assault from all nine ships,” Tenmei observed with a frown.

Vaughn smiled humorlessly, recalling the discovery Shar had just related to him. “Somehow I don’t think we’ll have to.”

“I’ve got several more incoming bogeys on the long-range scanners, sir,” Merimark reported.

Vaughn hoped that was good news. “How many?”

“Eleven. No, twelve. They’ve just dropped out of low warp speed. Quickly closing on our position.”

Stroking his beard, Vaughn grunted in acknowledgment. “Let me see them.” An instant later, several long, gracefully tapered vessels appeared on the viewer.

D’Naali,Vaughn thought, picking out a particular ship from the group. Its distinctive pattern of hull scorches positively identified it as the vessel from which Sacagawea had come.

He heard the turbolift doors whoosh open behind him, and turned his chair toward the sound. Shar and Bowers stepped onto the bridge, flanking Sacagawea. The tall, insectile alien adopted a slouched-over, splayed-legged stance to accommodate the bridge’s relatively low ceiling.

“Keep a close eye on him, Mr. Bowers,” Vaughn said.

“The D’Naali are powering up their weapons,” Merimark reported, her tone wary.

A split second later the bridge viewer showed bright bluish pulses of energy issuing from the prows of several of the newly arrived vessels. But the Defiantwasn’t their target. The bursts struck the bulbous hulls of the lead Nyazen ships, who promptly returned fire. Compression disruptors again,Vaughn observed silently. Relatively low-power stuff, on both sides.

The battle unfolded quickly, and was decidedly one-sided. Although the weaponry of both sides was essentially equivalent, the newly arrived D’Naali fleet was stronger in both numbers and, apparently, in energy reserves.

“The Nyazen are breaking off,” Tenmei reported. “Most of them are now on a direct heading for the alien cathedral. Several of the D’Naali are pursuing.”

“Sometimes the cavalry really doescome riding over the hill in the proverbial nick,” Bowers said, still standing vigilantly beside Sacagawea and Shar.

Vaughn turned his chair toward the tactical station. “Hail the D’Naali flagship, Ensign Merimark.”

Merimark was already listening intently to something on her earpiece. “Sir, the lead vessel is already hailing us.”

A moment later the buglike face of a D’Naali commander appeared on the viewer. Vaughn wasn’t absolutely certain this was the same being with whom he had spoken previously. They all looked remarkably similar, and Vaughn was willing to bet that they harbored precisely the same notion about humans.

“Thanking us not required/needful,”the alien began. “But your help/assistance we could accept/use in the now/futuretime.”

“How can we assist you?”

“Most impressed/astonished were we to discover/ learn of your mattermover, with which your crew/people came/went to/from our vessel—and later/subsequently gained cathedral/anathema ingress.”

Vaughn’s initial impulse was one of anger, but he reined it in, reminding himself that these beings weren’t human, or even humanoid. He had to make allowances for their culture, particularly in view of the difficulties that still existed in simply communicating with them. Nevertheless, Shar’s report that Sacagawea had somehow informed his people of the beam-in to the cathedral was obviously right on the money.

Vaughn made a slashing gesture toward Merimark, who responded by cutting the audio channel. The alien commander’s face remained on the screen as Vaughn turned toward Bowers and Shar. “How did Sacagawea report to his people, gentlemen? I presume he was searched and scanned for transmitters when he first came aboard.”

“He was, sir,” Bowers said, obviously at a loss. “We didn’t find anything.”

“We obviously missed something,”Vaughn said, wondering how the universal translator might mangle the D’Naali word for “spy.”

“I stumbled across this inadvertently only a few minutes ago, Captain,” Shar said, gesturing toward his antennae. “The D’Naali evidently possess an internal electromagnetic organ that enables them to communicate nonverbally on the lower-energy subspace bands. We never detected it because no one thought to monitor the long-wavelength channels.”

Vaughn couldn’t conceal his surprise. “You’re saying they’re…subspace telepaths?”

“Essentially,” Shar said, nodding toward the alien visage on the screen. “And as such, they probably aren’t being deterred by interrupting our audio feed.”

Damn! Of course. The D’Naali commander is hearing everything we’re saying—through Sacagawea.Vaughn gestured toward Merimark, who immediately restored the audio link with the D’Naali ship.

“Hear/perceive me enabled?”the alien captain was saying. “Relieved/gratified am I that hearing/audition/ reception is restored.”

“I can hear you quite well,” Vaughn said, coming to a decision. Whether the D’Naali had intended to commit espionage aboard the Defiantor not, there was no reason to allow it to continue. “We thank you for allowing Sacagawea to act as our guide.”

“Ryek’ekbalabiozan’voslu assures/attests that his time interval aboard/within your vessel has been enjoyable/profitable/instructive.”

Vaughn smiled at the alien commander, whose casual mention of communications with Sacagawea made it appear that the D’Naali had no treacherous intentions. “We are prepared to beam him back to you any time. Now, if you wish.”

The D’Naali commander made a gesture resembling a shrug. “Not urgency, Ryek’ekbalabiozan’voslu’s return/recovery. Far more interest/desire in matters other/ different. Now/presently, we need/require use of your mattermover device/machine. And your new scheme/ plan for enhancing/increasing its capability/power. Such machine/method we D’Naali could put to virtuous/appropriate use.”

They want to use our transporter?Vaughn bit back a curse at the deficiencies of the universal translator. Aloud, he said, “Whatuse?”

The D’Naali blinked several times before replying, as though it had just heard an unutterably stupid question. “With it, we too/as well may ingress/enter cathedral/ anathema, just as Ryek’ekbalabiozan’voslu informs/reports that you have done/accomplished. With your mattermover, we can resolve/finish cathedral/anathema. For now, and for evermore/eternity.”

At last Vaughn felt he was beginning to understand the nature of the obscure conflict between the D’Naali and the Nyazen. His initial anger, sparked by Sacagawea’s covert conversations with his commander, began smoldering again.

“You want to beam weapons into the cathedral,” Vaughn said. “Those Nyazen ships aren’t trying to prevent you from worshipingthe thing—they’re trying to keep you from destroyingit.”

“The Nyazen worship/revere the power/puissance of the cathedral/anathema,”the D’Naali captain said. “Its reach spans realms/worlds/universes. It is a sacred/terrible thing to them. It is a sacred/terrible thing tous– the selfsame sacred/terrible thing which shattered/ destroyed our innersystem ancient/ancestral home-world, longlonglong ago. An ancient evil/desolator, which scattered both lineages to the outervoids uncounted timeoutofmind ages/aeons past.”

Beginning to believe that something more sinister than a language barrier was responsible for the apparent obfuscation on the part of the D’Naali, Vaughn suddenly had a chilling thought. If their sole purpose all along had been to destroy the cathedral, they might be inclined to say anything to achieve that objective—even if it jeopardized the Defiant.Turning away from the viewer, Vaughn crossed to Sacagawea. Had the alien not stood more than a head taller, they would have been standing nose to nose.

“We’ve sent members of our crew inside the cathedral because youtold us that their…afflictions could be cured only there,” Vaughn said evenly. “I sincerely hope you were telling us the whole truth about that.”

Sacagawea shrank away from Vaughn, clearly intimidated. The creature’s long, graceful fingers played idly with the small antigrav units harnessed to its appendages, as though suddenly aware of its extreme vulnerability aboard the Defiant.“No prevarications/lies I told,” it said. “All this D’Naali-being has stated about/ concerning afflicted ones is correct/true/sincere. The anathema’s power/puissance is/remains your afflicted ones’ sole/final hope.”

Vaughn backed away from Sacagawea, not interested in appearing belligerent before its commander. Facing the viewer again, he said, “Your conflict with the Nyazen is none of my business. Our involvement was strictly in the interests of preventing any needless deaths.”

“Our thanks/gratitude you have earned for this,”the D’Naali commander said. “Many D’Naali live/endure because of you.”

Vaughn smiled. “I’d like you to return the favor. Before you resume your fight with the Nyazen over the fate of your…anathema, we ask that you assist us in gaining access to it. Just long enough to locate and rescue our people. Then we’ll be on our way.”

The D’Naali commander seemed to consider Vaughn’s proposal for a protracted moment before saying, “Counteroffer/proposal. Afterward/following, you will give/send us your mattermover device/machine. We will then use it to resolve/finish the cathedral/anathema.”

“I can’t do that,” Vaughn replied without hesitation. Because both of these civilizations were warp capable, however marginally, the noninterference protections of the Prime Directive did not strictly apply. But the thought of radically disrupting the delicate, aeons-old balance of power that had obviously evolved between these two peoples didn’t sit well with him.

The alien commander made a sound that evoked an image of a rusty iron gate. Vaughn interpreted it as a self-satisfied laugh. “Damaged/strained is your vessel. Much/greatly drained/depleted are your energies/capabilities. Refusal is no option/poor choice.”

“Don’t underestimate us,” Vaughn said, realizing that his earlier unfavorable appraisal of the D’Naali’s motivations now seemed precisely on the mark. “And don’t think you’ll impress us by making threats. Especially while one of your own people is still aboard my vessel.”

“You will surrender/relinquish your hostage/prisoner,”the D’Naali captain said.

“Primed/ready am I to die as a prisoner/hostage,” Sacagawea responded, folding his long limbs about himself in what Vaughn interpreted as an elaborate display of D’Naali dignity. Clearly, the alien was preparing to die.

Not on my ship.

Vaughn turned toward the tactical station. “Ensign Merimark, inform transporter chief Chao that our ‘guest’ will be beaming back to his ship immediately. Straight from the bridge.”

“Respectfully, Captain, are you sure that’s wise?” Bowers said, his wary eyes on Sacagawea. He and Shar had backed several paces away from the creature.

“Damn sure,” Vaughn said, his glare spelling out plainly that there would be no further debate. “We can still run if we have to.”

Vaughn faced the alien leader again as Sacagawea disappeared in a blaze of sparkling light. “Whatever you may believe about us, D’Naali, we’re not hostage-takers.”

The alien commander’s mouth parts moved in a manner that Vaughn could only interpret as a grin. “Defend/ protect your ship, then.”

“Tenmei, make your best speed toward the alien artifact.”

“Aye, sir.” Her hands worked the console with the virtuosity of a concert pianist.

Vaughn saw a flash of blue light originate at the D’Naali flagship’s prow just as the entire fleet fell away into the distance.

Relieving Merimark at tactical, Bowers said, “The D’Naali vessels are pursuing. But they won’t be able to catch up to us.”

“Unless we stop,”Tenmei said from the conn. Over her shoulder, she flashed Vaughn a mock-questioning look.

Vaughn favored her with a good-natured scowl as he seated himself in the command chair. “We will, Ensign. At the Nyazen blockade fleet. And let’s hope that the defenders are a little more reasonable than the destroyers.”

  *  *  *

“Keeping station at one hundred thousand klicks from the artifact, Captain,” Tenmei said.

“No sign of weapons activity,” said Bowers. “But the blockade ships have scanned us. They seem more curious than hostile.”

“Perhaps they saw their adversaries firing on us,” Shar said from the main science console.

My enemy’s enemy is my friend,Vaughn thought. He sat in the command chair, absorbing and considering the constant reports coming from each member of his bridge crew.

“The Nyazen flagship is finally answering our hails,” Hunter said.

The round, blotchy, whitish face that appeared on the viewer struck Vaughn as a study in astonishment, though he knew he was anthropomorphizing an alien being. On the other hand, perhaps the Nyazen captain simply couldn’t believe Vaughn’s audacity in approaching with a request to parley after having been driven away so recently by the massed forces of thirteen Nyazen blockade ships.

“You wish/desire to aid/assist us against the D’Naali destroyers?”

Who are going to arrive in force any second.“As I said,” Vaughn continued, using his most patient, persuasive tones, “members of my crew are inside the cathedral at this very moment. They seek cures to the maladies that the cathedral caused.”

“Not possible/believable. We prevented/averted your approach to cathedral/anathema.”

Vaughn sighed. “You detected the energy beam we directed at the cathedral, did you not?”

“Detected, we did, your weapon,”the Nyazen commander growled. “Ineffectual/inconsequential it was.”

“It did no damage because it wasn’t a weapon.” Time to roll the dice,Vaughn thought, pausing. “It was a material transmission device.”

As inscrutable as the alien had been up until now, Vaughn could tell instantly that he had finally piqued his counterpart’s interest. He continued his effort at persuasion: “Your sensors must have detected the approach of the D’Naali fleet by now. So here’s my proposal: We will help you defend the cathedral against them– ifyou will allow us to approach it and render assistance to our officers.”

“You could/might use your mattercaster to deliver weapons to/within cathedral/anathema.”

Vaughn took a deep breath to keep from raising his voice. “We could have done that before.We didn’t.”

The Nyazen commander was clearly turning that fact over in his mind.

Bowers spoke up. “Twelve D’Naali ships are dropping out of warp, Captain. Almost right on top of the blockade.”

“Red alert!” Vaughn said, and alarm klaxons began blaring. He signaled to Bowers to turn them down.

“Incoming fire!” Bowers said. Tenmei reacted swiftly, turning the stronger starboard shields toward the massed fire of four of the arriving vessels. The deck pitched, and Vaughn held tightly to the arms of his chair.

Over the next few seconds, several more salvos struck the Defiant’s shields, including one that apparently got all the way through to the ablative hull armor before burning itself out. Then the attacks immediately trailed off as the Nyazen fleet began opening fire on their opposite numbers.

Vaughn watched as the viewer split its view; in addition to the face of the indecisive Nyazen commander, it also presented a tableau of two fairly evenly matched fleets bringing all their tubes to bear against one another. And in the unfathomable space beyond the warring spacefleets—one committed to destroying a much-feared anathema, another acting to defend its most sacred cathedral—the inexplicable spacebar artifact continued its heedless, eternal tumble across the dimensions.

The Nyazen captain had evidently seen enough. “This one agrees/assents,”it said, then vanished from the screen.

Vaughn smiled a canny gambler’s smile. “You heard the man, Tenmei. Bring us into transporter range. Shar, start scanning the thing’s interior for our people. Leishman, get those phasers up and running.”

The battle had been at a near stalemate from the beginning. But thanks to Tenmei’s skillful flying, some inspired jury-rigging by Celeste, Leishman, and Van Buskirk—not to mention Bowers’s pinpoint targeting—two of the Defiant’s four pulse phaser cannons very quickly encouraged a critical handful of the D’Naali ships to withdraw to a safer distance. Vaughn was relieved to note that all it had taken to accomplish this was several shots across the bow.

Watching the massed Nyazen forces chase away the remainder of the D’Naali flotilla, Vaughn considered the difficulties that still lay ahead. Once our common threat is gone, the Nyazen are certain to turn on us.

Shar spoke up from the primary science console. “Captain! I believe I’ve made sensor contact with our away team.”

Bowers turned to Vaughn, displaying a look of delighted surprise. “I’m receiving combadge signals from inside the artifact. They’re the prearranged evac signals, sir. They’re very weak, and extremely red-shifted, as though moving away from us at great speed.”

“They could be temporally distorted by the artifact,” Shar said. “There’s no way to tell how long they’ve been transmitting.”

Vaughn was beside himself, but kept his emotions in check. “How many signals are you getting?”

“Two,” Bowers said, intent on both his earpiece and a complex wave-form display on his instrument panel. “No, three. And one subspace transponder.”

Dax’s transport pod.Vaughn grinned. It was about time for some good luck. Where better than a cathedral to go looking for a miracle?

“Good work, people.” Vaughn hit the intercom. “Vaughn to transporter bay one. Chief Chao, I want you to lock onto the away team. Shar and Hunter will feed you the coordinates.”

Chao took a moment to respond. “Sir? That last hit seems to have overloaded the entire transporter system. I can’t get a lock, either from here or with the secondary system.”

“Half the Nyazen blockade fleet is coming about in our direction,” Bowers said, not sounding a bit surprised. “Weapons powering up.”

“Shields?” Vaughn asked.

Bowers shook his head. “They’re still in pretty rough shape, sir.”

“We’ve still got warp power,” Tenmei said. “I can get us clear of these guys so fast they’ll think they’re hallucinating.”

So much for miracles. At my age, I ought to know better.

Vaughn summarily banished that train of thought. “We’ve also got an away team to rescue.”

“And no working transporters,” Tenmei reminded him.

Vaughn stared into the screen at the approaching ships. It had been a long time since he had recalled his rather unhappy Starfleet Academy Kobayashi Maru test so vividly. So it’s come to this.

“We don’t have much time,” Tenmei said. “Should I take us out, sir?”

Shar abruptly sat bolt upright in his seat, as though he’d just received a sizable electrical shock.

Vaughn raised an eyebrow. “Lieutenant?”

“We still have oneworking transporter,” Shar said, frantically entering commands into his console.

Tenmei scowled at the science officer. “Jeannette said the secondary bay was down as well.”

Vaughn suddenly realized what Shar meant: the Sagan.

“Do it. Fast.”

Shar nodded. “Remotely engaging the Sagan’s transporter system.”

“Tenmei, lower the shields and keep them off our backs for at least a few more seconds. Then get us the hell out of here on Shar’s mark. Maximum warp.”

Tenmei flashed Vaughn her best I-love-a-challengesmirk. “I’ll do my best, Captain.”

As she refocused her attention on her console, Vaughn smiled gently. He expected no less from his only daughter.

Krissten received only a scant moment’s notice from the bridge before the away team members began materializing, one by one, in a great sprawl across the center of the medical bay floor.

The first to appear was Ezri, her skin looking as pale as death through the helmet of her environmental suit. An instant later, the transport pod containing the Dax symbiont shimmered into existence beside her; its liquid interior sloshed audibly, as though the small creature within had become greatly agitated. Ensign Juarez’s quick tricorder scan immediately revealed the reason for Ezri’s frightening pallor: Her body was rapidly shutting down because of the absence of the symbiont, which, luckily enough, appeared healthy. As she carefully laser-scalpeled the EV suit from Ezri’s body, Krissten breathed a silent prayer that host and symbiont could be reunited before the Trill woman expired.

But before either nurse could begin hoisting Ezri’s limp form onto a biobed, a second humanoid figure materialized on the floor: Nog, lying unconscious, his environmental suit’s left leg conspicuously flattened, folded, and empty. Krissten could see no punctures, blood, or other signs of trauma. But the regenerated leg was nonetheless gone, as though it had never been.

Through his helmet, she could see that Nog was smiling.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Juarez said, apparently thinking out loud. “Whatever that weird object out there did to them seems to have just un-happened.”

The ship suddenly rocked, then settled down. Under attack again, no doubt,Krissten thought as she and Juarez concentrated on moving Ezri very carefully onto one of the biobeds. Nog seemed stable enough for the moment. But even a mere medical technician could see that Ezri was dying.

Where’s Dr. Bashir?

Juarez monitored Ezri’s vital signs, shaking his head grimly. “We can’t wait for Julian to return. We’ve got to get the symbiont back into Ezri’s body now.”

“I agree,” Krissten said, swinging open the lid to Dax’s box. “Um, any idea how we go about doing that?” Assisting Bashir in removing the symbiont was one thing. Reversing the procedure without even a real surgeon’s supervision was quite another matter.

Krissten looked to Ezri’s chalk-white face, irrationally hoping to find guidance there. I’m not trained for this procedure, Ezri. Neither of us is. We can only guess at it.

Krissten looked up and studied the biobed readouts. Every indicator on the panel was steadily plunging. Several bio-alarms pertaining to blood pressure, respiration, and major organ functions had begun sounding shrilly. Hot tears of frustration rose in Krissten’s eyes, but she forestalled them with an exercise of pure will. There was far too much at stake right now to allow herself to fall apart. Determined to put forth her best effort, she turned back toward the symbiont’s transport pod—

–and collided with Julian Bashir, who must have just materialized behind her, the noise of his beam-in drowned out by the numerous medical alarms. She hadn’t even heard him remove the helmet from his EV suit. He caught her in his arms, steadying her before releasing her. She stared for a moment into his dark eyes.

He was inthere. Restored. She smiled up at him, and this time she didn’t try to fight the tears.

She saw Bashir looking past her, first at Ezri, then at her bio-readings. He blanched when he saw how near death she was, but only for a split second. From then on, he was in full-on trauma-team mode.

“Ensign Juarez,” he said, glancing at the insensate figure sprawled on the floor. “Please see to Lieutenant Nog.” Falling back on her training, Krissten reached for her flame-colored trauma smock and began prepping Ezri for surgery. Meanwhile, Bashir stripped off his environmental suit and donned sterile surgical garb with preternatural speed. Once properly suited up, he reached into the open transport pod and gently lifted out the dripping-wet, russet-colored symbiont.

“Exoscalpel,” he said.

Krissten handed him the instrument. “Sir?” she said.

He paused in his labors for only a moment. “Yes?”

“It’s good to have you back.”